Last Friday marked the official launch of SwapBeats, a social network marketplace for musicians who want to make, manage and virtually collaborate on their productions.
Two years in the making, this Minneapolis-based startup was formed on the premise that musicians, music professionals, and listeners should not be bounded by geography. “We believe that creativity can flow digitally, and as a community-driven application, SwapBeats provides a uniquely collaborative experience which otherwise would not exist,” says SwapBeats CEO and Founder David Atkinson when describing the nature of his company.
Any device, any data, anywhere is the mantra of this Minneapolis-based startup specializing in remote data monitoring and management for embedded devices. Exosite’s ‘One Platform’ is built on a foundation of three technological pillars: embedded systems within the hardware and/or gateway, data collection/dissemination techniques and the Internet-enabled user interface (aka Exosite Portals).
“What we’ve found is that companies and individuals are no longer in a spot where they need to figure out how to acquire their data. At this point it’s getting the information from the acquisition site back to a place where the stakeholders can see it alongside any number of other sources. That’s the challenge, in making it available to the people who can act on it” explains Exosite CEO and Co founder Hans Rempel from his Taiwan office. “Simply put, we help devices and people better communicate with one another.”
Adjuvant Technologies is a St.Cloud-based internet startup company which develops, markets and provides on-call scheduling software for physicians – and only physicians. Used inside of a clinic or hospital setting, this software as a service aims to quickly, easily and accurately determine: who’s on call, when are they on call and at what location.
The concept was conceived some ten years ago by Adjuvant Co Founder Dr. Patrick Zook who was tasked with creating these schedules by hand within his own family practice; thus the code actually started as a DOS based software but was shelved as other priorities surfaced. A little over two years ago, Adjuvant CEO and Co founder Justin Wampach dusted things off to breathe life into a new web based software product.
When it started, SocialBrowse was a simple way to share links with contacts around the social web via Firefox extension. The technology, which has since evolved into the iframe-based Qwisk, is believed to be the original Minnesota native Y-Combinator startup (fall 2008) – a journey by which two other Minnesota groups have since embarked (FanChatter & ZenCoder).
While SocialBrowse/Qwisk currently faces its own challenges in direction and adoption, Co Founder Zachary Garbow does what any real entrepreneur would do – keep on keeping on. Together with partner Greg Young, he’s been quietly building Funeral Innovations, which is a fully integrated web-based software aimed at funeral directors and related vendors within funeral industry.
Little has been heard about an early stage Duluth, Minnesota Company which invented a communications tool with “the power to treat anyone… anywhere.”
Phrazer, a product of Geacom, Inc. is a hand held device which promises to find a patients native language and culture (in 15 seconds or less), discover immediate medical issues, gather vitals and connect to medical history through an EMR system. The application of Phrazer is intended for emergency medical and life-threatening situations, including but not limited to: the emergency room, urgent care facilities or field use (rapid response/disaster scenarios).
Reeher is a software service designed to help universities improve their fundraising efforts. At its core, Reeher’s proven predictive modeling process will forecast the likelihood that a potential constituent will donate and it can projects the dollar amount of the gift. As an extension, the technology functions as a marketing platform to strategically target prospective alumni and gift officers.
Whether for recurring annual campaigns or single instance major donations, the Reeher value proposition is simple and constant: raise more funds and spend less doing it. At a time when colleges and universities across the country are taking long hard looks at systemic cost cutting, Reeher is uniquely positioned to capitalize on a massive opportunity. The initial results are impressive; in one instance, Reeher’s customer increased their fundraising income over 500% within 24 months. In another example, a public research facility attributed 15% of their annual raise (80mm-100mm) to the adoption of Reeher.
BevPost is a Minnesota startup company focused on measured media designed specifically for the beer, wine and spirits industry. The company’s go-to-market product is a SMS/text-based promotional platform which allows the various brands of alcoholic beverages (over 6,000) to engage customers in an interactive experience via mobile phone. Starting in Minnesota over the next 1-2 months, customers will enter their preferred liquor retailer and see BevPost in action, for example, as a real-time text messaging promotion applied to a variety of different types of alcohol or a scratch & text label affixed to a specific product. From here, purchasers will be eligible to receive instant rebates, drink vouchers, merchandise and more. BevPost’s next level of interactivity will be software and mobile application driven, aimed at developing community around the purchase and consumption of alcoholic beverages.
Got ideas? Minnesota startup MileMarker was created to streamline idea management by offering a solution for the capture, prioritization and follow-through of ideas.
Serious brainstormers, ideators and groupthinkers have always needed an idea management system. Through its unique idea prioritization matrix, MileMarker enables constituents to rate/vet ideas and focus on the right stuff. Targeted towards product managers, agencies, web developers and distributed teams, it will strongly appeal to anyone thinking creatively & strategically on a consistent basis. MileMarker can be leveraged internally or externally, functions as a SAAS and will evolve into a subscription based pricing model.
MileMarker opened just over a month ago for public beta; some of you may have originally been introduced to MileMarker at the last Minnedemo:
Ideas are unlimited and never-ending. What stakeholders want to know is: what’s feasible, what’s valuable and what’s next? While there are numerous approaches people use to capture and manage our ideas – from stickynotes to spreadsheets to commercial applications – Bill Galfano, a Co Founder of MileMarker says:
“There are idea portal products, crowdsourcing mechanisms and internal software tools. The aim is to compliment existing habits and solutions by enabling people with a means to quickly decide what to do next. That is our difference.”
Launch Media, based out of Plymouth Minnesota, has a vision to bridge the gap between traditional media and the interactive world via mobile device. By leveraging SMS and two dimensional (2D)/quick response (QR) technology, they aim to partner with consumer brands and retailers to enhance a customers shopping experience by creating engagement at precisely the time when actual shopping decisions are made: point of sale.
The first step is to identify established (major) brands that seek to deliver a more meaningful experience with their customers through emerging mobile consumer application space. Next, they bring their combined 40 years of retail and merchandising experience to the table and craft an in store mobile-centric campaign featuring a SMS “call to action” and/or a scanable 2D barcode that a shopper can capture and explore, in real time, on their personal mobile device. Odds are, the customer would be using a custom-branded reader application, but the barcode’s themselves can be read by any myriad of open readers available on the market. From here, customer experiences include a plethora of interactive options including but not limited to: ratings, reviews, coupons, recommendation engines, profiles (think shopping/wish lists), rich media, etc. From the retailers perspective, the immediate benefits are obvious, and to make Launch Media an even more attractive option, they have the ability to integrate advertising, hook into consumer databases, track detailed shopping habits and chart abstract trends. Yes, the QR reader technology can even be embedded within pre-existing branded mobile applications.
The software applications that go onto the phones doesn’t cost the consumer anything; while discussing the business model, Launch Media wouldn’t get much more specific than “the charge is based on how deep the engagement with the consumer goes and how much value is derived to the brand.”
ProfitSee is a financial insight tool that allows small and mid-size business owners to understand what multinational CFO’s do for their businesses: it helps them recognize what their real assets of the company are, how to better leverage them, and some key elements in creating financial stability, valuation and increasing profitability.
Decades in the making, ProfitSee is built over a data modeling system which (at times) applies up to 12 levels of Boolean logic sequencing to provide high level forward looking scenarios in a method that’s easy for business owners and decision makers to understand and act on. The technology was originally designed as a desktop software package but has recently been re-designed as a SAAS solution and will be launching next week. Peter Vessenes, Creator of ProfitSee, has a lifetime of experience in financial consulting with multiple fortune 70 clients and many small to mid-size businesses as well. Currently, he is Co-owner of Vestment Advisors, a financial coaching / turnaround company and Vestment Financial. He created ProfitSee based on his “inability to effectively clone himself.” When asked what the value proposition of ProfitSee is, Peter said:
“We have a subscription rate, depending on how big you are, of either $45/month or $95/month that let’s you see and understand what a $400,000/yr CFO does.”
Powerful stuff!
Podcast Transcript with Jeff Pesek, Lief Larson and Peter Vessenes:
Last Friday marked the official launch of SwapBeats, a social network marketplace for musicians who want to make, manage and virtually collaborate on their productions.
Little has been heard about an early stage Duluth, Minnesota Company which invented a communications tool with “the power to treat anyone… anywhere.”
Got ideas? Minnesota startup 
Good for you... congratulations! The Twin Cities is a great place to lead this charge. If you can ...
Author: Darren CoxCongrats, Heroic!
Author: Dana SeversonJustin and team rock.
Author: GraemeThickinsCan you elaborate on that?
Author: Jeff PesekI wonder if expected hassles from the new stadium factored into this at all.
Author: Ry4an