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Deal Radar
1Mby1M Deal Radar: Orabrush, Provo, Utah
Orabrush is an e-commerce business that has made extensive use of social media to create demand for what can be an overlooked product – a tongue cleaner – among a variety of consumer demographics. We showcase it in today’s Deal Radar as an example of how new products can be brought to market using Internet marketing channels. >>>
1Mby1M Deal Radar: Systems In Motion, Fremont, California/Ann Arbor, Michigan
Joining the blog’s ongoing conversation about outsourcing, nearshoring, and IT services is Systems In Motion, a U.S.-based technology services company that was founded to create a competitive and complementary alternative to the trend of offshore outsourcing of IT work. >>>
1Mby1M Deal Radar: Cantaloupe Systems, San Francisco, California
From machines that dispensed holy water at temples in first-century Greece to the mini tech stores containing iPods and other electronic gear at airports, the contents of vending machines have changed greatly since their invention. But the technology behind managing them was for a long time an inexact process based on intuition. Cantaloupe Systems, which develops wireless and cashless vending solutions in the United States, is making the vending machine business more efficient through the use of cellular networks and the cloud. >>>
1Mby1M Deal Radar: AlertBoot, Las Vegas, Nevada
In October of last year, Keystone Mercy, Pennsylvania’s largest Medicaid managed care program, reported a lost USB drive. The drive contained personal health information on 28,000 Medicaid recipients. In the UK, there was an outcry when the Guardian and other newspapers reported that members of the Ministry of Defence had lost or had stolen, among other electronic devices, 340 laptops worth £612,000. While it’s difficult to pin numbers on the true cost of data loss and related problems such as identity theft, the need for encryption and other protection is clear. SaaS developer AlertBoot offers a managed disk, USB, and e-mail encryption services for businesses of all sizes. >>>
1Mby1M Deal Radar: Pontiflex, Brooklyn, New York
If you have ever clicked on a mobile ad by mistake, you’re not alone. According to a recent survey, almost half of mobile app users say they click or tap on mobile ads more often by mistake than on purpose, meaning that a lot of the effort gone into the ad was wasted. Pontiflex, which powers a new kind of digital advertising called sign-up ads, is trying to change this. With sign-up ads, users opt in to connect with advertisers they like without leaving a publisher’s website or mobile app. Advertisers pay only when someone signs up for their ad, not for wasted clicks or impressions. Users like this approach better, says Pontiflex, and developers and publishers of websites and apps make more money from it. >>>
1Mby1M Deal Radar 2011: crowdSPRING, Chicago, Illinois
Package design for a new type of potato chip, new pasta shapes, a name for a new building, the next LG cell phone – all are current or past projects on crowdSPRING, which describes itself as “the world’s largest online marketplace for buyers and sellers of crowdsourced creative services.” The designers and writers who join crowdSPRING provide logo, graphic, website, and industrial design; and company names, copywriting, taglines, and other creative services through a competition-inspired model in which they submit posted projects to buyers, who chose the entry they like best. The model has generated controversy, mostly about nonpayment of independent workers, the protection of creatives’ intellectual property, and the idea that companies want professional-quality creative work but are unwilling to pay for it. crowdSPRING says that it is attempting to address these concerns as part of its goal to disrupt old ways of buying creative services and introduce crowdsourcing into mainstream business. >>>
1Mby1M Deal Radar: Camp Bow Wow, Boulder
What do the Champagne houses Veuve Clicquot, Pommery, and Bollinger; the printer of the Declaration of Independence; and the German steel conglomerate ThyssenKrupp AG have in common? At one time, all were run by widows who took over the business after their husband died. It’s a path that many women have followed across the centuries, back through the Industrial Revolution, medieval Europe, the Roman and Sumerian empires, and perhaps even further. Today’s Deal Radar is the story of one woman entrepreneur, Heidi Ganahl, who found herself in a somewhat different situation: Her husband was killed in a small plane crash just as they were getting started on a business together. Ganahl went on to carry out their idea and found Camp Bow Wow, a dog boarding service, and Home Buddies, its in-home pet care component. >>>
1Mby1M Deal Radar: Dura Doggie
As part of the blog’s renewed focus on college entrepreneurs, today’s Deal Radar features Dura Doggie, a combination e-commerce and traditional retailer that designs and sells dog toys, but with a socially conscious bent. The company has an unusual business model – it donates 20% of its profits to four affiliated causes in a program called “Chews Your Cause.” >>>