Baltimore Tech Breakfast is at AOL/Advertising.com organized by Ron Schmelzer of http://www.bizelo.com
Here are the pitches:
Online LIVE music lessons. Connecting musicians with students.
Online synchronous music lessons.
Online lessons:
- Students play 28% more.
Already have 10,000 registered students and teachers. Cover all 50 States and in 100 countries.
From a band perspective this enables musicians to supplement income by giving lessons while on tour.
Video chat is optimized to sync audio and video - unlike Skype. This is very important for lessons.
There is an approval process for Musicians. Teacher profiles are queued for vetting.
Shout outs:
Chad Schneider of Root3 Labs looking for electrical engineers and designers.
An online teaching tool that teaches you to program.
The example was an Introduction to HTML and CSS.
online tutor services. With video, chat. People will be able to purchase teaching hours on an hourly basis. But there are a number of free games, online tools and workshops.
Competitors include Code Academy. Team Treehouse (closed service with monthly fee)
Makes learning coding fun!
Connect Tool owners with Tool renters.
Currently the options for home owners are: Buy or Rent from a major store. e.g. 18" chain Saw for $169 to buy or $67 to rent.
ToolSpinner focuses on letting tool owners make money from tools they use infrequently. For the Chain saw example the rental cost would be $27.
Tools Spinner provides insurance for the tool owner.
The rental market is a $9B industry for rental of general tools.
Business model is to take a commission on the transaction.
Liability Protection - for ToolSpinner and the Owner.
- Consumer to Consumer liability. much like AirBnB.
- Damage: pay for repairs or replacement value.
Competitors do not have a market niche focus.
Baltimore-based startup working with local bars to allow people to buy a friend or contact a beer (or wine).
Bars can use the platform to market to their customers. eg.. First person to come in with a smartphone voucher gets free beer.
User Revenue Model: Transaction Cost + 5% + $1.
31% of Beergivr visitors return.
This is a great service for Bars. The Average gift transaction is $12 but the average spend in those bars is $33.
Peak usage hours are 3pm to 1am.
Beergivr integrates social sales with financial integration.
Transactions can be locked to a specific venue or can be used across the network.
Baltimore Tech Breakfast - Logo Contest
19 submissions from 9 different designers. A great group of Baltimore Graphic Designers.
Maryland Energy Advisors. Help you switch your electric bill to a lower cost supplier in the residential market.
77% of the residential market have not changed supplier.
Currently 37 different suppliers in the market. How do you compare? PointClickSwitch is the expedia of Energy Choice.
Reduce switching time from weeks to minutes. Average saving is 14%.
You can take a picture of your bill on your smartphone and email to them.
Currently only an Electricity Energy Broker. Applying for Gas Brokerage permission.
Currently Maryland only but looking to extend to other states (16 states allow energy de-regulation).
Kojami helps event organizers.
Competitors include Eventbrite.
Kojami is a mobile event solution. Create an interactive mobile optimized event notification.
Mobile Reminders. Event management.
Market, Manage, Analyze.
Good social network integration - allows consumers to "shove" to their network.
10,000 events already on the platform.
Free and priced options.
Event Management market is crowded and mature. Many Event Management programs don't really help with promoting an event.
Kojami is a full event lifescycle solution.
