In tech, it’s pretty damn near impossible to predict the future. You never know which company will — often in a relatively short span of time — become the next Cinderella Story, catapulting to success against the odds. There’s a lot of uncertainty, but what we do know is that Boston’s startup scene has a lot of promising contenders.
Over the past two months alone, I’ve covered a string of companies that are among the coolest new startups in Boston. You know, the kind which are solving a problem so glaring we wonder why no one has gone after it yet. The kind that really turn heads. And thus, the kind that truly have the potential to take off in 2015.
Here are nine of the top new Boston startups to watch (check out our First Look page for these and other profiles on brand-new startups):
Cloaq
This anonymous social app could be considered a nicer alternative to Yik Yak: It’s a network where people can be entirely honest in sharing their thoughts, questions, ideas and opinions. But before you think about comparing Cloaq to a site like 4chan — rest assured that there are a number of rules and regulations in place to avoid any kind of malicious interactions. And unlike many current mainstream anonymous apps, there is no limitation on content length or removal of all traces of the source. Co-founder Daniel McCarthy told me in February that Cloaq is approaching that point where additional capital may be essential for bringing the app to the next level, and that the team has already been talking with several major institutional funding firms in Boston while also weighing the possibility of finding a small handful of angel investors to work with. Additionally, the Cloaq team is working on adding a number of new features to the current iOS app, while also developing a full Web version and an Android app.
Crayon
Founded by former HubSpot VP (and employee No. 6) Jonah Lopin and ex-Admob product manager John Osborne, this startup is aimed at helping marketers discover new and different types of designs to inspire them. Crayon bills itself as “Houzz for marketing,” and the search engine currently boasts more than 13 million marketing designs and thousands of users. By the end of 2015, the company’s goal is to reach 100 million designs. Users can use the site to not only browse designs, but also create shareable collections, keep abreast of industry trends, collaborate with customers and coworkers on digital projects or track competitors. The HubSpot Mafia startup is still in the process of raising a seed round of funding. But already, the company has commitments from a host of notable local investors: HubSpot founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah, HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan, Techstars Boston Director Ty Danco, Adelphic Mobile co-founder Jennifer Lum, "The Lean Startup" author Eric Ries, David Chang and Joe Caruso. Danco wrote in the comments on Crayon’s AngelList page, he called the startup “the next big thing for marketing.” Mike Volpe, HubSpot's CMO, is serving as an advisor for the company.
LucyBot
Brothers Bobby Brennan, formerly of Google Cambridge, and Andrew Brennan, most recently in sales at InsightSquared co-founded this startup, which provides a tool that lets devs work with any API more easily. LucyBot's cookbooks essentially walk devs step-by-step through core use cases, writing sample code along the way. The tool translates API requests into several different programming languages so that developers can learn in their preferred one. And those cross-language code snippets then expand into a visually-rich Web app, offering a demo that empowers developers to better understand the API’s output. Back in early February, the duo quietly launched a basic free-tier API, and they’ve been working with several strategic partners, who are going to be integrating LucyBot into their developer portals over the next few months. Once the Brennan brothers are satisfied with the user experience, they’ll launch a more complete public API that allows devs to take advantage of all LucyBot is capable of.
SubscriptMe
This bootstrapped startup is trying to help people get out of a very common conundrum: Having too many subscriptions to keep track of. SubscriptMe, which just launched at the end of February, was scoped by two entrepreneurs at General Assembly allows you stay on top of which services you’re using, while also ensuring you pay bills on time. Best of all, users can also search for popular subscriptions, share the ones they love and scope out ratings/reviews before committing to any new ones. The idea is that the iOS app very well could help you avoid unnecessary spending, as well as lead you to the services you'll actually use. Since SubscriptMe auto-detects subscriptions based on the apps that live on your phone, you never have to enter your credit card—and you can also customize billing cycle, set reminders or gain insight into how much you spend on apps monthly or annually with detailed reports. The app has already been featured in Product Hunt with 75 upvotes, and was picked as a "can't miss" app of the week by Mashable. Co-founder Scott Judson told me that the startup has garnered a lot of valuable feedback from users that the team is currently taking into consideration for app upgrades.
Datawire
This stealthy startup caught our eye for one key reason: Its mere existence suggests that the dawn of the Rapid7 Mafia could be upon Boston. Datawire was co-founded by a former Rapid7 exec, Richard Li, and is backed by the company's CEO, Corey Thomas, as well as Boston Syndicates.
While we still have limited information about the Boston company, we do know that the main idea is based on building microservices/hyper-distributed IT systems faster and more easily. And it seems we’re very much on the brink of finding out more: Li told me in a phone interview last month that “people are finally saying, ‘if you build this thing that you’re describing, I would definitely want to use it.’” The original plan was to officially launch Datawire at the open-source ApacheCon conference in Austin April 15, so stay tuned for more details.
JustiServ
Finding affordable legal aid can be quite a challenge, which is why Harvard student Michael Gants launched JustiServ. Thanks to this startup, anyone can browse lawyers that fit their specific needs, while also comparing their professional backgrounds and price estimates. Users can even pay for the legal services they discover on JustiServ via Paypal. And the fixed price estimates give users to get a far more accurate idea of what they’ll need to spend than the typical hourly rate. Meanwhile, lawyers benefit because they typically get the majority of their business through referrals, and this service — which they don't have to pay for — opens up a whole different channel for exposure to new clients.
Gants consulted leaders at a number of bar associations to ensure only the most reputable lawyers were included on Justiserv, and already at least 235 are listed on the site with their pricing information. And in the few weeks that Justiserv has been open to consumers, the stats are promising: As of last week, 44 out of the 50 users had hired a lawyer. Justiserv is currently backed by one investor: Deborah A. Ramirez, a Harvard law grad and founder of the nonprofit teaching law firm JusticeBridge. Early on, famed investor and philanthropist Jon Gosier served as a consultant to help build the website. The company has also been building up its advisory board, which includes a number of legal experts and seasoned professionals.
Squadle
Launched in the summer of 2013, this startup's technology has already been catching on with a range of restaurants, from well-known chains like Sonic Drive-In to popular food trucks, like Chicken & Rice Guys. Squadle, which automates restaurant operations via touch-screen tablets and a wireless sensor (IoT) platform, offers an array of products from digital logbooks to a Zone Thermometer. The mobile dashboard gives users quick and easy access to their restaurants’ data and performance metrics anytime, anywhere and on any device. The startup raised seed funding from Boston hardware venture fund Bolt — which invests up to $500,000 in early stage companies — last August. And last month, Squadle forged a strategic partnership with Triton Systems, which makes a smart safe that automatically counts money and ensures that it’s secure.
Apitite
The ultimate goal for this startup is to become the “TurboTax for APIs” — and to do that, it’s helping anyone, no matter their technical background, to spin up an app interface in minutes without having to write any code. The idea for Apitite, which officially launched Jan. 25, was sparked by two former IBM Research software engineers who realized that there was a dire need for a service to rapidly create an API without having to deploy or host it. The tool allows businesses to build apps, change their APIs on the fly, manage access control and learn about users via analytics. Best of all, this frees up developers to focus on other pressing projects.
The Hawaii Project
A new service from serial startup advisor and co-founder/former CEO of Goby Mark Watkins, The Hawaii Project constantly crawls hand-selected sources of interesting books and articles, uncovering new texts that fit your interests, favorite authors and the current events you care about. In other words, it’s a helpful tool for bookworms who don’t have time to hunt around for a good read. The startup has been in a friends-and-family private beta since last year, but Watkins recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund getting the product to market. Users provide info about their preferences, and The Hawaii Project leverages a combo of human curation insight with the power of modern algorithms to draw up a set of suggested books and articles that fits those parameters. The more someone uses the service, the smarter the engine gets and thus, the recommendations become more accurate. The Hawaii Project also offers up supplementary articles about each book and useful tidbits, such as whether it’s available at your local library, or if you can read it for free online. The full launch for The Hawaii Project is expected to happen around July 1.
Screenshots via Cloaq, SubscriptMe and The Hawaii Project.
