Our State of Innovation: 2019 Startups to Watch event in D.C. should have been Feb. 20, but the weather had other plans for the city and decided to dish out a snow day instead. While we hope everyone had a great day off from work, we hate that we missed the opportunity to see you all and show off our stellar Startups to Watch.
To try and make it up to our readers, we interviewed three of our panel companies to get insight on some of the burning questions we had drawn up. Wayne Lin, co-founder and COO of GetUpside; Sid Hasan, founder and CEO of MeSpoke; and Andrew Vincent, SVP of product at United Income sound off on these questions:
- What are the qualities you care about most when hiring, and what are your thoughts on tech talent in the D.C. market?
- What are your biggest goals for 2019 and what do you think will be the main challenges to achieving them?
- What advances in tech are most likely to have the biggest impact on your industry this year and beyond?
On the topic of hiring, all three panelists concurred that an alignment with company culture and vision was crucial. Vincent further noted the importance selecting employees who would become “active participants in their growth and innovation.” Candidates should also maintain the “ability to learn quickly and adapt to rapidly changing environments,” Lin added.
Perhaps one of the most interesting remarks on hiring came from Hasan, who maintained that “thoughtfulness” was one of the top attributes in applicants. While such a simple factor, it is one that can absolutely shape company culture and productivity and is often overlooked in its importance, he said.
When it comes to D.C. tech talent, the panel agreed that while the pool is not as large as the masses in Silicon Valley, it also more unique, as it is a concentrated, motivated and highly talented group of individuals. Furthermore, this group seems to be seeking out companies that align with their personal goals, making them great candidates for contributing to long-term company growth and success.
The panelists then shared their goals for 2019, with each respondent differing in their aspirations for their companies and challenges they may face in meeting them.
Vincent said the biggest goal for United Income was “to introduce new functionality and features to provide more value to our members and set the stage for fast scaling so we can bring that value to even more people.”
He also remarked that in its first full year, the fintech startup maintained a 99 percent retention rate in clients and a 25 percent rate of asset additions by members, surpassing all of the projections and milestones they had set. He believes this was due to their ability to “prove a market need, their solution and their business model.”
GetUpside looks to expand in its physical locale. Lin said the company has its eyes set on nationwide expansion, ideally “being live in 100-plus cities across the U.S. and at tens of thousands of merchants in gas, groceries, restaurants and other local retail locations.”
Lin said there is one main challenge it faces in this expansion: hiring. GetUpside is looking to take on enough hires to put them over 100 employees, a major jump from their current estimated ranks of 40. While some may view scaling up a platform and expanding tenfold as an intimidating feat, Lin remarked that it “is an exciting challenge to have.”
Hasan said that MeSpoke’s two biggest goals in 2019 are to “raise local capital” and to “land one major retailer who honors their community’s loyalty points.” MeSpoke’s platform and future goals rely heavily on relationships between the consumer and commercial brands, so landing at least one major retail partnership would be a monumental step forward for the company’s path to success in transforming the everyday user into a brand’s ambassador via their social capital.
Beyond its goals, each company has a vision for what technological advances they need to harness, or at the very least be cognizant of.
While Vincent believed the future will include serverless architecture and “putting the right tool in the hands of the right experts,” he added that United Income is already aiming to give their customers “holistic, personalized advice” in finances at a lower cost, thanks to Amazon Lambda.
On a similar Amazon note, Lin asserted that GetUpside would have the largest impact by means of digital technology infusing into physical retail, something Amazon has been heavily pushing within the U.S. and in turn forcing other retailers to catch up. The “digital personalization of physical retail, the online to offline shopping experience, innovation with digital payments and delivery services” are the crucial elements of this transition, he said.
Centered in a platform that is made for the up-and-coming web 3.0, Hasan believes that the most crucial advances in technology for MeSpoke would be “machine learning and natural language processing.” Each of these advances would allow MeSpoke to flourish as they would enhance the methods through which the app processes user data and produces results and/or suggestions that best align with the consumer's content.
Each entrepreneur added that the D.C. ecosystem was integral to their success.
“[I] couldn’t imagine having been this successful outside of D.C.,” Vincent said, given the city’s “policy expertise, technological know-how and belief that we can make the world a better place.”
Editor’s Note: To learn more about these startups and others from our 2019 Startups to Watch list, check out our upcoming March State of Innovation event that will have a showcase room designated for S2W.
