5 ms·

Startups Outside Silicon Valley to Watch in 2014

41 points by MonicaSelby 13y ago

shadowcats 13y ago
No More Woof in Sweden: http://www.nomorewoof.com/ http://www.nomorewoof.com/ http://oresundstartups.com/no-more-woof-aims-read-dogs-minds-surpassed-crowdfunding-goal-already/ http://oresundstartups.com/no-more-woof-aims-read-dogs-minds... http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/no-more-woof http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/no-more-woof TLDR: they sell brain-scanning equipment that translates your dog's thoughts into human language.
- ntippmann 13y ago
  Damn, that's pretty awesome. Looks pretty legit too. Now to just decode every dogs' actions into what we "think" it means.
- MonicaSelby 13y ago
  Wow! That looks really awesome! Thanks for the tip.
- kamimeow 13y ago
  That's crazy ! Add a human-to-dog feature and the duplex is complete
- spitfire 13y ago
  Is there any evidence this actually works? I see lots of talk but absolutely no demo. Not even a proof of concept demo.
  - joellarsson 13y ago
    Studio Total (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_Total http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_Total) who are involved with the product are known to do crazy stuff to get PR, like the 'teddybear airdrop' over Minsk. Some things they make buzz about does not exist yet :)
- thearn4 13y ago
  Robust classification of EEG data from humans in real time in controlled environments (no motion, perfect contact quality, on subjects you can communicate with, etc) is difficult enough. It's part of the R&D that I do now. But on pets? How do you keep them still enough and the sensors seated and wet? Is the classification purely based on unsupervised learning? How the heck does one gather meaningful training data? My skepto-meter is really pinging on this one. Especially with the flex-funding model.
ntippmann 13y ago
I think Written seems pretty cool. At least for what I do.. There's some other products out there that help brands and bloggers with syndication too like PublishThis. Would be interested to see how they differentiate?
MonicaSelby 13y ago
The most interesting thing I saw about this list when I wrote it was how many content and/or content marketing companies are getting big buzz. I'm wondering if we'll be so sick of content marketing by June.
grogenaut 13y ago
What's the line between "Getting a lot of buzz" and "I've never heard of them". I think for everything except teespring and ughworthy on this list for me is the latter. Also I don't know about you but "Spring.me proves that we’re not through with new social networks" depressed me.
BjoernKW 13y ago
RapidMiner is hardly a startup. They've been around since roughly 2007. Moreover, though their headquarters are in Boston nowadays they're essentially a German company (most of the research that went into their product was done at the TU Dortmund). This might be seen as nitpicking but as today German startups are mostly considered copycats those which are not should at least be noted.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- dylandrop 13y ago
  While I agree with your sentiment about real problems, this is focused on startups outside Silicon Valley.
- ntippmann 13y ago
  These startups are Outside SV.
run4_too 13y ago
I'm not seeing anything worth watching in this list. There's not much unique or different about any of these companies. I'm sure some of them will do well, but personally I'm interested in companies at the least tackling the "frighteningly ambitious" ideas pg has written about, even if those alone seem far to insular. Home automation, robotics, Medicine, 3D printing, renewable energy, etc, etc. That's what I want to "watch". I couldn't care less about the next t-shirt maker.
- ntippmann 13y ago
  I don't know that they're not worth watching but I'd agree many of them aren't that unique. The list was made based loosely on the "hottest" startups outside SV according to MatterMark along with some editorial input. I really like you're idea of making some lists of the top "frighteningly ambitious" ideas of pg you're referencing. I think we might take you idea and run with it. Be on the look out for a new list of those in the next couple days. Thanks!
- MonicaSelby 13y ago
  I'm with Nick. Those companies aren't trying to be frighteningly ambitious, but now I'm especially curious to discover the ones who are. Thanks for the comment!
jkaljundi 13y ago
We just a had huge survey on the most interesting startups from Estonia to watch in 2014 and the results are here: http://kaljundi.com/2013/12/28/top-10-estonianmafia-startups-to-watch-in-2014/ http://kaljundi.com/2013/12/28/top-10-estonianmafia-startups...

41 points by MonicaSelby 13y ago

No More Woof in Sweden: http://www.nomorewoof.com/ http://www.nomorewoof.com/ http://oresundstartups.com/no-more-woof-aims-read-dogs-minds-surpassed-crowdfunding-goal-already/ http://oresundstartups.com/no-more-woof-aims-read-dogs-minds... http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/no-more-woof http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/no-more-woof TLDR: they sell brain-scanning equipment that translates your dog's thoughts into human language.

ntippmann 13y ago
Damn, that's pretty awesome. Looks pretty legit too. Now to just decode every dogs' actions into what we "think" it means.
MonicaSelby 13y ago
Wow! That looks really awesome! Thanks for the tip.
kamimeow 13y ago
That's crazy ! Add a human-to-dog feature and the duplex is complete
spitfire 13y ago
Is there any evidence this actually works? I see lots of talk but absolutely no demo. Not even a proof of concept demo.
- joellarsson 13y ago
  Studio Total (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_Total http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_Total) who are involved with the product are known to do crazy stuff to get PR, like the 'teddybear airdrop' over Minsk. Some things they make buzz about does not exist yet :)
thearn4 13y ago
Robust classification of EEG data from humans in real time in controlled environments (no motion, perfect contact quality, on subjects you can communicate with, etc) is difficult enough. It's part of the R&D that I do now. But on pets? How do you keep them still enough and the sensors seated and wet? Is the classification purely based on unsupervised learning? How the heck does one gather meaningful training data? My skepto-meter is really pinging on this one. Especially with the flex-funding model.

ntippmann 13y ago

I think Written seems pretty cool. At least for what I do.. There's some other products out there that help brands and bloggers with syndication too like PublishThis. Would be interested to see how they differentiate?

MonicaSelby 13y ago

The most interesting thing I saw about this list when I wrote it was how many content and/or content marketing companies are getting big buzz. I'm wondering if we'll be so sick of content marketing by June.

grogenaut 13y ago

What's the line between "Getting a lot of buzz" and "I've never heard of them". I think for everything except teespring and ughworthy on this list for me is the latter. Also I don't know about you but "Spring.me proves that we’re not through with new social networks" depressed me.

BjoernKW 13y ago

RapidMiner is hardly a startup. They've been around since roughly 2007. Moreover, though their headquarters are in Boston nowadays they're essentially a German company (most of the research that went into their product was done at the TU Dortmund). This might be seen as nitpicking but as today German startups are mostly considered copycats those which are not should at least be noted.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

dylandrop 13y ago
While I agree with your sentiment about real problems, this is focused on startups outside Silicon Valley.
ntippmann 13y ago
These startups are Outside SV.

run4_too 13y ago

I'm not seeing anything worth watching in this list. There's not much unique or different about any of these companies. I'm sure some of them will do well, but personally I'm interested in companies at the least tackling the "frighteningly ambitious" ideas pg has written about, even if those alone seem far to insular. Home automation, robotics, Medicine, 3D printing, renewable energy, etc, etc. That's what I want to "watch". I couldn't care less about the next t-shirt maker.

ntippmann 13y ago
I don't know that they're not worth watching but I'd agree many of them aren't that unique. The list was made based loosely on the "hottest" startups outside SV according to MatterMark along with some editorial input. I really like you're idea of making some lists of the top "frighteningly ambitious" ideas of pg you're referencing. I think we might take you idea and run with it. Be on the look out for a new list of those in the next couple days. Thanks!
MonicaSelby 13y ago
I'm with Nick. Those companies aren't trying to be frighteningly ambitious, but now I'm especially curious to discover the ones who are. Thanks for the comment!

jkaljundi 13y ago

We just a had huge survey on the most interesting startups from Estonia to watch in 2014 and the results are here: http://kaljundi.com/2013/12/28/top-10-estonianmafia-startups-to-watch-in-2014/ http://kaljundi.com/2013/12/28/top-10-estonianmafia-startups...