Innovative Start Ups
Recently, CNN listed 10 of the most innovative start ups that are sure to make it big in the recent future. Here is a summary of 5 of my favourite ones and what inspired those ideas.
Meat for vegetarians: “Beyond Meat” tries to address the age old problem of finding a substitute for meat that is plant based. It takes plant protein from soy and peas and applies a combination of heating, cooling and pressure to realign it so that its structure resembles what you’d find in tissue and meat. Animal welfare is just one of the reasons Brown thinks society should move away from eating animals. Livestock farming uses huge amounts of resources and is a major contributor climate change. But what might be his strongest selling point is the health benefit of a cleaner protein. Beyond Meat has no cholesterol, no saturated fat and no trans-fat and is antibiotic- and hormone-free.
Draw 3d: Holz was impatient with the time-consuming process of using special software and mathematical equations to produce a three-dimensional model of an object. “Even though a 5-year-old with clay can build a coffee cup in minutes, it takes a professional 3-D modeller hours to do the same thing,” Buckwald said.
The result is the Leap Motion controller, a device for Macs and PCs that could change the way we interact with computers. Roughly the size of a cigarette lighter, the $79 controller uses two cameras to track arm and hand movements within a 4-foot space. This one is sure to go a long , long way.
Lyft lifts: According to John Zimmer, 80% of seats in cars on highways are empty, which crowds roads with more vehicles and wastes fuel. That’s one reason Zimmer co-founded Lyft, a ride-sharing service that uses mobile apps and social media to connect potential passengers with willing drivers – not taxis or limos but regular car owners who want to earn some extra cash.
People sign up to be Lyft drivers using their own vehicles, after undergoing criminal and DMV background checks and a training session. Riders sign up for the service with their Facebook accounts and book a ride using a smartphone app. When they get to their destination, they choose how much to “donate” to the driver from the app, although the exact amount isn’t seen by the driver, who gets a lump sum at the end of the day.
Charity Revolutionized: Chase Adam wants to revolutionize charity, one medical patient at a time. Adam founded Watsi, a crowd-funding platform for people in developing countries who need money for medical treatments.
Watsi works with a network of 13 partners in hospitals around the world to identify needy patients. The site posts a profile for each person, with a photo, their first name and a description of what medical services they need. the way Watsi handles transparency could revolutionize non-profits. All the money donated — more than $200,000 so far — goes directly to the treatment, from doctors’ fees to transportation and referral costs. Watsi’s money trail is meticulously documented on a public Google Doc, where treatment costs, PayPal fees, dates of transactions and screenshots of the money transfers are all posted.
Innovation goes a long way in deciding the destiny of any start up. Innovation matched with proper planning and execution ensures that a start up is successful.
