Startups Aim to Bring Slices of the Offline World Online
I’m down at Y Combinator Demo Day in Mountain View, Calif., where the biggest theme throughout the morning’s presentations was startups that have picked a very specific offline system to bring onto the Internet.
None of these are going to save the world, but perhaps they’ll save a headache or two.
Here are examples:
Wevorce: A divorce planning site with templates and online experts to help split up families without going to court. Starts at $3,500.
SimplyInsured: An insurance comparison shopping site that promises fast, paperless transactions.
Zaranga: Calls itself “Airbnb for the other half of the market,” a.k.a. professionally managed properties.
Microryza: Calls itself “Kickstarter for science,” aims to take research funding out of institutions and into people’s hands. This was actually just one of three different Kickstarter-related projects, including the non-profit Watsi (which we’ve already covered and was a real crowd favorite today) and Backerkit for crowdfunded projects to maintain relationships with their backer.
BuildZoom: Calls itself “Yelp for contractors” (are you sensing a theme here?), aims to be the brand for finding people to remodel homes, with a 7 percent commission.