By definition, early stage startups don’t have lots of money and resources. They hope to raise awareness through viral marketing and word of mouth, since participating in professional industry events can be a pretty expensive ordeal when you take into account hotels, flights, tickets, etc. Eight Israeli startups and one Palestinian startup decided to change that by creating their own “TLV TechTour” (dubbed TTT), where they will be hopping from campus to campus in the US to present their companies, discuss innovation and entrepreneurship and trends in technology in front of a real audience of students and faculty members (in the language of the announcement, if some investors drop by it “would be ok too”). If you ask me, I think this is a great concept! Very grassroots, thought provoking for the students and a great opportunity to collect feedback on their ventures from potential customers. The cost? less than $1000 including international flights.
The TLV TechTour concept started 4 weeks ago randomly over a cup of coffee. Three Israeli entrepreneurs (Nir [Ofir], Yosi [Taguri] and Eran) were discussing how to promote their startups and decided that taking a trip to the US would be a good idea. Their initial email generated quite a buzz and now they have almost finalized their two week long itinerary in the East and West Coasts which includes campuses like MIT, Harvard, NYU and others.
Here is a list of the startups that will be taking place of the Tel Aviv Tech Tour:
Fiddme a guide to the best dishes around you, a social network for foodies, a friend-finder, and lots of fun! Fiddme works as a local visual guide to culinary wonders around you, revealing cafes,restaurants and bars in your vicinity while connecting you to the people nearby. The service is available both as a web platform and an iPhone application and encourages users share their favorite dishes in eateries by taking a picture of the tempting plate in front of them and posting it in real time on the network for others to share.
The iStreamer by AllofMe.com is a new mobile application, specifically designed for Apple’s iPad. Simply put, the iStreamer is showing you what has happened in your world in the last 15 minutes or so, over a zoomable, 3D continuous Timeline.
DoNanza revolutionizes the way people work online, from home. DoNanza is the world’s largest Work-from-Home job search engine for freelancers, from professionals to Work-at-Home Moms, students and hobbyists wishing to earn money working from home doing what they are good at. DoNanza also has a publishers program enabling websites to generate revenue and expose their visitors to the world of work-from-home projects by integrating a fully customized project board tailored specifically to their users.
ChatSq (ChatSquare) integrates location based social networks and communication channels into a single, simple-to-use mobile interface, users can easily share content and communicate in real time with people located around them.
give2gether provides a unique SaaS (Software as a Service) platform, tailored for Non-Profits and NGOs. We assist NPOs to significantly improve their conversion rates (visitor->donor) and participation levels, so they can turn more strangers into friends, more friends into donors, and more donors into fundraisers.
LoyalBlocks manages in-store foot traffic. With LoyalBlocks businesses can create and manage location based loyalty clubs using an in-store dedicated Android device. We transform the customer’s mobile device to “loyalty cards” and provide rewards when they enter the business – based on their loyalty level.
Binpress is a distribution platform for web and mobile developers. It is a software market geared for modern development environments – frameworks and application platforms – with emphasis on quality, tested, open-source code.
Fribiz incentivize everything. Our mission is to make users’ engagement and interaction beneficial. You earn Fribiz for the things you already do, and spend the Fribiz you’ve earned on tangible goods. Fribiz boosts engagement, grow sales and gives users a real value for what they are really worth.
Monica iPhone app by Gsoft is changing the world of communication, using natural human interaction, by being your own assistant anytime, for all of your needs, from anywhere; with boundless capabilities…
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I love seeing startups taking initiative this way and hope the concept spreads to Europe as well, where there’s definitely appetite for it. If you’re planning to attend the meetups in one of the campuses, we’d love to get your feedback.
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
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