StartupRealities

StartupRealities No 84 SparringWithExtroverts is a coaching and task management company which provides extrovert executives a "sparring partner" to discuss and talk through work projects. The conversations help the executives move forward in thinking and acting on the projects in a disciplined and timely way. CEO QUOTE "Without someone to talk through issues, extroverts struggle to maintain a steady work pace. This is particularly true of 'bitty' projects that contain multiple small tasks to perform and many small decisions to make. Both introverts and extroverts benefit from going into a 'flow' mode of deep concentration for a long period of uninterrupted focus on an important task. However, for tasks that involve frequent interruptions, extroverts benefit from this type of 'sparring conversation partner'. Of course, the sparring partner is not needed every day of the week: we help our clients segment their project work so that the appropri...

StartupRealities No 83 MoonDust is a space technology and memorabilia company which plans to launch a single uncrewed mission to the surface of the Moon to bring moon dust back to Earth in 2023. The company is taking pre-orders in a crowdfunding campaign and plans to retrieve one tonne of moon material with a retail price of USD 10 billion. STATISTICS Limited amounts of lunar samples (moon soil / moon rock) have ever been brought back to Earth. NASA has 382 kg of moon material brought back in the Apollo 11 to Apollo 17 missions (1969-1972) but none of this is for sale. The former Soviet Union has less than a kilogram, collected with robotic probes in missions in 1970-1976. PRICE NASA estimated in 2003 that its cost of retrieval of the lunar samples was USD 50,800 per gram (in 1973 dollars), which would equal USD 308,000 per gram in 2020 dollars. According to a 2018  article in The Washington Post, 0.2 grams of Soviet lunar soil were sold at auction in 1993 at a price of US...

StartupRealities No 82 TrumpScientific is a research company that explores scientific and business ideas based on guidance from US President Donald Trump. The company is currently researching whether injecting disinfectant or exposure to UV light can have positive health effects on mice recovering from a viral infection (as suggested by Donald Trump in April 2020), in the hope that this can lead to human trials at the next stage. TrumpScientific does not have any insider connections to the US President and only uses ideas that the US President has broadcast to the public in his tweets or press conferences. CEO QUOTE "President Trump is much maligned by the mainstream media. However, many of his 'maverick' ideas contain seeds of divergent thinking that, if implemented, may lead to novel businesses or scientific discoveries. The fact that this has not yet happened does not discourage us. Moonshots take time and shooting at the moon is not for the faint-hearted," sa...

StartupRealities No 81 StoryFinder is a crowdsourcing and AI company that collects interesting stories for use in education, government, politics and the media. The company's AI bot trawls Wikipedia, news websites and school textbooks for interesting stories that can be repurposed and used in different ways. StoryFinder also crowdsources stories from the public in the format of various competitions and entertainment games. The company publishes a series of popular books called "100 Stories on ...". CEO QUOTE "Stories are fascinating education and learning tools. No one can resist a speaker who starts with 'Let me tell you a story.' What if the entire school curriculum could be put in 10,000 stories? Would so many children still reject formal education then?" - asked company founder and CEO Stormy Finn. Storyteller (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 80 ScienceTransfer is a technology transfer and entrepreneurship promotion company that pairs up scientists, computer programmers and business people and encourages them to set up science-based startups. The company serves as an accelerator for such startups: it first identifies feasible scientific ideas through a range of competitions held around the world; then it matches the scientists and researchers with IT- and business-savvy co-founders to form a founding team; and then it helps the team scale up the idea into a business. CEO QUOTE "We match scientists with three types of people: hackers, hipsters and hustlers. Hackers are the coders, also known as computer programmers. The hipsters are the design people: those who tinker with user experience. And the hustlers are startup founders skilled in sales and marketing. Our motto is simple: SHHH! This stands for Scientists, Hackers, Hipsters, Hustlers," said ScienceTransfer founder and CEO Scirocco T...

StartupRealities No 79 WiFiExtension is a technology company which helps neighbours connect to each other's home WiFi networks. The company maintains an online "matching" database of the wifi networks of people who have entered their wifi code and those of their neighbours. When the database detects an overlap of the same network entered by two people (the owner and a neighbour), it connects the two and allows them to exchange their wifi passwords securely. The access that people receive to a neighbour's wifi network is always secondary and with a limited capacity when the owner of the network is using their wifi. CEO QUOTE "Your neighbour's router may be closer to your garden than your own router, so why not share their bandwidth once in a while, especially when they are not using their internet. Some people worry that their neighbours will take advantage of their wifi and do heavy downloads but our system makes this impossible. We set a limit on second...

StartupRealities No 78 MakeXGreat  is a foundation which operates in every country under a localised name, e.g. MakeAmericaGreat or MakeFranceGreat, and which funds 3 projects per year that glorify the country. The foundation is very successful in raising funding locally within the country in order to finance the three annual projects. Its activities often include: - the construction of giant monuments, monumental buildings or tall towers; - organising continent-wide expat communities or reunions; - brand and trademark registration and protection; - expeditions for the discovery of new biological species that are named after the country; - scientific projects whose results may carry the name of the country; - founding universities or hospitals. CEO QUOTE "MakeXGreat is an emotive organisation, almost like the National Lottery. And the fact that we only pick 3 projects per year helps to focus minds and bring together hearts. We create landmarks and we mark lands," s...

StartupRealities No 77 HomeWithChrome is a charity that finds homes and employment for homeless people by giving them container housing  to live in and Chromebook laptops connected to the Internet to work on. Typically the jobs available via HomeWithChrome are teaching English via video conference or managing social media accounts. CEO QUOTE "We provide a roof, be it a flat one: a comfortable home that previously homeless people can really call home. And we give them jobs that are well within their abilities," said company founder and CEO Homer Chromos. Container housing (image source: Wikipedia ) See also:  https://startuprealities.blogspot.com/2020/03/polychromehome-builds-sustainable-mini-houses.html

StartupRealities No 76 YardWiFi is an IT equipment maker which produces extender internet cables that plug into a home router and allow people to access WiFi internet in their garden or front/back yard. The cables are normally affixed to walls or fences circumscribing a garden or back yard. CEO QUOTE "Being out of range is the number one or number two complaint about home WiFi connections, after slow internet. We try to level the playing field by widening access to WiFi, especially in outdoor areas," said company founder and CEO Yan Wyer. Internet router (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 75 MineExploder is a civilian minesweeping company that clears undetonated underwater explosives and mines for engineering projects, e.g. the construction of bridge pylons in the open sea in areas where large amounts of ammunition have been dumped in the past. One such ammunition depot is Beaufort's Dyke , between Scotland and Northern Ireland, where a bridge connecting Britain and Ireland may one day be built, according to an exploratory project initiated by the British Government in February 2020. CEO QUOTE "We explode the unexploded, lest the unexploded explodes on you," said company founder and CEO Mina Exposito. "As a child, I found great inspiration in the computer game Minesweeper. Then I joined the army in a mine clearance unit. And then I moved on to civilian projects," added Exposito. Mine disposal (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 74 ArtistsGuild is an art wholesaler which organises artists into guilds so that a group of artists work under a common brand and develop recognition for the brand faster than individual artists could do under their own brand. The company owns the brand but shares revenue from branded art sales with the artists under an 80:20 revenue-share scheme, retaining 20% for the company. CEO QUOTE "The old proverb Unity is Power works similarly in the art world: unity is brand awareness. When you have 12 or 25 artists working for a brand, the brand has 25 ambassadors. A mountain which has 25 peaks would be more visible than a mountain with just one peak," alluded ArtistsGuild founder and CEO Archie Gielgud. 12th century painting by Wang Ximeng (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 73 LocustHarvester  is an animal feed producer which harvests naturally occurring locusts by tracking the breakout of locust plagues (invasions) around the world. Once it has identified an outbreak, the company captures locust in their billions using specialised equipment of traps, nets and chemical attractants. LocustHarvester turns thousands of tonnes of ground dried locusts into animal feed annually. The company's activity also alleviates the environmental pressure on locust-stricken agricultural regions. Locust meal is used in aquaculture and in pig farms, as dried locust meal contains 130 to 280 grams of protein per kilogram. The copper found in locust blood (insect blood contains copper, while mammalian blood contains iron) seems to enhance fat to protein conversion when fed to pigs, recent research shows . CEO QUOTE "We turn a pest into gold dust. Well, into protein dust, to be precise. We help the world get rid of locust and we make excellent...

StartupRealities No 72 RootsIn RootsOut is a life sciences and genomics research company which is developing genetically modified (GM) plant roots that can sequentially absorb and release water. Essentially the goal of the company is to develop a genetic switch in plants that reverses the normal roots-to-leaves circulation of water and nutrients. When the switch is turned on, the plant channels water in the opposite direction: from the trunk/stalk down to the roots. In this state of "pumping out water", the water transpires through root pores into the soil. The minerals from the soil dissolve in the water released around the roots and the roots then re-absorb the mineral-enriched water back into the plant. CEO QUOTE "You know how spiders digest their prey: they expel digestive enzymes into the insect body and then suck up the liquefied digested tissues. RootsIn RootsOut aims to develop a similar type of interaction between plant roots and the soil, but with a much ...

StartupRealities No 71 PlatformChase 2.0  is an advanced version of digital communications app PlatformChase which integrates with other social media platforms and allows sending urgent messages to a recipient using all social media channels on which the recipient is registered. This ensures that an urgent message will be seen on crowded smartphone screens that host dozens of social media and online communication apps and platforms. The most commonly used social media with which PlatformChase 2.0 integrates are: WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, FaceTime, Teams, Skype, iMessage, WeChat, Viber, Twitter, Hangouts, Zoom and Linkedin. CEO QUOTE "Imagine your car breaks down on the motorway on a Saturday and you message for help. Can you wait for four hours until the intended recipient sees your message? With PlatformChase 2.0 the message will be seen in 10 minutes," said company founder and CEO Priti Chatel. Smartphone screen (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 70 HamsterKids is a sports equipment manufacturer of “hamster wheel” type treadmill equipment for children. The treadmills are suitable for both indoor and outdoor exercise and are particularly useful during periods of lockdown: for example during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. The wheels are equipped with a harness that prevents falling when running inside the wheel. CEO QUOTE “Cirque de Soleil and other acrobats ride motorbikes inside large globes. We only help children run inside giant hamster wheels in their living room. Parents around the world should be grateful to us" said HamsterKids founder and CEO Hamish Kidman said. Giant hamster wheel (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 69 DrownOutContent is a public relations (PR) agency which uses automated content production to push down unwelcome content in online search results at a client's request. CEO QUOTE "The first 10 entries that come up on your screen when you run a Google search are all that matters. If something does not come up in the first page of 10 entries, it is as good as it doesn't exist. So our objective is to drown out unwelcome content, so that it does not appear among the top-10 entries," said DrownOutContent founder and CEO Drew Contado. Google Search logo (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 68 LockdownInterns is a staffing and recruiting company that allocates students and young graduates to work from home on paid or unpaid company projects during extended periods of quarantine and lockdown, such as the first half of 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. CEO QUOTE "When you can't leave your house, you become an underutilised resource. Multiply this by a billion and you get the full picture of waste of human potential. We stepped in to simply find some use and give some purpose to all those millions of young people who are not lucky enough to have an actual work-from-home job. Group projects done for a company are a great leg-in-the-door: a testing period that can lead to a job offer after the end of the lockdown. In the meantime, these projects are also great for socialising young people and channelling their energy into developing skills and creating some value for society. In a sentence: we turn #LockdownInterns into #FreedupProfessionals...

StartupRealities No 67 RetiredVolunteer  is a social enterprise which allocates volunteer roles to retired people. CEO QUOTE "Young people in many countries around the world are subject to military service or non-military alternative civilian service . Civilian service can sometimes help develop professional and teamworking skills but it comes at a crucial point of life when young people are about to embark on their career. Unfortunately, in most cases a year that takes you away from your career is a year lost. On the other hand, when people retire, they miss the social interaction and routine of the workplace. Time is less precious for retirees as their income is usually based on a pension. So we simply connected the dots by starting RetiredVolunteer to provide pensioners on a nationwide scale with meaningful post-retirement activities that benefit the economy and society. This is akin to former UK Prime Minister David Cameron's 2010 Big Society plan applied in action...

StartupRealities No 66 RootMemory is a biochemicals company that develops species-specific bio-fertilisers that use genetically-modified bacteria to bind to the roots of the plants and deliver the nutrients contained in the fertiliser. The bacteria thus serve as an intermediary between the fertiliser and the plant. The company's research is centred on the common rhizobia bacteria , which are known to fix fertiliser in the roots of legume plants. RootMemory develops bacteria that are genetically modified to attach themselves to the roots of other key agricultural plants (such as wheat, rice, bananas). However, the genetically-modified bacteria are not required to fix (generate) nitrogen or other nutrients themselves; they only need to pass on the nutrients from the soil to the root of the given plant species, while not interacting with other species (weeds) at the same time. PRODUCT The company sells the (inorganic) fertilisers separately from the species-specific living bacter...

StartupRealities No 65 MakeTalesMeet is a professional editing and storytelling company which uses both human editors and artificial intelligence (AI) to fix plot discontinuities and enhance the storyline in articles, books, TV and movie plots. PRODUCT VERSIONS The free basic version is an automated algorithm that quizzes the writer with the aim of teasing out new ideas. Potentially interesting objects or characters in the story are identified by the AI and the writer gets asked questions about them, separately or in pairs of two: " What happened to the penguin and the stone? Could they be doing something else or something differently? Could the two be connected? " The basic version also identifies similar items or stories in the body of existing literature and movies and makes suggestions on creating possible references to these in the writer's plot, which leads to recursion . The premium version of MakeTalesMeet involves human editors who review the suggestions o...

StartupRealities No 64 ChoiceCommercials is an online advertisement agency which gives viewers a choice of one of 3 commercials to watch when ads are displayed during streaming of internet music and videos or playing online games. The service integrates smoothly with social media and online video platforms as it increases the attention viewers pay to commercials. The set of 3 commercials is a set of 3 very different videos, e.g. a 15-sec ocean scene, a 15-sec mountain scene and a 15-sec desert scene. Thus, the viewer has the option to pick with a single mouse click the commercial that fits most closely to their personal preferences, taste and mood. CEO QUOTE "I like to draw an analogy between the way YouTube commercials are displayed and force-feeding a goose: the goose has absolutely no control of what and how much it is fed. So given the chance, the goose will try to run away. ChoiceCommercials is involved in force-feeding to a much smaller extent as the online goose in th...

StartupRealities No 63 KnifeHandler is a cutlery producer whose specially designed knives have a blade that is heavier than the hollow handle. This improves the functionality of the knife while in use, e.g. by preventing the knife from falling out of the plate. CEO QUOTE "I was always annoyed by handle-heavy knives until one day I decided to fix the problem myself. This is how KnifeHandler came into being: We create a world where all knives are left unturned." - mused company founder and CEO Kim Handels. Traditional handle-heavy knife (and fork) (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 62 BackgroundBillboard is a free stock image library whose photos have unique compositions in the foreground, while a billboard, shop front, signboard or branded packaging is displayed somewhere in the background. The company collects advertising revenue from the companies featured in the background of the photos under an innovative revenue model called #PayPerPlacement. The stock image library encourages free use of its images on blogs, social media and mainstream media and charges advertisers per photo used. CEO QUOTE "If you have an interesting composition in bright colours in the foreground, people who are attracted to this image and want to use it wouldn't really care what is in the background. Yet, the background still gets noticed unconsciously, which allows us to charge advertisers for it. We find GIFs even more popular than static images as several frames of motion or animation can pull a miracle for attracting attention," said Background...

StartupRealities No 61 PetDestressor is an app that connects a pet owner to their pet remotely via mobile speakerphone or through a dedicated loudspeaker at the house every time the owner is away and has a conversation on their phone with another human being. In effect, the pet eavesdrops on all conversations, with the knowledge of the owner. This reduces the pet's stress and anxiety from being separated from the owner, while the owner can save time by holding everyday or business human-to-human conversations which the pet could potentially even perceive as being directed at it. CEO QUOTE "We weren't sure about the correct spelling of 'destressor', so we registered two brands: PetDestressor (with 'O') for dog owners and PetDestresser (with 'E') for cat owners. PetDestressor, the brand for dogs, has been vastly more successful as there seems to be a strong need for communication between dogs and humans. Cats appear to be a lot more aloof, so cat...

StartupRealities No 60 FlatEarthImplements is a company that produces scientific and pseudo-scientific instruments for members of the Flat Earth Society , with which they can conduct experiments in search of proof that the Earth is flat. The company's pseudo-scientific instruments (e.g. loaded gyroscopes) are more popular with Flat Earth followers than properly-calibrated instruments and therefore command higher prices. The reason for this logical contradiction is that Flat Earthers consider the pseudo-scientific instruments "untampered", while the calibrated instruments that do not support the Flat Earth hypothesis are considered "tampered". CEO QUOTES "We don't take a stance on the founding tenets of the Flat Earth movement. It goes back to ancient history and beyond - to primeval history. No one disputes their historical origins and we give them credit for their unwavering commitment to tradition." - noted FlatEarthImplements founder and CE...

StartupRealities No 59 IndustryInsideOut is an online education company that produces training courses on the operations and finance models of different industries and sectors with the aim of training entrepreneurs and potential COOs, CFOs and CEOs. The courses of the company allow people interested in a given industry (e.g. airlines or concrete production or art galleries) to gain basic or more in-depth knowledge of all operational aspects of the sector so that they can start running a business in the given field. CEO QUOTE "How many hairdressers own the business they work in? The answer is just a few. What stops the rest from setting up shop themselves? The answer is the daunting uncertainty of running a business. Here is where we step in to help. Our online course: The Hair and Barber Salon IndustryInsideOut can give all these skillful people the wherewithal to run their own business. We promote entrepreneurship and empower people: in this sector and in several hundred oth...

StartupRealities No 58 EastWestConcerts is a concert organiser that pairs up a Western and an Asian singer to perform together on tours in the US, Europe and Asia. This expands the market and the awareness of the respective singer in their non-native region. CEO QUOTE "You scratch my back, I scratch yours. This is the principle we use when we pair up two stars who are known in their region but unfamiliar further afield. Even the biggest K-pop stars don't have the same level of recognition in the US as they have in South Korea; and the other way round: Taylor Swift is a celebrity in America and Europe, but not necessarily in China," said company founder and CEO Ellen West. Concert in Melbourne, 2005 (Source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 57 PoliticalScoring is a statistical company that produces national rankings of the top 1,000 or top 100 politicians in all UN-recognised countries and in some territories. All major countries get their top 1,000 politicians ranked, including all G20 countries and those with a population of over 50 million. Smaller countries get a top-100 ranking. The composite score calculated by the company results in a rank similar to the rank of tennis players. METHODOLOGY The #PoliticsTop1000 and #PoliticsTop100 score is composed of a range of factors, including votes won at elections, public approval ratings, significance of positions held, speeches in parliament, media interviews, social media performance (including key tweets on Twitter) and social media following. Points are deducted for involvement in political scandals or for scandalous social media posts made by politicians. Big countries INTERNATIONAL RANKING The company also produces a #Top5000 ranking of polit...

StartupRealities No 56 PhilCoaching is an education and training company that employs retired philosophers as coaches. Philosophers specialise in life coaching or career coaching. CEO QUOTE "Philosophers are the most intense, yet the most patient coaches. They go deep. And once they have retired from their teaching or research career, they are almost transcendental. This makes for selfless coaching," said company founder and CEO Phil Collins. The School of Athens in the Vatican - by Raphael (Source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 55 PunUnintended is a naming agency which tests possible company and product names with social media groups for punsters, pranksters and jokers. This avoids costly renaming mistakes down the line in case of inappropriately chosen names that have a negative association, or invoke an unpleasant rhyme or joke. CEO QUOTE "You all know the story of the Chevrolet Nova failure in Latin America: no one had bothered to check that No-Va meant No-Go in Spanish. This is why we exist: we make sure that no potential Georgie-Porgie or Peter-Peter-Pumpkin-Eater lurks in the name of your company or product. We test it to the extremes of creativity: if our punsters, pranksters and jokers cannot come up with a negative connotation, rhyme or joke, no one else can," - said PunUnintended founder and CEO Puja Untana. Chevrolet Nova - 1962 (Source: Wikipedia )