Looking at what early-stage startups are working on is not only entertaining -- and sometimes concerning — it can also be a good indicator of where tech is headed.
Since we have data on these young ventures at my company, Startup Tracker, we have the opportunity to glimpse emergent product trends in the startup space. We decided to put together a list of the 100 most interesting little-known startups in existence right now and to analyze the underlying patterns.
We specifically focused on companies that are building something unique or unconventional. One interesting trend we spotted was the apparent birth of a startup meta-industry — startups building products for other startups is becoming a thing. There’s also a trend in customizable B2C products for sale.
We limited our analysis to companies that met the following criteria: 1. No vaporware: their product must be accessible/purchasable immediately 2. Novelty: their product must present a unique, unconventional solution 3. Credibility: proof that people want or already use their product e.g. successful crowdfunding campaign or existing active user base 4. Stealth: the company must have had little or no coverage in major publications.
Our sampling was also limited to the companies that were searched on Startup Tracker in the past five months.
We grouped our 100 startups into 17 different categories:
Physical Products
HERO — A smart health appliance that stores, dispenses, and manages pillsThe Scribble Pen — Draw in any color by sampling them from the objects around youAngel Sensor — The Raspberry Pi of health wearablesBlank — Make vivid, fully covered t-shirts from your Instagram picturesSnug Vest — A deep pressure therapy vest that helps people with autism, anxiety, and ADHDInkbox — Temporary tattoos with real look and feel that last two weeksBloomSky — A weather camera and app for weather geeksPacif-i — Measures baby's temperature from your smartphoneTurtle Mail — A Wi-Fi connected turtle-shaped thermal printer for kidsFlapIt — A split-flap display counter for social accounts
Food Tech
SunToWater — Lets you produce your own fresh water from air using solar energyLIVIN farms — A desktop hive for home-to-harvest edible mealworms from kitchen scrapsOhayō Tomorrow — A hangover prevention drink that glows so you can find it in the darkBakeys — Affordable edible cutleryJosephine — Lets you get home-cooked meals from your neighborsCheese Posties — Delivers a grilled cheese sandwich to your doorstep every weekNima — Claims to be the world’s first portable gluten sensorOLIO — A food-sharing app to reduce food waste at home and in your local community
Agri-tech
CITRUSMARK — Prints marketing messages onto citrus fruitsBlue River Technology — On-tractor live plant analysis and care for industrial farmingGrassOmeter — Optimizes grass growth, fertilizer use, and reseeding using ultrasound sensorsLono — Lets you control sprinklers with your smartphone
3D/AR/VR
Teslasuit — Lets you feel virtual realityWizDish ROVR — A VR treadmillBeloola — Browser-based 3D social platformShapr3D — 3D modeling software for iPad ProWallaMe — Hides messages in the real world using augmented realityVrideo — Streams immersive videos on the web, mobile, and VRLifePrint — Lets you print videos on the go
Connectivity
ZeroNet — Lets you create decentralized websites using Bitcoin and BitTorrent technologyTsunami Blu — Pays you to share your Internet connection
Tools for Startups
Equidam — Calculates a company's valuation in minutesJaco — Records what visitors do and see on your siteSmartlook — Records everything visitors do on your siteTapglue — Turns any app into a social networkMaître — Creates a viral waiting listReactful — Adds emotional intelligence to your websiteBablic — Hassle-free website translationLaunchDarkly — Lets you dynamically test new app and website features without having to redeployFitYo — Lets you build and launch your own fitness iOS app without any codingMyAppConverter — Converts your native Objective-C apps to Android or Swift online and instantly
E-commerce
Privacy — Creates a new virtual debit card each time you want to subscribe/buy somethingLessChurn — Increases website revenue by reducing churn while tracking exit feedbackLocent — Mailchimp for SMSPLEENQ — Turns website images into hoverable individual items users can click to buyEmbedSocial — Claims to be the first Facebook Notifications platform for marketers
Sharing Economy
La`Zooz — Collaborative ride sharing powered by a virtual currencyDroners — Lets you hire a drone and its pilot on-demand, or get hiredStaffjoy — Automates the process of scheduling shiftsEncore — Lets you book a music gig, or get bookedEquiTable — Splits restaurant bills based on gender and racial wage gaps
Artificial Intelligence
Placemeter — Automatic pedestrian and vehicle activity analysis for city and physical business optimizationx.ai — Meet Amy, an AI personal assistant who schedules meetings for youDesktop Genetics — Building an AI for CRISPR genome editing to help find the genetic causes of diseasesAipoly — Computer vision for the blindApi.ai — Conversational user interface for connect devices
Data
Apifier — Extracts structured data from any websiteKommute — An offline news reader that gives you web-like accessFedger — Structured data about startups entirely crawled from the webChirp — Sends data with soundPandascore — Gets data from the widest e-sports databaseGlancify — Displays any data from the web on Apple Watch using glances or complications
Social
This. — A social network where each member is allowed to share just one link a daySup — Connects you with nearby friends so you can meetCuddli — Dating app for geeksBlab — Live video conversations about any topicKarkoona — License plate-based messaging platformYapply — Lets you chat with people on the same website as you right nowSmell Dating — A mail odor dating service
Community Building
MightyBell — Lets you create a community and a business on your own native mobile networksConvoLounge — Out of the box live chat platform for communitiesMapme — Lets you build smart maps without any coding
Housing
Josh — Voice-activated home automation systemRoam — Lets you sign one lease and live around the worldFlip — Gets you out of your lease, hassle freeYourWelcome — Increases hospitality of Airbnb homesRecharge — Lets you nap or shower in a luxury hotel room near you and pay by the minute
Productivity
Truebill — Lets you find, track, and cancel your paid subscriptionsThrottle — Gets you a new unique email address for everything you sign up for online to conquer spamGhostnote — Attaches notes directly to applications, documents, folders, and websitesSmooz — Opens a channel between two Slack teams
Transportation
Gi FlyBike — A maintenance free electric bike that folds in one secondAlta Motors — Performance-oriented electric motorcyclesSimpliRoute — Optimizes delivery routesTransmetrics — Accurately predicst future cargo shipping volumesSOSmart — Smartphone-based automatic car accident detection and notificationRelay — A robot for automated hotel deliveries
Legal Tech
Cover — Takes a photo of something you want to insure to get a quoteClaimdog — Finds out if a business owes you moneyNotarize — On-demand remote, electronic notarizationTaxfyle — Lets you hire a CPA through an app to do your taxesCountUp — Helps you find and work with on-demand business accountantsCaseHub — Lets you build class action lawsuits online
Entertainment
AmpMe — Syncs your phone with friends to create a portable sound systemStudio Sessions TV — Lets you learn music producing by watching others or broadcast yourselfDreampire — A crowdsourced audio-visual collection of dreamsTattoodo — Show and tell for tattoo artistsSerendipity — Introduces you to a randomly selected professional every monthParty with a local — Enables you to meet locals to take you out when you’re travelingHangoverApp — Shared albums that can only be viewed when the owners are co-locatedAirConsole — Turns a computer into a multiplayer video game console and smartphones into the gamepads
The first noticeable contrast in this list is between startups that aim to offer a better solution for something people already do and those that want to create new behaviors.
In the former category, Uber for X is a popular model, where the innovation comes from the type of services offered on-demand rather than the model itself. For instance, you can now hire a harpist for a night (Encore), a drone to film your wedding (Droners), a CPA to do your taxes (Taxfyle), or even a notary (Notarize), in a couple of taps.
Proposing solutions that take less effort than the status quo is also achieved by making algorithms work instead of people. Interesting examples include getting an insurance quote simply by taking a picture of the vehicle/item/animal in question (Cover), automated workforce scheduling (Staffjoy), and an AI personal assistant that takes care of scheduling meetings for you (x.ai).
Optimization is a similar trend, where startups try to optimize an existing process to increase the reward for the end user. This is happening in B2B applications such as automated lettuce thinning to minimize fertilizer use (Blue River Technology) or delivery route optimization to reduce planning time and fuel consumption (Simpliroute). In B2C scenarios, examples include automatically finding and tracking your paid subscriptions (Truebill) or generating new virtual debit cards each time you buy something to stay on top of your finances (Privacy).
Conversely, some startups are creating their own market, offering us entirely new things to do and ways to work.
The most striking example is virtual reality, which is set to be a hot topic this year. While the first mainstream VR headsets are starting to be commercialized, startups are building the ecosystem around them, such as a suit to ‘feel VR’ (Teslasuit) and a treadmill to make movement in VR more lifelike (WizDish ROVR).
Beyond VR, a host of unexpected — yet somehow credible — products are seeing the light of day. It’s now possible to purchase a kitchen hive to harvest edible insects to substitute meat-protein (LIVIN farms), take a shower or nap in a luxury Bay Area hotel (Recharge), or get a water generator that makes 40-100 gallons of drinking water every day from thin air using solar energy (SunToWater).
But perhaps the most interesting trend we’ve seen here is the emergence of an entirely new industry, one where startups are trying to sell products to other startups. In this startup meta-industry, companies offer peers solutions to build, market, and sell their own product. Whether founders want to add emotional intelligence to their website (Reactful), see exactly how users interact with their product’s landing page (Jaco, Smartlook), or calculate their valuation, there’s a startup for that!
Taking things a step further, some startups are on the verge of proposing a SaaS model where the first S stands for startup. You can buy a customizable iOS fitness app template that supports in-app purchases for under $500 (FitYo) — have a go at starting a mobile fitness business without any programming skills! While the idea might seem far-fetched, one startup already allows users to create and monetize their own social network (MightyBell). The barriers to entry for starting up are about to get even lower.
Jeremiah Smith is a cofounder of Startup Tracker, a browser extension that aggregates, crawls, and crowdsources structured data about startups.