StartApp

Product/Service: This company helps app developers generate revenue for their apps.

Founder/Co-Founders: Gil Dudkiewicz- CoFounder                Ran Avidan- Co-Founder

Office/Headquarters:

584 Broadway St.    12th Floor Suite 1206

New York, NY 10012

Method of Making Money:  Through royalties. By integrating apps with the SmartApp software development kit.

Target Customers:  Companies that develop apps. Also anyone who has created a great app and needs help promoting it.

How many current users/customers, etc: Over 300,000,000 active users every month

How does the company advertise its product/services?  Through banner ads. Through native ads.

Competitors/Competitive Advantage: Admob and InMobi.  The advantage that StartApp offers is that app developers get paid $50 per 1,000 downloads. This is something that competitors can’t or won’t do.

Works Cited:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/shamahyder/2014/09/08/15-tech-companies-taking-nyc-by-storm/

http://www.startapp.com/

StartApp reaches 150M downloads, brings 10x more revenue to developers

LocalVox
Product/Service: helps local businesses and franchises market themselves online via web, social media, directories, search & email.
Founder/Co-Founders: David Pachter (CEO) and Trevor Sumner (President)
Office/Headquarters: 420 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017 – only office
Products/Services: Provide marketing consultation for clients. Product include LocalCast, SearchCast, LocalConnect, as well as social reputation management
Method of Making Money: Clients pay a premium for their services, prices depending on with package is selected. Packages offered include: Boost @ $399 per month, Mobile boost @ $549 per month, and Complete @ $1499 per month.
Target Customers: Local Businesses as well as chains and franchises.
How many current users/customers, etc: Thousands which include AMC Theaters, Buffalo Wild Wings and Whole Foods
How does the company advertise its product/services? Through Press. They’ve been featured in various prestigious business articles by Forbes, Fox News, Bloomberg Businessweek, etc.
Competitors/Competitive Advantage: Some of LocalVox Competitors include EMT Marketing and Zoiden. What set LocalVox apart is its affordability and customizable plans.
Works Cited: You must document all the websites and articles you use to find the above information. Simply include a list of websites at the end of the blog post.
http://www.thumbtack.com/ny/new-york/social-media-marketing/
http://localvox.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LocalVox_Media
http://rightstartups.com/marketing-unlocked-local-vox/
http://localvox.com/customers/

Brainscape

Product/Service: Brainscape is an adaptive web/mobile education platform that helps you learn anything more efficiently, using cognitive science.

Founder/Co-Founders: This company was founded by Andre Cohen, who is also the CEO. He is still very much involved in the day-to-day operations of the company.

Office/Headquarters: Brainscape is headquartered in the heart of New York City, and this office is their sole location.

Products/Services:  Brainscape is a web/mobile platform that allows its users to learn and retain information at an astonishing rate; It does so by breaking complex concepts down into smaller, easily absorbed building blocks, delivered to the individual in a way that matches their particular pace(their studies show that on average, we lose 90% of what we attempt to retain via traditional study methods). Their process supposedly helps one to learn exponentially faster than most traditional study methods(flash cards, books, etc.). These services are conveniently delivered across desktop computers, smartphones, and tablets.

Method of Making Money:  As far as I can tell, Brainscape makes its money from royalties garnered as a result of licensing its platform out to a variety of content-makers. They also issue private licenses to schools and universities, cognitive science researchers, tutors, and in general, companies interested in training their employees more efficiently than ever before.

Target Customers:  To quote a short blurb on their website: “join the millions of students, teachers, language learners, test-takers, and corporate trainees who are doubling their learning results.”

How many current users/customers, etc: If the counter on their website is accurate, the number of people who use Brainscape is about 7,025,380.

How does the company advertise its product/services? The brains behind Brainscape have built their presence by partnering with apps such as MCAT Chemistry, Ultimate Music Theory, LEED Green Associate, and Gourmet Food, all powered by Brainscape’s algorithms.

Competitors/Competitive Advantage: I’ve found quite an extensive list of companies that offer services similar to Brainscape’s, and these are:

Anki

Memrise

Mnemosyne

Learning with Texts

Instreamia

SuperMemo

Lingocracy

FluxCards

Pauker

Mnemojojo & Mnemododo

Winflash

Nabbber

Cram.com

Blonskij

Ebbinghaus

EasyWords

Flashcard Exchange

Dictionary.com Flashcards

Flashcard Hero

I’m not quite sure what, if anything sets Brainscape apart from these other products/services. These other products are also flash-card based, and promise to accomplish the same things as Brainscape.

Works Cited:

https://www.brainscape.com/blog/2010/03/how-brainscape-was-born/

https://www.brainscape.com/marketing/partners.html

https://www.brainscape.com/marketing/about

https://www.brainscape.com/

Dayna Rios

COMPANY: GrubHub

Product/Service: GrubHub Inc. is the nation’s leading online and mobile food ordering company dedicated to connecting hungry diners with local takeout restaurants. The company’s online and mobile ordering platforms allow diners to order directly from approximately 30,000 takeout restaurants in more than 800 U.S. cities and London.

Founder/Co-Founders: Matt Maloney and Mike Evans. Evans has decided to leave to company to pursue other goals but, Maloney is still a VERY active founder of the company.

Method of Making Money:  For every order that is placed, Grubhub is given at least 10% from the actual amount that the consumer paid for their order. Sometimes more. But, it does come out of the restaurants pocket, not the consumer placing the order.

Target Customers:  Literally anyone looking to place an order for food.

How many current users/customers, etc.:  Grubhub processes around 174,000 orders on a daily basis. GrubHub has served more than 4.19 million people in the last 12 months.

How does the company advertise its product/services? Online marketing, and print ads. Especially, in the New York City subway cars.

Competitors/Competitive Advantage: Seamless used to be the main competitor until they merged into one company last year, with Grubhub being the parent company. Now, allmenus, menupages.com, Yelp, and Square appear to be the ones competing against GrubHub.

Works Cited:

http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-big-stat-grubhubs-new-competitors-covet-2015-2

https://www.grubhub.com/

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324787004578495411888526172

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/how-do-delivery-services-grubhub-and-seamless-make-profit

Levo Leauge

Product/Service: At Local Levo [NYC], our goal is to bring together women interested in growing personally and professionally. It’s the perfect place to connect with other fabulous, career minded women in your city. There are always women from all walks of life who come ready and willing to share advice, personal experiences and support. What, in a sentence, does this company do/sell?
Founder/Co-Founders: Caroline Ghosen is the founder and Amanda Pouchot is the Co-Founder & CIO, The Levo League
Office/Headquarters: Address: 1 Union Square W, New York, NY 10003

Products/Services: Ghosn is launching Levo 2.0. The goal: to turn what she calls a “self-serve buffet” of mainly U.S. content into a global “recommendation engine for your career.” If Ghosn succeeds, Levo could become a model for using data to create more meaningful and lucrative ties with customers. “We’re always asked, ‘What should I be doing? Who should I be talking to?’” says Ghosn. “We want to create a resource that knows who you are and where you are in your career and can help you thrive in that stage.” How? By using psycho graphic data to understand the different types in her audience and marrying the information with advances in machine learning, so each user’s behavior will suggest what category best suits her every time she logs on. “The more you engage with Levo,” Ghosn says, “the more you’ll find you’re getting what you need.
Method of Making Money: Levo makes their money through powerful networks and investors. Through friends of friends, they signed on Saudi businesswoman Lubna Olayan. And using their McKinsey connections, they were able to contact Sheryl Sandberg, a McKinsey alum, just to name a few.
Target Customers: Women and girls within the first ten years of their career
How many current users/customers, they have about ten thousand members
How does the company advertise its product/services? And it helps to have support and 1.2 million of seed money from such investors as Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and AOL’s Susan Lyne. Scoring interviews with such folks as Warren Buffet will also put you on the map.
Competitors/Competitive Advantage: I do not believe there is a competitive company
Works Cited: https://www.levo.com

Founder/Co-Founders:  Their founders are Richard Smullen, Josh Feuer. Their current CEO is Mark Yackanich.

Office/Headquarters:  Their headquarters is located at 49 West 27^th Street, Mezzanine West, New York City, NY. They have offices in LA, Detroit, San Francisco, Chicago

Investors: SamStella, Ocean Group, Crown Predator Holdings, Blue Chip Venture Company, Demarest

Products/Services:  Outstream video ad product that uses an extensive data layer to decide when exactly to serve and how to do so.

Method of Making Money:  Selling video advertising on websites that do not have video ads of their own.

Revenue: There was no records on file for total revenue earned in 2014

Target Customers:  Their target customers are online advertisers, and publishers with no video content (article or photo gallery sites) on their websites so they can not take advantage of video advertising dollars.

How many current users/customers, etc: No available listing of how many users / customers they currently have.

How does the company advertise its product/services? I did not see any advertising for them as far as I can find. Only press releases.

Competitors/Competitive Advantage: Their major competitors would be Ebuzzing and Teads. Their competitive advantage is that they choose when to display the ad using a deep layer of data targeting.

Works Cited:

http://www.xaxis.com/news/view/holiday-video-shortage-will-spur-out-stream-video-ads

http://www.genesismedia.com

http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/10/genesis-media-series-b/

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/genesis-media-llc

http://www.digital.nyc/startups/genesis-media-1

http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=143679556

Product/Service: Etsy is a community based website where people can open their own shops and sell products that they have created. In other words people can create their own business on etsy.

Founder/Co-Founders: Rob Kalin and two friends designed the first site. Chad Dickerson became CEO in 2011.

Office/Headquarters: 55 Washington Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Method of Making Money: Etsy makes money when Etsy sellers make money. Marketplace revenue includes a $0.20 USD listing fee for each item listed and a 3.5% fee for sales completed on our website. Additional revenue comes from seller services including our advertising platform, payment processing and discounted shipping labels.

Target Customers:  Their target customers are people that want unique, handcrafted and one of kind items. I myself have bought several items from etsy and am in love.

How many current users/customers, etc: There are 19.8 million active buyers on etsy.com.

How does the company advertise its product/services?  I personally found etsy on Facebook. I was looking for a wedding veil and it popped up on the right hand side of my Facebook page. I clicked on it and there it was. All of these beautiful handcrafted veils. Of course I bought one.

Competitors/Competitive Advantage: Based on what I have read etsy does not have any threatening competitors. Etsy is the biggest company in their field. There are a few little ones but nothing comes close to etsy.com.

Works Cited: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=where+is+etsy+headquarters+located

http://www.pcworld.com/article/255698/the_5_best_online_marketplaces_for_selling_handmade_goods.html?page=2

https://www.etsy.com/about