Last Updated on December 27, 2011 by Tim
2011 has been quite a year for us, new business ideas, entrepreneurship and of course new startups. We wanted to compile a list, in no particular order, of startups that we think will be worth keeping tabs on in 2012. We think very highly of each and every startup we share with you, but this is a list of new business ideas that we think will have some strong “Klout” in 2012.
Coursekit
“Our goal is to turn courses into communities online. Because when that happens, amazing things follow: people share ideas, make new relationships, ask questions, and get to know each other,” said Joseph Cohen, Coursekit’s co-founder and CEO. “It transforms the learning experience from something that happens twice a week into a continuous conversation.”
Rocketr
Rocketr is a place for ideas, notes, collaboration and conversations to occur. With the use of online notebooks, users can set up a place where various editors (people who write in the notebook) can post notes relating to a topic of the creators choice. These virtual notebooks can be made public, through which anyone can follow and add their own notes or be held private, to be viewed by only privileged individuals.
Loku
When you hear of an idea because it’s being pitched as a “Google for local” searching, you definitely start to pay attention. Although, it’s not exactly like Google, Loku is a platform to help you find news, events, deals and businesses in a small local area.
Mapitat
If you have ever looked for a place to live online you know the headaches and lack of UI consideration that these platforms have had in place for years. Yet we continue to use them because there aren’t many solid alternatives. Mapitat on the other-hand, created by Toronto’s Playground, is the easiest way to search for rental property.
Eeve
This London-based startup has recently launched a social networking app that makes photo collaboration an easy experience. With a slick and light weight UI, Eeve is doing what Color failed at: making it possible to take photos and share them with others in close proximity with simplicity, ease of use and an outstanding user experience.
Food.ee
“Food.ee aggregates local restaurants to a single web location to allow starving users to quickly and easily search for, find, and order the food they crave. The app is one smart fox — it remembers past orders, can make delicious recommendations and eventually will be socialized to see what your friends are eating and recommending.”
GiftRocket
GiftRocket, is an alternative for the $100 billion per-year gift card industry and allows gift givers the opportunity to send a gift card to anyone via email. Gift givers simply buy a credit for a particular business that is sourced from Yelp’s business listings within the GiftRocket website. The gift giver then buys credit for use within the business of their choice with their credit card and then sends off the GiftRocket to the recipients email. The recipient can then redeem the gift through their smartphone to cash in the gift card. The recipient simply pays for as they normally would – through credit card, cash or debit – and then on their smartphone hits the “Redeem” button and the value of the gift card is then deposited to the recipients PayPal account.
Visual.ly
Visual.ly is a startup bringing to the world high quality / well designed infographics by providing a team of skilled designers, a data warehouse, and a reporting / editing team. As a one-stop-shop for infographics, Visual.ly is a platform for exploring, sharing and creating incredibly crafted visualizations.
MBA Watch
Now, Beat the GMAT has launched MBA Watch, a social network for up and coming business students striving for their own MBA’s. MBA Watch connects business students and current business people all while consolidating a wealth of information within their forums to help, educate and bring together people.
Readability
Readability is a way to transform any article on the web into a clean and comfortable reading view, in order to give you a distraction-free reading environment. Designed as a mobile/web app, Readability zaps online clutter and saves web articles in a comfortable viewing opportunity. The writers and publishers of the content receive 70% of the membership fees. Thus, you not only are able to use a device that makes it easier to read, but can support the writers and publishers of your favorite articles.
Assistly
Assistly is an online web app that lets you convert and prevent an angry mob of disgruntled customers from ever having a bad customer service experience. Assistly will take all your customer response conversations, consolidate them and provide a singular outlet for service on your desktop. From which, your customer service team can filter, prioritize and handle modern and traditional support requests in one outlet.
99Tests
99tests is a Sotware Testing Community. Founded by Praveen Singh, 99tests is building a community of 500+ people. This community will provide a testing ground for software product owners to get feedback and bug reports to adapt their product as they see fit.
YayTalent
YayTalent is a place for you to find the best designers in your city (currently serving: Baltimore, Greenville, Philadelphia and Washington). Created by Michael Aleo (@MichaelAleo) in order to fulfill a self need of “want[ing] to make something I cared about and would benefit others. It didn’t need to make money, and if I made some friends along the way, I’d consider that a win as well.”
Percolate
Percolate is a brand new platform that combines your RSS feeds with your Twitter friends’ links to bring you the most relevant and useful information to the forefront. Founded by Noah Brier and James Gross (@percolate), Percolate bubbles up the most interesting stuff from your own world to comment on and create new content.
IdeaPaint
“IdeaPaint brings the opportunity to draw, erase and visually communicate onto any surface. Whether at Work, School or home “IdeaPaint turns virtually anything you can paint into a dry-erase surface and any room into a hub of creativity and collaboration”.
Finally, we want to thank you for making 2011 such a special year for us. We have big goals for 2012 and hope to share with you more new business ideas and tools for the entrepreneurship community.