blog | February - 2017

Startups come and go like casual acquaintances. Whilst some are going as soon as they come, others are more successful in winning and most importantly keeping our attention.

Even though the degressive willingness to invest make for a hard 2016 for one or two established startups, it still was the year of birth for many companies.

Here’s a list of fresh startups you definitely need to keep in view. 

Zipline - „The Future of Healthcare is Out for Delivery“ 

A project with a lot of heart. “Zip” is a kind of drone that can distribute medical products to communities, that can’t easily be reached due to infrastructural problems. In just a few minutes a “zip” can be prepared and started. Fast than any other way of transportation and completely without a pilot!

Patreon - „Creators, come get paid“

A place for product-loving enthusiasts to talk about the newest apps, websites, hardware projects and tech-creations. I really did loose myself on the website whilst researching cause there’s so much to find out!

Marley Spoon - „Koche besser lebe smarter“

Now, a german startup that can make your life so much easier with their product. Do you want brag with cooking skills, that you don't really have? Then Marley spoon could be the right thing for you! You just have to decide for a recipe, order and you get a fresh box just in time when you need it. 

cheddar - “Watch from everywhere” 

And the award for the best logo goes to cheddar! No delicious cheese, but live and on demand videos can be streamed on cheddar. In doing so, cheddar focuses on innovative products and technologies. Who knows if “cheddar and chill” will become the new “Netflix and chill”? 

Comparably - “Transparent Compensation & Culture”

If we are completely honest with ourselves, we all want to know how much our peers earn. And the most interesting would be to know, how much our peers earn that, work in the same field like us. With comparably an employee can anonymously share information to his earnings, experiences, firm size, location and more. 

 

Pilot - “A World Without Language Barriers”
The Pilot Translation Kit comes with two earpieces and an app. The first earpieces has a build in microphone, that can filter everyday noise. Recognition of speech happen through the app, which passes the translation to the second earpiece. Because we were so positive about the idea, we had to order a kit and can’t wait to try it! Look forward to an upcoming blogpost about it!

This were amazing startups that leave the question how we could live without them for so long. They are lead by strong-minded personalities and we want to vocalise our respect for them! 

(Man, this could’ve been our ideas!)

This type of „Jam“ doesn’t have anything to do with our favorite spread or an evening of improvised, harmonic melodies. This word association would probably make some people shake their head now. The Global Game Jam (GGJ) is an event, that probably is marked with a red circle in the calendar of several gamers. Worldwide, from Shanghai to London, Teams are „jamming“ with the goal of creating a usable video game or boardgame. 48h time, over 600 Jamsites with over 40.000 participants. This year under the theme „Waves“. hy’s fronted developer Daniel experienced it live and told us how unique the experience, but how unreliable the delivery service was at this years InnoGames Jam in Hamburg.

With two additional programmers, a soundguy and the help of Vanilla JS and HTML, Daniel developed the Game „Cube waves“. With reduced design and interesting retro-feel, the players aim is to let the opponent cave in the playing field.

As students at FH Flensburg with an intended Master of intermedia, Daniels team with the name „Rosting Picnic Troopers“, already knew each other. Many others come alone and just connect with already existing teams, that need help in certain fields, on site. Daniel already knew what the challenges would be because it was his third time jamming. „On the one hand, you need to find an idea that is viable. On the other hand you need to try not to starve while waiting for the delivery service, who wanted to bring food 3h ago.“, he says and smiles. Also, its advisable to develop a playable prototype in the first day, which will be further developed with features in the next day. Extra points will be given in the valuation, when the game can be played platform independent.

Daniel also recommends to all new jammers to start packing the game before the deadline, because the presentation will follow right after. 

At the IGJam 2016, hosted by Gamescom, the Team „Panoptes“ won in the categories „Game Feel“, „Best overall games“ as well as „Best VR Game“ with their same-titled game. The single-Player game with fear factor can be played on Mac, Linux and PC and is accentuated with a story full of mysteries, magic and unknown technologies. The player needs to destroy walking nightmares with a self assembled squad of unique characters. I tried out the demo version of the game. And as a woman that does not only play „Candy crush“ or „cooking mama“, I have to say: Nice Job Team Panoptes!“. 

Fastfood-heaven and Creative-pool are converging at Game Jam, whereat the fun and not the price is priority. Winning would be a great side effect though. New friendships are made and newbies get to know how great the industry really is. Organized by Game designers who love to jam themselves, the InnoGame Jam is a colorful event, that couldn't unite people with a different set of skills any better.