Paris New Tech Meetup group meet on the 20th for their first get together of the year but I wanted to briefly look at some of their past meetings as this group seems to attract some great little start ups.
Each month 5-7 presenters get to pitch for no longer than five minutes in either French or English broadly about new technology to a gathering which the group promotes as including potential investors. I’m not entirely sure on the accuracy of the group name but the business concepts are really interesting.
For example, I loved the idea of a start up called Stample who presented back in September with a platform which allows users to put information gathered from anywhere into one place for co-working, for example file uploads, text and YouTube videos or any web content which can all be commented on.
Stample market the platform as enabling users to master their collective digital capital. I quite like the origin of the name too, a mashup of sample, stamp and staple.
Fitle also presented in September which allows shoppers to upload four pictures of themselves to create a 3D model allowing you to select clothing and see what it looks like on. Apparently ASOS do not do this yet but Fitle are set for a big announcements early 2015.
Quite a few of the ideas seem to overlap with products that are already available without the cash resources but another idea I liked, because I love residential community ideas, was Econeighbours. This allows you to share things like food, clothes (unwanted I am guessing), couch surfing and cars with people close by. The obvious overlaps here may be AirBNB and arguably Uber with car sharing.. if they wanted to go the eco route that is.
Another mention, again, the overlap might be StackOverflow but with a much better UI, is codewire which allows you to search developers to help you solve coding problems. Codewire charges per minute for the help from developers of different levels and pitches the service to small businesses that may not be able to employ the help of a contractor or employee.
Some of the more recent of these Meetups have had over 200 people attend as attendances have increased and the vibe is more about friendly feedback on ideas without judging. I think this is a group worth keeping an eye on for solid future employers.
