SPNM: HidrateSpark, Aisle411 and Zapier
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The Silicon Prairie News Minute, featuring Ryan Pendell, the Managing Editor of Silicon Prairie News. Host Jim Collison from theAverageGuy.tv – Highlighting the best startup news in Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri. Recorded on February 4, 2016
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Jim: Everyone seems to be putting an emphasis on staying hydrated these days, have you seen any new devices that would help with that?
Ryan: HidrateSpark is one of the most exciting products to come out of Kansas City in the past year. They were part of the Sprint Accelerator powered by Techstars and they raised $627,000 off their Kickstarter campaign.
The water bottle syncs up with your phone and glows when you need to drink water. It keeps track of how much water you’ve been drinking. It also syncs up with your Fitbit and adjusts its recommendations based on your current activity.
Jim: How can I get one?
Ryan: You can check them out at http://hidratespark.com. The bottle costs $59.95 and presales are set to deliver in March. Over 16,000 units have been presold so far.
For more about the HidrateSpark story, check out http://siliconprairienews.com and click on Startups.
Jim: Amazon seems to be dominating the online shopping market in every area. What does this mean for local retailers and is there any hope?
Ryan: So there’s a company that working on making in-store shopping as easy as online shopping. They are called Aisle 411 and they are based out of St. Louis. When you walk into a store their app can tell you exactly what shelf the products are on. If you have a grocery list, it can tell you the best route to pick up all your items. Best of all, retailers can target coupons and special offers directly to you based on your behavior. Say you’re lingering for a while around the oreos, the store can offer you coupon on your phone the next time you come in.
Jim: Where is this being used right now?
Ryan: Aisle411 is currently working with Walgreens to get this technology into their stores, though you’ll also maybe start seeing them ToysRUs and HyVee as well.
Aisle411 is also working on a whole bunch of other fascinating products. To hear more about what they working on, go to http://siliconprairienews.com and click on startups.
Aisle411 is building the future for the “Internet of Stores”
Jim: Last year on Home Gadget Geeks we interviewed a Wade Foster, CEO and co-founder of Zapier.com who competes with IFTTT in the web autiomation space. They recently had a very exciting announcement about a new offering. What do we know?
https://theaverageguy.tv/2014/08/31/automation-made-easy-with-zapier-wade-foster-ceo-hgg181/
Ryan: So just this past week Zapier announced that they now have multi-part zaps. A zap is basically an if-this-than-that statement for the hundreds of APIs they have integrated into Zapier. Before now you could on only connect one to one. Now you can have multi-part zaps, which makes the possibilities almost endless.
http://siliconprairienews.com/2016/02/zapier-gives-us-what-weve-dreamed-of-multi-step-zaps/
Jim: Where can we find out more
Ryan: If you’d like to know more about the new multi-part zaps, check out our story on http://siliconprairienews.com. Just click on startups.
Thanks for listening to the Silicon Prairie News Minute. Find all these stories and more at http://SiliconPrairieNews.com. The Silicon Prairie News Minute a productions of http://theAverageGuy.tv.
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Jim’s Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/jcollison
Ryan’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/RyanPendell
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Contact the show at jim@theaverageguy.tv
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