Ask any HR department; establishing and maintaining effective hiring practices is no easy task. That’s why so many companies large and small overspend on hiring, not only because it’s difficult to do well, but because it is essential for the sustainability and growth of any business. Enter Toomah, an ATDC member company with the goal of helping you reduce hiring costs while approving the effectiveness of your staffing procedures.
The company’s breakthrough product is their InterviewPlus interview engine. Toomah claims that using the service can bring down your hiring costs by up to 50%, which could be incredible savings for both small companies going through a round of hiring and larger companies with their more consistent staffing flows. The product helps both automate and streamline the phone interview process, so the most qualified candidates rise to the top and hopefully secure a position.
Toomah was founded in Alpharetta at the Roam co-working space. Seasoned entrepreneur Jay Forman conceived of the company and brought it to life with a tight-knit team and a series of funding and competition wins. They scored angel funding in April of 2010 and then won the TAG Business Launch Competition very shortly after. The company is currently in growth mode and is signing up new customers every day. Looking forward to hearing big things from Toomah in the near future!
Every company needs to prepare for emergencies, but very few do it well. Most just have some dusty emergency plan sitting on a shelf somewhere that is really no use to anyone in the face of today’s world of global threats. In comes Preparis, the business preparedness and crisis management platform that is safeguarding over 500,000 people and over $185 billion in enterprise value. Businesses of all sizes across the world including Equifax, Southern Company, DLA Piper and FirstBank are embracing the unique solution Preparis offers, and the company continues to expand its innovation. Just this week they released their BlackBerry mobile app.
Preparis offers a SaaS product that includes planning tools, online training, emergency messaging, content, and secure document storage and access. A key focus currently is expanding their offering onto smartphones, with both their iPhone app and BlackBerry app keeping their users always connected anytime and anywhere. Preparis’ mobile apps are the only B2B emergency preparedness apps on the market today. This first-mover advantage has helped Preparis receive international adoption while expanding their mission further to protect the world’s business economy.
When interviewing founder and CEO Armistead Whitney about his breakthrough company, one thing that really stood out was his focus on the culture at Preparis. Corporate culture at many startups is somewhat of an afterthought, but at Preparis they really take pride in the unique shared values and mission of their team. They have 8 core values that they put up all over their office and recite at every team meeting. They also believe work can be fun – every month one Preparis colleague is designated as the “FunVentor” to take the entire team out of the office for something that is fun and educational. One event Armistead raved about was when they went “Geocaching” which is a high-tech treasure hunt using GPS devices. Sounds fun.
Preparis is currently in growth mode as they are signing up new businesses like crazy, with MedAssets, Holland And Knight, and Arent Fox as some of their most recent new clients. They are also hiring sales and marketing folk, so check out their website and send over your information if you’re interested.
The globalized world of the 21st century has brought an ever-increasing multitude of threats onto corporations and the people that work in them. It’s great to see a company taking advantage of this opportunity to not only create value, but also to protect that of others.
Everybody who’s anybody knows that the most important technology event in Atlanta every year is the ATDC Startup Showcase. This year, on Monday May 9th at the Georgia Tech Hotel & Conference Center, the 31st ATDC Startup Showcase will be held. Some of our most exciting member companies will present, a select few of the most successful member companies will graduate, and just about everyone from first-time entrepreneurs to veteran venture capitalists will be in attendance.
So please mark your calendar to join the ATDC team, our member companies, and a big chunk of the Atlanta technology world at the Startup Showcase on Monday May 9th, 2011. More details to come so stay tuned!
Anyone who’s struggled with an academic subject knows how valuable tutoring and study groups can be. OpenStudy understands this need of students around the world and has rolled out a social learning network where students can both get their questions answered and offer answers to others. The venture is still very early in its life cycle, but it’s experiencing impressive growth through strategic partnerships and a burgeoning network effect, which has the potential to truly take off.
In appropriate fashion, this online social learning startup began as an academic research project, which was helmed by Ashwin Ram and Preetha Ram, a Georgia Tech Professor and Emory University dean, respectively. After starting the venture in 2007, Ashwin and Preetha have subsequently been joined by an impressive team of technical experience, serial entrepreneurship, and marketing expertise. Their growth has been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Georgia Research Alliance.
The company currently touts over 20,000 registered users who are getting 85% of their questions answered with the average question receiving 4.5 contributory responses. They’ve achieved much of this early success through strategic academic partnerships with universities like MIT, Yale, Notre Dame, NYU, and UC Irvine. The partnership with MIT OpenCourseWare, a web-based publication of nearly all MIT course content, really paved the way for OpenStudy to show how useful their technology can be when integrated into other websites. When embedded into any website, the OpenStudy app offers real-time collaborative study to a host of users with academic questions and expertise to help others.
A new source of growth for the company is in partnering with older academic websites created by teachers years ago, which can receive a surprising amount of traffic from Google search. OpenStudy has on the horizon several new partnerships with both independent websites and academic institutions. As they continue to grow they are looking to test a subscription-based premium instruction revenue model (think tutoring and private study groups) as well as a revenue stream from certification of select online academic courses and content. As the company has already seen some impressive growth since the launch of their public beta last September, be on the lookout for big news from this startup in 2011.
Just about everybody has had their blood pressure tested by one of those machines in the local drugstore, but how about your eyesight? SoloHealth’s inaugural product offering Eyesite, an interactive self-service kiosk for vision testing, has helped SoloHealth to experience tremendous growth and the company is now looking to double their workforce this year, so job seekers rejoice and read on.
SoloHealth was founded in 2007 with the aim to help individuals assess their health via the use of self-service kiosks installed at high traffic retail locations. In order to support their growth and ambitions, the company was able to secure a $1.2M grant from the National Institute of Health in May of 2010, which CEO Bart Foster thanks Julie Foster of ATDC for her invaluable assistance with.
Even more so than a kiosk company, Mr. Foster stresses that SoloHealth is a data company, with the Eyesite kiosk just being the point of entry. His company is interested in wellness and prevention, empowering customers to take care of themselves and live happier and healthier lives. And the Eyesite kiosk is just the beginning; be on the lookout for the release of exciting new and innovative interactive self-service kiosks coming from SoloHealth in the very near future.
If SoloHealth sounds like the type of company you’d like to work for, then please follow the link because they’d love to speak with you: http://www.solohealth.com/7_1.php
In the words of their customer, KontrolFreek pwned 2010. The company has established itself as a force to be reckoned with in the gaming community and has set itself up to experience another year of impressive growth. For those who are unfamiliar with the gaming industry, there is a whole new niche of products that gamers demand called performance gaming gear. KontrolFreek has blown this market wide open with its array of products that help gamers from many genres improve their skills and comfort while playing their favorite titles. Their product that got this whole train going was the FPS Freek, an attachment to the joystick on an Xbox360 or PS3 controller that lengthens the joystick to give the gamer more leverage and precision, in addition to added comfort and lessened fatigue.
Just search KontrolFreek in YouTube to see how passionate their fans are about their products. This past year, the KontrolFreek team put together and executed on some truly innovative social media promotions, the strength of which can be seen by the unprecedented growth on Facebook from around 3,000 likes to well over 55,000. It doesn’t end there; the company has converted its consumers into an army of KontrolFreek advocates with over 1600 YouTube videos produced by their customers and fans.
So how has all of this activity benefitted KontrolFreek? The company’s sales grew over 350% in 2010, experiencing over 13,000 orders per month, or over 20,000 items ordered per month. And all of this was achieved with limited investment and with a small, tightly knit, and highly gelled management team. Ashish Mistry, the company’s CEO, says that part of their success has been their hyper-responsiveness to the customer, with most service requests addressed within 24 hours. He explains that not only has their team created a market for their products and executed to satisfy demand, but also they’ve created a brand that consumers trust and enjoy.
So what’s in store for KontrolFreek in 2011? Well, as 2010 saw them increase their product line from 3 SKUs to 8 SKUs, keep your eye out for a new product or two. Also, as KontrolFreek has proven the power of strategic partnerships — from celebrity gamers and YouTubers to other performance gaming gear companies — it will be interesting to see who KontrolFreek partners with next. Mr. Mistry explains that their success is an exercise in execution and all signs point to KontrolFreek continuing this high level of execution in the new year.
Sports fans across the world have felt the pain of wanting to watch a sporting event that is not broadcasted in their area. The past ten years have seen the launch of several regional and niche television channels to satisfy this demand for collegiate sports, such as ESPNU and The Big Ten Network, but what about high school sporting events? That is where PlayON! Sports steps in.
While an executive at Turner Broadcasting Network, David Rudolph saw an immense opportunity in broadcasting video coverage of sporting events that were not getting wide television exposure. Thus, in 2005 PlayON! Sports was born. The concept was developed inside Turner Broadcasting Network until 2008 when Mr. Rudolph teamed up with a red carpet triumvirate of Atlanta investment groups to purchase the company and launch it as a standalone business. With $3 Million in VC funding from Noro-Moseley Partners, Imlay Investments, and Buckhead Investment Partners, prospects for the PlayON! Sports team looked great.
Now, more than two years after setting out on its own, PlayON! Sports has seen tremendous growth and recognition. They’ve gone through a second round of financing with almost all of their existing investors, while adding new investor Hamilton Ventures. The company won a spot as one of TAG’s Top 10 Innovative Georgia Technology Companies in 2009. Also in 2009 the company partnered with the Georgia High School Association (GHSA) and the South Carolina High School League (SCHSL) to launch GHSA Digital and the SCHSL Network, respectively. Each partnership is geared towards distributing high school sports video coverage across TV, broadband, DVD, and download-to-own. Continuing the growth, PlayON! Sports has locked down partnerships with other statewide athletic associations including Illinois (IHSA), Missouri (MSHSAA), Colorado (CHSAA), and Oregon (OSAA).
Recently, PlayON! Sports made a strategic merger with When We Were Young Productions (WWWYP). The merger combines the extensive technology platform of PlayON! Sports with the deep production and distribution experience of WWWYP, along with the high school association relationships of each company to create the premier high school sports network, adding Michign (MHSAA) and Wisconsin (WIAA) to their list of partners.
An acquisition, multiple rounds of financing, partnerships, a strategic merger – in the relatively short life of PlayON! Sports, the company has experienced and grown so much. And it isn’t stopping there; the company is developing relationships with many other states and has several new deals in the works. At ATDC our hats are off to the entire PlayON! Sports team.
It’s hard to find a founder more dedicated than Jason Zamer, the man behind SimpleC – an ATDC member company that provides a breakthrough non-drug intervention for dementia and depression. SimpleC’s roots extend all the way back to 2002, when Zamer was still an undergrad studying psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. What started as a senior project has now grown into a self-funded, 20 employee business that is right on the brink of getting its technology into healthcare facilities across the country.
SimpleC helps elderly adults suffering from dementia, depression, and other mental ailments by employing a customized non-drug intervention delivered via touch screen computer directly to the individual. Pictures, music, voices, and other memorable elements of an individual’s life are collected and entered into a customized delivery system that then creates a uniquely profound visual and auditory experience. The content is presented in such a way to be pleasantly and powerfully evocative so that the memory centers of the brain are exercised and strengthened, which positively affects mood, participation in social activities, and overall mental health. All of these effects foster a much healthier life for not only the patient, but also the caregiver and the family, who experience much more pleasant interactions with their loved ones.
What is striking about SimpleC is how dedicated their team has been to the business. The company is 8 years old and in early stage with revenue. And it’s now becoming very apparent that the years of development, research, and planning are paying off. The company scored pilots in four major healthcare facilities in 2009 and locked down their first customer with a large healthcare facility in Austell, Georgia. CEO Stan Anderson is incredibly enthusiastic about several other customer facilities in the pipeline as well.
SimpleC goes to show that heavy research and careful planning can really set a startup business on the path to growth. It’s great to see such a noble startup progress, especially one with so many Georgia Tech employees!
CallMe! Staffing, a one-stop destination for call center expertise and staffing services, has just announced the release of CallMeJobs.com. The new website is a niche job board designed with the focused intent to connect call center employers and employees.
CallMeJobs.com takes advantage of a strong database of call center employers and job seekers in order to offer targeted help to anyone seeking a job or looking to make a hire in a call center. The targeted approach allows the job board to offer screening and application processes specifically designed for call center staffing, including a social networking space where call center professionals from around the world can meet and communicate.
Check it out at CallMeJobs.com and CallMe! Staffing