11 hot tech start-ups from 2011 – Part 2

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Last week we introduced you to five hot new start-ups that captured our imagination this year. This week, we feature another six companies that are set to make waves.

Pinterest

Pinterest, a social catalogue service, allows you to tag your favourite photos from all over the internet and categorise them into inspiration boards. In a nutshell, Pinterest is the perfect platform for anyone who’s got an ounce of creativity in them. Pinterest boards can be used as wish lists, style boards or even a collection of similar themed items. The platform is highly interactive in the sense that other Pinterest users can follow you, your boards, like or comment on your pictures or even re-pin your images.

Start-up lesson(s): The founders of Pinterest have managed to create a platform that is full of inspiration. With more and more people falling in love with the platform and people pinning away across the internet

Novelo

Facebook has more than 700 million users, which makes many businesses think of ways to reach out to all those people and sell their very own products to them. The process of selling to people on Facebook is now made dead simple thanks to a service called Novelo. Novelo enables users to connect their products to over 700 million users, improving visibility and sales along the way. By choosing Novelo users can have all the functionalities that are usually associated with online stores integrated within their existing Facebook pages. Clever, right?

Start-up lesson(s): Novelo has managed to seamlessly integrate e-commerce functionalities into Facebook, enabling everyone to sell their products on the most popular social network. They have clearly been paying attention to what users want and managed to transform a need into an easy-to-use Facebook app.

Styleseat

Styleseat is a clever new platform that allows people to discover and book top beauty and wellness professionals near them. Styleseat is also the perfect platform to help beauty professionals  to grow their businesses as it allows them to easily build booking-capable sites. The founder, Melody McCloskey, is targeting a $40 billion niche market and offers professionals to take their business a step further as most beauty-related small businesses currently rely on Word of Mouth.

Start-up lesson(s): By identifying a niche market and developing a product that not only solves a consumer problem but is also useful from a business owner’s point of view, Melody has started to shake up the beauty industry.

Shoedazzle

E-commerce sites focused on women are hot at the moment. The Shoedazzle shoe club was co-founded by Kim Kardashian and offers subscribed users personalised celebrity stylist recommendations for under US $40 each month. Users complete a short fashion survey and based on their results they receive five shoe recommendations each month.

Start-up lesson(s): Getting personalised fashion tips is every woman’s dream and a concept that more fashion-related businesses should incorporate. Shoedazzle taps into the hot new market of e-commerce for women by combining celebrities with shoes and an appealing site. For a comprehensive review of the Shoedazzle club, click here.

WIWT v 2.0

WIWT, one of the most read fashion blogs in the UK was founded by Poppy Dinsey on January 1^st 2010. She set herself the challenge to upload a picture of her wearing a different outfit every day. 365 days later and she completed her challenge. Poppy still uploads pictures of herself, however, she has now created WIWT v 2.0, a fashion based social network that allows users to upload pictures of themselves wearing different outfits.

Start-up lesson(s): Poppy is the classic example of a young entrepreneur that had an idea and stuck with it. She established her blog within the fashion community before she launched the WIWT app. Poppy is a great example of someone who built up relationships through providing entertainment and advice before asking for anything in return.

airbnb

aribnb is a platform that combines social media with vacation rentals to create an online community of travellers and home owners who want to make renting a space easier and more convenient. airbnb’s simple interface and focus on renters’ reputations make it extremely user friendly which is the reason investors are taking notice.

Start-up lesson(s): In the last couple of weeks, a lot of negativity surrounded airbnb. They have proven to have a solid crisis PR plan in place which is critical for any fast-growing start-up.

Now that we have shown you our 11 favourite start-ups of 2011 we’d like to know which one is yours. Tell us in the comments and remember to keep up to date with Paratus via Facebook and Twitter.