It’s the age of Internet. Everyone is online–your parents, your uncle, your cousin from farms and even people you think you know but you’re confusing with someone else. Consumers, agents, producers are endangered species and the tedious hours of browsing through bazaars are gone. It’s certainly easier to move your pointers through the lengths of screen than to move your tired legs in the crowded market, right?
So, the trends are changing and people are tweeting. Internet is no longer ‘the next big thing’, it is “the big thing” now. Since everything happens on the internet these days, it will be a logical and far sighted decision to put your business online.
If you want to take your business online but you do not have sufficient experience or for some reasons your online business is not taking off as you expected to, you can follow the examples of the below mentioned successful online startup companies who shine like Venus in this vague glitz of the Internet.
1. Kaltura
Founded In: 2006
Founded By: Ron Yekutiel, Shay David, Michal Tsur, and Eran Etam
Kaltura is an open source software company established in 2006. The company allows publishers and content owners to publish, manage, monetize and analyze their video and other rich-media content. Kaltura’s Online Video Platform is based on software, enabling any site to add advanced video and rich-media capabilities.
Kaltura was originally based on collaborative Wiki model but later decided to provide an open source video platform focusing universities, media companies and service providers.
Having already raised more than $25 million dollars in funding, Kaltura teaches online entrepreneurs to target a handful of niches and master them with care and passion.
2. Taboola
Founded In: 2007
Founded By: Adam Sigdola
Enough with shoes, shirts and flower bouquets, we are going to market web contents. With this quirky idea, Taboola has managed a revenue run rate of $250 million.
What is amazing about Taboola is that it has only 120 employees and yet it has managed to attract high profile clients like BBC, USA Today and Boston Globe.
Taboola is the best content marketing platform on the internet. It provides a web widget to content creators on their website which links to additional similar posts, photos and videos.
Recently, Taboola announced that it was serving 150 billion recommendations to 400 million unique users.
3. Imgur
Founded In: 2009
Founded By: Alan Schaaf
Imgur, pronounced “Imager” is an online image sharing and hosting community.
The site was initially developed by Alan Schaaf as a side project while he attended Ohio University for Computer Science. Originally, it was intended as a gift to online community Reddit but the site took off from its startup seeing the number of views go up to millions from thousands in matter of months.
In 2012, there were 300 million images uploaded, 364 billion image views counted, and 42 petabytes of data transferred. In April 2014, Imgur received a funding of $40 million USD from investor Andreessen Horowitz.
4. ShoeDazzle
Founded In: 2009
Founded By: Brian S. Lee, Robert Shapiro, M.J. Eng and Kim Kardashian
ShoeDazzle is a personalized online styling platform and store. It helps woman discover and buy shoes, accessories and apparels. ShoeDazzle has seen a meteoric rise since its launch. The company boasts 13 million members.
Days were not always this sunny for ShoeDazzle. Back in 2011, the company completely dumped its hugely popular and successful models.
The company never gave up despite minor bumps. The company kept faith in e-commerce and since restructuring its e-commerce software model in 2011, the company has never looked back.
5. LCDcycle
Founded In: 2013
Founded By: Chris Koerner
What is broken that cannot be fixed? Plenty of frustrated gadget users are going to come up with the answer of the broken screens. If you are thinking of giving up on your beloved phone then do consult LCDCycle.
LCDcycle repairs smartphone screens. They prevent myriads of smartphones from being dumped into trashes. Their business is also a wholesale of smartphone parts to repair shops.
A true pioneer of the smart phone repairs, Chirs Koerner deserted the traditional ways and took his business online.
Innovative and “green”, LCDcycles has managed to attract high profile publications like CNET, Mashable and Gizmodo.
The company has managed to acquire a funding of more than $60 million and new users are signing each day for their personal showroom curated to their indicated fashion preferences.
6. Voxy
Founded In: 2010
Founded By: Paul Gollash and Gregg Carey
There are thousands of language learning apps on the market so why does Voxy stand out? Because Voxy helps learning English through small practical lessons that can be implemented in real lives.
With the advanced propriety technology, Voxy could have easily expanded its services to other languages but it stuck to its purpose. The company has developed a loyal fanbase of English learners.
The app boasts 3 million users and more than $15 million USD in funding.
7. Javelin
Founded In: 2010
Founded By: Trevor Owens and Grace Ng
Owens and Grace were both working on their own startups hoping something would spark their business. They had a hefty load of their own startups on their heads already and what did they decide? To work on their idea of a full time company to help aspiring entrepreneurs turn their concepts into a business.
Since the startup, they have hosted numerous workshops to help aspiring entrepreneurs achieve their dreams and make serious money on the side.
The company has already hosted educational workshops in more than 200 cities of the world and they have an ambitious plan of extending it to 600 by next year.
They help entrepreneurs in different stages of their business, from sending money abroad to completing all the legalities. Whether you are an aspiring entrepreneur who wants to start a new business or an already established one looking for a trial on new ideas without wasting your precious bucks, Javelin will always be there to help you.
8. Getaround
Founded In: 2010
Founded By: Sam Zaid, Jessica Scorpio and Elliot Kroo
Your uncle might lend you his lawnmower, if you are close enough with your cousin, he might lend you his car. What will a complete stranger give to you? Nothing, but that was until Getaround came into existence.
If you are looking for a car to rent or otherwise make some extra cash renting the car you’re not using, join the community of more than 200,000 Getaround members, your life will surely be easier.
The lenders who do not want renters to have the access of a key, there is also an option for renters to open the car door without a key. This is made possible by Getaround.
This awesome startup company which offers a simple life hack has already received $19 million USD in seed funding.
9. Prismatic
Founded In: 2012 for web browsers and iphones, 2013 for ipads
Founded By: Bradford Cross and Aria Haghighi
People can do three main things on Prismatic: Tell the service what topics they are interested in and which people they want to follow; read and look at the suggested articles and photos; and share content back to those topics.
Before they became mobile app magnates, Cross was a head of research in Flightcaster and Haghighi was a mathematician who studied natural language programming and they decide to do a news aggregator app startup and guess what?- They have 25,000 weekly users and $16.5 million in funding now.
The secret of the meteoric rise of Prismatic lies in the collaborative environment the company has managed to create for its employees. The engineers responsible work very closely with designers, researchers and the whole team.
Bradford Cross, the founder and the CEO learnt in details about the nuances of intricacies of design so that he could apply it in his startup and he sure is effective in what he’s doing. The company has however closed its consumer-facing apps since December 2015 and now solely focuses on its machine learning algorithms, which it intends to make available to hedge funds and publishers.
10. Bloomboard
Founded In: 2010
Founded By: Eric Dunn and Jason Lange
Dunn and Lange were a bunch of teaching aficionados. Dunn dedicated a full decade of his life building adaptive learning management systems while Lange sided with education focused non-profit organization.
When they were introduced to each other by a mutual friend, it was like the world was set right for them. They were both searching for professional development based solution for teachers as they believed the teacher was the major driving force for the productivity of children.
When they decided to take on the internet, they were only equipped with their experience and a rough prototype. They were like two hikers who were on an expedition of the unexplored hills.
Bloomboard is a work of art by the duo. It combines technology and the skills of educating. Bloomboard offers “Click to Schedule” option which saves lengthy paper works while organizing evaluator notes. Because of the quality of its innovation, it was able to attract big giants like Gates Foundation and Birchmere ventures. Bloomboard has managed to secure $5 million in funding.
Featured photo credit: YouTube via i.ytimg.com
