NY Tech Day 2014

Yesterday, I attended NY Tech Day. NY Tech Day is an exhibition where entrepreneurs showcase their start-ups in walk-up booth style. It offers a unique opportunity for the more than 400 exhibitors, including startups from around the world, to show off their companies to thousands of consumers and investors. This was the 3rd annual time this free event has taken place.

While there were tons of cool ideas across numerous verticals, a few key trends stood out:

1. Data alone is no longer enough. Data matters and everyone is collecting it, but at the end of the day, the key differentiator is not the data, but the insights and forecasts that can be drawn from it. It's about how you use it.

• Canvs (powered by mashwork) is taking the idea of social TV analytics to the next level. It provides insight and context around entertainment content instead of raw, complicated data. It does this by delivering a glimpse of the nuanced range of emotion a TV show's audience expresses, rather than the general sentiment found in most social media monitoring tools.
• Picpulse focuses trend forecasting for the fashion industry. It's purpose is to help fashion brands and retailers understand what's next, what to do with their inventory and how to best connect with customers using data and analytics. They are launching in the next few months.
• Enertiv is a tool to help people save energy with actionable insights and recommendations that save energy and money. It provides a combination of hardware and software that allows buildings to monitor their energy consumption in real-time through circuit level, detailed information on energy use. The Enertiv Platform continuously analyzes this information in real-time, alerting users of anomalies while providing personalized recommendations for savings.
• Additionally, PsychSignal uses NASA algorithms to predict financial trends with social chatter. Betterment helps individuals better manage their own investments through data.
  

Everyone's trying to find a way to unlock the mobile payments space and own the market.

• Dash and Split both allow users to pay their restaurant or bar tab with their phone. 
• PAAY uses what your phone paired with a personal pin to provide an easy and secure way to make payments.
• Stripe is a set of unified APIs and tools that allows companies to instantly accept and manage payments online and seamlessly integrates mobile payments. Currently, Lyft, Postmates, OrderAhead, Instacart and numerous other mobile apps use Stripe's native iOS and Android libraries to charge on the go.
  

It's time to disrupt the status quo across well-established markets

• Real estate killer apps and tools, such as Clikhome, Roomi and Lystfreely, allow renters to take the power of their apartment search truly into their own hands; thereby, negating the need for brokers and agents in the near future.
• Sols, custom 3D printed orthotics, is challenging the orthotics industry. Their 100% digital process captures and stores a detailed foot scan before visualizing the product, and prescription, in real time. With SOLS, people experience increased accuracy, improved comfort, and consistent quality, something no other orthotics vendor (we're looking at you, Doctor Scholl's) is providing as well.

All in all, it was a pretty inspiring event. I can't wait to see what comes next.