A few months back I wrote a blog post about 10 Great Enterprise Software Companies That Call New Hampshire Home. Because our thriving technology and startup ecoystem is diverse, I wanted to share some of the great consumer facing Internet companies in the Granite State - ones all looking to hit lightning in a bottle and scale to mainstream relevancy.
We're celebrating our growing ecoystem this Thursday night, 5/23, at the abi Party at Arms and we recommend you join us.
Here are the 10 we thought you should know about...
MyGunDB
It's pretty exciting to feature former Dyn support guy Alan Ellis, who left Dyn a year ago after an eight year run to work exclusively on MyGunDB. The best startups exist when a passionate entrepreneur aims to create a technology to fill a void within their hobbyist or personal life. MyGunDB is surely that for an avid install base of over 100,000 users.
SNHU
Featured on Fast Company's 2012 list of most innovative companies (amazing for a non-profit!), SNHU has created an amazing online curriculum right out of Manchester, NH. I used to work in the EdTech space and it's rare to see such amazing innovation to the old-school model of higher ed.
Our CEO Jeremy Hitchcock is now a trustee of SNHU, run by President Paul Leblanc (seen right).
Mosaic
Co-Founders Gerard Murphy and Andy Young set out to build a specialized photo backup and storage application to work with Adobe Lightroom and allow prosumer photographers a better tool to manage their growing photo catalogs. After raising $800K of NH investment capital early this year, the duo is building the team and rounding out their feature set. Love photography? Check them out.
They also won our 1st annual #DynLaunch competition!
Ziftr (formerly FreePriceAlerts.com)
Bob Wilkins is no stranger to startup success. The founder of Ziftr continues to create innovative companies, including this cross browser plug-in to make the online ecommerce experience better and more reliable. How do you know you're getting the best deal? Ziftr will be your own personal shopping assistant. I've been impressed at how quickly they have hit the market.
GourmetGiftBaskets.com
I admire GGB's CEO/Founder Ryan Abood for the foresight he had in incubating his company in his parents' Manchester-based Chalifour's Flowers - first acquiring the domain name, bootstrapping the company, owning SEO (paid and organic) and filling a void in Internet ecommerce. Check them out for your next holiday gift and yes, they also have a corporate sales team, so use them for your next promotion!
1band 1brand
Originally launched as a music and fashion content curation site matching emerging bands and brands with loyal fans, 1band 1brand has evolved into an artist and brand alignment agency. GYK Marketing's Travis York and Brady Sadler and AB/InBev's Justin Griffin, along with myself, founded this project at SXSW 2011. If you're a brand looking to align with emerging talent, look no further.
PlusGrace
Seen at right, brothers Jamie (abi Hub CEO/EIR) and Adam Coughlin (Dyn Media Relations Manager) created PlusGrace after discovering an immense opportunity to innovate in the faith-based world.
Matching personal passion with market opportunity typically leads to great success and we've got a close eye on this startup as it strikes that balance and allows users to create prayer and financial campaigns.
D2D Delivery
Originally launched at the abi Innovation Hub, D2D Delivery was founded by fellow West High and Bentley U. grad Jeff Correa. Jeff saw a void in NH for food delivery services from the best eateries. Most of the most popular restaurants didn't have the resources or demand to staff a delivery offering. Jeff created an independent food delivery company and plans to scale it big over the coming years.
Simple Charters
I recently came across founder Charles Denaultas he applied for our Nantucket Conference promotion to sponsor an entrepreneur's attendance. Simple Charters has a simple premise: making private air travel more accessible to those sick of commercial flying. Created by UNH students, we always love to support young startup hustlers. Maybe someday soon we can try them out for a business trip. (We go on quite a few, you know.)
TechLok
One of the most tireless and committed workers in our ecoystem, Andrew Richards is all-in on his laptop security company. He's funded his company through local angels to date and works out of the abi Innovation Hub. They are still in stealth mode, but I recommend following their developments as they aim to make your content more secure on your personal computers.
Honorable mention:
Hogo, WoodPellets.com, iplayerhd.com& SquareOne Mail(consumer and business app).
Please feel free to submit to us any other great consumer startups that we might have missed on Twitter: @DynInc and/or @Kyork20.