Small Empires | The Verge

A tech startup is making millions helping charity go viral online

2015-09-29T12:03:27-04:00

Chances are you've seen an Omaze video, although you may not have realized what company was behind it. The Santa Monica, California-based startup blew up tanks with Arnold Schwarzenegger, hung out with Iron Man, and handed out a cameo appearance for one lucky fan in the new Star Wars film. These experiences racked up millions of views, and along the way raised millions for non-profit causes. But while these might have seemed like run of the mill charitable campaigns, they were in fact part of a brand new for-profit business model.

Omaze was founded by Ryan Cummins and Matt Pohlson, best friends from college who reunited at the Clinton Found …

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Can an augmented reality headset change the way we work?

2015-09-22T12:47:12-04:00

You can't throw a stone these days without cracking the faceplate on some fancy virtual reality headset. The technology we've been lusting after for so long is about to hit the mainstream in a major way, with big releases arriving in the next year from Facebook's Oculus, Sony, and Samsung. Running parallel to this trend is the world of augmented reality, where virtual images are layered onto what you're seeing in the real world. Google and Microsoft have made major bets on this technology with Magic Leap and HoloLens.

But while all those titans of technology are working to perfect a version of this technology that will appeal to the average …

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DogVacay is Airbnb for your canines

2015-09-15T11:53:38-04:00

After an expensive and upsetting experience boarding their two dogs at a kennel, Aaron Hirschhorn and his wife decided to start a small business out of their own home. A year later they had earned around $35,000 boarding pups as a side gig, and wanted to see if it could scale into a full company. Today, DogVacay works with tens of thousands of hosts to find a loving home for dogs whose owners are out of town. Not content to just be the world's biggest kennel, DogVacay is considering expansion into grooming, walks, and supplies, taking a big bite out of the massive multi-billion-dollar pet market.

The basic principle that has led the company …

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Pocket built a save button for the internet — what’s next?

2015-09-08T14:37:11-04:00

The web has a few simple commands, found so often that they become second nature. There are address bars, back buttons, links, windows… and if you're a Pocket user, there's a save button.

For eight years, the company has been building one of the best "save for later" services on the web, one that's now attracted 17 million registered users and more than a billion saved stories. In June, the company partnered with Firefox for a built-in dashboard button, giving it the biggest audience yet. But it's still unclear how Pocket will turn their popular product into a money-making business. We went inside Pocket headquarters to talk to founder Nate …

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Can 3D Robotics shake up the consumer drone market?

2015-09-02T12:15:36-04:00

3D Robotics has always known how to project itself to the press. Its CEO, Chris Anderson, is the former editor-in-chief of Wired and a wordsmith of the first order. But while it was saying all the right things, the Berkeley, California startup was moving in a direction that didn't exactly match the evolution of the market.

Anderson created a company that was always in touch with drone hobbyists and the DIY community, but chose to focus almost exclusively on creating units for professional applications. It created a suite of flexible software meant to help drones specialize in different tasks, from farming to oil field inspection. But over t …

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Can Postmates pull off universal one-hour delivery?

2015-08-25T14:35:25-04:00

Over the last five years, a booming new industry has developed: on-demand delivery services that let you order over the web, or with a mobile app, from merchants that up until now were only accessible if you went to the store. Postmates describes itself as the largest of these companies, the software service at the heart of a fast-growing business.

Its fleet of couriers deliver everything from sneakers to sandwiches to cellphones. The company doesn't sell any of these items itself. Rather it acts like an API, enabling any vendor to add delivery as an option to its website or app. Its clients include 7-11 and Apple and the company recently r …

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Postmates wants to pull off universal one-hour delivery

2015-08-25T14:35:15-04:00

The on-demand industry is growing quickly and Postmates is attempting to do delivery from anywhere within an hour. We interviewed CEO Bastian Lehmann about his plans to keep up with the competition.

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Dealflicks wants to be PriceLine for movie tickets

2015-08-18T12:22:06-04:00

Dealflicks is a start-up that partners with movie theaters to fill vacant seats by offering discounted ticket prices.

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Dealflicks is like PriceLine, but for last minute movie tickets

2015-08-18T12:21:57-04:00

There is bootstrapped, and then there is living and working out of a van, showering in gyms, and scrounging for something to eat. Dealflicks founders Sean Wycliffe and Kevin Hong have embraced that grind. The big idea is to remake the market for movie tickets. All told, they estimate that 88 percent of seats go unfilled. If they can change that by offering last minute discounts, in the model of Priceline or HotWire, Dealflicks could grab a nice slice of a $40 billion industry.

The pair went through a period they refer to as the "dark ages," when they were enduring constant rejection from theater owners and investors, while scrambling to kee …

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LSTN is selling wooden headphones with a charitable mission

2015-08-11T11:00:29-04:00

Lstn is a socially conscious startup that uses the proceeds from headphone sales to distribute hearing aids

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