Startup showcase: SmartBride Boutique, Allerta, TweetAgora

Each month at our Sprout Up events we showcase new local startups to a crowd of over 175 entrepreneurs – each company has five minutes to talk about why they started their business, what the business does, and their next steps. This month we heard from three companies, each with a very different product and target audience. See below for descriptions and video from these entrepreneurs:

SmartBride Boutique – Smart Bride was founded by Andrea Lown and Leah Andrew. It’s a a premium wedding classifieds website that allows brides to buy and sell their dresses, décor and accessories. Their mission is to “provide a boutique atmosphere where past and present brides can connect to buy and sell wedding related items via a simple and easy online user experience.” Andrea talked about how she started the company in 2008, and her marketing secrets – including her three-feet rule (everyone that comes within three feet of her hears about her business) and her fun approach to branding (her title on her card is Married). See below for more about SmartBride and how they’re helping keep brides budget-conscious but still style-savvy:

Allerta – Allerta builds hardware and software products that solve problems faced by mobile phone users. The company was founded in late 2008 by senior engineering students from the University of Waterloo. CEO Eric Migicovsky told the crowd at Sprout Up about their new InPulse smartwatch for BlackBerry that taps into the power of your mobile phone. The watch connects to your BlackBerry by BlueTooth, and alerts you of any incoming e-mails, text messages or calls. The watches are currently available for pre-order on GetInPulse.com for $149. See Eric talk about Allerta below:

TweetAgora – We love world startup debuts at Sprout Up. So we were excited when Bretton MacLean and Mark Pavlidis wanted to debut their upcoming Twitter app, TweetAgora, at our March event.  TweetAgora is a Twitter client for the iPhone that tries to solve the signal to noise ratio problem. The main feature is filters – using filters users can mute hashtags, users and conversations. Users can also filter Tweets in their stream by links, photos, and ReTweets. They also have what they call “Agoras” – kind of like super lists (you can combine lists, hashtags and people into one stream). They’re currently looking for beta testers – if you’re interesting in testing out the app get in touch at beta@tweetagora.com. And check out their presentation below for more info:

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Are you a startup that wants to showcase at an upcoming event, or participate in the Sprouter Talks feature on the blog? E-mail us at erin@sprouter.com.