#fresh startups

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Fresh Startup: MoviePass

This is part of our weekly series of freshness. If you find others out there, share them with us! 

Fresh idea: Netflix for movie theaters 

Fresh startup: MoviePass

Raise your hand if you're a Netflix subscriber?  Chances are, you're in good company.  The Netflix subscription model has been held in high regard by consumers since they launched.  MoviePass hopes to find the same success in their subscription based model for movie tickets.  Similar to Netflix, MoviePass users would pay a $50 monthly flat rate for the opportunity to see unlimited movies in theaters.  MoviePass has kicked off their private beta in the San Francisco area just in time for the July 4th holiday.

    A new startup, MoviePass, is hoping that film fans will be interested in paying $50 a month to see an unlimited number of movies in the theater. Kicking off its private beta in the San Francisco Bay Area just in time for the big Fourth of July movie weekend, MoviePass is hoping to bring the subscription model that Netflix pioneered for movie rentals to physical movie tickets.

We spoke with Stacy Spikes, the co-founder of MoviePass, about the service, its plans for other markets, and other details.

The idea behind MoviePass is an enticing one. The price of movie tickets increases every year, so a monthly $50 subscription could pay for itself with just a few shows.

Right now, MoviePass is making deals directly with the major online ticketing services, which means that as long as a theater is serviced by a MoviePass ticketing provider, you can go to that theater.

Using a geo-aware HTML5 web app (with native apps in the works), you can buy tickets day-of-show from standard online ticketing companies like MovieTickets.com. Once you’re at the theater, the app will give you the redemption code to snag tickets from a kiosk or ticket counter.

To prevent abuse, there are a few rules and regulations regarding the service.

Users are limited to seeing one movie per day. We understand this limitation, but it’s a bummer for those of us who like to see multiple movies on a rainy Saturday.

Users can only see a movie one time. If you want to re-watch Transformers 3 or another summer blockbuster, you’ll need to pay for your ticket.

Tickets are non-transferrable.

Tickets must be purchased the day of the show.

3D and IMAX tickets will cost an additional $3. The user will just pay the difference in ticket price between 2D and 3D but can still purchase and pick up tickets the same way as with a regular 2D film.

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Fresh Startup: BiteHunter

This is part of our weekly series of freshness. If you find others out there, share them with us! 

Fresh idea: Aggregator for daily dining deals 

Fresh startup:  BiteHunter

With the sheer number of daily deal sites, both national and local, it's almost difficult to pay full price for anything.  Especially a meal.  If you're hungry, there's likely a meal deal going on right around the corner.  The problem with this is, you might not know it.  Never fear, the "Kayak for restaurants" has arrived. Oh yeah, and it works in real-time.

With the recent explosion of daily deal sites adding to the specials that almost every dining establishment offers from time to time, there shouldn’t be an excuse for paying full price if budget is a priority.

But there is one: browsing through a hundred daily deals sites and combing the Twitter feeds of nearby hangouts is simply more trouble than its worth.

BiteHunter wants to make it less troublesome by creating what CEO Gil Harel calls a “Kayak for restaurants.” Since March, the website has enabled users to search through daily deals from partner sites and discounts at restaurants. On Thursday, it launched an iPhone app that does the same thing based on a user’s current location.

The real-time location aspect and the comprehensiveness of the app both differentiate its capabilities from daily deal aggregators like Dealery and Monster Offers — at least as far as dining is concerned.

In addition to incorporating APIs from sites like Groupon and deals newsletters, BiteHunter also developed a technology that searches restaurants and bars’ social feeds for mentions of specials or other offers. It includes these offers in its search results.

Currently the startup is pulling in revenue by referring its users to daily deal sites and reservation sites like OpenTable. Eventually Harel says he hopes to create his own ad network for the website and app. The smartest aspect of the startup, which is currently operating on a round of seed funding, is that as the deals space gets more competitive its product gets more useful.

“The more players that are providing deals in real-time, the better it is for BiteHunter,” Harel says about the current deals trend. “…for us its just another great service to pull information from.”

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Fresh Startup: LooseCubes

This is part of our weekly series of freshness. If you find others out there, share them with us! 

Fresh idea: Airbnb for coworking spaces

Fresh startup:  LooseCubes

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've heard of AirBnB, the startup that allows you to find accommodations posted by locals all over the world.  Last week we told you about GetAround, the AirBnB of vehicle rentals.  This week we want to tell you about LooseCubes, the AirBnB of coworking spaces.  Whether you're looking for a long-term non-traditional coworking solution, or just a space to work out of for a few days, LooseCubes could easily have the perfect solution for you.

                As technology untethers employees from their desks and more people seek a flexible work environment,coworking spaces have popped up in every major city. But that didn’t help LooseCubes founder Campbell McKellar much when she decided to work from a small town in Maine for a summer.

“I kept thinking that there must be someone in this town that has an art studio in their backyard with Wi-Fi,” she says. “And if I could just find them I would never have to go back to a traditional office.”

She founded LooseCubes shortly after she returned to New York City. The startup helps out-of-office workers locate those art studios with Wi-Fi in Maine — or whatever kind of workspace they’re looking for.

Anyone with a free desk can list it on the site. There’s an option to charge rent, but McKeller says that about 37% of the 1,200 listings on the site are offering workspace for free. Some of its users are travelers looking for someplace to work for a day or two. Others are independent workers looking for something more permanent.

Loosecubes brings coworking to any workspace, just as Airbnb has successfully brought vacation rentals to any home, or as Getaround aims to bring hour-by-hour rentals to vehicles that could never support a Zipcar fleet. Workspaces are available in 286 cities across more than 35 countries.

“It’s a mystery,” McKellar says of the way the idea has spread without much marketing efforts outside of a Twitter account.

The startup is using a seed round of funding to connect people and conduct transactions on the platform for free, but eventually it plans to take a small percentage on rental fees.

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Fresh Startup: Getaround

This is part of our weekly series of freshness. If you find others out there, share them with us! 

Fresh idea: Airbnb for vehicles

Fresh startup:  Getaround

You've heard of Zipcar and Hertz Connect, right?  With these services, there is an annual fee and a fairly high daily rate.  Enter Getaround.  They are positioning themselves as the Airbnb of vehicle rental meaning you can rent a car for a few hours or days from the folks right next door.  Each car that enters the fleet gets equipped with a free car installation kit and then the owner can set their rental rate.  Renters sign up for free and once approved by the car owner, the process pretty much completes itself.  This may very well trump Zipcar's 8,500 fleet pretty quickly.

Companies like Zipcar and Hertz’s Connect have proven there is a market for alternatives to car ownership, but they fall short of meeting everyone’s price point and needs. In many markets, Zipcar charges an $82-per-day rate in addition to an annual fee, and the service isn’t offered outside of cities.

Getaround fixes both of these problems by allowing its users to rent their neighbors’ cars. It’s like an Airbnb for vehicles. Car owners choose their own hourly rental rates and schedules — all they need to do to make their cars Getaround ready is install a free “carkit,” which functions as both GPS tracker and key mechanism.

Renters can sign up free of charge. After they’re approved by the owner of the car they’d like to rent, they pick up it up using an iPhone app that unlocks it. Insurance (provided by Berkshire Hathaway) and 24-hour roadside assistance come with the rental fees, which most owners set at between $3 and $15 per hour.

Avery Lewis, Getaround head of product, says some renters have used the service as a way to safely lend their cars to roommates who don’t have insurance. At the other end of the spectrum, one woman went on vacation with her car available for rent during her abscence and then was able to extend her vacation using the proceeds.

If Getaround catches on, its number of available rentals has the potential to make Zipcar’s 8,500 cars look diminunitive. And it could reach areas that are too rural to be viable for a company like Zipcar — all while taking a 40% cut of rental fees on vehicles that it doesn’t own.

As with most good ideas, community car sharing isn’t something just one company is pursuing. A startup called RelayRides, which counts Google Ventures and August Capital among its investors, is pursing a similar idea. The company already has cars available in San Francisco and Boston.

Getaround has functioning services in San Francisco and San Diego, and it officially launched its national expansion at TechCrunch Disrupt on Tuesday. It also won the competition’s $50,000 grand prize.

The startup will add that cash to $1.25 million in funding as it courts a critical mass of car owners beyond the Bay Area.

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Fresh Startup: Social Flights

This is part of our weekly series of freshness. If you find others out there, share them with us! 

Fresh idea: Private jet travel for the masses

Fresh startup:  Social Flights

When was the last time you were on a private jet?  Go ahead and think, we'll wait.  Never, right? Or maybe once?  How would you like to for a price that's comparable, or less, than a typical commercial flight?  Leave the annoying security checks and the endless boarding process behind and unleash the power of collective buying.  You already do it for daily deal sites like Groupon and Living Social, why not for air travel?  

Long check in lines, baggage fees, invasive security check procedures, lengthy boarding processes, layovers, lost luggage, limited leg room — we’re all familiar with the downside of commercial airlines. The rich can afford to bypass the chaos and frustration in private jets. Why can’t you?

Social Flights, a collective buying startup and charter broker, helps its members join up to book private jets at affordable prices.

Members self-organize around shared interests in groups called Travel Tribes. They can then use the service to coordinate travel around destinations or events, and request and book private charter flights together.

“Private jets are expensive … but if I’m sharing an eight-passenger plane between 16 people — 8 people flying it one direction and 8 people flying it back — then the price comes down substantially,” says Daniel Robles, Social Flight’s chief innovation officer. “It floats well into the business class [price range].”

And, perhaps even less — short hops can run as low as $150 for fully-booked jets, depending on the destination.

The value proposition for the user is access to a VIP lifestyle that would otherwise be pricey. “You park in front of the private facility, walk onto your aircraft, fly directly to your destination with people you know, sign for your rental car and get on your way. No stress. No hassle,” the Social Flight website promises.

Robles believes Social Flights offers a practical alternative to commercial air travel for business executives, weekend travelers and anyone willing to spend more to save time and gain value.

The relatively young startup, having first launched in February, has helped its members successfully charter 15 flights. Social Flights is still in soft-launch mode, says Robles, aiming to grow at a slow and steady pace. The startup has roughly 4,000 members — 1,000 of whom participate in Travel Tribes.

Social Flight has access to 50,000 seats across its fleet and hopes to take a piece of both the private aviation market — a $50 billion per year business — and the commercial travel sector.

The site’s design and functionality are far less impressive than its mission, but perhaps travelers can be coaxed into overlooking these shortcomings in exchange for a $150 seat on a private jet to a destination of their choosing.