By Julian Steinforth, Expedition PR
On June 12- 13, 2014 technologists, hackers, entrepreneurs and artists came together for the annual Northside Tradeshow, which was held as part of the Northside Festival in Brooklyn and featured tracks on innovation, music and film. A range of companies, from mobile apps to 3D printing companies, and vertical garden manufacturers, had set up a booth in the giant 50,000-square-foot tent in the McCarren Park. Expedition PR was also part of this year’s exhibitors, offering PR and marketing counsel to startups and free copies of its Startup Marketing eBook series.
Here are three cool companies that I spotted at the festival:
Ussemble, an app that lets you capture and share ideas for activities that you’re interested in doing with your friends and make plans around those ideas. The Ussemble team is still testing and perfecting their app, but you can already download it and give feedback.
Tiggly, a New York-based company that develops interactive toys and apps for the digital generation. Their debut product, Tiggly Shapes, combines physical objects with iPad technology and creates great learning games for children between 18 months and 4 years old. The app helps toddlers and preschoolers develop spatial reasoning, motor skills, language, and creativity.
Farm To People, a marketplace for unique, handcrafted foods and lifestyle products. They forage the region for artisanal, small-batch goods and deliver them nationally, offering a wide range of products. They also had the best use of social media during the trade show, promoting their Twitter and Instagram accounts with slogans such as “Tweet for Sweets” at Northside Tradeshow and offering treats for followers.
We also had great booth neighbors. One of them was Steven Hero Productions. The Brooklyn-based music production company works with award-recording artists and offers composition, recording, mixing and mastering services. We learned about the growing startup scene in Connecticut. The Stamford Innovation Center was at Northside to connect with NYC startups. The Center supports Connecticut-based companies across many industries through events, classes, advisors, resources and workspace areas.
It was inspiring to see and connect with all these emerging companies at the show. I can’t wait to see how these companies grow over the next year.