One more idea that an entrepreneur thinks is A Better Idea has received funding through Start Garden, the $15,000,000 seed fund that selects an individual idea each week to receive a $5,000 investment, based on endorsements from the public and the Start Garden team.
StartGarden an unconventional venture capital fund that invests in over a hundred ideas a year in small increments. The program brings financial, intellectual and social capital to ideas at the earliest stage by connecting them to the resources of an entire region.
It is founded by Rick DeVos whose past projects included ArtPrize, 5x5 Night, Momentum and Spout.com.
The latest to get the $5,000 check from this idea incubator in downtown Grand Rapids is SideSpark (strt.gd/x0iM), which is designed to be a better way for you to browse your interests on the internet.
Jordan Rajewski, the creator of SideSpark said it is a “personalized way” for you to find what you are really interested in and for others to find you.
How? This could be the rub if you are the kind of person who worries about the NSA. You have to reveal more about yourself than you may have ever revealed.
You would be required to take tests and surveys to build your profile. So, you would be setting up a profile that reveals the real you, not the you, you imagine yourself to be.
From there, SideSpark supplies you with a feed of content from the internet that matches your interests, along with a new way of social networking based on matching you with like other minded people.
Rajewski, founder of SideSpark, will use the $5,000 investment from Start Garden to finish the SideSpark demo and consequently bring on a back end developer to connect his planned system with the site.
“A large part of SideSpark is getting to know our user’s interests and recommending products such as clothes, jewelry, event tickets, music, accessories, movies, books, games etc. that they might be interested in,” Said Rajewski “We differentiate ourselves from any other personalized site because we built an entire social platform around it.”
So, you might be worried about SideSpark if you are concerned about revealing too much about yourself. But, on the upside, if you do go with it, you would find other paranoiacs like yourself, who push back hard enough against the wall of their fears to get involved.
Here’s how StartGarden works:
SideSpark was selected through the endorsement of the public and selection of the Start Garden team. The Start Garden management team accepts submissions through startgarden.com. Ideas with potential to become businesses can be submitted. Start Garden can continue to invest up to $500,000 in a single idea. Learn more about submission criteria at startgarden.com/help/criteria.
The next round of $5,000 investments will be announced Thursday, April 24, after the noon deadline. The next Update Night is Thursday, April 24.
Learn more about Start Garden events at startgarden.com/events.
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