Chosen by popular vote, NabeWise Media won $25,000 worth of online advertising on Inman News Tuesday. The consumer-facing, free neighborhood search tool garnered74, or 30.7 percent, of the 241 votes cast at the Real Estate Connect conference in New York City last week.
After hearing seven startups pitch their business plans in the conference’s "Start-Up Shoot-Out" competition, attendees voted for their favorite by text message. In addition to NabeWise, iPromote, Cloud CMA, PegShot, KWKLY Mobile Solutions, DeedStreet and Klout also competed.
NabeWise allows users to search neighborhoods by lifestyle — trendy, public transportation, families, etc. — and further narrows searches by median home price or rent.
"With NabeWise, people can finally understand what different neighborhoods are like so they can find the ones that are right for them," wrote Ann Baldinucci, the company’s founder and CEO, in an e-mail.
"Agents from around the world told us they were excited to have a simple and effective way to educate their clients about neighborhoods and to understand their clients’ preferences."
A panel of professional investors also weighed in and their top two picks, iPromote and Cloud CMA, will each get $2,500 worth of online advertising on Inman News.
IPromote is a pay-per-click, automated online advertising service that allows users to easily display ads on such highly trafficked sites as MSN, Yahoo and Facebook. …CONTINUED
Cloud CMA is an online report generator that augments multiple listing service data with information from top real estate-related sites, including neighborhood and demographic information. The company offers monthly subscriptions directly to agents or through site licenses with local MLS providers.
"We feel that those two ideas had the most merit. Each had a clear business model with clear revenue streams, a business-to-business model targeting brokers, and they were replacing or enhancing existing products," said Simon Baker, founder and CEO of Classified Ad Ventures.
While NabeWise launched the day of the pitch, iPromote and Cloud CMA had already demonstrated revenue, Baker added.
NabeWise currently covers New York City and San Francisco. Over the next year, the site will continue rolling out new cities and features, including a mobile application, neighborhood newsletters, and an application programming interface (API), Baldinucci said.
Winners have until Real Estate Connect in San Francisco, July 13-15, to use up their credits.
"We would have loved to take home the full $25,000 in advertising, but any amount is good when you are starting a new company," said Greg Robertson, co-founder of Cloud CMA.
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