Filed under: business, savvy tools | Tags: sean gourley, women 2.0, younoodle
Younoodle is a San Francisco based start-up that claims to be able to predict the viability of newcompanies. Its meant to give venture capitalits and other investors a quick evaluation tool for assessing the potential of new companies seeking funding. They accomplish this with their Startup Predictor software. Companies fill out a lengthy questionnaire that assesses things like the experiences, qualifications, and contacts of the entrepreneurs who start the company, the relationships between members, and what kind of buzz already exists about them. The answers are run through a sophisticated algorithm and presto, they give your company a score out of 1000 and estimate your company’s valuation after 3 years.
The website doesn’t just serve investors either. It’s also set up as a social network for start-ups. Membership is free, but while signing up the users provide data about their companies that YouNoodle can use to refine its predictor algorithm.
Just last week, they took it a step further and released a new product called YouNoodle Scores that quantifies a company’s presence in the market. They partnered with Sean Gourley, a Rhodes Scholar from New Zealand that focuses on how collective intelligence works. He found that you could predict the nature, size and timing of a company’s breakout by looking at things like cultural patterns, news reports, blog posts, etc. Companies are given a score out of 100 and its tracked daily. For example, Craigslist and Facebook are both leading the pack at 98.
They’ve also partnered with Women 2.0 for the upcoming Pitch Night. Whichever company has the most followers by May 1st will win “the Big Noodle: Best Idea” prize. So, check out Savvy Tools’ profile and become one of our followers!
Rebecca_SF
Change is good, right? Well, we hope so, because a lot has been changing around here! For starters, we’ve gone from a group of 5 to 3. (One of the reasons we’re switching away from Five Non Blondes.) Jackie is focusing on family and promises to give us Cade updates now and then. Abbie is focusing on her design career and her family as well and we wish them both the absolute best. We’ll miss their input!
We’ve also been re-evaulating our place in the market given this somewhat “uncertain” economic climate and the lack of interest in new investments. We decided to give it one more big push and enter Women 2.0’s Pitch Night 2009. It’s a business plan competition and 5 startups will be chosen to pitch their idea to hundreds of investors at their annual event in May. Wish us luck!
Rebecca_ SF
Savvy Lifestyle 