3 Brooklyn ventures pitch at NYC TechCrunch demo night

No fewer than three startups presenting last Thursday at the TechCrunch judged tech venture event had Brooklyn ties. Vying for the chance to go on to present at their national TechCrunch Disrupt event series, entrepreneurs demoed to a panel of tech journalists, investors and successful entrepreneurs, on a stage usually reserved for rock bands. The M.C. for the night was Jordan Crook, a writer at TechCrunch who wasn’t afraid to tell the packed room at the Santos Party House to shut up.

Here are the three ventures that went up on stage from the County of Kings:

ShopDrop

This is an app that helps you keep an eye on sales at your favorite stores, including little boutiques, that similar apps don’t cover. Cory Bishop, who spoke on the startup’s behalf, had the tightest presentation and knew his market the best of anyone that night. The team is gathering data through a proprietary API. We’re following up with Bishop to discuss this aspect more.

The app simply tells you the cheapest stores to hit at that moment when you feel like going shopping. No coupons equals less friction. At least, ShopDrop thinks so.

Built in South Williamsburg, the app will release on iOS. The team is only big enough now to tag sales in New York City. Visit the site to get an announcement when the app goes live.

Famechanger

Half of the two-man team behind this celebrity-data site is Brooklyn based. Josh Weinberg, cofounder in charge of product, is a Williamsburg resident. He’s working with Dan Cohn, who did most of the presenting last night.

Famechanger hopes to work on several levels. It’s going to boil down news about your favorite celebrity, preventing redundancy, in a way that brought Argos to mind for us. It’s also going to measure a celebrity’s impact by measuring how much they are getting talked about online.

The judges did not like when they talked about gamifying this, but the game seemed less important than the fact that they are attempting to codify the trends of fame. That’s interesting, as evidenced by the fact that a PR pro in the audience got so jazzed about it that she managed to ask one of the very few questions permitted from the floor.

Potluck

Justin Gray presented on behalf of Potluck, an event planning service that helps organizers by creating a list of stuff needed for the party and letting guests sign up to bring those things. He described it as a “virtual party store.”

Your correspondent got a front row seat, so here’s a collage I made of all the presenters’ shoes, including Jordan Crook‘s and Derek Gottfrid‘s, VP of Product at Tumblr. See if you can guess which shoes went with the team pitching a hookup app. Go with the opposite of what your instincts would tell you.

The shoes of all the presenters, the host and her interviewee during the judge’s deliberations.

Jordan Crook interviewed Derek Gottfrid, Tumblr’s VP of Product, while judges deliberated backstage.