Real Food Works, Zokos and Applique present at November 2012 Philly Tech Meetup

Ilya Zatulovskiy demonstrated how to create an app using Applique software.

The networking inside Quorum at the Science Center in University City last week was par for the course for November’s Philly Tech Meetup, but this time there was food, samples from Real Food Works, one of the startup companies presenting.

Once the loud chatter of networking among the crowd, which was typified by people like Landsdale resident and web designer Peter Wjok and search engine marketer Sean Dawes from Northeast Philly, calmed, presentations fired up.

The three presentations featured one focusing on healthy meals, one on delivering food and an easy-to-use native app builder.

As is the custom, attendees networked during the first 30 minutes of Philly Tech Meetup.

Real Food Works

First up to present was Real Food Works, a company that delivers healthy meals – including lunch and dinner – to people once a week, which Technically Philly covered in July. The company, which provided the evening’s food samples, caters to people who want to eat healthy but don’t want to think about meal planning.

“We thought we could make eating healthier easier,” COO Mike Krupit said.

He explained that the business model is really what allows startups to be successful, but for his company, the food it provides also plays a huge roll in its success.

“The food really has to be magic for us to be successful,” Krupit said. “The technology is what enabled us to do it.”

Zokos

The second startup, Zokos, which Technically Philly covered back in May, offers event planning tools including food delivery service.

Brad Baer, co-founder of Zokos, described the company as similar to a music playlist creation service but for events. It offers a wide variety of services such as instructions to plan a Scotch Whiskey tasting event or instructions for throwing a New England lobster bake. Zokos will deliver live lobsters to customers for a party.

Zokos’ service provides the ability to crowdsource to fund events. Once people RSVP to an event, they have to chip in – either via Paypal or Wepay – the amount the party planner has chosen. The idea is that the host of the event doesn’t have to hustle to collect cash from their friends at the event and that the party doesn’t happen if the amount of funding needed isn’t reached.

Applique

Last up was Applique, a native application building service that is part of the current DreamIt Ventures class, which the presentation described as “easy to use as PowerPoint.”

During the short 10-minute presentation, CEO Ilya Zatulovskiy created a mock app for Philly Tech Meetup attendees.

“We call ourselves the WordPress for mobile,” he said. (That’s a claim not unlike one made by appRenaissance’s Artisan launch)

The idea is that while the program doesn’t just provide templates to create apps – which makes them all look very similar – you don’t need any web design skill to use Applique to create apps. Currently, Applique is only available to create apps for iOS devices, but Zatulovskiy said that it would be available for Android within the next six to 12 months.