For many startups, sending a product into beta is a milestone event. While it might seem harsh at times, the constructive criticism a company receives during the beta period will inevitably help the product be the best it can be. Here are a few LA startups that recently went into beta:
Divy’s iPhone app aims to connect people so they can learn the ins-and-outs of the stock market. In 2015, Divy interns lobbied the company for early access on their campuses, ultimately leading to the company distributing access codes to financial clubs and organizations at UCLA and UCSB. Since launching on May 1, beta users have begun diversifying their portfolios to take advantage of Divy’s fractional-share transaction model, allowing them to gain unprecedented access to the stock market.
The company is currently gathering feedback, releasing new beta versions of the app weekly and developing an Android version.
Santa Monica-based Digitizs' platform aims to help facilitate ticket payments for events, donation payments for nonprofits and rent payments for property managers. Headed by veteran entrepreneur Laura Wagner, the company has added PayPal’s first CFO David Jacques and Visa’s Linda Perry to create a veritable all star team.
"I was head of acquiring at Visa for 17 years," Perry said in a statement. "I am familiar with virtually every payment processor in the U.S., both large and small. Digitzs has the most disruptive platform and business model I've ever seen."
The company recently received an undisclosed amount in seed funding.
Bellinity recently launched an open live beta version of its site, which connects entertainment professionals with aspiring professionals. Originally conceived by model Chelsea Penner as a way to fight the exploitation she saw as her modeling career flourished, Bellinity allows celebrities and influencers to create training and mentoring sessions for users to bid on. Much of the credit for the beta launch is due to veteran QA professional Jaden Turner, who joined the team in early January 2015.
Poindexter aims to save startups time by streamlining the laborious process of producing financial projections. Founder Brandon Crossley, a veteran of a number of startup ventures, was shocked that the process was still as arduous as it had been several years ago.
“We thought building new business models should simply be a plug-and-play process, because laboring over equations in excel should be the last thing holding you back from determining the profitability of a new business idea,” said Crossley.
Having just launched their beta, Poindexter’s next steps involve getting feedback from early users to determine where to develop additional features, how to fine-tune the product and figuring out how the product can simplify the financial projection process.
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