The other day, I decided to do a quick scan of the Chicago tech scene recognizing that the approaching spring season not only signals a change of our current weather patterns, but also announces movement on the start-up scene, as well. So, with that in mind, I ventured over to the Techstars website to take a look at their up-coming start-up events and demo days for 2020. I quickly learned that their next Chicago demo day showcase will be held on April 21, 2020, and will showcase 10 start-ups. After reviewing Techstars’ Chicago Accelerator Managing Director, Neal Sales-Griffin’s, post regarding those companies, I decided to write a quick post myself about the three names that I liked the most and one honorable mention.

Who doesn’t like a cool name like GoNanny that inspires its customer’s to action? I like this name because the name fits the services provided by this start-up. According to Neal Sales-Griffin, GoNanny is a B2B SaaS platform that is revolutionizing” the childcare industry. Sales identified two “distinct” products that are offered by the GoNanny team: (1) Care rides or “safe pickups and drop offs” by GoNanny staff; and (2) a specialized employee vetting system called “GoNanny Safe,” which  identifies “safe” childcare professionals. As I love the kids, and believe that child safety is of the highest priority, GoNanny gets my nod as my favorite name of the start-ups that will participate in Techstars Chicago 2020.

ReelCrafter is my second favorite name of the start-ups that will be showcased during the Techstars Chicago Demo. According to Sales-Griffin, “ReelCrafter” is an online platform where artists can “easily create personalized web pages to showcase” and display their work for potential employers. ReelCrafter will allow artists to share demo reels via custom web links and the artists can also track the listening activity for each shared link in their dashboard. The artists can also utilize the metrics from their dashboard to pull insights and other data to refine their pitch for each of their reels. I like this name a lot because of its generic-ness and ability to communicate a sense of what the service provides to its target market.

What can I say about the name, “Pairi?” It is a short and sweet! A made up name based off of the word “Pair.” When one understands what Pairi is all about it is easy to see how great a name Pairi is for a start-up that “makes it easy for freelancers to get booked through social media and manage their business on-the-go via text messaging.” Basically, Pairi pairs freelancers with the people or businesses that need their services; a very straight-forward process.

Finally, the honorable mention start-up name I like is Nutrisense because it is a blended name derived from the words: Nutrition and sense; blended or mash-up names are always cool in my book