Market intelligence app wins $10,000 prize in SAPI-Pollenizer Hackathon

The developer of a market intelligence app has received $10,000 after winning the SAPI-Pollenizer Hackathon, and will also be enrolled in Pollenizer’s four-month incubation program.

Last month, Sydney-based start-up incubator Pollenizer announced it would team up with Sensis to host a two-day hackathon, with more than $50,000 worth of prizes and perks up for grabs.

The hackathon was held on March 24 and March 31, so teams had one week to work on their final product, which had to integrate the Sensis Application Processing Interface (API).

Sensis API, or SAPI, is a service for developers who are seeking a business search API solution for Yellow Pages and White Pages business listings and advertising content.

SAPI is aimed at anyone who wants to provide local business search capabilities within their web application. Sensis partnered with Pollenizer in a bid to promote SAPI, hence the hackathon.

The major prize was awarded to Eric Bae for his market intelligence app Locationally, which is already live on the market. Bae was awarded the $10,000 Pollenizer investment prize.

Bae beat 13 other teams to claim the prize which also includes enrolment in Pollenizer’s four-month incubation program.

Locationally offers detailed market intelligence for businesses by providing information about the most suitable retail locations, potential customers, competitors and support services.

For example, users can provide information about their ideal customer. The app will then reorder the data in line with the demographics requested and desirable suburbs.

It also provides a list of businesses in the area that users could potentially partner with, along with all the relevant support services that are nearby.

Bae was the only entrant in the hackathon who also participated and won a prize in the SAPI Android vs. iOS Hackathon, held last year.

“Locationally is designed to help prospective small businesses gain real market insight into where they should open, where their desirable customers are, and know where the competitors are,” Bae says.

“I believe Locationally fills a gap in the market… [With] the investment from Pollenizer and involvement in the incubator program, I’ve got a real chance to lift and launch this product.”

The other winners from the Hackathon included:

• DateNyt – $5000 best commercial concept prize. DateNyt is an app to find, submit and rate date itineraries tailored to the interests of the person the user is interested in.

• Yellow Fridge – $5000 best product execution prize. Yellow Fridge is a virtual fridge door directory of local businesses.

  It allows the user to bookmark things they like online, and to aggregate ratings from rating and review sources, resulting in a single score that helps users determine the best option.

• BarHop! is a platform for bars to create and manage time-limited offers and enable local customers to discover them.

Pollenizer co-founder Phil Morle says Pollenizer was highly impressed with the quality of the products presented at the hackathon, particularly Locationally, describing it as a “stellar” idea.

“We were also very impressed with the two guys behind the Yellow Fridge concept, so much so that we made an impromptu decision on the day to also award [developers] Nathan Waters and Tristan Grace with enrolment in our incubator program,” Morle says.

“All teams [developed] innovative and entrepreneurial concepts, and we look forward to seeing them as they hit the App Store.”