How Engage Startups Are Innovating to Navigate the Coronavirus Crisis

In a crisis, most businesses switch to defense: creating a contingency plan, seeking support, and slimming down to the core business imperitives. But the core qualities that epitomize a startup — being agile, nimble, lightweight and clear-eyed — can allow early-stage companies to keep moving and even go on offense during the same period. In fact, many of today’s most successful tech companies were built during the 2008 Great Recession.

While this isn’t the case for everyone in our community, we have been inspired by the ingenuity and agility of several of our startups to create and discover new opportunities. These companies have gone outside their core businesses and used their expertise and technologies to tackle big, challenging issues such as retail safety, community hunger, and helping small businesses retain customers.

As the public health, economic, and social environment continues to evolve and shift, we remain hopeful that innovation and creativity will provide the solutions to fuel a lasting, sustainable, and successful recovery.

Bee Downtown: Providing A Virtual Beekeeping Experience For the Whole Family

Normally, springtime for The Bee Downtown team would mean a lot of work outside installing

corporate hives, doing tours, honey tastings, and more. Of course, none of that is possible in person right now.

So in two weeks, the BDT folks put together a strategy to bring beekeeping virtual, filming videos, creating webinars, e-learning courses, digital games and more to continue offering education, team bonding, leadership lessons, and more to their partners. The Bee Downtown HIVE launched this week.

The HIVE contains virtual hive tours, stories, recipes, and apiary lessons. For parents and kids stuck at home together, bee-themed arts & crafts and games provide activities. And the BDT Leadership Institute offers videos, podcasts, and lessons for biomimicry-based leadership training.

New users can access the HIVE here.

Deep North: Applying AI and Analytics to Social Distancing In Stores

Though essential businesses like grocery stores remain open during the coronavirus lockdown, they need to ensure that proper public health measures like 6-feet-apart social distancing is maintained for the safety of shoppers and their own employees. Non-essential retailers, which have been heavily impacted by the crisis, will need to adapt quickly and safely during the gradual re-opening period in order to survive.

Deep North, a video analytics technology that uses computer vision and AI based off of a physical location’s existing video infrastructure, has quickly created a tool specifically for this retail environment. The platform allows retailers to see store occupancy, line times, and traffic patterns in real-time to ensure safety and adherence to social distancing. It can even use computer vision-based depth perception to send alerts if shoppers or employees start coming within the 6 feet danger zone.

Outside the store, Deep North’s system can be employed to allow for curbside pickup, by detecting vehicles and alerting store associates to fulfill orders.

Goodr: Creating A Distributed Network to Feed the Homebound

Normally, Goodr offers companies, restaurants, and venues an on-demand food pickup tool to allow them to donate their surplus food — and thus obtain tax credits, cost savings, and better environmental scores — to local non-profits. But when Covid-19 hit, the team began hearing from individuals, particularly homebound seniors and low-income families with children, who were going hungry.

In addition to continuing to serve their corporate and restaurant clients, the B-Corp startup quickly introduced an emergency request pick-up for any business to donate surplus food, or for individuals to sponsor food deliveries. They were inundated with requests and soon ramped up to delivering boxes of food to 1,000 families a week.

Goodr is working directly with corporations to provide the funding for their delivery programs, focusing on seniors, low-income families, and healthcare workers on the frontline. They have also partnered with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to create a food delivery program specifically for veterans.

Throughout all of this, the company has continued its normal operations. Last month, Goodr and its clients diverted over 5,000 pounds of food.

Read more about Goodr’s impact during the Covid-19 crisis in this op-ed from CEO Jasmine Crowe.

Voxie: Helping Restaurants Reach Existing Customers With Better Messaging

Voxie’s AI-powered text message customer engagement was already helping brands like General Mills, Mars and Danone interact more authentically and effectively with consumers. So when it became apparent what the impact of Covid-19 would be on restaurants, CEO Bogdan Constantin immediately began testing the tool for restaurant proprietors.

Voxie’s new restaurant-specific marketing program lets food and beverage locations serving customers via pickup and delivery to connect with all past customers via texting. The platform pulls phone numbers through reservation services like OpenTable, etc. and helps customers order via phone, site or delivery app. And the number from which the text is sent can be routed directly to the restaurant’s front desk.

Initial results from the first few restaurants indicate a 98 percent text message open rate and over 50 percent click thru rate. Voxie has now expanded to working with several restaurant groups in the Atlanta area.

Potential customers can reach them on their website here.