I just returned from a trip to California, where I had one-on-one meetings with 14 tech startups in just over a day. Their products included a project-management app, e-mail marketing tool, widget maker, and PC database. The big unanswered question: Who needs them?

Monday morning started in Marina del Rey with a breakfast discussion about new PC database software from startup QD Technology. QD brought in a few early adopters and prospective customers to talk about the needs of heavy-duty data users who aren't always connected to the network. The company's read-only, compressed database can squeeze, say, 500 Gbytes of data down to a tenth of that size on a PC or laptop. The idea is to let business analysts and power users run fast queries against large data sets even when they're on the go.

From there, it was off to San Mateo and a visit to Salesforce.com's Appexchange incubator, which opened in the Spring in the former headquarters of Siebel Systems. Salesforce provides office space, a supportive "think like us" environment, and access to VC funding to entrepreneurs who want to write apps for hosting on Appexchange. Thirty-four early stage companies have signed on since the incubator launched six months ago. The appeal to emerging companies? Salesforce's fast growing customer base represents a ready-made market for their apps, and they can piggyback on Salesforce's IT infrastructure without having to invest in their own servers and software plumbing. The incubator is intended to be a year-long residency, not a permanent address. "Ideas come in, and companies go out," says Salesforce VP of corporate strategy Bruce Francis.

In two hours, I met five companies:

Dream Factory makes rich Internet apps for project management, presentations, document sharing, and other types of collaboration.

Ribbit develops software that integrates cell calls with Web-based Salesforce apps. It lets you, for example, attach a voice message from a sales prospect to a Salesforce "task" and store it for later playback.

Right90 provides a sales forecasting tool for manufacturing companies. The company, which had three customers a year ago, now has 17 (including electronics giant Sharp) since plugging into Appexchange.

StakeWare has an app that lets companies track their "social responsibility." A dashboard provides views of company performance in areas such as the environment and human rights.

Vertical Response enables e-mail marketing campaigns using your Salesforce contact list. Because such e-mail blasts tend to be smaller and between known parties, more messages get opened ("open" rates can be as high as 30%) and fewer get blocked as spam.

The next day, Tuesday, brought back-to-back video interviews for the premier of Startup City TV, which will appear on in the coming days. I squeezed in eight interviews before jumping on an afternoon flight back to New York. Read about them, and post comments on hot startups you've heard about, on my blog.

John Foley
jpfoley@cmp.com
www.informationweek.com

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