This week at the Kauffman Foundation, a dog toy company out of Springfield and a social data startup based in both San Francisco and Kansas City took center stage for 1 Million Cups.

Tether Tug

Tether Tug is an interactive dog toy that will help your dogs burn off lots of energy. The toy is made of a sturdy, but somewhat flexible pole that has a tug toy attached to the end. Stick the pole in a lawn, and dogs go to town without their humans needing to do much work.

Tether Tug has seen great success online and on social media. David Hayford, director of business development, said the startup has been able to reach many of its target customers on various Facebook groups and pages filled with devoted dog lovers. Thanks to a few product videos that were liked and shared over and over, they saw online sales skyrocket.

Hayford said one of Tether Tug’s biggest struggles has been figuring out how to ship the product. The poles are several feet tall and aren’t collapsable.

The company wants to continue to scale and is looking to start international sales this year.

SocialCapital

This social data company analyzes social and online communication of individuals, and then creates data-driven reports on online social behavior. This data helps companies find the best employees by analyzing their online and social behavior, and helps marketers get more insight into the behaviors of their customer base.

SocialCapital is a member of the Sprint Mobile Accelerator Class of 2016, and has been working closely with Pinsight Media on its social data.

Tope Alabi, SocialCapital’s co-founder, said the startup can analyze nearly anyone based on their social accounts. SocialCapital analyzed Mayor Sly James on Twitter, and found that he’s outgoing and energetic, and he values tradition.

While SocialCapital has an advanced psycholinguistic analytics system, the startup recognized that many people highly filter their online presence.
Looking forward, SocialCapital wants to reach more people and increase its personality profile base.