Startup Little Hoots working with Today Show, Huffington Post
June 4, 2015 | Bobby Burch
Kansas City-based Little Hoots has scored two high-profile partnerships that are scoring its memory-saving app thousands of additional downloads.
The tech firm is working with the Today Show and the Huffington Post to provide snippets from its 
memory-keeping platform that captures youngsters’ memorable quotations to share with friends and family.
“Whenever they publish one of these Little Hoots articles we see anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 new downloads,” Little Hoots CEO Lacey Ellis said of Huffington Post and the Today Show. “It’s been great for awareness.”
Now available on iOS platforms, the Little Hoots app allows parents to memorialize their kiddos’ quotes, create a “memory tile” for it and then share the comment on Facebook or Instagram. More than 31,000 people have downloaded the app, Ellis said, and family members create up to 500 tiles per day on the platform.
The Today Show most recently featured Little Hoots, sharing such quotations as “Mom, my teeth were born to eat candy,” and “I wish I didn’t have to be born by you guys hugging naked.” Ellis said that Huffington Post Parents will sporadically display Little Hoots’ quotes in blog posts and other feature pieces.
The Little Hoots team is now raising funds to launch an Android version of its app, but it’s already encountering some local hurdles, Ellis said. She said that there’s a gap in Kansas City for the type of investment — seed capital — that Little Hoots needs to grow. The challenges are forcing the company to look for funds outside the Kansas City area.
“We’ve already made connections in Silicon Valley because the people we’ve talked to there seem to understand what we’re doing,” Ellis said. “They’re not as focused on revenue, but rather how we’re getting users and responding to a problem. They can see that vision more than anyone we’ve talked to (in Kansas City,) which is unfortunate because we really want it to be a Kansas City story.”
To learn more on Little Hoots, check out its platform here.
Featured Business
2015 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
Kansas company behind 1-800-GOT-JUNK? integrates home services into one portal (with just one payment)
Lenexa-headquartered Southwind hopes to ease the hassles of home ownership by launching a customizable, comprehensive service program, said Jeffery Anderson. The sprawling home services company — with brands like 1-800-GOT-JUNK? and MVP Heating, Cooling, and Electrical — recently introduced OneOS Home, which is an innovative platform designed to revolutionize how homeowners access and manage essential…
Mom’s ‘modern throwback’ dress collection celebrates girlhood, innocence of times past
Inspired by her five daughters, Joelle Smith created a dress line and online boutique she hopes captures the innocence, beauty, and whimsical spirit of young girls — even though hers are now grown. “When they were little girls, I loved watching them put on a dress and just light up and then twirl and play…
Midwest-made crossover artist charts solo success that eluded him when he was young
Sebastian James assumed until recently that his music career had already peaked, the hometown hit-maker shared. In 2011, the 18-year-old Riverside native and Park Hill South graduate started touring the country as the drummer for the Nigel Dupree Band, opening for bands like Korn and Stone Temple Pilots. But this year, at 30, he launched…
Early childhood isn’t a money maker, but can be a money breaker: ECJC initiative links lack of child care to business’ bottom lines
Access to safe and affordable child care is an issue that should concern everyone, Judy Bumpus acknowledged. Research indicates the current capacity to provide child care within the Kansas City metro is only 45 percent, according to the director of client services for the Kansas City Women’s Business Center, with 80,000 children still needing childcare…