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
CAPS Network selects first cohort for $951K initiative toward rural Kansas learning expansion
A significant U.S. Department of Education grant is expected to serve as a catalyst for CAPS Network’s ambitious plan to expand profession-based learning in rural America, with a particular focus on its home state of Kansas. Seven rural partner communities already have been selected. The federal funding came after impactful advocacy from U.S. Jerry Moran,…
KC Futures DAO aims to launch Kansas City’s first blockchain-driven innovation magnet
As the US races to catch up to Europe, Asia and the developing world with regard to crypto, blockchain and Web3 tech, can the careful creation of talent-attracting digital hubs help close the distance? Today’s global economy — and its hyper-competitive talent market — rightly sees rapidly advancing technology as a relentless force, said Troy Carlson,…
New summer pitch competition builds on KCMO capital programs’ early success; applications open now
A new pitch competition is expected to give impactful small businesses and startups an opportunity to gain broader exposure and win cash prizes as the city’s KC BizCare Office expands capital programs supporting entrepreneurs in Kansas City, Missouri. In late July, five selected business leaders are set to pitch their ideas to about 50 judges,…
Vytelle’s next expansion: A third IVF lab in Australia as startup scales reproductive solutions for beef, dairy farmers
A Lenexa-based agtech company’s 21st lab space is planned for Melbourne, Australia, as the global leader in bovine in vitro fertilization works to revolutionize the industry and give farmers unparalleled access to hormone-free IVF. The state-of-the-art facility — set to open later this year — will be Vytelle’s third lab in Australia following the opening…