Startups Will Pitch Products During Competition at Fenway Park

Photo via Bringrr

Three groups of local inventors will get the chance to pitch their products to industry professionals in a place that usually plays host to a different kind of pitching—Fenway Park.

This week, The Grommet, an online market place, announced the eight finalists picked to display their business prototypes and innovative ideas at the Second Annual Product Pitch Competition on March 20. Inventors will go before a panel of judges, which includes experts from Indiegogo, TechStars, and the Boston Design Museum, to try and take the top prize and get their idea out to market. Three of the eight finalists hail from Massachusetts, and are offering up products that they feel could provide a simple solution to people’s daily lives.

The winners of The Grommet’s competition will receive the chance to bring their unique inevntions to the public via the website’s expert product launch team. The finalists are separated into two categories—ready to fund, and ready to go to market.

Here’s who’s going up to bat to wow the judges and get their name out there:

Juneberry Bags
Invented by Natalie Goodale, Juneberry Bags are like the Transformers for carrying items. They can be converted from a shoulder bag, to a backpack, to a “cross-body” bag in a few quick physical adjustments. They also have interchangeable covers, so wearing the same bag twice in one week will be easily avoidable. Goodale, who group up in Central Massachusetts, creates all of the cover patterns for the bags and has a patent on the product in the works. The idea caters to both the hipster cyclist who wants a side bag, and the chic business person looking for something a bit more formal.

Bringrr and BringTags
Constantly leaving your phone at home by accident? Find yourself misplacing things around the house? The brains behind Bringrr say they have a simple solution—BringTags. Bringrr, created by Aldo Beqiraj and James Logan, recently raised $76,000 for their tagging system on Kickstarter. The concept of the system and tags is simple: For missing phones, it uses an alert system connected to your car, so that if you start to drive away without your device, you’ll get a notification. With the BringTags, however, users can tag and then locate anything from pets to a purse using the app on their phone. “BringTags turn anything—including your keys—into Bluetooth beacons, so you can easily find misplaced items,” the inventors said.

DECZ Rain Boots
Much like the Juneberry Bag, DECZ is letting women customize their daily attire by offering interchangeable patterns for their cold and rainy-weather apparel. DECZ rain boots are a patent-pending boot with a double layer design with a waterproof insert that can be switched up. “The idea for the product came to me as I walked through a shoe store. I noticed there were so many rain boots with different designs. I thought why not a single boot with multiple designs,” said Susan McCusker-Short, who invented DECZ. “This would be more economical and allow for creativity, as well as [unclutter] your closet.” She said the variety of patterns is unlimited, and can be swapped out to match outfits accordingly, which, in the end, could same customers some cash.