“We came up with this idea because we wanted to make people’s daily lives simpler.”
By ARIEL SHAPIRAVAYYAR WON the Fast Pitch Contest that was held at the 20th Annual CEO Summit organized by the Consumer Technology Association last Wednesday in Tel Aviv.(photo credit: ARIEL SHAPIRA)
Pizzapo is an app that makes it easier to order a pizza to be delivered from your favorite neighborhood pizza place. It uses a simple technology that is not just innovative but offers great added value at a minimal price, which is perfect for small businesses.According to Mor Ben-Meir, who founded Pizzapo with Boaz Ron: “One of the ways this new app is so great is it makes ordering pizza so much easier and more fun. What you do is design the pizza exactly as you want it, for example, one pizza with olives and another with corn, plus a bottle of coke. Then the app automatically finds a few pizzerias near you and tells you how much your order will cost."“This makes it incredibly easy to compare prices, read reviews from people who’ve ordered from them in the past and come to a decision about which pizzeria you’d like to order from. You can also request kosher pizzerias only or places that also offer vegetarian options or gluten- free pizza, too.”“We came up with this idea because we wanted to make people’s daily lives simpler,” he said. “Our friends call us the Robin Hood of pizza. We came up with the idea for the app one night after it took us 20 minutes to find an app on which we could order a pizza."“We didn’t want to have to bother speaking with a person. In the end, Dominos was the only one with an app that worked, and so we ordered from them. But it was a very frustrating experience. That was the moment that we knew we had to figure out a better way to order pizza on a smartphone.”“The pizza delivery market in Israel totals NIS 600 million a year and is growing,” Meir said. “The larger chains control 20 percent of the market, but they bring in 60% of the revenue. We’d like to play a part in correcting this phenomenon and assisting small businesses to grow.”Pizzapo is currently available for Android, and an iOS version will be launched in the near future. Pizzapo is available for pizzerias in Tel Aviv, Kfar Saba, Ra’anana and Hod Hasharon, and it will be expanding to additional locations within Israel shortly.Vayyar The Global Electronics Industry Association and 100 senior executives chose Vayyar as the top winner in the Fast Pitch Contest that was held at the 20th Annual CEO Summit organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), which took place last Wednesday in Tel Aviv.The prize for winning is free booth space at next year’s CES show in Las Vegas. Vayyar is a start-up that can turn every smartphone into a full 3-D imaging-sensor system that makes it possible to see through objects.
CTA president and CEO Gary Shapiro congratulated Vayyar on their achievement, saying: “Israel is a hi-tech powerhouse and home to an incredible number of thriving start-ups, and as a result Tel Aviv was the logical location to hold this year’s CEO Summit. It was amazing to see the prodigious variety of innovative smartphone apps created by Israeli start-ups.”During the Fast Pitch Contest, each participant had four minutes to present their technology and then one additional minute to answer questions. Presenters were judged on the quality of their business model, likelihood of succeeding, whether their product met market needs, quality, design and engineering.Vayyar has developed a new generation of 3-D visualization sensors that are safe, portable and inexpensive. The sensors can see through skin and tissue to detect breast cancer, enable photographs to be taken and monitor vital signs.If you run a young start-up, have developed an interesting app or have a question, please feel free to contact info@social-wisdom.com.Translated by Hannah Hochner.