Spriggle made its debut last week out of the NewMe Accelerator with the aim of building a new, super social way for parents to test out and shop for kids’ toys — by bringing the experience into in-home playdates that are already a way of life for so many families with young children.
Spriggle’s co-founders Susie Ye and Carolina Huaranca tell me it’s essentially a spin on the classic sales model associated with big brands such as Tupperware and Mary Kay cosmetics and, more recently, given more of a modern and tech-savvy spin with jewelry sales startup Stella & Dot.
Spriggle wants to focus especially on toys that stimulate thinking about math and science, and let people see how kids respond to the toys by testing them out in play dates hosted at parents’ homes. It’s a really clever idea, and could be very promising — the real trick is seeing how well it scales beyond tech-focused, relatively affluent, and densely populated regions such as Silicon Valley. But of course, focusing on those types of places alone can make for a very successful startup.
You can see Huaranca and Ye talk a bit about Spriggle in the video below:
Last week, seven startups launched out of the Fall 2012 class of the NewMe Accelerator, a startup incubator program for underrepresented minorities in the tech industry. NewMe is a residential program, meaning that the founders of the startups in each class all live together in the same house in San Francisco for 12 weeks, eating, sleeping, and breathing the tech startup lifestyle. Along the way they receive mentorship from some of Silicon Valley’s most respected people as they hone their company strategies.
We had six of the seven new NewMe companies stop by TechCrunch HQ to give us their quick pitches and talk a bit about NewMe and their plans going forward (one startup was tied up in investor meetings, so had to take a pass on the press — which is always a good thing!) In a series of posts going forward, we’ll give you a look at each one of these companies. You can find them all by going to TechCrunch.com/tag/NewMeFall2012.