Young Upstarts

For many brands, moms are a much desired target market. It’s also a very lucrative one – after all, they control around 85-percent of household spending, so it’s no surprise that entire businesses are created or geared towards that segment.

In fact, moms, especially those with young children, make decisions on kids’ products or activities each and every day. And many of those moms are searching on the Internet, comparing information and prices on those products or services that they constantly need. Enter New Jersey-based social commerce startup HashTip (www.hashtip.com), which uses a Pinterest pinboard-style format to help these moms make smart buying decisions by narrow down product choices, compare reviews and information, and find the best deals online.

HashTip users simply share tips about kids’ products or activities on Facebook and Twitter, tagging them with #tip (or “hash-tip”), or use a bookmarklet to add tips from anywhere on the Internet. The site automatically pulls relevant reviews and deals that have been reviewed by other moms for those tips. Moms can also organize and share tips by creating TipBooks in various categories or follow those of other moms (much like the “Boards” for Pinterest).

“Moms have always shared tips,” says Rohit Vashisht, CEO of HashTip. “But until HashTip, the recommendations they made and deals they found were getting lost because they were shared in one-on-one conversations within their immediate social circle. Now, moms can just tag or bookmark their tips from anywhere on the web, and HashTip automatically pulls the tips into a central, organized location, adding links to reviews and money-saving deals.”

HashTip was founded in March 2012.

Daniel Goh is the founder and chief editor of Young | Upstarts, as well as an F&B entrepreneur. Daniel has a background in public relations, and is interested in issues in entrepreneurship, small business, marketing, public relations and the online space. He can be reached at daniel [at] youngupstarts [dot] com.