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Illustration: Harry Campbell

BRILLIANT! JUMBO ENTREPRENEURS AND THEIR BIG IDEAS

GoodRx

BIG IDEA: Creating a website and iPhone app that makes comparison shopping for prescription drugs more efficient. GoodRx has compiled data on more than six hundred thousand prescription drugs. Users just type in their zip code and the drug they’re looking for and get back a range of prices from different vendors. Even those who have insurance can “easily shave twenty to eighty percent off the cost” of their prescription, wrote Hirsch on huffingtonpost.com.

STATUS: GoodRx, which is based in Santa Monica, California, has been up and running since February 2012, with a million-plus dollars in funding. The founders plan to raise more money by attracting advertising. goodrx.com

Roof for Two

BIG IDEA: Protecting motorcyclists and their passengers from inclement weather. The problem is especially vexing in places like India, where many people, unable to afford cars, rely on motorcycles for everyday transportation. During monsoon season, those travelers are routinely drenched, according to Randhawa, who has spent most of his life in New Delhi. Roof for Two would come to the rescue with a detachable, collapsible, portable plastic canopy called Rainrunner.

STATUS: Roof for Two got its start as a project for a class in entrepreneurial leadership at Tufts in the fall of 2010. It went on to win first place in the Tufts $100K Business Plan Competition in the spring of 2011. Then, in March 2012, Entrepreneur magazine singled it out as one of “five hot startups to watch.” Details of the product’s design remain under wraps, but a prototype—tested last summer at the end of Hurricane Irene—has proved durable enough. The team hopes to begin production in 2013. rooffortwo.com

Highlight Hunter

BIG IDEA: Helping people find the best parts of their videos quickly and easily, without having to sit through hours of footage. Highlight Hunter, a new Mac or PC app that works with any video camera, solves the problem in a “super simple way,” according to Spitzer-Williams. “As you record your adventures, you can bookmark the highlights by momentarily covering the camera lens when the highlight is over. Open Highlight Hunter on your computer and it creates a thirty-second highlight clip for each bookmarked moment.”

STATUS: Launched in February 2012, the app is available in a free version, as well as in a premium version ($29.99 after a thirty-day free trial) with perks like faster scanning speeds. highlighthunter.com

—BETH HORNING

 
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