Betterific is looking for your suggestions. The D.C.-based digital suggestion box, which launched in December 2012 after spending three months in the
DreamIt Ventures accelerator in Philadelphia, gives consumers a voice and an outlet to share ideas they have to improve products and services.
CEO and co-founder Micha Weinblatt
was inducted April 3 into the 17th MindShare class, an exclusive networking group for owners of D.C. tech companies who want to network and grow their businesses.
Weinblatt says he was inspired to create the site while changing his bed one day. “I was putting the fitted sheet on the bed, and I said to my roommate, ‘Wouldn’t it be better if sheets had length and width indicators, so they’d be easier to put on a mattress?’" Weinblatt recalls. “I knew I wasn’t going to start a linen company, but consumer feedback was ripe for disruption."
The site created by Weinblatt and his two co-founders, Jonathan Schilit and Brad Cater, is fairly simple. Users create a login and are presented with a prompt: "Wouldn’t it be better if…" They finish the sentence, and the suggestion then appears on the site for other users to read, comment on and upvote.
"Every idea that is posted is tweeted at the relevant company," Weinblatt explains.
Currently, Betterific has partnered with Arby’s, Boloco (a Boston-based eatery that has one location in D.C. and one in Bethesda), and
Saxbys Coffee to solicit suggestions about their products on the site. Weinblatt says that Major League Baseball is piloting a program with the Washington Nationals through Betterific in the coming weeks, to give fans the opportunity to offer suggestions--not, Weinblatt quips, a platform for complaining about the players. “It’s about how to make the experience better.”