Maryland Startup: Beagle Takes Zaarly, On Craigslist And TaskRabbit On Campus

Beagle, a startup born at the University of Maryland, is quietly taking on the likes of Zaarly, Craigslist and TaskRabbit on college campuses. By offering the Beagle service only to college students with .edu email addresses they harness the power of the highly coveted college consumer.

Traditionally college students are often early adopters, and when they like something they share it on social media networks faster than others. It’s also only natural that Julian Capps, Philippe Azimzadeh, Asif Jamil and Adeel Khan the co-founders of Beagle were college students when they launched the service. In addition to the University of Maryland, Beagle is also available on the campuses of MIT, Harvard and Boston University.

With Beagle, students can order up simple, easy to do favors and other students are the ones who perform the errands for a little extra cash. Delivering a Starbucks, lending class notes, hitching a ride to the airport or home, running to get printer ink and many more little tasks that college students need to get done can happen using Beagle.

Capps says that Beagle being only available to college students makes it a bit safer than other services. Knowing that both users in a transaction need to be actual students means at least they were vetted in the college application process. Beagle also protects both users and forces feedback by holding onto the funds until both users have left feedback, an indicator that the errand has been done. Users can use cash if they prefer.

Beagle says that ease of use is what sets Beagle apart from the likes of other similar services. “There’s a quick, easy feel of the process,” Capps told our friends at Bostinnodescribing what sets Beagle apart from other companies like TaskRabbit, Zaarly, Peddl or Craigslist. “Quick and easy tasks is what it’s optimized for.”

Linkage:

Check out Beagle here

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Find Out Everything There Is To Know About Your Hood With Boston Startup BlockAvenue

Whether you’re a local history buff, looking to move somewhere new or just want to know what’s up with your block there’s a startup incubating at DogPatch Labs in Boston for you. That startup is called BlockAvenue and it’s going to be your one stop shop for anything and everything about your neighborhood.

BlockAvenue uses a number of ways to find out everything about your block. The startup utilizes geodata, local trends, local happenings and plain old crowd sourced information from your neighbors. This is valuable information for other neighbors, people thinking about visiting, and people thinking about moving to the neighborhood. Sure all of this information can be found on the net, but there’s not one single site that serves it up all together, and quite in the way BlockAvenue will.

We’re sure that BlockAvenue is going to be epic why? Because DogPatch Labs, a Polaris Ventures backed incubator, is also where great startups like Instagram and Apptopia grew up. In fact, BlockAvenue’s founder, serial entrepreneur Tony Longo wrote a blog post about what it’s like to incubate at the dogpatch check that out here.

Dogpatch just oozes startups. The building the Boston Dogpatch is in is One Cambridge Center which also happens to be the address for TechStars Boston. Not including the 13 startups in the current fall class at TechStars the building itself is home to over 50 startups, and is also the Microsoft office for the Cambridge area.

As for BlockAvenue, this is going to be an amazing resource for anyone that wants information on their neighborhood. More and more people are starting to have more civic pride on a hyperlocal level than ever before. They’re taking to other blogs, and social networks to share the kind of information you’ll find at BlockAvenue. Once there’s one place for all that information it will continue to grow as more people get engaged with the service.

We were able to break the BlockAvenue team away from the whiteboards, conference rooms, coding and ping-pong for a short little interview. Check it out below.

Boston TechStars Fall Session Kicks Off With 13 Startups

Fresh off the heels of a top 10 finish in the annual Kellogg accelerator rankings, TechStars Boston fall program is underway. TechStars Katie Rae made the official announcement via the TechStars blog yesterday.

This is the first time they’ve run a second class in the same year at their Boston location. Competition is tough in the north east for both the startups and the accelerators. Although they didn’t make it in the top 15 rankings startups in the north east also look to the MassChallenge program to hone their entrepreneurial skills.

We were actually very pleased that two startups we’ve covered here at nibletz.com made the TechStars cut. Boston based athlete to private coach connection platform, CoachUp has made it into the fall class. Michigan based FetchNotes , an incredibly easy to use, feature packed note taking app has also made it into this fall class.

TechStars is credited with just about writing the program for most of the cohort based startup accelerators across the country. Many of the other cohort based accelerators like Cincinnati’s Brandery , Greenville’s Iron Yard Labs , and even Nashville’s Jumpstart Foundry are part of the Global Accelerator Network. The Global Accelerator Network is an offshoot of TechStars, that for a short period of time, was called the TechStars Network.

Here is the entire list of all 13 startups from TechStars.com

BetterFit Technologies provides personalized medicine for everyone. betterfit.com

BookingMarkets lets small and large web sites connect travelers with unique places to stay around the world. bookingmarkets.com

CoachUp helps athletes achieve their full potential by connecting them with private coaches. coachup.com

At Fashion Project you can shop daily designer deals and clean out your closet for your favorite cause. fashionproject.com

Fetchnotes makes it easy to stay on top of what’s going on in your life and communicate with the people that matter to you. fetchnotes.com

ImpulseSave makes saving your money as easy and gratifying as spending it. impulsesave.com

Med2Bed connects hospitals and post-acute care facilities to improve patient outcomes. med-2-bed.com

NBD uses unique surface chemistry to harvest water from humidity. nbdnano.com

Ovuline helps couples conceive faster. ovuline.com

Saverr helps consumers save together. Connecting online and offline shopping. saverrapp.com

Wymsee is operating in stealth. wymsee.com

Zepppelin helps small businesses see what’s happening in their company by connecting their cloud applications and team in one place. zepppelin.com

Linkage:

Check out TechStars here

Source

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Uber Says F*ck You To Massachusetts Cease & Desist, For Now

Please before you fire off a hate mail telling us that Uber is based in San Francisco (The Valley) we know this already. Since Uber expanded outside of the Valley to “everywhere else” we’ve written about Uber on occasion. They are really great people, and each city office is a corporately owned office, they are actually run more like franchises. Their Washgton DC and New York office are really good to us (disclosure Uber likes what we’re doing on our road trip and supplies us with uber cards when we are in their cities. They care about the rest of “everywhere else” like we do)

Uber has been served with a cease and desist from the Division of Standards of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Division of Standards is using the National Institute of Standards and Technology as a vehicle to try and push their anti Uber agenda. Massachusetts contends that, because the National Institute of Standards and Technology doesn’t have guidelines in place for GPS location technology, Uber can’t legally operate in Boston.

Uber’s says in this blog post, that they’ve had their legal team go over this with a fine tooth comb and they feel that they are not in any kind of violation. As such they plan on continuing to operate in Boston, despite the Cease & Desist, as they have since October 2011.

The sedan hailing app service was recently under fire in Washington DC. On July 11th we reported that Washington DC area cabbies had solicited the help of Washington DC City Councilwoman Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3). Cheh has proposed legislation that would make the minimum fare for an Über ride $15 which is a five times higher than the minimum fare for a normal sanctioned district cab.

By the end of the day that had been squashed as locally based celebrities and even members of congress took to Twitter to defend Uber.

NBC’s Luke Russert took to Twitter to express his dismay:
“I’m willing to bet #DC cabbies after 12am will say, ‘cash only, no credit’ or claim that their credit machine ‘is broken.’” Russert tweeted earlier in the day.

He wasn’t alone, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) tweeted about the issue from his official Twitter handle @Jasoninthehouse, “Uber fans unite! D.C. Council wants to keep fares high. This is wrong! #UberDClove political website rollcall.com reported.

After that public outcry on Twitter Cheh removed the Uber portion of that Taxi bill.

For now Bostonians, fear not as Uber is still in service until the Division of Standards comes with a better argument.

Linkage:

Here’s Uber’s website

Here’s their blog post

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Boston Startup: HoursForEquity An Alternative Jobs Social Network INTERVIEW

Let’s face it, in the earliest stage of a startup many founders are looking for co-founders, and other team members that will work for equity rather than an actual paycheck. It’s a gamble for the employee, if the startup doesn’t get off the ground, all that hard work may not have paid off. On the other hand, if the startup catches on fire like say, Instagram, you may have just earned seven figures for six months of coding.

Finding workers, co-founders, designers,engineers etc, that are willing to work for equity is a challenge in itself. Some workers feel that working for equity is like volunteering, and with the statistics for startup success as low as they are it’s definitely a gamble. Some founders don’t like to advertise that they are looking for equity workers, and they don’t necessarily know how to find them.

That’s where Boston startup HoursForEquity comes in. HoursForEquity is exactly what the name suggests, it’s a web portal connecting folks that are willing to work for equity, to those willing to give up equity for their work.

Bill Lott, co-founder of HoursForEquity tells us that their platform allows employers and founders to search a database of local, national and global people willing to work for equity. This way you can find the perfect team with the skills you need to succeed.

We got a chance to interview Lott about HoursForEquity. Check out the interview below:

Could Social Discovery Get Any Easier? Boston Startup Tagzidy Says Yes INTERVIEW

If you’re a long time reader of nibletz.com the voice of startups “everywhere else” then you are well aware of how we feel about social discovery startups. To get coverage here on nibletz, you need to “bring it” if you’re in the social discovery space. SXSWi 2012 was all about social discovery, and since then, hundreds have tried to do something in the space.

Tagzidy, a New York startup, has created a social discovery platform that is extremely easy. In fact, if you allow it to, Tagzidy will help you discover people with like interests, wherever you are, and you don’t even need to take your phone out of your pocket.

Tagzidy has a couple of unique components. You can tag and be tagged by people you don’t even know when you’re in close proximity to them (again with your permission). If you’re already linked up with that person your experience is gamified with trophies, points and other nifty stuff.

One of the really exciting features about Tagzidy is it may even be the replacement for business cards that Florida startup Fethr is hoping to be, without any button pushing, or taking out your phone.

We got a chance to interview Daniel McCarthy the co-founder of Tagzidy, who does an exceptional job of describing his startup in the interview below:

Boston Startup: Prospective Plus Wants To Give You More Prospective On Your Job Applicants INTERVIEW

Finding the best job applicants seems to be getting harder and harder every year. The applicant pool gets bigger every year and normal application/resume hiring practices aren’t providing enough background to possible employers in just about every situation. This is the pain point that Phoebe Farber and her team at Prospective Plus are hoping to solve.

Through their SaaS platform which targets entry level candidates, Prospective Plus is carving out a niche in the employment world by providing more robust feedback for candidates.

Prospective Plus calls their approach “Culture Fit” and it’s a holistic approach to applicant screening that provides recruiters and HR professionals with more well rounded information about prospective employees (hence the name).

We got a chance to interview Prospective Plus. Check out the interview below:

Boston Startup: DraftKings Raises $1.4 Million Dollars For Their Fantasy Sports Platform

If you’re into fantasy sports for real money you may want to check out DraftKings if you haven’t already. The hot Boston startup just raised $1.4 million dollars in venture capital to expand their marketing efforts and beyond Major League Baseball. They plan to add football, basketball and ice hockey to their already lucrative sports gaming business.

The legal, money betting fantasy sports startup offers same day settlement of cash prizes. They operate in 44 states excluding: Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Montana and Vermont where it’s not legal to participate in online “gambling”.

The $1.4 million dollar seed round was led by Atlas Venture. Boston Seed Capital, Hub Angels, Angel Street Capital and other private investors also participated in the round.

Thirty-two million people play fantasy sports in the US and Canada, and two-thirds of all fantasy sports leagues involve fees and payouts that are typically managed offline by a designated member of the league. DraftKings simplifies the process by handling financial transactions through its site while collecting a commission on every stakes game.

“While fantasy sports have been around for 50 years, online daily fantasy sports is much younger and growing rapidly. The sector is ripe for innovation via an analytical approach to marketing and customer relationship management,” said Jason Robins, DraftKings CEO and co-founder.

“There’s an opportunity for a daily fantasy sports platform to dominate the current field,” said Ryan Moore, partner at Atlas Venture. “With a deep understanding of successful gaming franchises, and expertise in customer acquisition and retention, the team at DraftKings has the potential to quickly achieve the top position in this market.”

Sports fans are flocking to DraftKings because they’ve cut away some of the fat associated with other fantasy sports sites. This way DraftKings can focus on players’ favorite aspects of fantasy gaming:

1. Daily fantasy sports games. No more season long commitments.

2. A community at the ready to play. No more hustling to round up a league.

3. On demand draft. Players can pick a new team whenever they choose, which is much more fun than scrounging to substitute mid-season.

4. Players are never “out of contention”. No more going an entire season with a poorly performing team. Engagement remains high for the duration.

5. Daily payouts. For those games involving financial stakes, players can collect immediately.

6. Onsite settlement. DraftKings handles the transactions and distribution of proceeds, freeing up precious administrative time.

“Playing fantasy sports should be fun and easy. Our approach is data-driven, but those themes underlay every customer-facing decision we make,” said Matt Kalish, COO and co-founder.

Linkage:

Check out DraftKings here at draftkings.com

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Boston Startups Get Ready TechCocktail Is Back July 17th

TechCocktail events are great. We recently attended the TechCocktail event that was part of TechWeek in Chicago. We also went to one of their speaker series events two months ago in Washington DC. Aside from Cameron and I getting locked on the first floor, it was fun times to be had by all.

TechCocktail is headed back to Boston Massachusetts on Tuesday July 17th for a fun filled evening of networking, startup pitches, and of course with a name like TechCocktail, libations.

If you’ve never been to a TechCocktail event it’s a great time to hear about the best new up and coming tech startups and mingle with other tech entrepreneurs.

Here are the details:

Tuesday July 17th 6:30pm-9:00pm

Microsoft New England Research & Development Center
One Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA

Get your ticket here

Linkage:

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Boston Startup: Ministry Of Supply Gunning For Kickstarter Fashion Award

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer could really benefit from Ministry of Supply's shirts

A new Boston startup called Ministry of Supply is looking to break the fashion category fundraising record on crowdfunding site Kickstarter. The current record is held by a company called Flint & Tinder that makes men’s underwear. They were able to break the fashion record by raising $291,493 back in May.

At the time this story was written (late Friday evening) the Boston startup that uses space suit technology to manage moisture, sweatstains and odor, in dress shirts, had raised nearly $275,000. The best part of this story is that their initial goal was just $30,000. In what’s becoming a trend now for Kickstarter projects, Ministry of Supply quickly blew through that goal.

“After we got the word out about the Kickstarter campaign through the help of friends and family sharing the news through social media outlets, we then saw the Kickstarter community really start to embrace us,” Ministry of Supply co-founder Kevin Rustagi told the Boston Business Journal

Ministry of Supply’s Apollo shirt is sweat free and will save many business people the embarrassment of odors and big sweat stains in meetings and around the office. The Apollo shirt will come in real handy in the heatwaves we’ve been experiencing across the country.

The company’s Kickstarter campaign goes until Wednesday so it looks like they should have no problem reaching the number 1 spot, and raising close to, if not more than $300,000.

Ministry of Supply is currently working hard on their e-commerce platform and opening a brick and mortar location which will contain a showroom as well as their offices. The Boston Business Journal reports that Ministry of Supply will also participate in MassChallenge this summer.

Links, we’ve got em:

Check out Ministry of Supply here

Get in on their Kickstarter project here

Source: Boston Business Journal

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Boston Startup: Abroad101 Moves Out Of The Nest INTERVIEW

Back in April we reported on an innovative EdTech startup in Boston called Abroad101. Abroad101 is like a travelocity of sorts for those students looking to study abroad.

Abroad 101 allows users to review just about every aspect of a study abroad program. With the real feedback from students who’ve been through the study abroad programs, you can find out how the teaching staff and curriculum are, how the shopping in the city is, how the nightlife is and even if it’s safe to walk from the car to the classroom by yourself at night. The idea behind Abroad101 was an untapped space and the Boston company and MassChallenge graduate are doing a great job of filling it.

So great in fact, it’s time to leave the safety and security of the MassChallenge nest and branch out on their own.

We got to talk with the guys from Abroad101 about just that, see the quick interview below the break

Boston Startup: Toursphere Your No Hassle App Tour Guide

Ed Gandia of Atlanta, nailed it on the head when talking about Toursphere’s Boston Tourguide app to the Boston Herald. Gandia said “In tours there’s always that annoying person in the crowd asking too many questions.

The other part of that is there’s always that person in the tour, besides the guide, that seems to know everything about the location, buddy either get a job as a tour guide or GTFO.

Those are just some of the problems that South Boston based startup, Toursphere, is solving. Toursphere is exactly what you’re thinking an app that takes you on a tour, in this case in Boston Massachusetts. Toursphere’s Boston Insider’s tour takes tourists on a tour of historic downtown Boston by some of Boston’s notable celebrities like Dicky Barrett of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Author Michael Patrick MacDonald has also gotten into the narration for Toursphere.

Tour apps are getting heavily criticized in most cities that use them. People seem to think they have no personality and are dull and mundane. That’s not necessarily the case with Toursphere.

While some appreciate a chummy tour guide who’s hitting you over the head with barely funny jokes and “charming” personality, others think that app guided tours are great.

One of the main benefits to an app guided tour is the ability to go at your own pace. I mean imagine taking a tour down Beacon street and deciding that you want to try some cute little coffee shop, or cupcake shop, and you want to do it now. The tour guide isn’t going to stop, however you can always resume the tour later.

Admittedly, Toursphere isn’t for everybody, however people in other cities are flocking to Toursphere and founder/CEO Rob Pyles. Pyles has created an electronic system where other companies can create their own tour guide apps easily. That system has already been implemented in Chicago, Miami, New Orleans and Washington DC as well as other major cities.

I travel a lot and at sporadic times. I also don’t like having to fork over $40 for a tour and then have to tip the guy. I’m more of a tour at my own pace kind of guy, so Toursphere would definitely work for me. Pyles has developed a monthly subscription rate for businesses that utilize the tour app, making it free for the user. Free is good. Boston is all about Free-Dom you know that Tea and all that, yeah you can hear more about that on the tour.

Linkage:

Find out more about Toursphere here

Source: Boston Herald

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Boston Startup: PingUp, Text Messaging Businesses INTERVIEW

When Boston startup PingUp, co-founder and CEO Mark Slater was onhold for an ungodly amount of time with his cable company for a two minute conversation a lightbulb went off in his head. He thought to himself, “wouldn’t it be great if I could text the cable company”. That’s where the idea for Pingup came from, as we’ll learn in just a few minutes in our interview below.

Imagine the ability to text in a tee time at your favorite golf course, or text the auto shop to see if your cars done. Now there’s no need for waiting on hold forever or miss-communicating information with a third party in trying to find out basic information.

Imagine if you could text the restaurant to say you’re running five minutes late. Maybe you would want to text your favorite clothing store to see if they have the pants you love in your size.

None of these elements of conversation take more than a minute on the phone, and even less time via text message. While some people I know don’t get the inherent idea about why texting is such a great method of communication for business, it is.

Texting has become such a natural way of life and as millennials pour into the work force a shift will come and texting will continue to trump actually talking on the phone. Sure people rather hear voices for context in some situations but, “do you have the new jordans in a size 12” doesn’t really require much for context.

All of this is why PingUp will most likely do great. Check out our interview with Pingup below the break.

Boston Startup: SCVNGR Announces $12M Round For LevelUp Expansion

Boston location based scavenger startup SCVNGR has secured another $12 million in funding. This time it’s to roll out their payment platform LevelUp on a national level. LevelUp is currently in 8 US cities and plans to rollout nation wide.

“This is a new round of preferred stock that will be left open for 1-2 more large strategic partners to join,” SCVNGR founder Seth Priebatsch said in an email to the Boston Business Journal. “We’re already in late-stage conversations with them — just haven’t officially closed on their funds yet.”

LevelUp is a gamified, deals based mobile payment system that connects to a users current credit or debit card. The user gets a discount by using the LevelUp app the first time at a merchant and can earn more discounts by continuing to pay with LevelUp.

LevelUp is currently supported at 3,000 locations in their 8 states including national hamburger chain Johnny Rockets. They have nearly $200,000 users and are paint $2 million dollars per month through the service. Towering the adaption of services like Google Wallet.

LevelUp is currently available in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego and Chicago. SCVNGR will use the investment to add 40 people to their sales team and add more exciting merchants across more cities.

Linkage:

Check out LevelUp here at their website

Here’s LevelUp’s iTunes page

LevelUp in the Google Play Store

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