DC Mayor Vincent Gray Celebrates, Speek, DC Tech and 1776

“I think I’ve been here every week since it opened,” DC Mayor Vincent Gray told a standing room only crowd at the Speek launch and thank you party held at 1776DC on Friday evening. Gray and Newark Mayor Cory Booker are two politicians very friendly to startups.

Gray and his constituents working on DC’s economic development were instrumental in helping 1776DC secure their prime real estate at 1133 15th Street in Northwest Washington. The center, directed by Donna Harris and Evan Burfield, is the epicenter of startups in DC and the go-to place for some great startup events and parties. “1776 sure knows how to throw a party,” Gray told the audience.

“We’ve got it down to a science,” Burfield told us in regards to flipping the space from mega co-working to a great place to party. Walls, desks, and even mock windows are all on wheels which makes the space customizable for anything from hackathons (Angel Hack is being held there this weekend) to small strategy meetings, to parties with upwards of 500.

And that’s exactly what happened Friday evening.

As for Gray, the very active mayor arrived early and stayed late, making sure to speak with anyone who wanted his attention. Gray, who proudly sported a 1776 DC Tshirt at SXSW earlier this year, was enthusiastic about everything having to do with DC startups.

“There were 75 startups knocking at the door when 1776 opened,” Gray told the crowd during his official remarks. Burfield quickly piped up to announce that the final number of startups at launch, a little over a month ago, was actually 103.

Gray said that for DC to continue in the right direction they need to reinvent the economy and startups play a big part of that. Gray said that over 600,000 people live in the district and he wants more to live, play, and work in our nation’s capital.

Gray was very enthusiastic about Speek, the gamechanging technology that is making conference calls easier. Gray told Nibletz that his job dictates that he’s always on conference calls. In our informal conversation Gray was able to cite details about 1776 and startups (by name) without a crib sheet. Gray also mentioned the dedication of DC entrepreneurs to their companies and their city, laughing about the dedication of Speek’s co-founders and this tattoo stunt from SXSW.

As you’ll see in the video, the Mayor of DC is also the Mayor of DCTech and as such, a very enthusiastic cheerleader for all DC startups.

DC’s Free & Easy Conference Call Startup Speek Throwing Free And Easy Mega Launch Party

A Friday night party at 1776 will be a who’s who of the startup world. Evite co-founder John Bracken and the legendary Danny Boice, the founders of Speek.com, are throwing their official launch party.

Speek eliminates long dial in numbers, bridge codes, and awful elevator music for conference calls. To use the Speek platform to conference call somebody, you just go to their Speek page and click one button. For example, if you wanted to conference call me you would just go to speek.com/kyle.

Speek went into beta last summer and has been iterating over the course of the last year. They’ve added robust mobile apps and packed the website with easy-to-use and easy-to-understand features.

Boice is a party animal, diehard tech guy, and a startup aficionado. In fact, he spoke at Everywhereelse.co with a great talk called “You Only Launch Once”. We next saw him at SXSW in Austin, Texas. As part of his speed pitch he said that if Speek got the most votes in a pitch contest, the slightly more reserved Bracken would get a tattoo of their monkey logo on his ass. Needless to say they won and Bracken got the tattoo.

So to celebrate their official launch, Speek is hosting the launch party of all launch parties at 1776 in DC. Because Speek and the DC tech scene are so intertwined with the fine folks at Startup America, this party will include dueling pianos (will Scott Case be back from Seattle?). In addition there will be an open bar, raffles and giveaways. The picture above is the temporary tattoos of the Speek Monkey that you can put on your ass, to match Bracken’s which it doesn’t come off.

The party starts at 8pm on the campus of 1776: 1133, 15th Street NW, 12th Floor, Washington DC 20005. It’s free, all you have to do is register here.

Exhilarator Founder, Michael Goldstein on: Beating The Startup Odds

Michael Goldstein, Exhilirator, DC Tech,DC startups

(photo: bizjournals.com)

Michael Goldstein is the founder ofExhilarator, a startup accelerator that helps consumer Internet startups get traction and funding. He is a serial entrepreneur with 15 years of experience focused on e-commerce, online content, and subscription businesses. Michael’s passion is for growing startups, and he has been involved with multiple startup businesses as an advisor and mentor

The old formula for startup success is out. Instead of the traditional plan-pitch-present-sell method, successful startups increasingly use a more straightforward sink-or-swim approach. These entrepreneurs jump in right away with their ideas to test them with customers.

Many entrepreneurs take a more conservative approach to building their startups, believing an extensive business plan increases their chance of success. They develop a business plan and look for financing. Once their plan has been vetted by investors, they put together a team, introduce a product, and only then begin selling their product.

A business plan created without any real data or feedback from customers is ineffective. Moreover, this approach can take months or even years to go from idea to product. Meanwhile, technology races ahead.

The best path a startup can take is creating value for its customers as quickly as possible. Once you’ve developed a minimum viable product, you can use feedback to determine your startup’s business plan. A startup needs powerful internal motivation to get moving before external momentum kicks in.

Building a Lean Approach

Here are a few ways to increase your chance of survival in the startup world:

1. Create value. Prioritize value first, then revenue. Increasing the worth of services or products means creating something your customers need and want. People will appreciate you offering something truly valuable to them — and they’ll invest in it.

2. Get to revenue. Revenue follows value. Building revenue buys you time to come up with a good business model. The success of your startup depends on making money from your idea. Use your startup’s first steps to take your product to your customers.

3. Stay slim. Keep your startup’s business as lean as possible. It’s important to stay focused on a few high-value products, rather than many lower-value ones. We use leanlaunchlab.com, an online canvas with tools and advice for startups.

4. Find expert help. Good mentors significantly reduce the learning curve for startups. Mitigate risk by seeking guidance from more experienced entrepreneurs. Now, more than ever, experienced, successful people are willing to share their knowledge. Seek out a referral from someone you trust or leverage online resources to make connections.

5. Pay attention to details. Taxes, insurance, and compliance issues can quickly sink a business if they’re ignored. Be sure your startup has a business license, pays appropriate taxes, and buys adequate insurance coverage. These seemingly small issues can become costly if left unaddressed.

Breathing Life into a Struggling Startup

If you’ve already taken the business plan approach and are experiencing problems, don’t be discouraged. You’re never too far along to be unable to stop and take stock of your options. A great idea may need to be reworked, tweaked, or improved. If you find yourself in a rut, here are some ideas to get your startup back on track:

Regroup. Plan an offsite meeting with your team. Getting out of the office to focus on the bumps will invigorate your business and get new ideas flowing.

Ask your customers. Your product, delivery, or brand may need a readjustment. Survey target or current buyers to find out what they want and how you can improve. Sites like surveymonkey.com make this task easy and inexpensive.

Seek outside advice. Find an advisor. A more experienced entrepreneur or mentor will seek guidance to get things back on track.

Value, Revenue, Growth

The chances of success for any startup are slim. Research by Harvard Business School academics found recently that 75 percent of all new startups fail.

Those entrepreneurs who take the typical business plan approach may not be ready to jump in all the way. Entrepreneurs who work from a lean startup plan to create momentum have a higher likelihood of survival because their flexibility allows them to meet the ever-changing needs of their customers.

Not everyone is meant to be an entrepreneur. If you find yourself among those brave people who are passionate about an idea and can tolerate the rollercoaster of risk, be sure you’re keeping your priorities in order: value, revenue, and growth.

Michael Goldstein is the founder of Exhilarator, a startup accelerator that helps consumer Internet startups get traction and funding. He is a serial entrepreneur with 15 years of experience focused on e-commerce, online content, and subscription businesses. Michael’s passion is for growing startups, and he has been involved with multiple startup businesses as an advisor and mentor. Connect with Michael onTwitter andGoogle+. Because this article was published, one book will be donated to Reading Is Fundamental.

DC startup Speek, the easiest way to conference, comes out of beta.

DC Startup Speek, The Easiest Way To Conference, Comes Out Of Beta

We’ve been reporting on Speek, the easiest way to conference call, since we saw co-founder John Bracken pitch at TechBuzz in Washington DC last May. If Bracken’s name sounds familiar it’s because he was also a co-founder of e-vite, the easiest way to invite people to an event, which was the precursor to things like Eventbrite and Facebook events.

We quickly hopped on board the Speek train as soon as the beta was ready. In fact I was such an early user that my Speek page is http://speek.com/kyle. This URL allows anyone to conference call me anytime, on the fly and without the use of long, hard to remember toll free numbers, pin numbers and crappy elevator music.

How it works:

1. Head to speek.com
2. register your preferred username (it’s free)
3. direct people who want to conference call you to go to your speek.com page and click the button

It’s that easy. You can also use Speek as a way to give people access to you by phone without having to reveal your number. Speek’s mobile apps deliver the same easy to conference functionality in the palm of your hand.

While UberConference was the winner of the TechCrunch Disrupt battlefield last year at TechCrunch Disrupt NY, we stil found Speek to be easier to use, and much more intuitive. We got to interview the 500 startups backed, Speek team last year as well.

Now Speek is ready to come out of beta. Their official launch is coming with a new app, new ux, new design, new features, pay wall, webrtc client for VOIP and much more. They’ve seen growth double in every key metric every two months since launching in beta. Not only that but along the way Speek’s other cofounder Danny Boice, pitched their startup at SXSW this year on the Tech Cocktail stage, resulting in Bracken getting the Speek monkey tatooed on his ass.

Both Bracken and Boice are diehard startup guys. Boice even spoke at the inaugural everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, delivering a talk he called “You Only Launch Once” (YOLO).

We’re excited to be joining Speek in two weeks at their official launch party in Washington DC. In the meantime we highly suggest that you get over to speek.com and start using the easiest way to conference.

We’ve been tracking Speek since the beginning.

Top 5 Reasons Startup Founders Blow Through Money

There’s a lot of reasons why companies don’t make it, and sometimes it’s not that the idea or product isn’t good — it’s just that you run out of money. Even though we know that blowing through money is a “bad” thing, I’ve been talking a lot with founders and investors about what “bad” means. What have they noticed as common themes when they sit down with founders that exhausted their money too quickly at the seed stage? So here are the top 5 reasons startup founders blow through money.

Let me know your thoughts and if this aligns with what you’ve personally seen. What have you regretted spending money on, or what do you roll your eyes at as an investor?

1. “I have a business meeting in Thailand!”

We all know these founders. They travel somewhere new every week. Their meetings take them around the world–frequently. They are always tired and busy from travelling, and they make sure to check-in at every luxurious hotel they stay at.

Why this fails: The desire to pre-maturely live a life of luxury through funding raised for business development extends to other poor choices. It goes — fast.

Understanding this entrepreneur: Typically extroverted and commands control of the room. Works efficiently on little sleep and cares a lot about appearances.

Can benefit by: Making sure that meetings are efficiently scheduled. One entrepreneur told me they combat this by making a “day trip” rule. If the meeting is important enough to fly for the day and return, it’s a go. It helped this entrepreneur cut down on meetings that could be conducted via phone without sacrificing quality.

2. “That’s way too expensive!”

This is another extreme–founders that don’t want to spend anything and opt for cheap solutions…cheap everything. This sends bad signals to clients and investors and often costs the entrepreneur more in the form of lost opportunities.

Why this fails: Some founders are very conservative. They need money in the bank–a cushion. They are risk takers with anxiety and they want to ensure that they get the results that they need for the next raise.

Understanding this entrepreneur: Typically introverted and mathematical. Usually overly conservative in their predictions.

Can benefit by: Giving up some control and working with investors and advisors to create healthy budgets.

3. “It’s a marketing spend!”

We all enjoy celebrating successes of startups for special launches or funding announcements. Sometimes startups plan evenings with open bars and chalk it up to a good use of marketing dollars. Chances are this isn’t the best use. Same can be said for overly-spending on trade shows, fancy promotional videos, or sponsoring an event before the time is right.

Why this fails: Marketing is extremely important, but many startups will exhaust their “marketing spend” without focusing on basic things first — like establishing a healthy blog presence, or discovering ways to become “experts” in a topic by speaking at conferences. If you’re spending money on marketing and you don’t have a blog, you’re doing it backwards.

Understanding this entrepreneur: Typically extroverted and creative and full of ideas. Too focused on big picture instead of steps to get there.

Can benefit by: Forcing themselves to write plans about their spends. Marketing is about ROI, so if you are planning on spending money you need to know what a worthwhile conversion will be for you. Are you looking for customers, users, app downloads? What result will make you happy?

4. “We’re going to hire salespeople!”

A great mentor told me that you only need one salesperson. She didn’t mean literally one – but she meant that you, as a founder, need to be able to sell your product yourself before trying to hire others to sell it for with/for you. Managing a sales team without getting your hands dirty in the sales process only makes you disconnected from your product, and will frustrate future early sales employees.

Why this fails: As a founder you are the product, don’t expect to hire and watch the numbers soar. Your product won’t sell itself unless you sell it first. It doesn’t matter how many sales people you hire if you don’t have the sales process down in the first place.

Understanding this entrepreneur: Typically they don’t have a background in sales and think that hiring sales employees will magically make numbers appear on a sales board. Typically technical, sometimes egotistical.

Can benefit by: Selling the product. That’s all there is here. If the founder is technical and won’t be doing sales, someone on the founding team must be a hustler. Founders are either selling or building. Choose one and do it well.

5. “I’ll never work for anyone, ever!”

This entrepreneur is right out of college. They don’t want to get a job, or can’t last at a job for more than a few months. They have great ideas and plans and want to change the world, but need some reality first. These founders just spend money in all the wrong places for all the wrong reasons, which could be anything from 1-4 mentioned above. Great mentors seem to make or break these types of entrepreneurs.

Why this fails: If you haven’t had a job before you may lack judgement of certain realities and what it really requires to start a business.

Understanding this entrepreneur: Typically driven, these founders need to get broken in a bit before reaching the point of being able to successfully manage others.

Can benefit by: Getting a job and showing that you can work well with others and under the management of others. The goal is to show that you are able to learn and adapt.

Sarah Ware is the co-founder and CEO of Markerly, next generation publisher tools. Markerly is a recent graduate of 500 Startups. Nibletz has used Markerly’s publisher tools since their launch last year. Right click on anything on the site and see the magic happen.

Last year Sarah appeared on Bad Ass Female Founders From Everywhere Else and the “I Survived An Accelerator Panel” hosted by GAN’s Pat Riley,at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference! Find out more about the next everywhereelse.co here.

Navigating Through Startupland [INFOGRPAHIC]

As entrepreneurship continues to grow at a rapid pace, navigating through this startup land of ours can be a little tricky.

Startup Weekend, hackathons, Founders Instititue, accelerators, incubators, funding, pre-seed, post-seed, valuation, pivot and all those other terms we use each and everyday, are enough to get some entrepreneurs and founders extremely confused. Believe it or not, there are entrepreneurs out there that have an idea and just want to get it to market.

Once they spend a day, a week, or a month talking to other entrepreneurs and startup community leaders, they typically have even more questions.

One thing I’m asked a lot are “What are some startup resources for me?”. If I have the time I go over a lot of the resources in the infographic above. The same goes for our good friend Shahab Kaviani, the founder of CoFounders Lab (which we featured on Monday). That’s why CoFounders Lab has created the “Startup Land” infographic.

We’ve known for a while that CoFounders lab is more than just founder dating. Kaviani and his team have created a full online community of entrepreneurs, leaders and feeders. From that experience, and through exiting out of a previous startup, Kaviani was able to come up with this Startup Land infographic which we think you’ll find extremely useful.

You can check out all CoFounders Lab has to offer here.

Click here to download the full sized infographic.

New to startups? Check out these startup tips.

Maryland Startup CoFoundersLab Is About Much More Than Just Founder Dating

Serial entrepreneur, restauranteur, and startup junkie Andrew Batey, the cofounder of Los Angeles startup Hater, credits Maryland startup CoFoundersLab with helping to lead him to Jake Banks the founder of Hater. We ran into Batey talking with Shahab Kaviani, the founder and CEO of CoFoundersLab at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013.

Batey and Kaviani were talking about how CoFoundersLab is way more than just a place to find co-founders. There are several startups in the “cofounder finding” space. One of the most popular ones is Silicon Valley based FounderDating. Many entrepreneurs feel that FounderDating is too selective and doesn’t reach the core of the startup community.

Community is what drives Kaviani who’s already had his successful exits and is working on CoFoundersLab to help startups find the perfect team.

CoFoundersLab helps link cofounders through a profile based system. Kaviani is quick to point out that the perfect cofounder may not be that friend or relative you think you want to start a company with. Through their online system and their in person events, hosted in 25 cities so far, CoFoundersLab is about linking real people with each other to foster great ideas.

The non elitist community at CoFoundersLab is over 10,000 members strong and to date has helped 100 teams form. One startup founder came over to Kaviani’s TechCrunch Disrupt booth to tell him that not only did they cofounders find each other on CoFoundersLab but to date the team has raised over $2.7 million dollars.

CoFoundersLab is also about the community. In addition to finding a cofounder you may find other key team members within the community or find a community member that can help you get over a hurdle or a pivot.

CoFoundersLab was a finalist in the Startup Maryland, Pitch Across Maryland bus and they are also a member of the Fort in DC which is now housed at 1776.

It’s free to join CoFoundersLab however there is a pro membership available too that gives founders access to personality assessment tools and other tools to refine the cofounder search. There is a small fee, usually ten bucks or less, for their in person events.

Kaviani founded CoFoundersLab after realizing it was the founding team at the first startup he was part of, HyperOffice that became the widely known WebOS.

Go join CoFoundersLab now by clicking here. Watch our video interview with Kaviani below.

We’ve got over 30 more startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 here.

Mobile Polling Done Right, Check Out 1776 DC Startup YoPine [interview]

When our good friend Donna Harris left Startup America earlier this year we were really excited about what her and Washington DC Startup America Champion Evan Burfield were going to build. Now 1776 is a reality and the nation’s capital, and the nation for that matter are talking about it.

Back in March we brought you an interview with “Her Story” our first 1776 interview.

For those not in the know 1776 is Washington DC’s new startup and entrepreneurial epicenter. Think event space, co-working space, and incubator. 1776 is the heart of DC startups, in fact DC Mayor Vince Gray sported a 1776 T-Shirt while perusing SXSWi.

While 1776 is on this leg of the sneaker strapped startup road trip we were ecstatic to meet quite a few DC entrepreneurs who roam the halls of DC’s new startup space. Our good friend Brian Park with Startup Grind DC, was volunteering at Disrupt. He holds the Startup Grind DC events at 1776.

We also met Kevin Ostrowski and Gary Mendel, who’s startup YoPine is a resident at 1776. Kevin is still based in New York but Gary works out of 1776 which is where YoPine is officially headquartered.

YoPine is the first (of many) mobile apps that do polling correctly.

How does it work?

Say you want to find the best place to watch the Washington Redskins play on any given Sunday. Typically if you sent out a group text you would get 100-300 messages back with most people taking 3 or 4 texts just to answer the question. Then you would have to circle back with all of those texts and keeping that organized can be a complete mess.

With YoPine you simply ask your contacts through the YoPine app. If your contacts have YoPine they will answer via app and if they don’t they can answer via text message and mobile website.

You set up the question, input some possible answers, select the contacts you want to poll and hit send. Voila, you’ll get the results you’re looking for quickly. You can then send the results back out to everyone that participated.

YoPine’s UI and functionality are much better than any of the “hot or not” clones we’ve seen to date. There is huge potential in the platform. We’re sure there’s a reason that a social polling platform is headquartered in the political capital of the world (wink,wink). Check out our interview with Kevin from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 below. You can find out more at YoPine.com

So yeah we’ve got A TON of startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013.

DC Sartup DeJed Wants To Be Ebay For Digital Goods [interview][video][disrupt]

Daniel Kim and Bhupinder Singh were at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC’s starutp alley on day one. Their startup DEJED is a new digital goods market place that Kim describes as “ebay for digital goods”.

They are hoping to bring together creators, marketers and buyers in one platform that allows people to find the digital content they need and for creators, and affiliates to get paid.

In an untraditional model the duo are attracting third party people with social clout to help market the digital goods that the creators are selling. This may offer DEJED the biggest competitive edge over competitors. Singh is very excited about this aspect of the business, he told us during an interview that someone with tens of thousands of followers could easily make good money helping to bring buyers to digital goods.

DEJED hopes to become the go to place to buy and sell music, videos, ebooks, apps, plug-ins, code, models, icons, avatars, class notes, games, pictures, animations, how to’s, comics, coupons and any other good that has digital delivery.

On the buyer side DEJED will offer lifetime cloud access for all of the purchased digital goods as an archive to save everything someone buys using the DEJED platform.

Check out our video interview below and for more info visit dejed.com.

Contactually Study: Negative People Reply To Email 36% Faster

Email seems to be a pretty popular topic, especially on the weekend. Last weekend a lot of tech sites were talking about why they ignore emails and auto responder messages. Earlier this week I checked out the refresh of Microsoft’s outlook.com and the reinvigoration of Hotmail.

This week we’re first to bring you some pretty startling results about email. Our friends at Contactually, the popular email CRM startup from Washington DC, just published results from a rather interesting survey.

Engineers at the company recently analyzed over 1oo million email conversations looking at positive and negative words across the data set. What they actually found was that “On average, negative people tend to reply to emails 36% faster than their positive, bubbly colleagues.” Ousmane Mariko, community manager at Contactually reported on their blog.

For the study engineers looked at wording in emails. Words like “care” and “amazing” made their list of positive words. Words like “missed” and “stupid” were considered negative. After they counted up all the instances of multiple positive and negative words they calculated the ratio between positive and negative words across the data set.

Overall what they found was that people who were always positive in their replies responded to 47% of their emails within a day. 64% of people who were negative or unhappy in their email replies responded within 24 hours.

“It’s not immediately clear why positive people aren’t as good with email,” Jeff Carbonella said, CTO of Contactually. “Maybe the negative folks are more active online in general.”

Carbonella jokingly suggested that this may explain interent trolls. Another cause of this could be that sending a positive email reply takes a little more time.

The study also suggested that users of Contactually were much better at quickly following up with their top contacts, citing that they generated 44% more referrals for their business.

“We don’t necessarily have to be mean and cranky,” COO Tony Cappaert said. “Maybe we just need to use better software.”

What is Contactually, find out here in our startup interview.

Paul Singh Turning Backburner Project Into Bloomberg/Motley Fool Of The Private Markets

Paul Singh, the Washington DC based entrepreneur, who became a household name in many startup circles while he was a partner at 500 startups, has began sharing much more about his startup Dashboard.io. We had started hearing rumors that Singh was stepping down at 500 startups during SXSW and it was confirmed in March.

Singh returned to his DC roots to continue growing dashboard.io a project he says he started on the back burner. Dashboard.io quickly grew into a huge tool that 500 startups founders and other accelerator startups could use to reach investors, share information and talk with each other.

We recently took a trip to Silicon Valley and had the chance to talk with several 500 startups founders who found the dashboard extremely useful.

Singh explains on the dashboard.io blog how the idea came about:

It began with the innocuous “initial commit” and a pitch of “Let me peek at your traffic data. I promise to keep it private, and I’ll anonymously show you how you stand up to everyone else on the platform.”

Once he started the initial project and it made it’s way on to Hacker News over 300 startups started flooding the system and adding their data. Soon after that Singh “turned off the spigot” and went back to focusing on 500 Startups. 500 was still young at the time and they resorted to using Google Groups to communicate with founders and mentors.

“The turning point came when a well known founder and mentor had enough and, frustrated and angry, handed in their resignation. They couldn’t see through the clutter to mentor our community, and just like that, one of our best was gone. That same night I revived Dashboard.io with a renewed mission — to build a better platform for the 500 family.” Singh writes.

As 500 startups grew, so did the internal dashboard system. The dashboard system has allowed 500 Startups founders, and 400 accelerator companies to communicate internally with VC’s, Angels and Mentors. Sarah Ware, CEO and Founder at 500 Startups alum Markerly, told us “The dashboard system gives us access to people that may not necessarily correspond with us outside of the system.” Being a 500 Startups company certainly gives a startup credibility but Ware added “potential investors and mentors get back to us quicker when the message comes through the system.”

Fast forward to today and Singh seems motivated by the ability to really help young companies grow through the use of dashboard.io. The tool, coupled with AngelList provides an unparalleled resource for startups. The best part is it’s free.

Singh recently explained in a Facebook post how dashboard.io will make money.

“we give the software away completely free — and in a Yammer-like way. We use the aggregate anonymous data to create content and sell portions of it. Think of us as the Bloomberg / Motley Fool of the private markets. We give away a ton of content (soon) via our blog and then monetize on the extremes”

One of Singh’s biggest priorities is confidentiality and privacy making two big promises to the Dashboard community.

I will keep your information safe. I will never sell or share your data with anyone, including your investors.
I will use that data anonymously to benefit our entire industry and move it forward.

Check out Dashboard.io here.

This pitch from DC startup Speek resulted in a monkey tattoo on the cofounders ass.

DC Startup SnapDash Can Help You Make Funny Photos, Even If You’re Not Funny

If you’re one of those people that combs the meme sites for the funniest memes, or recycles people’s old Facebook status’ on Twitter and vice versa to project a humor you don’t naturally have, no worries. There’s a photo app that will help you strike those funny poses even if you’re flat and boring.

SnapDash gamifies picture taking by suggesting poses and funny things to do . The new Washington DC startup has an idea generator which helps people come up with awesome photos. Now, if you are funny, SnapDash still offers great suggestions that will make your humor stand out.

“Our theory is that the entire world likes looking at funny photos, so we want to make them easier to create and provide an addictive experience for doing so.” Daniel Hanks, co-founder of SnapDash told us in an interview.

Check out the rest of our quick startup interview below.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Daniel Hanks

Prior to leaving the illustrious world of full-time employment to become a fledgling entrepreneur, Daniel served three years as the head of Corporate Strategy for The Teaching Company / The Great Courses in Chantilly, VA. Previously, he spent a number of years in investment banking and software/tech-focused private equity.

Meredith Balenske

Meredith is currently the Director of Communications for Bloomberg L.P. in Washington, D.C. responsible for the external positioning and communication strategy for the Bloomberg properties and personalities in Washington.

Where are you based?

Washington, DC

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

It’s probably not the most helpful answer, but I don’t really feel like I’ve earned a right to an opinion on this yet. Here’s what I do know already, though: a tight, energetic group of individuals (i.e. 1776, Foster.ly, DC Tech Meetup, a handful of specific people, and so forth) sensed a vacuum and the opportunity it provided, and a yeoman’s effort has been expended so far to continue and grow this groundswell of excitement. We have been heads down for the most part, but we feel confident that we are based in a city in which a lot of smart, hard-working people are determined to make great things happen. We clearly do not have the density that one would find in the Valley, but that’s life. You manage.

What problem does your startup solve?

We like to think we are putting a unique spin on something that has been around since the inception of cameras – the urging to “do something funny.” SnapDash randomly provides a little boost of creativity and adds a short timer, therefore capturing pure instinct. The result is a visual, full-body version of a word association game. And, on a macro level, we are using a combination of unpredictability and humor to try and combat the overwhelming sense of “success theater” that now permeates social media.

What is one challenge that you’ve overcome in the startup process?

As with all companies that are not yet fully walking and upright, every decision has carried with it some weight; yet, for us, a relatively major inflection point came when I left my previous job and dove into SnapDash full-time. This fact alone won’t make anyone’s socks go up and down, as people are making this same leap all the time, but it really served to crystallize my desire and purpose. I also learned that you can, in fact, eat too much French bread pizza.

What are some of the advantages/disadvantages growing your startup outside of Silicon Valley?

Don’t have an opinion on this yet, other than my answers above.

What’s next for your startup?

We are going to be focused for the near term almost entirely on user acquisition and building out a strong base. However, we have a number of plans for various product extensions, in addition to working alongside brands that aiming to engage with their fans and customers in a fun, unique way.

Where can people find out more, and what is your Twitter username?

Our website is www.snapdash.net, and people can follow us at @snapdashapp.

DC Mayor Vince Gray Is High On DC Startups, Check out our video from SXSW

This Uber Case Should Be A Wake Up Call For Arrington Haters

Back in December we were one of the earliest startup focused sites reporting on these allegations of rape against an Uber driver in Washington DC.

The unthinkable, that some opponents of private car hiring app Uber had been anticipating, had finally happened. According to our good friends at In The Capital, a DC Uber driver had been accused of raping a customer.

The accusation came by way of the Cleveland Park Email listserv. Cleveland Park is a neighborhood in Washington DC. The Cleveland Park list serv post says the crime was caught on tape.

In The Capital reported that Metropolitan Police Department spokesperson Hugh Carew, had confirmed they investigated forcible sexual abuse case in Cleveland Park that occurred on December 8th. There are conflicting reports between the actual police report which suggests the attack happened on a Friday while the police report says it happened on a Sunday.

This email on the Cleveland Park listserv started it all:

A woman’s teen-age daughter used Uber car serve to return to her home
last night after a late evening. The car drove up the family’s driveway
around 3:30 AM. The girl walked to the door but the driver called her
back. When she went back, the driver struck her on the head and raped
her.The family has a security camera in the driveway. The camera showed the
driver carrying the girl’s limp body back to the house. She is now at
home, trying to rest. The entire family is of course very shaken.

Because of the cameras, they know who did it. As of this morning, he had
not yet been arrested, but many officers are involved and he will be.

On Friday, our good friends at InTheCapital were again on the case, this time reporting that the charges were dropped on Thursday.

InTheCapital reports:

As of now, the Washington Post has just come out with a report that the statements given by the woman and the driver regarding the sexual contact were in fact contradictory, and that the physical evidence as well as the testimonies given by both the driver and the woman seemed to indicate different stories. According to the driver, the woman was the one who initiated sexual contact as they were parked in her family’s driveway and they engaged in consensual oral sex. He also denied having intercourse with her, and after their encounter he carried her to the driveway where she then got up and walked inside. DNA evidence from the report does contradict the driver’s testimony to no intercourse, but security video of the woman’s driveway does show the woman walking to her side door and apparently waving to the driver as she walked in to her home. She also told authorities that she had no memory of having done this.

While both nibletz and InTheCapital both reported that these were just allegations, this should say something about all of those folks on the Mike Arrington witch hunt. In fact there are still no “charges” in that case…

Move on now and if you need a lift go download Uber.