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We Talk With Matt Hunckler About Verge Indy And Verge Startup Events

Matt Hunckler made a name for himself while he was a student at IU in Bloomington Indiana. It was there that he made his first successful exit as an entrepreneur and founder, but he wanted more. He wanted more for himself and for the startup community in Indiana and with that he created Verge.

Verge is a community of tech entrepreneurs, startups, software developers, and investors that’s grown to over 1300 active members. They meet every last Thursday of the month, which Hunckler has affectionately renamed VergeDay.

With 1300 members though, Hunckler is hard pressed to find a place to hold an event with that many people where effective pitches, networking and discussions can go on, so he limits the size of the events to a couple hundreds. He pre-warns the membership the day before the tickets go on sale and they sell out quicker than One Direction tickets would sell out for a free show at an all girls middle school. The Verge events are that popular.

Hunckler is also selective about who attends the events. He keeps them open to the community which doesn’t let shiest SEO folks in or the guy who opened up the topless car wash down the road. There are plenty of other events in town for those guys.

Verge is all about growing the community and making sure that everyone knows each other. Verge is about creating synergy among Indiana’s startup scene.

Hunckler has also been instrumental in other events like startup weekends and innovation showcase. The innovation showcase is now in it’s fourth year and is a conference for fundable companies to present their business idea in the fields of IT,alternative energy,life sciences,medical devices and industrial products. This year’s showcase features 50 area companies and will be held on July 12,2012 at Developer Town/Speak Easy.

Just like Super Nick Hunckler has his hands in everything. Heck, he’s even the editor for the Indianapolis edition of the startup digest.

Check out our video interview with Hunckler below:

Links we’ve got em:

Verge Is Here

Here’s the page for the Innovation Showcase July 12

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We Talk With Matt Burris Founder Of Startup Weekend Crane In Indiana VIDEO

The Nibletz nationwide sneaker strapped startup roadtrip pulled up in Indianapolis Thursday to check out Verge Indy’s startup event. The event is held on the last Thursday every month and brings together a tremendous amount of people from Indianapolis and the surrounding areas’ startup and entrepreneurial tech scene.

We got a chance to meet Matt Burris who co-founded Startup Weekend Bloomington with Super Nick. Burris is a hardware and product guy that’s working on some awesomesauce in his top secret lab by day. By night Burris is a strong advocate and evangelist for the startup scene in both Indianapolis and Bloomington.

This October though, he’s headed to Crane Naval Base (well just outside of it) for one of the first Startup Weekend’s centered around a military base to date.

Burris already got his feet wet with the Bloomington event, now he’s able to focus on a truly unique Startup Weekend that he believes will produce a large number of hardware and product ideas vs the traditional mostly software and social media ideas that commonly come out of Startup Weekend events.

Check out our video interview with Burris below and check back with us in a little while to hear more about what Burris is working on at his company RT6:

Ahhh the Linkage:

Find out more about Startup Weekend Crane here at this link

Check out Matt’s daytime job where he is founder of RT6 here

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Indiana Startups: This Is Nick Tippmann VIDEO INTERVIEW

Indiana entrepreneur and startup founder Nick Tippmann and I have a lot in common. First off we both get carded to buy cigarettes (I know I know I need to quit), and he would probably get carded for NC-17 movies as well. The fact is that Tippmann is actually 22 years old and has already founded a startup that has been moved to the back burner.

Nick’s Impulse Coupons startup has is a great idea but he told us that he couldn’t put the right team together. He also quickly became very involved in the Indiana startup scene and the midwest startup scene. In just the last year (and at 22 but looking 15) Tippmann has: attended all the startup events at SXSWi, hosted a Shark Tank season premiere party for Mark Cuban (which Cuban attended), been to DEMO on DEMO’s dime, Big Omaha,Chicago TechWeek, oh and did we mention that he founded Startup Weekend Bloomington?

Right now the connections that Tippmann has made probably mean he could do anything or go anywhere he wanted. He was able to foster a relationship with Cuban at the party he and his mentor Larry Chiang threw for Cuban while he was in town for the Super Bowl which just happened to be the same weekend as the Shark Tank season 3 premiere.

He’s also formed a relationship with Startup America CEO Scott Case and countless others. Heck 500 startups founder Dave McClure even follows Super Nick on Twitter.

Tippmann is a whirlwind of startup energy with the conviction of only the most hardworking entrepreneurs and founders. He went to TechWeek in Chicago last week with a very unclear plan of where he was staying, locked his keys in the car one night and slept in it the next.

Tippmann takes every opportunity he gets to establish new relationships and nurture the ones he’s already had.

So what’s Super Nick doing next? Tippmann rode the Startup Bus from Cincinnati to South By Southwest. The Startup Bus kicked off at the Brandery and from that experience he knew he wanted to get into the next session which starts Monday. He has joined a team called Flock’d which is pivoting from a bar and restaurant check-in app, to something awesome in the world of sports.

Tippmann will leave for Cincinnati on Sunday but admitted tonight at the Verge event in Indianapolis that he hasn’t packed and has no idea where he’ll live. Lucky for him he drives a Suburban which could grow to be quite comfortable. The co-founders at Flock’d are going to make sure he has a roof over his head so he can get to work spreading the word about their startup and creating the fire that comes natural to him.

So what does Tippmann do in his free time? Well he meets more people, talks about more startups, mentors for the Lean Startup Machine in Chicago, consults with anyone who wants to talk to him and plans his next conquest.

Check out the interview video below:

Yup we’ve got some linkage:

Check out Nick Tippman’s Blog here

Follow Nick on Twitter here

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Bloomington Indiana Startup: CheddarGetter To Ring NYSE Closing Bell Today

The New York Stock Exchange has held a contest that’s got a lot of the startup world talking. They’re not giving away a million dollars, or magically making an IPO happen for the startup. The contest? Pick a startup to ring the closing bell.

The winner, a Bloomington Indiana startup called CheddarGetter, will ring the closing bell this afternoon.

CheddarGetter is a startup in the, not so glamorous, online billing space. CheddarGetter will stand alongside two other startups as they ring the bell together.

In an online video posted by CheddarGetter to garner support for their bell ringing conquest, Marketing Director Adam Quirk said:

“There’s a ton of cool tech going on here in Indiana, but you wouldn’t know it if you lived in New York. I lived there for seven years and never heard about an Indiana tech company. So we’d like to ring the opening bell to show that tech startups exist all over this country. There’s a lot of awesome stuff going on here in the Midwest, from Chicago, to Omaha, to Kansas City, to here in Bloomington, Indiana.”

CheddarGetters unique online billing platform has garnered some of the corn belt’s brightest graduates, who may have otherwise moved out of the state. They started as an in house billing solution for tech incubator SproutBox’s startups. Now they boast hundreds of clients in startups, SMB’s and larger business customers.

Congratulations to this startup from everywhere else, ring the bell and make the corn belt proud.

Linkage:

Find out more about CheddarGetter here

Source: InsideIndianaBusiness.com

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Startup Indiana Launches To A Packed House

(photo: startupamerica)

If the packed house at Wednesday nights Startup Indiana kickoff is any indication of things to come, we’ll be reporting a lot on Indiana. 350 entrepreneurs, founders, community members, supporters and investors turned out for the party celebrating the latest Startup America partnership.

“Entrepreneurs in Indiana are diverse and dynamic, and we all come from different backgrounds–with unique experiences and expertise,” said Matt Hunckler, Startup Indiana champion. “Startup Indiana will serve a crucial role in connecting the dots between industries, redefining business models, and disrupting the status quo.”

Startup America CEO, who’s trying to beat the nibletz team in travel miles, Scott Case was on hand for the festivities:

“I had the pleasure of experiencing first-hand Indiana’s amazing startup scene when I came out for the Super Bowl,” said Case. “I’m incredibly excited to see the local startups, large companies and entrepreneurial leaders come together though Startup Indiana to make it an even better place to start and grow a company and encourage all startups in the state to join today.”

Startup America and Startup Indiana urge entrepreneurs, startup founders, and investors to join Startup America. It’s a free nationwide resource. This year Startup America is committed to bringing as many localities across the country with a startup scene into the partnership. Down the road Startup America will be able to offer benefits to startups and entrepreneurs across the country with the clout of America’s largest startup organization behind it.

Linkage:

To Join Startup Indiana click here

For More on Startup America click here

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