New York Startup Spotter Is A Location-Based Video Sharing Platform

What is Spotter?

Spotter is a mobile app that associates videos with places, allowing people to find and share videos in a new approach rather than the traditional way with only video titles.

It is a fun, new, exciting method to share places and videos with family, friends, and the world. It is simple and easy to use. Take a video with your iPhone, associate it with a place and share it privately or publicly. If taking videos is not your cup of tea, you can look up places and/or friends near and dear to your heart and watch their videos. Spotter also allows the unique experience of finding public videos that were taken near your current location by using the GPS signal on your phone.

Allowing people to find videos by places unlocks a new way of sharing videos with others.

In layman’s terms, how does it work? (In other words how would you explain it to your grandmother)

Spotter uses the GPS in your phone to associate every video uploaded accurately to a place or a location. Having the location on every video allows us to deliver videos to users in a new manner.

Users can follow locations and places like they follow people on Twitter or Instagram. Every time a video is uploaded to a location/place, the video is delivered to the users who follow that location/place. Users also get videos that were taken near their current location and videos taken by their friends.

Users can also search their favorite places and see all the videos associated with that place without following the place.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Mike Groves graduated from SUNY Albany in 2005 with a BS in computer science. Since then, he has focused on bringing software products from vision to reality. His career has taken him through a variety of interesting fields such as mobile, semiconductor quality control, healthcare quality management, energy market validation, and government budget management. His latest vision, Spotter, aims to provide a new way to experience the places around us by connecting digital experiences (video) to the very places those experiences occurred. He believes that by making these connections we will change the way people communicate and experience our world.

Kevin Pytel graduated from SUNY Oswego in 2006 with a BS in Computer Science, and a minor in Mathematics. He quickly integrated himself into the corporate world as a software engineer while running his own IT consulting firm on the side. To progress his business skills he completed his MBA at Union Graduate College while working full time. He has progressed through the corporate ranks and most recently worked as a Senior Project Manager. His experience in large scale redundant applications and project management has helped Spotter with the product launch and vision to make sure our servers can handle high peak loads and are up 99.99% of the time.

Dan Graham graduated from Long Island University with a B.S. in Digital Design and has been working in the online and traditional marketing industry for over 12 years. At the age of 15 Dan was brought on board to manage marketing and web development for a family owned e-commerce company. For the past 8 years Dan has run a media and marketing consulting firm focusing on social marketing, information architecture and advanced content management systems. He has worked with companies both large and small including Panasonic, Madison Square Garden, and Warner Bros.. Dan is responsible for updating the Spotter interface in the 2^nd version of the application as well as heading up marketing to get Spotter the attention it deserves.

Where are you based?

We operate out of a virtual office. The 3 co-founders are all located near NYC.

What’s the startup scene/culture like where you’re based?

NYC is really starting to support startups, so there are a lot more opportunities for us to network then in the past. The problem is we’re working our full time jobs during the day and then at night coding and making Spotter better, so we haven’t been able to use our location to our benefit yet.

There is also a strong startup community to the north of us in the Albany/Troy region. There are a bunch of meet ups held by Grand Slam Alley and Tech Valley Mobile Developer Network. The guys who created Dark Sky and forecast.io are based out of that area as well as some other successful startups.

How did you come up with the idea for Spotter?

Mikes Groves and I (Kevin) worked together as software developers and we always had a common interest in starting a company that focused on mobile. From early on we saw the potential of new products emerging from the mobile space.

One day Mike approached me with this idea of combining location and videos, and I really liked the idea, so we dug a little deeper to see what was in the market. Then we thought about it a little more and really figured out there is no way for you to find videos that you know for sure were taken where you thought they were. Someone could post a video on YouTube and title it “The Empire State Building”, but in reality it could be a very funny video of someone in their house doing something stupid. And, yes, there are plenty of videos like that all over the internet. If the video gets the views and popularity, that video is going to show up in the top of the rankings when you search YouTube for Empire State Building… So we focused on solving that problem.

From there we created a prototype and started laying out the functionality the app would have. We really like the ability to follow a place. For me I was a BMX racer and skier growing up and love watching those types of videos, so I like to follow all the BMX tracks and mountains to see new videos on a daily basis.

Why now?

Why not? But seriously, when we came up with the idea, and even now, there are no apps that focus on location like ours. We are solving a gap in the current market.

Who are your competition?

It feels like and is pretty much every social media company involved with photos and videos. No one has zeroed in to do exactly what we’re doing, but most are tagging the location and using that in some way to enhance user experience.

We have to continue to focus on what we’re good at, and get even better at that, which is ensuring the videos tagged to the location were actually taken there and delivering those videos to the user in a unique and easy way.

And what’s your secret sauce?

It’s top secret, if I told you then I’d have to kill you. I’m sure you’ve never gotten that response.
Really though, there isn’t anything too secret about what we’re doing. We’re using a bunch of technology accessible to the average developer to our advantage to provide videos to the user in a different approach than other companies.

What are some milestones you’ve achieved?

Over 10,000 videos have been tagged to actual places, and not just cities or streets. These places range from One World Trade, beaches on Hawaii, ski resorts in Austria, to music houses in Japan.

What’s your next milestone?

We think the milestones we’ve reached are very cool, but the application and server systems were built to handle many more users and videos, so we’re focusing on marketing the app to get the users it deserves.

10,000 users are our goal by the end of summer, and 20,000 by the end of the year.

Who are some of your mentors and business role models?

Previous bosses and college professors have mentored me to get where I am in my career to even make it possible for me to start this company, and I am continually looking and listening to advice of those who have successfully or unsuccessfully started their own company. Knowledge is power, and having an idea without being able to execute it will not get you anywhere.

I have always found Shawn Fanning (Founder of Napster) an interesting business role model just because he always seems to start companies that he finds interesting and builds products he wants to use which I find pretty cool.

Also Paul Tyma, founder of many companies is a business role model of mine. He’s worked closely with Doug Lea a professor of mine, so I’ve had the pleasure of working on some of his code in college, and occasionally bugging him with an email here and there for help with Spotter.

What’s next for Spotter?

We want to expand and move to Android as well as build out our traditional web browser experience. Moving to Android has always been on the roadmap, but with only three people, it’s been difficult to get traction on that development effort. We have also been contemplating adding photos to our service as well.

We’re looking for a motivated Java developer interested in building out our Android application. Since we don’t have funding currently we’re looking for someone who is willing to work for a small percentage of company or as internship to get college credits. If you have interest email kevin@spotterinc.com

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

spotterapp.us Download spotter in the iTunes App Store here Follow them on Twitter here

Check out what this Chicago startup is doing with video for charity.

Buffalo Startup GripeO Is The Complaint Market Place

Have you ever had a girl that you tried to date… oh wait that’s not I was writing.

Have you ever been upset with something, be it customer service, product selection, feature selection or just any normal complaint? Has that complaint ever been enough to tick you off but not piss you off? Well with complaints like those they often die in your head. You may forget them later on, only to have them resurface the next time you go to that restaurant, store, or business or use that product. Then, you quickly remember that complaint.

Now, on the other hand if you feel you’ve ever been just totally wronged, or get really pissed off at a company, you may go through the motions of seeking out a contact form, email address or phone number and actually move forward with your complaint. This process can take a while and it too can be interrupted and die out.

A Buffalo based startup called GripeO is here to change that and disrupt the complaint space with a complaint market place that’s both easy to complain on and easy for companies to find their complaints. But lets establish one thing from the get-go and that’s the fact that GripeO is not a place to just bitch about everything under the sun.

“GripeO is a website and mobile application startup that’s going to disrupt complaint management. Consumers (people like you and I) can quickly and easily submit product or service complaints in one consolidated location. We notify and authenticate businesses who are then able to mediate the complaint via our system. During the process we encourage businesses to close as many complaints as possible with new savings and discounts. This won’t work for everyone, but for those that do it benefits both parties because it has the ability to please consumers yet drive new sales to the business. The real magic happens though when complaints are left open. The fact is, that information is far more valuable then people often realize. You have a qualified consumer who is frustrated with a business. GripeO offers those ignored complaints in a Complaint Marketplace where competitive businesses can search for complaints in an ad-market style and use our system to entice and lure those qualified leads away via our system. This is the revenue generating portion of GripeO and something that makes us truly unique.” GripeO co-founder and team lead, Mike Klanac Jr told us in an interview.

We’ve seen a few complaint platforms over the years but it seems that the founding team behind GripeO have worked out a lot of the kink and are poised to become the goto destination to sound off complaints and ultimately get them resolved. Check out the rest of Klanac’s interview below.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds

Our team is comprised of 6 co-founders who each are responsible for a different functional area. They include Mike Klanac (CEO/Team Lead), Nicholas Campanile (Finance and Business Development), Stephen Makula (System Architecture), Richard Panek (Development Lead), Jim Proux (User Experience), and Mark Taylor (User Interface and Mobile). The group has all worked together in the past and that’s really what ties everyone together. The corporate backgrounds of everyone actually created quite a link; working together in that environment allowed everyone to identify the best resources in their respective positions. When the idea and opportunity arose the team fell together quickly and naturally based on a mutual respect. Some of the other work the team has collaborated on includes Ellucian Inc., SimpleApply LLC, and ProfileFly.com.

Where are you based?

Our headquarters are in Buffalo, NY however we also have one co-founder in Boulder, CO and one in Houston, TX. We strongly believe that remote companies are the way of the future and actively debate the merits of Marissa Mayer’s decision to call all the cattle home. Our geographic location is also strategic. The core of our development is together, and we recently secured incubation and seed funding from Z80Labs Technology Incubator in Buffalo, NY giving our team a unified location to work from. Having strategic business representatives in Boulder, CO and Southeast Texas allows us to tap into the well established startup communities in those areas.

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

Buffalo, NY’s start up culture is actually very exciting right now. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s about to “pop” as a tech hub. For the longest time Buffalo has been a source of great technical talent coming out of the high density of Colleges in western New York. Unfortunately there just hasn’t been the jobs to keep them around. As organizations like Z80Labs start to develop the city is going to really be able to capitalize on the local technical talent pool.

What problem does your startup solve?

For consumers, we make it much easier to submit complaints, as well as more worthwhile. The fact is, searching through websites, filling out long forms, and wasting your time is something you only do if you’re extremely pissed off. With GripeO, a complaint can be filed in under 1 minute, from the convenience of your phone, right after the food comes out cold, the part is missing, or the airline delays. For businesses, we offer up a completely free way to manage complaints and provide instruction based on data trends on how to most effectively close out gripes. Lastly, competitive businesses are always in need of effective ways to generate new business. With pure advertising, your company can get completely lost in the ether. GripeO presents a strategic opportunity to target a prime consumer, ready to change vendors, who is also flush with demographic information.

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

For us, it’s always been about generating the often talked about “warm introduction”. Unless you’re in the business, I can’t imagine a lot of developers are walking around with a rolodex of VCs and Angels. Let’s be honest – the whole concept is awkward, difficult, and quite frustrating. We’ve managed to break down some doors by doing several things. First, we started geographically. The people often willing to give you a first shot are the ones who are doing it for reasons outside of making money. Buffalo has a lot of economic initiatives and stimulation going on and that is an opportunity for us. Secondly, we try to be respectful and friendly to everyone in the startup space. We’re all people, and friends do friends favors. Finally, one tactic we’ve found to work quite well is to start small with a cold contact and build up. Rather then ask, “will you fund my startup with $500k?” a first contact might be more like a paragraph explaining the business, an attached executive summary, and one very simple request, “as we progress through build, beta, and traction, can I tell you more?”

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

Finishing our web based MVP was a big step for us. It was kind of like the birth of a baby. So much time was spent preparing for it, yet once it came around you immediately start to realize the diapers are in the wrong location. Another major milestone was receiving our first term sheet. We try to leverage our talking points as much as possible. Telling one VC that you have a term sheet from another tends to pique their interest.

What are your next milestones

Right now we’re focused on getting the MVP ready for BETA testing and raising our remaining seed round. There is a lot going on – more so then at any other time in our existence. When I started preparing for this process I had read feedback from several entrepreneurs who’d had successful exits. Almost always you’ll hear the words “pivot” and “agile” in those interviews. With the amount of documentation, promotional sites, and network to keep apprised, that month 3 change to your revenue model means a lot of updating. Expect it.

Who are your mentors and role models?

Dan Magnuszewski and Jordan Levy at Z80Labs Technology Incubator has been great to us. It sounds kind of weird but we also let zeitgeist and data mentor us. I think it’s important to prolifically read Techcrunch, Mashable, Nibletz, and VentureBeat. Our role models tend to be operations that are mobile leaning or have innovative approaches to existing models. We like Mint, Groupon, Twitter, and Instagram.

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

I’ll be honest here; I don’t know. I’ve never been to Silicon Valley. I would imagine a disadvantage is the investment strategy. To use a baseball analogy, regional Angel Networks go for hits. Institutional Investors swing for the fences. The reason is they get more at bats. Being out of the bubble is an advantage in itself. I think you’re able to rise up based on a micro level need or problem, whereas in the bubble your building around investment criteria “we’re a geo-targeted, mobile, big data, smart object”. What?

What’s next for your startup?

We’ve applied to pitch at Techcrunch Austin Meetup “1 minute pitch off” and SXSW V2V. We’re knee deep in MVP refinement and starting some planning to begin letting our BETA users try the system. We’re also ramping up mobile development a bit behind the web in order to follow its lead, and continuously meeting with investors to find the right fit.

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

If you’re interesting in learning more about the product or being a tester, please LIKE our facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pays.to.be.heard We’re also on Twitter: @gripeo and of course you can always visit www.gripeo.com

The Startup Fred Wilson And Union Square Ventures Would Back Right Now

The startup and venture capital world breathed a sigh of relief earlier this month when New York based venture capitalist, blogger extraordinaire and managing partner at Union Square Ventures, announced he was investing in Coinbase a startup that helps facilitate Bitcoin transactions. Sure Bitcoin is a hot commodity these days, just ask Ashton Kutcher, but there was more to it than that.

For many, Wilson’s investment in Coinbase was one of those big “signaling issues”. As most know, Wilson has been in a two year slump with investments while he tried to figure out what the next big thing was.

His firm, Union Square Ventures, did just fine with investments and made some great bets during Wilson’s cool period.

So what’s next more Bitcoin startups? Wilson has always been one to go ahead of the curve, so undoubtedly whatever he invests in next will go to that record. Wilson just saw an exit with Tumblr, for which he was an early investor. Some of their other great investments include Boxee, Turntable.fm, Twitter, Twilio and countless others.

Regardless of what’s actually in the pipeline, we can tell you for certain, if you read Wilson’s personal blog, avc.com, if you’ve got a team of college graduates who’ve developed the next thing that’s going to stop Google, and big hint here’s it’s not Bing, Wilson would go all in.

In a tribute to his daughter Jess who just graduated from College earlier this week, Wilson acknowledges the fact that he and USV often bet on college drop outs but he writes;

“Dropping out of college is all the rage today in startup land (even dropping out of high school). And when it comes to our business, we really do not care if someone went to or graduated from college. We have funded many college dropouts and will continue to.

But there is also something to finishing something you started. ”

So just to be clear, Wilson will still bet on dropouts but I’m willing to bet a college graduate team may have a special place in his heart these days.

As for what’s stopping Google, Wilson also wrote a short, sweet and to the point post called “Running the table”. In the post he talks about how Microsoft “ran the table” with desktop computing, Apple did it with mobile computing and Facebook did it with social networking. That was until Apple and the internet stopped Microsoft and Twitter stopped Facebook.

As for Google, Google is trying to run the table with the “entire fucking internet” and Wilson wants to know “Who Will Stop Google”.

So if you’ve got a college graduate team ready to stop Google, you better get that deck in front of Wilson.

Read Wilson’s blog avc.com daily. Got that startup ready, make sure your business plan submission includes a clear description of your operations and current progress and take it on over to Union Square Ventures, 915 Broadway, 19th Floor, New York, NY 10010, make it interesting, Wilson’s a busy go.

Here are Wilson’s Venture Capital Do’s & Dont’s

Blow Up Your Cloud Based File Structure, Use New York Startup Docurated [video]

One of the more interesting (but less sexy) startups that we saw in New York at TechCrunch Disrupt last month was Docurated. This New York company has launched a new platform that puts all of your content and all of your files at your fingertips with the easiest form of search possible.

Just about everyone in every profession is creating some kind of content all of the time. Chances are that you’re going to write one proposal or do one pitch deck some day that you need information from a previous pitch deck or other file. Cataloging all of your files, both locally and in the cloud, lets the Docurated system get to work.

Once all of your files are cataloged, and as you create new ones, updated automatically, they are now available whenever you need them.

What happens next just adds to the experience. When you call up a search of your files Docurated serves up the files and the specific piece of content, putting it next to all the other pieces of content that match the same criteria.

Now all of your documents are useable materials for anything from content dashboards to presentations, fliers, meetings, reports and more.

Docurated was created out of a real world need from a Fortune 100 company. Alex Grobansky along with cofounder Irene Tserkovny created Docurated after Tserkovny found herself and her colleagues at American Express’ “disruptive innovation” team were constantly searching for content they had previously created to add to new presentations rather than working on the next disruption.

There are several search options available but Docurated seems to address the needs of people working on real projects, and presentations who don’t have time to fumble with broken search tactics.

Watch the video interview below and for more information visit docurated.com

Check out these other 50 startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013

We Talk With Frank Denbow The GoTo Guy For StartupThread And New York Tech

Once your startup moves from idea stage to something, that often times involves a logo. The next natural move is getting that logo put on whatever you can, especially t-shirts. It seems that no matter how big or small the startup, there’s always a t-shirt for it. NY entrepreneur and startup community leader Frank Denbow has embraced that as the founder of StartupThreads.

StartupThreads is a startup itself that allows startups to go on their site, design, upload, create and have their merchandise shipped. Dealing primarily in startups, Denbow offers very competitive pricing and has seen closets and closets full of startup t-shirts.

Startup culture is becoming more mainstream. Walking the streets of any big startup community, whether it be San Francisco, New York, Boulder or even Nashville you’ll see your fair share of startup wear. Going somewhere like TechCrunch Disrupt or SXSW and you’ll see t-shirt overload. In fact, one of the travel tips I’ve given for SXSW is only pack a t-shirt to wear to the event, startups and bands have your week long wardrobe covered.

As you can imagine with the amount of startups in the world Denbow is a pretty busy guy. But in addition to StartupThreads he’s working on another startup simultaneously and in the infamous words of Billy Mays (RIP), but that’s not all.

Denbow also finds time to attend the NY Startup Meetups, plan and help with NY Startup Weekend and curate the Startup Digest. He also sits on the board for the Academy of Software Engineering.

Denbow is well respected and well liked amongst the startup community across the country. In fact he’s even good friends with our friend Denver Hutt who we reported on earlier this week.

Check out our interview with Denbow below he talks about Startup Threads and how the NY tech startup community has grown so fast.

We’ve got over 50 startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013.

Buffalo NY Startup Gradfly, Portfolio’s For High School Students

Everyone’s familiar with how artists and designers have portfolio’s for their work. An artist or designer’s best work is kept in one place, now online of course, so that it’s easy for fans, clients and even buyers to see.

Well Buffalo NY startup Gradfly is doing the same exact thing for high school students with a concentration in science and technology students who are “building the most awesome things”, Oscar Pedroso, Gradfly’s CEO and co-founder said in an interview.

Students who enjoy STEM-oriented activities such as building robots, writing code, or solving complex math equations, can build an online portfolio and share their technical creations and achievements in picture, video, or Pinterest-like format with friends, colleges and companies. GradFly’s vision is to bridge the gap between a STEM education, technical training and employability.

GradFly is committed to help open doors in STEM and STEM only. It’s not just going after any high school or college student, GradFly is going after students who want to succeed in this new information-based and highly technological society; the company even welcomes curious students. GradFly understands students need to develop their capabilities in STEM to levels much beyond what was considered in the past. At GradFly, talented students are taking their first step by creating an online portfolio and then connecting to technical colleges and companies that are looking for tomorrow’s scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians. GradFly is empowering these students (and their parents) to make the best and most affordable decisions about their education and career in STEM. For college and companies, GradFly will standout by offering modern tools focused on sourcing, talent analytics, assessment, interview management and search.

The startup’s team, which also includes Anna Hadnagy (CIO), Elliott Regan (Front End Programmer) and Herb Susmann (Chief Architect) were selected last fall for the Z80 Labs Technology Incubator.

The work they’ve done over the last 9 months really paid off as they were one of the startups selected to pitch on the TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 Battlefield stage.

During that appearance, the judges questioned why high school STEM students couldn’t just use GitHub. To that Pedroso says that Gradfly is more visual, helping students tell a story with their work. They also have a focused community of high school aged students, where of course there is no age requirement for GitHub.

Check out our video interview with Pedroso below and for more information visit gradfly.com

Check out all these other startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013

Fred Wilson, PrivCo’s Report On Tumblr Deal Is Total Garbage

Fred Wilson, who some consider the godfather of New York venture capital, made some money in the Tumblr deal. However he is quick to point out that a PrivCo report that suggested his firm, Union Square Ventures, netted a 5,000% return is “total garbage” Business Insider reported late Tuesday.

PrivCo is a private firm that reports on startups and they claim that they had access to details of exactly how much everyone made in the landmark $1.1 billion dollar deal between Yahoo and Tumblr.

Wilson took to Hacker News where he said “Total garbage. There is not one fact in this privco thing that is close to right. The numbers are good but nowhere close to that good. This is the same firm that predicted Foursquare would be out of business this year which will also prove to be nonsense.”

Time Magazine is reporting the Privco data, that Tumblr founder David Karp is taking home $253 million dollars in the deal. They’re also reporting that on a combined investment of $5.25 million dollars over 2007 and 2008, and in conjunction with Boston based Spark Capital Union Square Ventures saw a return of 50x which was worth $253 million to USV and $231 million to Spark.

Privco also suggests that Sequoia yielded $176 million and a combined, Greylock Partners, Insight Venture Partners, CrunchFund and Draper Fisher Jurveston made $88 million.

Wilson has not revealed what the actual numbers are, and probably won’t which could make this information just a shot in the dark.

Another early Tumblr backer, Bijan Sabet said on Twitter that the PrivCo report was “complete garbage and incorrect”.

Now check out Fred Wilson’s Venture Capital Do’s & Dont’s

New York Startup InBetweenJobs Is For People Who, You Guessed It, Are InBetweenJobs

Finding yourself in between jobs can be one of the scariest things on earth. Some people are lucky, and they know when they might have to start looking for work. Most people, on the other hand, have no idea that they are about to get laid off or that a company is shutting down. For anyone out of work though, uncertainty can be a very scary thing.

Not knowing where the next paycheck is coming from is typically the biggest threat in between jobs, but other things like health insurance, other employee benefits, taxes and resources can become overwhelming.

Big companies usually help out displaced workers through third party companies. These companies, chronicled in the George Clooney movie Up In The Air, connect people to job placement services, resume companies, skill builders and other resources. For the rest of us though, navigating in between jobs can be the hardest job of all.

InBetweenJobs is a New York startup that sets out to simplify and enrich the process of being in between jobs. The company offers access to resources for things like polishing your cover letter, updating your resume, improving your skills, researching trends and companies in your field and of course hunting for jobs. They’re also hoping to offer interviewing tips, information about COBRA insurance and anything that anyone in between jobs could need.

InBetweenJobs incentivizes the time between jobs by offering points for real life rewards. When a user participates in an activity like taking a quick online course in cover letters they earn points. Points can then be redeemed for things like metrocards and free coffee, which when you’re saving every dime you have, can come in quite handy.

Not only do the points come in handy because they provide value to the job seeker, they can also serve as even the smallest little morale booster which people often times need when they are out of work.

Check out our video interview below with CEO and founder Diego Orofino and to sign up to be notified when InBetweenJobs opens, head over to inbetweenjobs.com.

Check out over 50 startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 here at nibletz.com

Chicago’s GrubHub And New York’s Seamless Merging To Dominate Food Ordering Market

Chicago based food ordering startup GrubHub and New York based food ordering startup Seamless have announced that the two companies will merge, pending regulatory approval.

GrubHub’s co-founder Matt Maloney will become the combined company’s CEO while Seamless’ CEO Jonathan Zabusky will serve as the new company’s President. A new name for the combined entity has not been announced. Both companies have said they don’t plan on reducing staff. GrubHub employs around 350 people while Seamless employs 300 people.

GrubHub hosted Startup America Regional Champion’s during last October’s Startup America Summit. During that event we enjoyed breakfast, a tour of the company’s new offices and keynote sessions by Maloney, Scott Case and later in the day Brad Keywell of Groupon and LightBank fame.

While rivals GrubHub and Seamless were responsible fora reported $875 million dollars in food sales to local restaurants bringing in over $100 million dollars in revenue.

“We have the luxury of having two amazing brands right now. Honestly, we don’t have plans to consolidate brands at this time,” Matt Maloney, CEO and co-founder of GrubHub, told ABC News. “We are looking to position ourselves as a combined unit within this massive industry.”

Maloney acknowledged that Seamless has a great iPad app. 30% of each company’s business is currently coming from mobile an area where Maloney sees the need for improvement with GrubHub. GrubHub offers in-restaurant tablet technology which could (and probably will) combine with the tablet offerings for Seamless.

The combined company will have a stable of over 500 cities and 20,000 local takeout locations.

The GrubHub Seamless merger lost some of it’s thunder once Yahoo announced the acquisition of Tumblr.

Stop Putting Your Fitbit on Your Dog, Fitbark is Here [video]

Fitness and the “internet of things” go hand in hand. Today there are hundreds of devices with sensors and monitors that interact with your smartphone to give you the data you need on just about everything. We’ve tested devices here at nibletz world headquarters that monitor everything from temperature, to humidity, to steps walked to chlorine levels in a pool. Yes everything has a sensor.

The biggest segment here is of course fitness. Fitbit, Fuelband and other devices allow users to have their workouts monitored and the info tracked on the smartphone.

Well if you’ve decided to tether fitbit to your dog’s collar either to make it look like you’re working out more or you’re curious what kind of workout Rover is getting while you are at work, you can stop now.

Thanks to the brother and sister team of Davide and Sara Rossi, there is now Fitbark. As you may have gathered, Fitbark is one of those “internet of things” devies that allows you to monitor the energy level and things that your dog does. You may want to make sure that after that steak you fed him last night, he is sweatin to the oldies while you’re dropping the kids off at school.

But seriously,

Fitbark has some great real life uses that most dog owners would actually consider, before buying the device.

For instance, you want to know that your dog actually went for a walk while he was at the boarding facility or while you were paying the neighbor to “dog sit”. You could tell by the level of activity whether your dog sat around all weekend or if he had his walk. You can also tell by the data sent from the Fitbark to the smartphone app, whether or not your dog was walked at the proper times. If the pet sitter says she walked him at 4:30pm but you see he was sleeping, blasphemy, caught in a lie!

Fitbark is also a great way to monitor your dogs health. After all dogs can’t really talk. You may notice in the monitoring of your dog that he or she goes a few days with a lot less activity, that’s probably an indicator that something is just not right.

For those folks out there that are parents, and only to the canine species, a device like Fitbark may be just what the doctor, I mean veteranarian ordered.

You can support Fitbark on Kickstarter and hopefully be one of the first people to get one.

Check out our video interview with Davide Rossi below.

And here are over 50 more startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013.

New York Gets Billion Dollar Exit With Tumblr

Tumblr, Yahoo, David Karp, Marissa Mayer, Acquisition, Exit

Tumblr founder David Karp onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2011 (photo: K. Sandler for Thedroidguy.com)

This was the big startup news all weekend. At the end of last week, rumors started bubbling up via AllthingsD suggesting that Yahoo, and it’s new powerhouse CEO Marissa Mayer was looking for their biggest startup acquisition to date. That startup was Tumblr.

Last week we started hearing that Yahoo was prepared to buy Tumblr for $1 billion dollars. Many tech and startup pundits suggested that Facebook may try and jump in and swallow up Tumblr before the Yahoo board could get together Sunday and vote on the acquisition. Facebook reportedly, never made an offer.

In case you’ve been living out in the wilderness without internet access, Tumblr is a microblogging platform. They have over 100 million monthly visitors and see over 90 million posts made per day. Unlike the 140 character restriction on Twitter, people posting to Tumblr can write longer formatted posts and include pictures, videos etc.

Coincidentally Tumblr, and it’s founder David Karp, were the subjects of my most widely read story ever in my career is a “blogger”. Tumblr is just that popular.

Karp has been swatting off offers to buy Tumblr almost since it’s inception. Celebrities like Lady Gaga and others, flocked to Tumblr to add to their social media strategies. In fact GaGa actually posts on her own Tumblr, whereas her Facebook page is updated by a social media team.

The Wall Street Journal, and several other credible sources, have said that Yahoo’s board approved a $1.1 billion dollar acquisition of Tumblr. Many sources speculate that Mayer, a 13 year veteran of Google, hopes that Tumblr will be Yahoo’s YouTube. It’s also been reported that, for now, Tumblr will operate as it’s own business unit, and continue to be based in New York.

There are no solid revenue numbers for Tumblr reported online. What has been reported is that the startup, that was founded in Karp’s mom’s small New York apartment in 2007, has raised $125 million in venture capital and at one point Karp sold 25% of the company for$750,000. It’s unclear how much Karp still owns today.

Karp, along with girlfriend Rachel Eakley, a grad student and chef, lived in a modest west village apartment until last year when they moved into a $1.6 million dollar loft in West Brooklyn. Karp dropped out of high school, finishing up his education on his own and then moved to Japan where he coded for a living.

There’s no official word of how long Karp will remain with the company.

New York even has a ping pong startup!

Startup Life: Andy Smith of DailyBurn

Andy Smith, Founder and CEO of DailyBurn

As a relative newcomer to the tech startup scene, one thing that fascinates me is the daily life of founders. The early stages of a company are so intense, and the pressure only grows with the companies. How do founders do it?

So, I’m on a quest. I want to talk to as many founders as possible and figure out how they make this startup life work.

I hear a lot about how easy it is for founders’ health to deteriorate. Late nights, skipped meals, and the midnight beer to relax. They all add up–with a big dose of stress mixed in–and it’s not hard to see why.

That made my first interview especially interesting. Andy Smith co-founded DailyBurn (then called Gyminee) in 2007. The company was part of TechStars Boulder in 2008, and in 2010 IAC acquired the majority share. Because of the reputation startup life has for bad health, I was interested to see what a health and fitness founder did to stay healthy in the process.

Q. What does your typical day look like?

AS: I’m normally in the office by about 9AM. Most people here at DailyBurn work “New York Tech” company hours (10-7), but I like to get home by 6:30 so I can spend time with my 3 kids. These days I’m in more meetings than I used to be, as I’m trying to build out my core executive team. We are at the stage in our company growth now where we can’t keep it flat – so I’m spending more time with my direct reports and getting that setup.

One thing that is scheduled in to my day each day is TRAINING. It’s important to be in good shape if you are the leader of any company, but even more so if you lead a fitness company. I either join our company workouts at 5pm (eat your own dog food) or train at the nearby gym. A couple of us are getting ready for another Toughmudder race so I’m pretty strict with food and training right now.

Q. How is it different than in the early days of DailyBurn?

AS: Well, in the EARLY early days of DailyBurn there were two of us, and we both were coding full-time. That stopped on our second round of funding, when I became full-time business side of things. I do miss the coding sometimes, but running a business has other interesting problems to solve.

I’m also learning how to navigate running a small growing business in a larger parent company – and that is bringing a lot of new challenges. One of the biggest changes is not making all the decisions and learning to let others make decisions even when you don’t always agree with them. It’s a necessary step in our growth because if I don’t give away some control, I become a huge bottleneck in the growth of the business. Loosening that control is emotionally hard, because I have a pride/control idol that always shows its ugly head. However, I’m seeing the benefits already and I’m excited of how it will free me up to focus on the area of business that needs the most attention – all while other parts of the business are continuing to grow and move without my direct focus.

Q. Obviously, DailyBurn is all about health and fitness. What tips do you have for founders to keep themselves healthy during the hectic days of starting a company?

AS: When you are super busy with startup life – it is easy to eat poorly and skip exercises. It can move to the back burner. However, it is in those times when eating right and working out give you the most benefit. If you eat clean 90% of the time, and train 3-5 times a week you are going to perform better at your job.

My second tip would be to try to set a culture of fitness in your startup. Working out together can be a great bonding experience. We also try to do athletic events together (Toughmudder is a great example).

Q. I love the DailyBurn videos, but they are HARD! Do you ever use them yourself?

AS: Of course! And, I’m the one to blame if they are too hard! My favorite workouts on DailyBurn are in the Tactical Bodyweight Training (TBT) series and the INFERNO series. I’m particularly fond of INFERNO because I was in the test group to make sure the workouts are hard enough!

But – the great thing about DailyBurn is that there are workouts for everyone. If you like to dance, we have MOVE. If yoga is your thing we have world-class yoga videos. We have kettle bells, abs, MMA, short workouts, long workouts – you name it. That’s the beauty of our platform – there is something for everyone and you know it’s going to be great quality.

Q. Any other general advice for early-stage founders?

AS: I’m a big fan of startup accelerators like TechStars. They really do work to accelerate your business (advice, connections, fundraising, strategy), and I encourage most first-time entrepreneurs to try to get into a program like TechStars.

A lot of the advice I give to young companies is depending on what they are going through, but one of my biggest things is to share your idea with a lot of people. Many early entrepreneurs think that their idea is so valuable that they keep it close hold. In reality, execution is key and the advice you get will outweigh the value of being in stealth mode (most of the time! – I say this even as I have a small project in stealth!).

I couldn’t convince Andy to share that stealth project, but if it’s as great as DailyBurn, it will be great to watch.

Monica Selby is a writer and editor living in Memphis, TN. When she’s not chasing her three boys, she writes about women, work, and startups.

The Pill Bottle Gets Reinvented By New York Startup AdhereTech

A New York startup called AdhereTech has created a sensor laden pill bottle.

The bottle looks just about the same as a regular pill bottle, with a little extra girth for both the sensor and a 3g radio chip. When the 3g radio chip is coupled with the sensors in the pill bottle it can provide information on dosage timing, how many pills are in the bottle and if the bottle is being opened and closed at the correct times.

The ability to communicate this data to a care provider and also to a health management app can be game-changing to people dependent on taking lots of medication.

We talked with the team at AdhereTech about taking multiple prescriptions,and multiple bottles in the same home will not cause any kind of conflict.

We got to interview them at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC 2013. They are also going to participate in the AARP/Live Pitch 2013 Health Innovation Conference in Las Vegas. Out of 100s of applications, AdhereTech was chosen as one of 10 to pitch their product on the main stage.

They aren’t the first health startup to add sensors to products patients use everyday. At CES 2013 earlier this year we met the team from Geckocap that has installed sensors on asthma inhalers which help track children’s albuterol treatments and gamifies the use of the inhaler for young patients to insure they take their inhaler medication.

Check out the video below and for more information visit adheretech.com.

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Your Time Is Valuable, NY Startup GetAppRewards Rewards You For Using Apps & Playing Games

So this concept isn’t entirely new. This New York startup, GetAppRewards, wants to reward users for engaging with apps and games that are in their app network.

The more time you spend using the apps in the GetAppRewards network, or playing their games, you’ll earn points. Points can be redeemed for things like other games, electronics, clothing, gift cards and more. The hope is that by rewarding users, they will be more loyal to the apps that are in GetAppRewards network.

In it’s simplest for, GetAppRewards is a mobile advertising platform for app developers to get both more users and downloads as well as improve the time that a user engages with their app.

“GetAppRewards offers instant rewards to users for spending more time in your app, and viewing in-app advertisements. When we reward users like this, they will reward you with their time, attention and purchases. This is a simple and effective formula that helps you monetize your app to the fullest extent.” the company says on their Facebook page.

They also hope to improve in app purchases: “With us showering rewards on the users for launching your app, watching video ads and tapping any ads, it’s hard not to make in-app purchases.” they said.

There are other products out there like Junowallet for instance, that reward users for downloading apps. GetAppRewards secret sauce isn’t in just the downloads but also in the engagement and time spent.

Check out our interview below and for more info you can find them on Facebook here.

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