New York Startup Rentenna Gives You The Score On Apartments In 16 Major Cities

If you’ve ever been apartment shopping online, you know what a pain in the ass it can be. You’re browser usually has 99 tabs open and your going back and forth trying to get as much info as possible. If you’re organized, perhaps you made a spread sheet or kept notes. Well New York startup Rentenna is making lives easier for those shopping for apartments and rentals in New York City, Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Fort Worth, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Tacoma and Washington DC. They’re expanding at lightning speed so if you’re city isn’t available now it should be soon.

Between the three cities Rentenna have over 100,000 buildings listed in their platform. From there everything you would ever want to know about the apartment building is rated into one simple score 1-99 so you can quickly find the best bang for your buck.

Rentenna offers information open rental units from a variety of rental partners,giving users options for available listings. They also offer in depth reviews from their partner Block Avenue.

The startup was co-founded by a powerhouse team including Alicia Scwartz a young serial entrepreneur who’s credits include thecareerproject.org and howtorentinNYC.com. She is also a former New York Times rental expert. We got a chance to talk with Schwartz about Rentenna. Check out the interview below.

What is your startup, what does it do?

Rentenna’s data-driven rental search is the fastest & most beautiful way to find an apartment you’ll love. Our technology analyzes millions of data points on buildings and neighborhoods, and then compresses that information into a Rentenna Score of 0-100 to help you quickly sort through available listings and decide if a rental building is someplace you’d like to live.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds

Alicia Schwartz is a former rental broker, former New York Times Rental Expert, and a digital marketing consultant to the real estate industry.

A. Kayvon Bina studied Human-Computer Interaction at Stanford University before advising technology & media companies on Wall Street and then co-founding his first successful startup, FranchiseHelp.com.

Sandeep Kella studied engineering at UMichigan, was a Private Equity investor, and has co-founded 2 successful startups (including FranchiseHelp.com w/ Kayvon).

Kevin Dolan, Rentenna’s CTO, studied Computer Science at Cornell. Before Rentenna, Kevin built the search product at Workday (NYSE: WDAY).

Where are you based?

Rentenna is based in the WeWork Labs incubator space in SoHo, New York City.

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

New York overall has a thriving startup culture, with an ecosystem that’s benefited immensely from successful NYC entrepreneurs paying it forward by subsequently becoming mentors and investors to local startups. Our incubator space specifically (WeWork Labs) is an amazing launching pad from which to build a technology company many of our most important contacts and partnerships have emerged from the informal network fostered in the halls at WeWork.

What problem does your startup solve?

Rental search today is an awful experience. Current sites are no better than skimming through classifieds in the paper — line after line of basically identical listings, with no guidance or information to help you find the apartments you might actually want to live in. We use the power of data — data on buildings, on landlords, on rent prices, on neighborhoods, on local bars/restaurants, and more — to help you quickly find the rentals that best match your priorities as a renter.

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

Whenever you’re addressing a major consumer pain point, you’re sure to get an endless stream of (often totally contradictory) feature requests that users believe would solve their problems. If you’re too reactive to that kind of feedback, you’ll end up building an unwieldy product that doesn’t really solve anyone’s problems particularly well. We’ve been disciplined from the very beginning about using qualitative feedback to identify users’ biggest pain points while using a rigorous A/B testing framework to select the solutions (features) that best solve those problems.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

We’ve built a massive database of over 100,000 buildings indexed, nearly a million listings processed, and over 70 million discrete data points analyzed — all powering a beautiful site that was just recognized as a 2013 Webby Awards Honoree in the Real Estate category!

What are your next milestones

Over the coming months we’ll be identifying and incorporating additional city-specific data sources, testing a bevy of new features, and releasing our mobile app / tablet experience.

Who are your mentors and role models?

Each of the founders at Rentenna has been lucky to work with tremendous mentors throughout his/her career. While there are many successful entrepreneurs whom we admire and turn to for advice on Rentenna, it’s the people we’ve worked with throughout our careers who have shaped us most.

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

The advantage of growing outside Silicon Valley is being in New York, a city we love and which happens to have a startup and investor community that fits well with Rentenna’s business model.

The disadvantage of growing outside Silicon Valley is missing out on those serendipitous connections that get made every day there thanks to the area’s sheer concentration of successful tech entrepreneurs, investors, and advisors. Plus, it means Kayvon doesn’t get to go back to Stanford and stroll down Palm Drive nearly as often as he’d like.

What’s next for your startup?

We’re new, but we’ve resonated with consumers because we’re offering a product that’s unlike any the rental search category has seen before. Our next challenge is to expose Rentenna to as broad an audience as possible, so every apartment-hunter can have the fast & beautiful apartment search experience we think they deserve.

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

People can use the site now at Rentenna.com. We are on Facebook and Twitter

Warner Music Exec Ping Ho Gives Important Tips For Music Startups

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Larry Miller, Medianet (L), Ping Ho, Warner Music Group (R) (photo: NMI 2013)

Warner Music Group’s Director of the Digital Strategy Team, Ping Ho, was in Nashville today for the Music Startup Academy. The event is meant to merge musicians, labels, lawyers, publishers and entrepreneurs working on startups that are touching the music business.

In my startup experience I’ve get to talk to a lot of startups. I’ve also sat on a few committees that have vetted startups for accelerator programs. So often I’ve met music based startups who have no idea how big the can of worms is when they want to do something with commercial music.

Ho, has been with Warner Music Group over the last 8 years, and always with the digital department. She’s been through just about the entire boom of the digital music age.

We’re going to continue to dive more into music focused startups in the future here at nibletz.com but in the mean time, at the event today Ho gave some very good advice to music startups.

First things first, in my experience, I’ve met quite a few founders who want to offer some kind of “radio” or “streaming” service and are adamant about doing their own thing and not using an API from someone like Spotify or Rdio. That may be the biggest mistake you’ll ever make.

Licensing music directly from a major label and can be very costly. Legitimizing your startup among independent artists can be a very long tail process. If you don’t have millions (and I’m not exaggerating) you may want to reconsider those Spotify API’s until you can build up traction.

Stubborn? Headstrong, oh ok you have the greatest idea in the world and want to go directly to the label then read on…

For starters Ho did say that it’s a lot easier to score a meeting or at least a chance to get your startup in front of her team than it would be for an artist to get in front of a traditional A&R. But pay attention here or you’ll blow it.

The Boy Scout Rule: Be Prepared.

Sure this is common knowledge but for Ho, and her counterparts at other labels this means.

– knowing your pitch
– knowing your market
– knowing your competition
– knowing what you need from the label
– having a white paper or deck, but they want to see both business plan and product, and in depth.

On this, here is the absolute biggest thing Ho said that will get your meeting shut down…

Have a ProtoType, DO NOT BE IN A CLOSED WORKING BETA.

Ho said that many times startups have pitched her. They get to a meeting and have set up a wonderful login for her to use to access their startup. They are happy, headstrong and proudly say, “We’re in a closed beta with 5000 users, and they love it”, “They’re using our service four hours a day each”. Then she, or an executive in her position, goes to the actual product and they’re using Warner’s music in the “beta”. Well guess what, your great idea and great startup are now stealing WMG’s product, and with 5,000 users using the service four hours a day, you’re stealing a lot of that.

The music business is going through it’s biggest fundamental change ever. An executive with Sony earlier in the program said “The album is dead, we need to find more high margin product businesses”, digital licensing is now the catalog vault.

“I’m going to rely on the artist to help build my customer base” makes Ho cringe the way that “we’re going to grow socially and organically over the first two years” makes me cringe.

Artists aren’t going to get involved until they see how your startup is impacting their bottom line. This can be a double edged sword as well because remember, the death of the album is affecting artists just as much as it is labels. They’re getting into more and more businesses, and a lot of them are digital.

So now that you’ve got all that, check out digitalmusic.org they’ll help you get to that next step.

Here are more great startup stories from Nashville.

Out of 1700 Applications Here Are The 11 Startups In The Spring NY Techstars Session

Eugene Chung took to the official Techstars blog to announce that this spring’s session at NY Techstars was by far the biggest applicant pool they had seen. Techstars NY received over 1700 applications from 420 cities, 66 countries.

“We had applicants from countries as diverse as Nepal and Tanzania. More than ever, our applicant pool reflects the global reach of TechStars and the infusion of technology in the cultural zeitgeist of societies around the world. The movie The Social Network has become the Wall Street of our generation. This is true not just for America but for the world at large. Some of the brightest minds of our era are choosing to become entrepreneurs.” Chung said on the Techstars blog.

The 1700 applications came from a wide range of technology verticals. This year they even have a startup in the class called FaithStreet, in the religious space. “For the first time ever, we have a company tackling the religion space, an underserved yet massive market with incredible opportunities for disruption.” Chung said.

FaithStreet helps users find churches in their neighborhood. Their website boasts 11,359 churches in 3473 cities across America, and seems to be growing already.

The Techstars New York spring 2013 session runs through June 28th when they will hold investor day.

Here are the 11 startups selected this year:

Ad Yapper – “Talk back to any ad in the world, influence brands, and make a real difference.”
Dash Labs – “America’s story is written on the road. Connect to Dash and chronicle your journey.
FaithStreet – “Find a church near you.”
Jukely – “Concert concierge. The shows you’ve been missing, tailored and delivered.”
Klooff – “iPhone app for pet lovers.”
Placemeter – “Connecting smart customers with smart businesses. One place at a time.”
Plated – Ingredients in pre-measured portions delivered to you for quick, home-cooked meals.
Sketchfab – “Publish and embed interactive 3D models.”
TriggerMail – “Personalized retention emails for Ecommerce.”
Validation Board – “Test your startup idea without wasting time or money.”
weeSpring – “Find essential baby products with advice from your friends.”

Check out these startup accelerator stories from “everywhere else”.

A Tribute To My Personal Favorite New York CEO, Dan Porter, Wire Style

Dan Porter, the CEO of OMGPOP became Zynga’s New York chief when the popular social games company acquired the New York based company that created “Draw Something”.

Sure one of the main reasons I like Dan Porter so much is that he named every conference and meeting space in OMGPOP’s headquarters after characters from the hit HBO drama “The Wire”. Being from South Baltimore and having extrad a few times during the run of “The Wire” I naturally loved the idea of meeting rooms named after such influential characters as Avon Barksdale, Marlo Stansfield and Proposition Joe.

What came apparent though, as Zynga set sail with OMGPOP on board was that Porter was like the Stansfield character. Porter told it like it was, probably causing a major level of discomfort for Zynga CEO Mark Pincus.

Porter drew fire when Quartz, a business news website quoted him as saying that Zynga copies other publishers games.

Porter is leaving his post as vice president and general manager of Zynga’s New York operations. It’s unclear whether or not he is staying with the company. He is leaving his post as Draw Something 2 is preparing for release.

The original Draw Something caught on like wild fire. The game, which allows two players to play in a head to head win lose or draw style competition, was the game of the month right up until the sale to Zynga. It’s popularity faded as hits like SongPop started picking up steam.

The exact amount that Zynga paid for OMGPOP was never reported. What was reported, was the fact that Zynga had to write down $95 million dollars on the OMGPOP deal.

Even with all that in mind, Porter is credited with helping to move Zynga from the Facebook dependent social gaming space to the mobile screen. Reports surfaced on Monday morning that Zynga was about to unveil online gambling games in the UK as well.

While Zynga’s focus isn’t clear to anyone at the moment, we are confident that Porter’s is. So Dan closes your eyes, and breathe easy, your next big thing is right around the corner.

See why Dan Porter earned that bump like a mother fucker, here.

Madison Startup PieCharter Is Getting Startups Off The Ground

Madison Wisconsin startup PieCharter is the latest startup tackling the issue of getting entrepreneurs connected to the resources that they need in order to bring an idea from the idea stage to a startup.

PieCharter “…connects budding entrepreneurs with freelance designers in order to create startups. It eliminates the single biggest barrier any entrepreneur faces when starting a new business, money. The site allows entrepreneurs with an idea to post and create a new project then hire contractors to do work that they themselves cannot do by offering the contractors equity in the new project.” John Scheflow, co-founder of PieCharter told nibletz.com in an interview.

Early stage startups often resort to giving up equity to designers, developers and other personnel that come on board in the earliest stages because they can’t afford to pay them. This process gets really sloppy by the time it comes to actually do a cap table and issue stock certificates. Time and time again, founders, or employees who think they are founders, have some kind of misunderstanding when distributing equity.

Scheflow said “…PieCharter creates a platform to hold people accountable for their promises of equity, and also allows freelancers the opportunity to take on projects to build a portfolio and work with companies they believe in.” Thus eliminating the equity free for all that sometimes happens when splitting up the pie.

Scheflow along with his co-founder Richard Magness are law students at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Magness hails from Eureka Springs Arkansas, however before law school in Wisconsin he spent 7 years in Japan working as a free lance web designer. He co-founded flutterscape.com and is also the art director at Diveboard.com. Scheflow majored in journalism at the University of Miami before moving to sunny Wisconsin and is originally from Elgin IL.

While there are plenty of startups out there that are trying to solve the work for equity issue, PieCharter has a few elements that make up their secret sauce. First off, with PieCharter he equity “pie” is visualized and easier to understand. Also both Schefulow and Magness agree that their legal experience and education fits into their secret sauce as well.

“We were aware of some of the legal issues like securities law that our website raises, which has helped us plan around these issues from the beginning. Other than that it’s caffeine and the feeling that working on the site is better than doing any of the other work we have to do.” Scheflow added.

To date the duo has been accepted into the University of Wisconsin Law and Entrepreneurship Clinic. They’ve also built out two prototypes. Their next milestone is an alpha launch and eventually fundraising.

While they don’t have formal mentors both Magness and Scheflow are getting a lot of experience and help in school. They also look up to the Beastie Boys.

“…we’re definitely huge fans of the Beastie Boys. We like people that do what they want to do, and that’s what we’re trying to do with PieCharter. We’re doing what we want to do, and hopefully PieCharter will help people start the projects they want to start.”

PieCharter hopes to move to a closed beta soon. You can find out more at piecharter.com and by following them on Twitter @piecharter.

Now check out 4 Startup Co-Founders You Don’t Want.

Move Over Gary Vee Splitbin Says They’re The “Wolverine” Of Wine Startups [interview]

According to the founders of New York startup Split Bin, Chris “Hannibal” Fava and Todd “Niko” McCarthy, they’ve re-invented the wine startup.

“Splitbin is the Wolverine of wine sale sites…in beast mode…on steroids…to the extreme. While other wine sites just sell assorted high price booze, we offer high quality, low cost wine in a way everyone can understand. Oh yea, we’re also the first wine site in the world to give you the choice to split the cost and buy with friends.” Fava told nibletz.com in an interview.

Essentially Splitbin wants to become the easiest way to buy win and have it delivered, whether you’re drinking alone or having an open house party.

One things for sure, judging by our interview with them, Splitbin has the fire to succeed (and probably attract Gary Vee, who may be just a tad crazier than them)

Check out the interview below.

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

If you like wine, but get confused by the culture, and intimidated by high prices, then Splitbin is your horse. We offer affordable wine deals, delivered quickly, with no minimum order requirements. Since we are not, in principle, a “wine club”, we don’t require our Splitbuds to adhere to a buying program. Just log in, check out our new juice, and pick what you like, when you like.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Our founder, Chris “Hannibal” Fava, an avid big game hunter, is always after the next animal ready to be taken down. After filling his study with boar and bear busts, he targeted the bloated wine industry and decided to start filling his wine cellar.

Todd “Niko” McCarthy, Splitbin’s CMO and resident chef/DJ, is into wine but also enjoy a nice bullfight on acid. Amateur Formula 1 racetracks in Eastern European capitals are where he finds his happy place. After reading Tim Ferriss’ “4 Hour Work Week” he dedicated himself to digital marketing…and to discovering the elusive 3 hour work week.

Part of our Shadow Ops team, Tom “Bootsy” Collins, is our enigmatic guiding light, a guru of sorts. When upright, you’ll usually find him ensconced in a Burmese jungle searching for rare snake wine, or fending off ivory poachers in Zimbabwe. Currently, his mission is to show wine producers of the world to a new audience, helping the otherwise shunned, marginalized, overlooked drinkers of the world discover great juice at exceptional value.

Where are you based?

Brooklyn, NY (aka Bucktown, USA)

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

Ready to be crushed.

How did you come up with the idea for Splitbin?

We’ve lived in group houses and have gone/held our share of group dinners where one person gets stuck with the tab simply by being a good host. We could always split tabs at bars and restaurants, so why the hell couldn’t you do it online? We all liked to cook, eat, and drink together, but we wanted a way to make it easier to get together without one person having to buy everything. Living and working in cities also makes it harder to get to stores and learn about new wine, let alone carrying the damn stuff.

How did you come up with the name?

Have you ever seen the movie Face/Off? It’s like that. Except you Split the Bin.

What problem does Splitbin solve?

Global Warming and making sure mark-ass tricks pay for what they drink in groups.

What’s your secret sauce?

Oooohhhh, you’re dirty…we like that, but we’ll keep the answer clean. You can eat it with anything, but our secret sauce would be a beurre blanc with capers and tarragon. It’s almost like a hybrid Bearnaise and absolutely rocks with roasted salt potatoes or a nice fatty salmon. It’s actually something that is fun to mess around with at home, it just involves a bit of patience, and a shit ton of butter.

Are you bootstrapped or funded?

We like to consider ourselves strapped and sometimes we wear boots. But yeah, we haven’t taken any angel or VC clams yet.

What are some milestones you’ve achieved?

Doing the Seven Summits carrying a full case of Cabernet (without extra oxygen) was Bootsy’s major achievement of fall 2012. Getting our business up and running was a minor miracle…doing this interview with the fine folks at Nibletz sure counts as one

What’s your next milestone?

Getting every man, woman and child (over 21) hooked on wine.

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

Figuring out you can’t easily build a website just because you know how to share google docs or have a great smile. Also, figuring out which growth driver is most efficient in our user acquisition strategy.

Who are some of your mentors and business role models?

Our role models are Dave Chappelle (post Africa), the dude that sold his picture app to facebook, Eric Ries and Zack Morris.

Our mentors include some highly experienced pros in the NYC advertising world (Woods Witt Dealy & Sons) as well as Neil Jacobs, who has provided invaluable startup legal counsel as we’ve gotten going.

What’s next for Splitbin?

First priority is bailing our CTO out of jail in Cancun then bussing him back to BK to complete our mobile app (Mexico is fun, but the dude needs to get cracking). It’s still in development, but this app is going to change the world. We are a national company, but have been pretty Beast Coast dominant since launching. We want to really focus on getting the word on Splitbin out to all our homies in the south, midwest and the Best Coast, letting them know that we’ve got the best wine deals going

Where can people find out more!

Check us out on Facebook/splitbin – we post deals, free mixtapes, and all sorts of tomfoolery to help you get through the day

You can find us tweeting trivia questions for wine deal discounts @splitbin or engaging in topical political discussions like #whatismetrobutt?

Ready for a glass of wine? Check out splitbin.com

Zack Morris may have been the inspiration for this startup too!

Non Tech Co-Founders Check Out TechSpeak For Entrepreneurs

TechSpeak For Entrepreneurs,Nelly Yusupova, Fred Wilson, startup tips,startup news

Nelly Yusupova founder of TechSpeak For Entrepreneurs (photo: tech.co)

Although he hasn’t led a deal this year, the venture capitalist of all New York venture capitalists, Fred Wilson, is still sharing great advice on his “avc” blog. If you’re not a regular reader of avc.com you need to be.

Last week he wrote about his friend Nelly Yusupova, the CTO at Webgrrls International and the founder and creator of TechSpeak For Entrepreneurs.

As you might imagine, TechSpeak For Entrepreneurs, is a two day bootcamp that teaches us non-technical founders the ins and outs of the software design and build process, and how it works.

Wilson says “…that entrepreneurs who are not deeply technical spend too much money, time, and effort trying to get their ideas turned into software products. Many hire the wrong people, get a product that doesn’t meet what they wanted, and worse of all, many get ripped off in the process. ” Wilson is not a “design” or “developer” snob and realizes that all great startups don’t need a technical founder, but they need to be technically savvy.

TechSpeak for Entrepreneurs also helps non-technical founders learn the lingo and the language on the design and development side. To some, speaking tech is like a foreign language, taking the time out of your busy schedule to attend a TechSpeak for Entrepreneurs could give you the leg up.

There are three TechSpeak For Entrepreneurs’ bootcamps coming up in Phoenix, Silicon Valley and New York.

Phoenix, AZ Apr 05-06

Silicon Valley, CA Apr 13-14

New York City, NY May 04-05

“If you are a non technical entrepreneur, I strongly advise you to get technical. And TechSpeak for Entrepreneurs is a good way to start on that journey.” Wilson suggests.

Wilson is a VC and Principal at Union Square Ventures in New York. Click here to check out avc.com his personal blog.

Learn more, check out these Startup Tips at nibletz.com

Nashville: Jumpstart Foundry Startup, Jamplify, Raises $600K

One of the highlights at the 2012 Jumpstart Foundry Demo Day in Nashville Tennessee last August, was how many startup teams actually had a product ready to go. Jamplify was one of those teams.

Jamplify crowdsources people for promoting the bands, brands and products that they love. Rather than crowdsourcing for actual capital Jamplify is crowdsourcing for social capital and human capital, and then there’s the payoff.

Jamplify is like the kickstarter for fan based, crowd based musical promotion. As a fan of a band or a promotional ambassador you can agree to promote a band or musician. Based on your social graph and the amount of people that you actually touch with the campaigns short, trackable url you will become eligible for prizes from the band or artist you’re promoting.

What’s even cooler is you wouldn’t know it if you saw them pitch, but Jamplify was founded by two friends that met while they were coworkers in New York at Goldman Sachs. Andy Pickens and Moses Soyoola, left one of the most prestigious addresses on Wall Street and spent last summer iterating, developing, pivoting and reworking Jamplify to the product that it is today.

They’ve already started seeing great results. Business Insider reports that Jamplify was able to drive 190,000 views to a 15 year old pop stars YouTube video. What’s even more impressive is those 190,000 views were referred by 670 fans, meaning each fan drove about 280 views.

Their $600,000 round came from a number of unnamed Nashville and New York based investors and will allow the team to continue working on a product that’s been tried,proven and is developing traction.

Here’s their pitch video from the Jumpstart Foundry demo day:

We cover high growth technology in the South and Everywhere Else.

Startup Viagra, An Accelerator For Porn?

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Cindy Gallop (photo: Abosch/Twitter)

According to Venturebeat, when Make Love Not Porn founder, Cindy Gallop started discussing the possibility of an accelerator for porn, former TechStars NY Managing Director David Tisch, looked uncomfortable, “get me the heck out of here” expression, says Devindra Hardawar with Venture Beat.

While some may think that Gallop is nuts, she is seriously interested about creating an accelerator for those startups in the adult industry. Her site, Make Love Not Porn, took about two years to find investors brave enough to back her idea. Her site tries to promote more realistic portrayals of adult entertainment.

“I would like to start the Y Combinator for porn,” Gallop said this morning at the Start conferencein New York City. She noted “there is nobody in the world to mentor” startups related to the adult industry, reports VentureBeat.

Adult entertainment and startups aren’t anything new. Back in August we ran an interview with the founders of Offbeatr a crowdfunding platform for adult projects, similar to Kickstarter.

VentureBeat speculates it could be a while for Gallop’s idea to take shape, we’re thinking it won’t be that long.

Sound off in comments.

We’re crowdfunding, see here.

KillSwitch, The Ultimate Broken Heart App With A Touch Of Slacktivism [video][sxsw]

We bumped into Clara DeSoto and Erica Mannherz, of Clearhart digital, in the Startup America Live lounge at SXSW 2013. Clearhart digital is a digital agency and app creation studio out of New York, that just happens to be founded by women.

They told us all about their first app, KillSwitch. This app is for the broken hearted, and does exactly what the name suggests.

After you break up with someone you use KillSwitch in conjunction with your Facebook account. It quickly purges your entire Facebook and gets rid of any references, photos, status updates, etc, of your X. Useful, huh?

Now both ladies are well aware that there are different degrees of breaking up, and KillSwitch allows for those degrees. If it’s a soft break up, you can easily get your photos and statuses back. If it’s a hard break up, and it’s totally over, you can neturalize your account from any reference of your X.

The idea for KillSwitch came about when Mannherz and DeSoto were talking to a third mutual friend. The girlfriend of theirs had just gone through a break up and was doing what most people do when they break up with someone, she was deactivating her Facebook account.

That can really suck for all your other friends though, they can’t tag you in photos, invite you to events or send words of wisdom over the break up on your Facebook wall.

KillSwitch makes it seamless. Now the broken hearted can just move on. And, of course it makes playing the field the next time around, much easier.

As for the slacktivism piece, a portion of the proceeds from the KillSwitch app are going to the American Heart Association so you can help fix broken hearts when you’re broken hearted, pretty neat huh?

Check out the video below. Geeks are going to love DeSoto and Mannherz, who’s agency Clearhart Digital, they liken to a double edged light sabre, you can find out more about that here. For those looking to make break ups suck less, check out KillSwitch here at killswitchapp.com

See more of our Startup Coverage at SXSW 2013, here

Startup Weekend Education Movie Debuts At SXSWedu

sxswedu,startup weekend edu,startup weekend,startup weekend movie,sxsw,sxsw13

(l to r: Chapman Snowden (Kinobi/Startup Weekend EDU), Adam Stelle (COO Startup Weekend), Vinny Verma (1887 Films) photo: NIM 2013)

Startup Weekend Education is a 54 hour long event that utilizes the same startup hacking weekend format that traditional Startup Weekend events use. They’ve been held all over the country, including Silicon Valley, New York, DC, and Florida. There have also been several successful Startup Weekend Education events overseas.

The movie, produced by Vinnny Verma of 1887 films, chronicles Startup Weekend Education events in Silicon Valley and New York City.

In New York, the focal point is Kevin Tame, who taught 8th grade math at Booker T Washington middle school in Baltimore Maryland. The idea for his startup Student Dashboard, is that kids don’t like to spend time logging into all the various apps and platforms they need for school.

Tame felt that if he could simplify the process he would give back a much needed commodity, time, and not only to the students but the teachers as well.

On the west coast the film turns to Rob Schwartz a 16 year educator and principal. His problem was that students and teachers need better ways to produce and consume content. His startup, MySciHigh went on to win the Silicon Valley event and is now in 35 schools across the country.

The movie was screened as part of the SXSWedu event at the legendary Alamao Draft House and Theater.

Startup Weekend’s COO Adam Stelle, Verma and Chapman Snowden of Kinobi and Starutp Weekend Edu all participated in a panel discussion after the viewing.

One thing that caught my eye was during the film Tame had said that he had gone to the NY event only to work on his project and didn’t want to work on any other project. This actually goes against the grain of traditional Startup Weekend events. We’ve been to over 60 Startup Weekend’s and at those events entrepreneurs are encouraged to stay and participate whether their idea is picked for building or not.

Stelle explained that at Startup Weekend Edu the hackers are actually teachers, and many come in specifically to get help “scratching their own itch.” Verma said that he had actually spent time contemplating this issue and went with it because if fit with Tame’s character.

Regardless, the movie was a great look at what happens when you get people together working on common problems.

“We’re too concerned about talking about the problem than real world action,” Tame said in the film in regards to teaching. He went on to say that at the Startup Weekend edu event people were talking about problems and solutions.

Tame’s team didn’t have a designer or a developer. Tame and a partner ended up hacking together the entire idea, and a pitch deck with one minute to spare.

Tame has transitioned from a Teach For America corps teacher to the organizations Director of Design and Technology, moving to this position in part because of his involvement with Startup Weekend edu.

The movie, which is finally edited down and ready to go, will be online and shown at several startup events across the country.

To find out more about how to host a Startup Weekend event in your city visit startupweekend.org

Find more of our Startup Weekend coverage here.

NY Startup: Slate Science Launches SlateMath, Closes $1.1M Angel Roud

With a fresh $1.1 million dollars in the bank, New York EdTech startup Slate Science has announced the launch of their newest STEM educational product, SlateMath.

SlateMath can be downloaded in multiple languages and is available now in Apple’s App Store.

The SlateMath series was conceived to address a global frustration with math learning. The company’s breakthrough learning methodologies tap into children’s natural and intuitive learning processes, and help them acquire knowledge and competence constructively, using self-guided as well as teacher-guided exploration. “SlateMath has two purposes,” said Prof. Shimon Schocken, one of the company’s co-founders, “to teach math proper through self-paced and engaging discovery, and to expose children to the ways mathematicians think and reason about the world. We see a tremendous opportunity to use tablet technology and constructive pedagogy to endear math to children, and to help them develop into confident and competent thinkers.”

The SlateMath series was designed from the ground up for an environment consisting of tablets, cloud computing, and standardized curricula. The series is based on a huge portfolio of modular, richly-indexed, and recombinant educational apps that Slate Science is now developing. Subsets of the SlateMath portfolio can be assembled to support existing textbooks and learning programs as well as the new wave of emerging digital textbooks. The software also adapts the contents dynamically, to address the learner’s revealed strengths and weaknesses in real time.

“SlateMath is a game changer because it offers a new and innovative approach to teach math. The product is based on an experiential context, hands-on learning, and self-discovery, making the best utilization of the tablet’s touch interface I’ve seen thus far in educational apps. This approach allows children to acquire and understand math ‘in their bones’. The Slate Science technology and learning methodologies are applicable not only to math, but to many other STEM subjects as well,” said Robert Scoble.

In conjunction with the launch, Slate Science announced the closing of a $1.1 Million angel round of funding led by private investors. The funds will be used for continued product innovation, marketing and operational costs.

Slate Science was founded by an A-team of educators and engineers with more than 100 years of combined experience in science education, instructional software development, and mobile platforms. The company developed a proprietary technology and a field-proven methodology for teaching STEM fields. Rather than oferring frontal videos and drill and skill practice, the company is focusing on crafting constructive learning environments that guide children through a rewarding process of self-discovery and intuitive exploration. The company’s proprietary authoring technology enables it to develop and deploy its learning apps in a remarkably efficient and timely manner.

Slate Science builds portfolios of educational apps designed to support standard STEM curricula while allowing students to develop, deeply understand, and experience hands-on conceptual learning. The company’s first series of products is SlateMath, intended for the consumer market and aimed to support math instruction according to the Common Core Standards. A school version of SlateMath, intended for classroom use and equipped with a suite of teaching aids, will be released soon.

For more information visit: slatescience.com

Interview Spotlight: New York Startup Problemio

” We hope to decrease the failure rate of new companies.” That’s the goal Alex Genadinik has for his startup Problemio. It’s a lofty goal of course but with his suite of four apps designed to help educate new business owners he may actually be successful at it.

The four app business starting series, that makes up Problemio, is based on data collected from over 10,000 businesses. The app suite is available for iOS, Android, Amazon Kindle, and Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet. They focus on skills every founder needs like 1) Business ideas 2) Business planning 3) Fundraising and 4) Marketing.

If learning from apps isn’t enough there’s also a live chat feature that allows users to chat about the topics covered in the apps.

We got a chance to talk with Genadinik check out the rest of the interview in our interview spotlight below:

What is your startup, what does it do?

Problemio is a 4-application business-starting guide available on the following mobile platforms: iPhone, iPad, Android, Amazon Kindle and the NOOK device from Barnes and Noble which. The apps focus on 1) Business ideas 2) Business planning 3) Fundraising and 4) Marketing.

The apps are based on the 10,000+ businesses planned on the original business plan app which also happens to be one of the highest ranked business apps on Android

Users of the apps are able to get expert help in chat form, access to planning tools, as well as numerous articles curated especially to cover the common concerns of entrepreneurs who came before them.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Alex Genadinik is the single founder of Problemio. Alex is originally a software developer. In his past independent projects he found that without proper advice or mentors, it was difficult to avoid serious mistakes with his projects, which ultimately made it very difficult for those projects to be successful. That experience inspired the building of the planning tools to help others prevent similar mistakes.

Where are you based?

The company is based in New York, NY.

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

I find New York to be very vibrant with people generally embracing technology. The biggest difference between New York and any other place where I worked in the past in terms of being a startup hub is that during any given weekday, people come to Manhattan from hundreds of nearby cities and few neighboring states. That creates an extraordinary density of people sharing and collaborating on what is next. Additionally, since New York has such a deep business culture, people understand the value of networking here much more than other places where I have lived before, including San Francisco and parts of the Valley.

What problem does your startup solve?

The main problem Problemio is solving is helping entrepreneurs get support, mentoring and advice to help their businesses. We hope to decrease the failure rate of new companies.

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

Not only did I have to learn native Android and iOS programming to create the apps, but I also had to figure out how to market the apps and make the apps into a financially viable business. Since I am the only founder, every day is filled with balancing tech, app ux, marketing, and many other things that need to get done. Balancing all that and still making sure there is quality in everything I do has been the biggest challenge so far.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

At the time of writing this, we have had over 65,000 combined downloads across all the Problemio apps, and over 10,000 businesses planned on the apps. Most recently we released the 4-app series across all the major devices which took quite a bit of work.

What are your next milestones

Our next goal is to grow the 4-app series and making it the premiere business apps across Android and iOS. By user reviews, we are already the best. Now it is just a matter of conquering the app stores, which will be our biggest focus this Spring. I will also be looking for various companies who work to help entrepreneurs to advertise directly on the app.

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

I found that the New York tech hub is easier to navigate because everyone is pretty close. The Valley is made up of a number of places which are pretty far from one another. For example, there is San Francisco, Berkeley across the bridge, Palo Alto and San Jose a long drive away. And in New York, I can just about walk to the next tech thing in midtown!

What’s next for your startup?

I am always looking to make the product better. I will be looking to add video and phone support in addition to the current chat-based help that the entrepreneurs get. Additionally, I will be focusing on growing app sales and doing more marketing. I doubt I will be raising money as I rather focus on improving the fundamentals on my business. One thing I might do is actively look for mentors.

You can download Problemio for your device here.

The nibletz, nationwide sneaker strapped road trip continues, more here.

Ready For Weed Startups? Conference Coming To New York

With two states adopting laws around the recreational use of marijuana and more states adopting laws for medical marijuana it’s just a matter of time before weed startups start cropping up (no pun intended). Cannabis industry trade publication has announced a business seminar for investors and entrepreneurs eager to learn about the business of marijuana.

The event will be held on March 14th at The Lofts At Prince (177 Prince Street Penthouse in New York City). The seminar runs from 6:00pm until 10:15pm and features a panel of industry experts and time for networking.

Chris Walsh, Editor of MJJ Business Daily; Tripp Keber, Medical Marijuana Inc; Jessica Billingsley co-founder, MJ Freeway Software Solutions; and Eric Williams, President, CT Medical Cannabis Alliance, will all speak on the latest trends and industry data.

There will also be four sessions:

Session #1. New Financial & Business Benchmark Data for the Cannabis Industry

Session #2. Investing Advisory on the Cannabis Industry

Session #3. Typical Cannabis Business Mistakes & How to Avoid Them

Session #4. Tri-State Area Cannabis Business Opportunities & Regulatory Outlook

MJJ Business Daily was launched in 2011 with offices in Denver Colorado and Providence Rhode Island.

Tickets for the event are $149 in advance and $199 at the door. MJJ Business Daily warns that the event is for serious investors and entrepreneurs and not for patients or consumers.

For more information or tickets visit this site.