Reaching Your Zen: Relaxing Before an Investor Meeting

Startup Tips, Investor Tips, Guest Post, Tony Monteleone An investor meeting often means your livelihood. You’re about to ask a bunch of people to trust in your idea and help you fund it. You’re rightfully excited, and even a little nervous. The only issue is that when you’re nervous, you aren’t performing well, and the investors standing in front of you can see it. To really knock it out of the park in an investor meeting, you’ve got to calm down and slow down. There are a few ways to help you reach some inner peace before you dive into the shark tank.

Slow Down

There’s a theory that says wise people speak slowly. That doesn’t mean they speak in long, drawn out syllables. It means they’re thinking about everything they say before they say it. It’s not even noticeable to the people they’re speaking to.

But slowing down isn’t usually in any person’s head before an investor meeting. From the minute you hear the investor meeting is scheduled to when you jump in the car, your mind is going 150 miles per hour. You’re going over things again and again in your head, trying to make sure that you’ve got your pitch as nailed down as you can.

Here’s the thing, though: once you get into the car, there’s nothing more you can do. You’ve already prepared as much as you can. Think of it like a bride on her wedding day. It’s easy for her to get worked up on the day of the wedding, worried that something might go wrong. But on the wedding day, after she’s zipped up into her dress, there’s nothing more she can do. That’s her chance to just relax and enjoy the day. The same concept applies to you and your pitch. Once you’re on the way to the meeting, it’s time to just slow down, relax, and realize you just can’t cram another memory into your brain.

Avoiding Amygdala Hijack

On your brain stem, the second gland before the brain is called the amygdala. This little gland controls what we call the “freeze, fight, or flight” response. The amygdala produces adrenaline, and it can hijack your brain. When you’re faced with a situation that jumpstarts your amygdala, it fires in .8 milliseconds and it takes over your brain. Your brain—even brains with the highest of IQs—is unable to reason. The only thing you’re thinking about is fighting or getting out of the situation.

After your brain is hijacked, it can take up to 18 minutes for your brain to regain control again. If it happens five minutes before your investor meeting starts, you can kiss your investors goodbye. Countering an amygdala hijack isn’t easy, but it’s possible to avoid it by just staying away from drama. Don’t talk to your angry significant other, and don’t call your estranged brother who’s asking for money. Just keep your mind clear and focused on the task.

Counteracting the Amygdala Hijack and the Positive Hijack

If you do let your brain get hijacked by the amygdala, there are ways you can counteract it. If a tiger was attacking you, your amygdala would take over, and you would either fight the tiger or run away from it. If your brain gets hijacked, do something you wouldn’t do if a tiger was about to attack you. Drink water, sit down, or lean against a wall. This slows you down and calms you down, and helps to counteract the 18 minutes of hijack you’re about to face. In fact, a mark of high-level leaders is the ability to sense a hijack coming on and do something to counteract it ahead of time, like going for a walk.

Your other option is the positive hijack. In a similar way to the amygdala hijack, you can trick your brain into being completely calm. Smells often do that, or things that remind you of something happy. My positive hijack, for example, is listening to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” It reminds me of my brother and my childhood, and puts me in a happy place before an investor meeting.

Do what you have to do to calm down before a meeting. In the long term, practice slowing your thinking. In the short term, avoid drama and focus on good things. Take your mind away from the stress. If that’s eating a giant ice cream cone, do it. Find your positive hijacks and use them to dominate your investor meetings.

Tony Monteleone(@StartupTony) is a serial entrepreneur and does Business Development for PERQ, a marketing technology and promotions company that specializes in increasing online and in store traffic for businesses. He also serves as the Indianapolis Chapter Director for Startup Grind.

How LaunchHouse Redefines Social Networking

Todd Goldstein (l) and Dar Caldwell (r), co-founders of LaunchHouse

Like many of today’s adults who are past the traditional college roommate stage of their lives, Mitch Turck shares a house with others who are saving money by living together. But unlike those who have cobbled new housing arrangements out of financial stresses, Turck was one of 19 applicants for nine available spaces in two homes. Previously based in Pittsburgh, the entrepreneur researched accelerator programs, applied for this unique startup “neighborhood,” then picked up and moved in August….to Cleveland.

The city commonly known as the “Mistake by the Lake,” Cleveland might be the punchline of many jokes. For entrepreneurs looking for a cost-efficient and supportive base from which to grow a startup, however, this Midwestern location offers some seriously kick-ass perks. A lot of those benefits are thanks to LaunchHouse (http://launchhouse.com), a startup accelerator that came on the scene in 2008. Home to more than 200 companies through its co-working office program, LaunchHouse added two actual houses to its leasing options in April. Located just around the corner from its 23,000 square-foot main facility, the two residences are filled with entrepreneurs like Turck. They come from a variety of locales, two from as far away as China.

“Why would anyone ever move to Cleveland?”

The question is posed, and promptly answered, by Todd Goldstein, Chief Executive Officer of LaunchHouse. Along with co-founder Dar Caldwell, Goldstein has been at the front lines of creating this tight-knit startup community.

“This is bringing interest from all over the world,” says Goldstein. “Only 30 percent of the applicants for the housing were from the northeast Ohio region. We’re here in Cleveland asking what early-stage entrepreneurs need. They need social, cultural, and educational support. They need an ecosystem.”

And what an ecosystem it is. Entrepreneurs who reside in the two houses and those who use the co-working spaces at LaunchHouse enjoy more than just hot coffee. There’s the expected: whiteboards, first-come-first-serve desks, private offices, copiers, conference rooms. And there’s the decidedly unexpected: a gigantic open production space housing enterprises ranging from landscapers and agricultural suppliers to videographers and fashion designers; hens housed in the parking lot; a puppy following Caldwell as he gives a tour; 3-D printers; Gigabit broadband with super-fast Internet access.

In-house eggs + Gigabit connectivity = LaunchHouse ecosystem

What? The same space that has in-house fresh eggs also boasts connectivity rivaling that of Google Fiber’s Kansas City Startup Village. LaunchHouse partnered earlier this year with OneCommunity (http://onecommunity.org), a nonprofit established in 2003 that owns and operates a high-speed all-fiber network spanning 24 counties and over 2,000 miles in northeast Ohio. Experienced at providing data service for more than 2,300 public institutions, OneCommunity first worked with LaunchHouse to bring the high-speed Internet to the 23,000 square feet of co-working space. The two enterprises turned the corner, literally and figuratively, when they partnered to extend the service to the two LaunchHouse entrepreneurs’ residences which are located on a quiet side street just off the busy commercial setting of the accelerator’s Lee Road location. Think of it as northeast Ohio’s first “fiberhood.”

While the high-speed connectivity is certainly a draw for those who want to live in an entrepreneur house or pay as little as $125 per month for 24/7 access to the co-working space, it’s the social connectivity fostered by LaunchHouse’s leadership that really makes it work as a startup accelerator. For instance, Caldwell, Goldstein and the five partners they’ve added to the LaunchHouse team since 2008 host 20-25 MeetUp groups per month. There is always something going on at LaunchHouse.

“They’re all encouraged to use the space for free,” says Caldwell. “We have hackerthons here, workshops, our ‘Whiteboard Wednesdays’ when we brainstorm ideas. It’s an open community.”

Social, social, social: the startup’s version of real estate’s “location, location, location”

For Jeremy Handel, managing partner of Handelabra Studio and Handelabra Games (http://handelabra.com), the openness at LaunchHouse benefits his creativity – and his business. The videogame developer took the much-worn path tread by many entrepreneurs: from attic office to coffeehouse office to traditional office. That last one, with its traditional rents, proved too expensive; Handel moved to LaunchHouse about one year ago and became one of their portfolio companies. (LaunchHouse invests in selected startups).

“Initially, I moved here because it’s cheaper,” says Handel. “But the number one selling point is the social. I get up and walk around, talk with people to see what’s going on. It’s the first place that has felt collaborative. Here, an idea shared is grown, not stolen.”

And Turck, who is growing his Vendalize (http://vendalize.com) local search tag startup both in the entrepreneur house and in the co-working space, agrees. “In an office by yourself, you have to motivate yourself. When you’re socializing with others, the pace is faster. It’s easier to work harder.”

Juli Kaylor Gray has covered traditional business topics, as well as offbeat fare ranging from lenticular art exhibits to the “wedding-on-a-hike minister,” in her ten years as a freelance writer and magazine editor. Based in Cleveland, Ohio, she’s a focused Tweep at @QuirkyCleveland and a distracted blogger at http://quirkycleveland.com/.

Tackk Wants to Prove Tech Can Be Done Anywhere

Crain’s Cleveland Business Journal is reporting that Cleveland-based Tackk recently received $1.2 million dollars in a funding round led by ff Venture Capital out of New York. The 1-year-old startup helps users create simple web pages, a la Tumblr. In fact, Tumblr-size success is the exact mark they’re shooting for.

“We invest in companies where we think they can change the behavior of millions of people. I can see absolutely no reason why you can’t have millions of people using this,” John Frankel of ff Venture Capital told the Cleveland Business Journal.

“Ridiculously simple creation + sharing,” it says on the Tackk homepage. And, it is just that simple. The homepage allows you to drag and drop pictures, edit text, and play with colors, fonts, and backgrounds without even creating an account. (Registration is required if you want your Tackk up longer than a week.) The Tackkboard allows you browse Tackks on a variety of topics, and you can like and share your favorites.

Despite the comparisons to Tumblr, Tackk isn’t necessarily seeking to become a huge social network. CEO Christopher Celeste told TechCrunch’s Anthony Ha that they were more interested in helping people create and tag content, then push it out through whatever social media or physical way they desire.

The recent seed round will be used build out a mobile platform and make it easier to browse Tackks.

According to the Business Journal, investors suggested the team move to New York to complete the next stage of development. The team said no way, and they are now building what they hope is the next great content creation tool right at home in Cleveland.

As the voice of startups everywhere else, we at Nibletz think that’s a great decision, but it’s not one that every company makes. I asked Eric Bockmuller why he would want to stay in Cleveland, when all the money is telling him to move.

Our founding team was born and raised in Cleveland, we have a connection with the city that I think only fellow Clevelanders understand. We see an opportunity to create something special that typically doesn’t happen here. We know it may be more of a challenge, but we understand that we’re not just building a great Cleveland company. We’re building a great company that lives in Cleveland but impacts the whole world.

The second part of his answer was surprising: talent.

Many startups tell us it is hard to recruit good talent outside of Silicon Valley, but Bockmuller doesn’t see it that way. With tons of talented students graduating from the universities in and around Cleveland, the Tackk team is seeing many who are willing to stay at home and build the next great tech company.

Bockmuller also acknowledges that there will be challenges. Without success stories going before them, they have fewer mentors and examples than you find in the Valley. It’s also more time consuming to meet with investors when that meeting involves a flight. But Bockmuller is an entrepreneurs and has a cheerful answer for these challenges:

There will always be the questions around talent, money and scalability being based in Cleveland and we believe the opportunity to overcome those questions is now with Tackk…it only takes one to change a region.

Go check out Tackk and keep up with them on Twitter.

An Online Fashionista Learns Business At #EECincinnati

protectyourpumps

A few weeks back I literally stumbled across a web post about an upcoming conference called Everywhere Else. The event was to be held in Cincinnati and was geared towards start ups located in the Midwest, with a focus on connecting entrepreneurs with investors. I wasn’t necessarily looking for an investor for our company. However, I decided to register and attend. Cincinnati is only a 6 hour drive from Milwaukee and figured I might learn something and meet some cool people. I’m glad I took the road trip, because I was able to do both!

In 2011, I started a company called www.protectyourpumps.com. I consider myself to be a legitimate “shoe addict” with a shoe collection that is about 80% high heels. I believe women feel the most beautiful, confident and alive when wearing shoes they love. Like most ladies, I didn’t mind spending a good chunk of change on quality shoes, however it was frustrating when they became damaged quickly. For that reason, I started a business to sell protective items for ladies footwear, allowing them to step out in confidence.

It’s no secret the major fashion hubs in America are in Los Angeles and New York, so I often travel to attend various fashion events. Attending Everywhere Else Cincinnati was a bit out of the box for me as it was not at all fashion related. In attending this conference I learned business is a lot like music. Listening to only one genre of music can be quite boring and in doing so, you miss out on a lot of good tunes. The same applies to business. As entrepreneurs we are all on similar journeys. It’s great to mix it up sometimes and learn from someone in another industry.

The presentations at Everywhere Else Cincinnati were jammed packed with useful information. Here are my top 5 takeaways, which I plan to use help grow Protect Your Pumps.

1.) Dear Countermined, Please go away! Prior to this conference I honestly had not heard of Andrew Warner or Mixergy. (I know shame on me) However, I left feeling very inspired by him and the journey he is on. He gave a great presentation on your true mind (true,useful and wanted thoughts) vs countermined (not true, not useful and not wanted thoughts). I’m excited to implement some of the practices he talked about to shut my countermined down because hanging on to the negativity only holds me back.

2.) 299 is not 300 Jeff Hoffman founder of Priceline knocked his presentation out the park! He delivered an invaluable tip for entrepreneurs, run hard to the finish line! Jeff said doing 299 of something when you are suppose to 300 is essentially giving up and that is the difference between you and the other guy (or gal).

3.) Your Brand is Your Personality Show it off! In my notebook the only word on the page about Patrick J Woods was AWESOME! He talked about giving your brand beliefs and personality. I hadn’t really thought about it in that way and I’m excited to say we currently have some things underway to really develop the Protect Your Pumps brand more and bring it to life!

4.) Start up CEO=Sales(wo)man and Sales Manager Evan Owens said “All Start up CEO’s are salesmen and sales manager. Learn that role and you’ll soon be leading an organization worth talking about.” That struck a chord with me because in the world of so many internet distractions, it is easy to get away from what is going to keep your business thriving which is SALES.

5.) Respect Niche Skills Evan also said “If you meet a guy who claims to be the best at web development, design, seo and social media. He probably isn’t that good at anything.” This is very important because as a start up, lets keep it real money can be tight. We always want to get bang for our buck. However, finding good people who are strong in a particular area is crucial.

My list of takeaways from this conference goes way beyond 5, however I just wanted to share a few. I’m excited to take these lessons and put them in action. I’ll see you in Memphis!

Kathryn Jackson

CEO/Founder Protect Your Pumps

Author of Blog Skipping in Stilettos-Shoes+Substance

www.skippinginstiettos.cm

www.protectyourpumps.com

Facebook: Protect Your Pumps

Twitter: @KathrynNJackson @Protect_Pumps

Instagram: Protectyourpumps

DC Startup Keeps Kids Safe Online

In 2009 brothers Steve and Tim Woda lived the nightmare. Tim’s son was targeted by an online predator, leaving the family feeling vulnerable and fearful. Before the incident, they knew that cyberbullying, sexting, and online predators were a problem, but when it happened in their own family, the dangers of the digital world became very real.

Thankfully the child was unhurt, but the incident caused the two entrepreneurs to step back and think about the problem. We can’t keep our kids from the Internet, so how do we protect them while they grow and mature?

The result of this deep reflection was uKnow. The company creates tools that connect and protect families. Currently, their main product is uKnowKids, a parental dashboard that monitors kids’ various social media feeds.

The tools from the uKnow team utilize social, mobile, and location monitoring to help parents keep track of their kids through a single dashboard. They also offer a notification system to alert the parents if kids engage in illegal or dangerous online behavior. An added layer of analytics keeps parents updated on how their kids use social media and the web.

So, what’s the big deal? There are plenty of parental monitoring devices out there, and it’s easy enough to follow your kids on social media.

The team at uKnow thinks they’re doing it differently. “uKnowKids enables parents to ‘have their child’s back’ without constantly looking over his or her shoulder,” the website says. It’s watching out for them without being intrusive. uKnowKids was also the first monitoring program to offer several features including text slang translation, image monitoring of Facebook and Myspace, and activity and trend analysis.

The 4-year-old company recently completed a $2.2 million funding round and expect to announce a full series A in the coming months. uKnowKids is just the first program in their plans. Soon they hope to release uKnowFamily, which will keep every family member connected. They are also experimenting with a location app that will stand separately from the other two.

The Woda brothers aren’t new to startups or online safety. Prior to uKnow, they were both on the founding team of BuySafe, a software that allows e-tailers to provide a secure shopping environment. They’ve brought that experience over to uKnow and are now working hard to protect kids and families in the digital space.

As a parent myself, I admit I dread the day my kids are let loose on the Internet. It’s a scary world out there, and I’ll definitely check out tools like uKnowKids to protect them.

Zulily Is An IPO for Everywhere Else

There’s been a flurry of activity since Twitter filed their S-1 last week. Will it be a repeat of Facebook’s IPO? Why aren’t there any women on the board? Does that matter? And, by the way, isn’t the company still losing money?

So much digital ink has been spilled over the Twitter filing, it’s hard to remember what we wrote about before it.

Thankfully, the cycle has turned, and we have something new to write about. Two days ago another startup filed to take the IPO plunge. It’s probably safe to say that Zulily is much less well-known than Twitter and hasn’t had quite the same impact worldwide as the social media company. If you aren’t a mom, you probably haven’t heard of Zulily.

The Seattle-based flash sales site is the picture of a successful company from everywhere else. In 2009, founders Darrell Cavens and Mark Vadon saw a problem: it was difficult to buy unique, inexpensive clothes for children. If they bought clothes from Target, 20 other kids had the same shirt, but if they shelled out more money, the clothes were stained or torn in a matter of hours.

The two dads figured out a fun way to solve the problem and how much users were willing to pay for it. When all the other daily deals and flash sale sites were struggling, Zulily doubled down and continued to grow.

3 years later, they’re running a company with the coveted $1 billion valuation and filing IPO paperwork.

Twitter and Zulily have completely different business models, but thanks to filing IPOs in the same week, the comparisons are inevitable. Twitter undoubtedly has more users and more impact worldwide. However, Zulily has figured out how to get cash from their customers, which means they bring in more revenue than Twitter at the moment. Money in the bank is always, always a good thing.

Of course, that doesn’t mean Twitter is a bad company or a bad investment. Without a doubt, Twitter is changing the way information is spread, and there’s plenty to like about that. And with millions of users worldwide the potential (social media’s favorite word) for revenue is massive.

Zulily’s story is an inspiration to companies everywhere else. Not everyone can–or should want to–build the next paradigm-shifting social media company. Silicon Valley has proven particularly good at that, and the world is different because of it.

However in the next 20-30 years, entrepreneurs everywhere else will prove very good at building black ink companies that solve problems in other aspects of life. Education, healthcare, government, and logistics are all ripe for disruption, and who knows what industries will be invented in the coming decade. Big problems will be solved in hubs all over the world, as well as Silicon Valley.

A flash sales site may not solve a “big” problem, but Zulily’s IPO is more step in proving the power of everywhere else.

Speek Partners With Dell, Also Gets Praise From Edward Norton & Sophia Bush

Well Tuesday morning we started working on a big story about Speek, a great Washington DC startup we’ve been covering since before they launched. Speek is the “easiest way to conference” and it really is. Speek’s co-founders John Bracken and Danny Boice are big supporters of Nibletz and Everywhere Else.

So we were excited when Boice emailed us to tell us about an exciting new partnership with Dell. The partnership, which went live yesterday afternoon, has the Fortune 50 computer manufacturer promoting Speek through several of their digital marketing channels to over 10 million+ of the company’s business customers. Speek is the only startup that’s part of this new partnership which Dell calls “Dell Marketplace”.

Dell’s Marketplace is launching on Dell’s Center For Entrepreneurs. That site is a highly curated collection of companies that provide services for the entrepreneur community. Dell has embraced the entrepreneurial community with several efforts including recruiting Ingred Vanderveldt as their Entrepreneur in Residence.

Through the Marketplace Dell offers entrepreneurrs access to special deals from companies ranging from FedEx to Speek. Our good friends at Influence & Co are also featured in the Marketplace.

But that wasn’t the only big news this week for the DC based startup. On Wednesday afternoon the company received tweets praising their conference calling platform from Academy Award winning actor (and Maryland native) Edward Norton and Teen Choice Award winning star Sophia Bush.

Norton started his day off with a string of tweets about Speek

He also tweeted another four messages including a link to a special deal for his followers (hint click here and take advantage)

Also Wednesday morning, Sophia Bush, who played young entrepreneurial starlet Brooke Davis on the CW hit series One Tree Hill, also said she was obsessed with Speek.

What’s all the hype about? Sign up for your Speek account here at Speek.com

You can conference call me anytime at Speek.com/kyle

Check out the new Dell Marketplace for entrepreneurs here.

See Speek co-founder Danny Boice at this huge national startup conference in Memphis.

Ben Milne Threw Away Cash, What It Means For Startups Like Dwolla

Plastic credit cards and debit cards have taken over a lot of people’s use of cash. More often than not, when I’m walking in a major city and I’m asked by a homeless person for money, my go to (and true) reason for not giving a guy a quarter or a dollar is I simply don’t carry cash.

Now, mobile wallet startups are starting to replace credit cards. Pocket loads are shrinking thanks to startups like Dwolla and PayTango and companies like Google and Paypal. And things are only going to get easier, at least for some.

While speaking at the Money2020 conference in Las Vegas this week, Business Insider reports that Milne told an interesting story to the audience. He mistakenly threw away cash because he thought it was an old burrito wrapper.

“I reached into my pocket the other day and felt crumpled paper in there,” Milne told the audience. “I thought I had absentmindedly put my burrito wrapper from lunch in there, but it was actually some dollar bills.”

Milne was speaking about how easy money transactions are going to be.

For years Paypal has been the leader in the digital payments space. Millions of people have Paypal, and now with Paypal’s mobile app you can send someone money via the service in just seconds. If they have one of Paypal’s debit cards or they’re signed up for PayPal wallet, users can just as quickly spend the money. The same is true for Google’s wallet product and the ability to use an Android phone with NFC technology at hundreds of thousands of PayPass locations across the country.

Milne’s own startup Dwolla is making it incredibly easy to send money from one user to another, and they only charge $.25 per transaction (transactions under $10 are free). Milne hopes that sending money via the internet becomes as easy as sending a photo of pop queen Miley Cyrus.

“Our world is already virtual, we just don’t realize it yet,” he said. “If all you have is an Internet connection, you can’t send money around the world very easily, but it’s no problem to send someone a picture of Miley Cyrus. What we’re doing – easy Internet payments – is an inevitability. We may not be the people to do it, though I’m working my ass off to make sure we are.”

Skillshare And Levi’s: Take Amazing Classes And Help Kids

The concept is no simpler than it is in the headline. Take classes from New York startup Skillshare’s select offerings of online classes, where you can learn creative skills from visionary experts and share your own experiences, and 100% of the proceeds will go to arts and music education for students in grades k-8.

Skillshare is a New York startup that serves as a marketplace linking people to hundreds of online classes across many disciplines. While there have been a handful of startups that have tried to compete in the space, Skillshare has remained the market leader.

Now, in a unique partnership with Levi’s, not only is the site offering some premium classes with amazing instructors, it’s all for a good cause.

The classes are taught by renowned artists such as Cubby Graham, David Carson, Bang Bang, Benjamin Samuel, Brock Davis, and Linda Eliasen. The program is called “The School Of Make Our Mark”

The classes are only $10, with all of that money going towards the musical education program. The classes being offered include:

Urban Explorer Photography: Shooting the forgotten and the familiar, taught by Cubby Graham
Beautiful Ink, Designing Meaningful Tattoos, taught by Bang Bang
Vintage Postcard Design: Back To The Future, taught by Linda Eliasen
Stop Motion Video: Create & Animate, taught by Brock Davis
Creating Typographic Art Inspired By Sound, taught by David Carson
Flash Fiction: How To Tell Pint Sized Stories, taught by Benjamin Samuel

The classes will help you learn new skills, and meet new people across the globe. You will be able to share your completed work with the group and some of the projects will be chosen to go into a time capsule that Levi’s and Skillshare will open in the future.

You can use promocode: OURMARK to take one of the classes for free!

Find out more and sign up now here at skillshare.com/makeourmark.

1776 Turns Google Doc Into Unfurlough.us

Last week we broke the news that the entrepreneurs at 1776 in Washington, DC jumped into action when the federal government was first shut down. The first thing they did was hold an impromptu event which brought together the startups at 1776 with furloughed federal workers in the area.

What came out of that was the Google Doc we reported about last Friday. 1776 found a clear path between workers on furlough and startups that needed paid workers, volunteers or people to do small projects.

They’ve now turned the simple GoogleDoc into unfurlough.us which is picking up a lot of traction. The new jobs site, set up to connect furloughed workers with positions in startups, caught the eye of Mashable on Tuesday.

Mashable revealed that all kinds of people are signing up, even people that aren’t on furlough. 1776 cofounder Donna Harris told Mashable that they aren’t going to take down anyone’s profile.

So is it working?

Mashable reports that Josh Hurd, the founder of Nonprofitmetrics, used unfurlough.us to find a blogger who he is paying a minimum of $35 per post. Lily Bradley who works for the Department of Health and Human Services is also on furlough. She found a temporary job taking pictures for a startup that pays more than her day job.

1776 does have a warning posted on the unfurlough.us website reminding furloughed workers to check their agency’s “ethics guidance” to make sure they are allowed to engage in outside work while on furlough.

1776 even has their own listing looking for someone to do PR & Marketing research.

Building unfurlough.us was a community effort between blen and 1776 and built on the open source platform drupal, reportedly in under five hours.

Co-Founders Lab Heads To Nashville’s Entrepreneur Center Next Week

When Shahab Kaviani sat down and had some time to reflect about his previous startup, HyperOffice, he realized that the cofounding team behind that startup drove its success. He admits that they bootstrapped almost the entire project. He also says in hindsight their timing was lousy, but the cofounding team kept the startup together.

Finding the right cofounders should actually be at the top of the priority list in any startup. CoFounders lab is one of many startups that look to match people with cofounders. FounderSync is one of those startups that uses an online approach. FounderDating uses a hybrid online offline approach merging an online community with in-person events.

Unlike other events that can turn out to be unorganized get togethers where people only talk to the people they know, Kaviani has gone to great lengths to make sure that CoFounders Lab events are laser focused on one thing, introducing cofounders to each other.

Also unlike other events and startups claiming to connect cofounders, there’s no prerequisite, vetting process, or cliques you need to join to be part of the network. CoFounders lab goes beyond founder dating by cutting out all the superfluous clutter aimed at boosting egos and not connecting founders to help people build real companies.

CoFounders Lab is now headed to Music City USA–Nashville, Tennessee–next week on October 15th. They’re hosting their event at the brand new state of the art entrepreneur center and hope to connect founders with each other and get some real companies off the ground.

The event is Tuesday, October 15th starting at 6:30pm and it’s free. You just need to register here.

Make sure you mark your calendars for Everywhere Else Tennessee, the national startup conference focused on startups “everywhere else” pulls into Memphis Feb 17-19th 2014. More here.

Pilot Jim McKelvey Continues Empowering People With An Individual Accelerator For Programmers

Jim McKelvey, LaunchCode, Startup, St. Louis startup

(img: Flickr)

How the death of a St. Louis Pizza Delivery Boy Sparked Jim McKelvey’s Latest Startup:

I got to spend a lot of quality time on a 1:1 phone interview with Square co-founder Jim McKelvey yesterday. After bumping into McKelvey at numerous events and talking startups or otherwise shooting the shit, I finally had time to dive in with one of St. Louis’ biggest startup community advocates.

We wasted no time during the interview call, so I went right for the “how does a glass blower get into startups, investing and now being a catalyst for the St. Louis startup community?” McKelvey explained that so many people are eager to give just one label to others, when in fact there are multiple labels for just about everyone. McKelvey is a professional, now hobbyist, glass blower. Blowing glass is something he enjoys when he can now, and he hasn’t been a professional glass blower since 1992.

McKelvey was formerly trained as an engineer and making things is something he’s great at. Over the years, one of his other hobbies, flying, has filled a lot of that time that he had for glass blowing, adding “pilot” to the list of labels attached to him.

We were supposed to talk about Six Thirty, the new St. Louis accelerator specifically for fintech (financial tech) startups. McKelvey is one of the co-founders of the Six Thirty accelerator. With companies like ScottTrade, MasterCard, and Wells Fargo (plus many more) based in St. Louis, a fintech accelerator is a natural fit. They even have a fintech fund in St.Louis called FinServe Tech Angels, which is headed by Kyle Wellborn.

McKelvey points to the launch of Square for the reason there was a need for a fintech accelerator

“We were able to build the technology for Square in 3 weeks. We were running transactions in no time. It took 18 months though to get legal,” McKelvey told me. He firmly believes that anyone with a great team, a good idea, and money behind them can launch a product to market. Launching a financial product is a whole other can of worms. Insurance regulations, PCI compliance, licensing and other legal hurdles stand in the way of a great startup just going for it with a financial product.

Through a cohort-based model, 4 companies will get the mentorship, training and connections they need to hopefully see their fintech startups get to market.

That was the quickest part of our talk, though. McKelvey is actually knee deep in two current working projects. One is Six Thirty; the other is still an “experiment,” but one that he is truly passionate about. LaunchCode is something that truly seems to fulfill McKelvey’s calling right now.

Jim loves teaching, and he loves empowering people. We briefly talked about how now you can walk the streets of Baltimore before a Ravens game or Cincinnati before a Reds game, and see the street vendors accepting credit cards through Square. “I love those kinds of stories” McKelvey said. Those stories show Square has been able to empower people to take their businesses to another level.

LaunchCode is another way people can get to another level.

“There’s only one industry I’ve ever seen where you can go from zero knowledge to a $100,000 salary in one year, and that’s programming,” McKelvey said. There are tens of thousands of folks out there who would absolutely agree.

You need to be driven, have a little bit of scientific or computer knowledge and want to learn, besides the technological tools like a computer. If you have those things you can learn to program.

Throughout his career McKelvey has seen all types of people learn to code and become legitimate programmers. Of course there are the high school computer science misfits, the college graduate engineers, and even people like a WalMart maintenance man who taught himself to code on the side. McKelvey knows that one personally. “He literally mops the floors at a local Walmart and he’s taught himself to code, and he’s good at it”.

Before diving into what LaunchCode is, it’s important to know how McKelvey, who’s admittedly been “rich” for decades, got started with this latest project.

This story begins with pizza, but not in the way you would think with startups.

A friend of McKelvey’s had brought his family over to the US for a better life from Russia. That dream turned tragic for that family in May of 2012 when their 22-year-old son Daniel Maksimenko was shot and killed delivering a pizza in St. Louis. The young man was shot and killed before he even got out of the car, “and for–what–maybe $60,” McKelvey said.

This story has been eating away at McKelvey for quite some time. He didn’t understand why anyone would do something like this. It’s not like the pizza guy carries a lot of cash, and there obviously wasn’t time for an argument. McKelvey came to the realization that these people weren’t crazy. They did it because they thought they had no other hope.

In the same breath McKelvey points out that there are over 5,000 programming jobs available in St. Louis right this second, but the system is flawed and LaunchCode is changing that.

“When Boeing announces they are bringing 700 jobs to St. Louis, they aren’t bringing 700 jobs. They are bringing 700 job openings,” he points out.

LaunchCode doesn’t have an exact label just yet, and besides everything has multiple labels (see above). I likened LaunchCode to an individualized accelerator for programmers, and McKelvey liked that description.

LaunchCode is bridging the gap between the number of “job openings” and the talent pool. You see, most companies (and when we say most it’s most) require two years experience before hiring a programmer. Schools are churning out programmers left and right, and thousands of people are teaching themselves how to code through online courses and other study at home classes. So when these people are finished learning, they have nowhere to go because they don’t have that experience.

Through LaunchCode Mckelvey has teamed up with 100 businesses in St. Louis ranging from the city’s corporate flagships like ScottTrade, Energizer, and Entreprise, to St. Louis startups like aisle411.

“If you take those 100 startups, just two of them were hiring programmers with less than 2 years experience,” McKelvey said. The other 98% basically just swap employees around.

As an example, McKelvey explained “Say Boeing is working on a new plane and they need developers. They put out a call to their HR channel and recruiters recruit developers from Ralston Purina and Enterprise.” Then those companies hire away someone from another company and so on down the line. New people weren’t put to work; people were just moved around.

The problem has been apparent and glaring at people for decades, and now LaunchCode is fixing it.

McKelvey has convinced these 100 companies both big and small to take a crack at an experiment in peer programming that worked well for Square.

New programmers sign up for LaunchCode. Candidates need to have the basic skills, be eager to learn, take criticism well and a handful of other attributes outlined here. Nothing too hard, really.

While in the program, the new programmer will be paired with an experienced programmer, “mentor” on location with a participating company. During that time the programmer will make $15 per hour and gain a vast knowledge of programming in the real world.

“While we were paying double for one output at Square, we were getting a better quality product,” McKelvey said of peer programming. “When you pair an experienced programmer with a junior programmer, the junior programmer picks up quickly.”

Then you have two experienced programmers.

The program (like an accelerator) lasts 2-3 months. After that time the participating companies will evaluate the new programmer through a more equal lens and decide whether to hire them on full time. These companies all have programming openings, and the candidate will have then spent 2-3 months in their company, in their company culture, and with their company work flow. It seems that staying employed with the company will be pretty easy.

LaunchCode is disrupting the way talent is being hired. McKelvey reminded me several times that LaunchCode is still an experiment. He’s hoping with some success to evaluate LaunchCode to see if expansion vertically, horizontally or both is the next step. In the mean time many have their eyes on what’s going on in St. Louis.

Check out LaunchCode here.

Jim McKelvey image: Bob Lee, Flickr

CEA Teams Up With UpGlobal To Expand Eureka Park, The Startup TechZone

Two years ago when we covered the first Eureka Park at the International CES in Las Vegas, we were amazed by the amount of good quality startups showcasing there. Last year when we embarked on Eureka Park it had doubled in size and also offered some great talks from the likes of Scott Case, Tony Hsieh and Brad Feld (just to name a few).

This coming year (January 2014), CEA has partnered with the new UpGlobal (the global partnership between Startup America and Startup Weekend) to expand the Eureka Park TechZone.

Now in its third year, the Eureka Park TechZone will span more than 2,000 square meters and showcase more than 200 exhibitors at the 2014 CES. Eureka Park will be located on level one of The Venetian and returns as the vibrant hub for the entrepreneur and startup communities to learn, connect, and inspire.

“The Eureka Park TechZone provides a stage for new companies with technologies for which we don’t yet have product categories, to market their innovation to venture capitalists, media and buyers. Eureka Park’s continued success solidifies the International CES as the ultimate proving ground for innovators of all shapes and sizes in consumer technology,” said Karen Chupka, senior vice president, International CES and Corporate Business Strategy, CEA. “We are thrilled to once again partner with UP Global and the National Science Foundation for the 2014 CES, and can’t wait to experience the ‘Eureka’ ideas that will fuel and transform our lives in the years to come.”

Also new for 2014, the Academia Tech TechZone will be floored within Eureka Park. Academia Tech focuses on the unique technologies coming from colleges and universities. The TechZone will showcase a collection of academic institutions at the 2014 CES, with Columbia University, N.C. State, University of Texas at Austin and Penn State University already confirmed as exhibitors.

CEA today also announces the launch of the Eureka Park: NEXT TechZone, a dedicated area at the 2014 CES, designed for mid-stage startups that have launched a product within the past year. Eureka Park: NEXT will be located on level two in The Venetian Ballroom.

Check out our previous coverage of EurekaPark at the International CES by clicking here.

Cincinnati Startup Pressing Issues Wants To Re-Invent Journalism

There are problems with digital journalism, or so says Brad Merrill, the founder of Cincinnati startup Pressing Issues. After years of experience in digital journalism, Merrill and his cohort of journalists decided they wanted to do something new.

“It all started when a group of journalists decided they wanted something new to read. They were looking for a news magazine that not only told them everything that was happening around the world each week, but that did so in an entertaining way. Ideally it would be gleefully sweary and eager to offend the rich and powerful. They realized this meant it probably wouldn’t include any ads,” Merrill told us in an interview.

Pressing Issues is launching today with a model similar to NSFWCorp in Las Vegas. All of the content is subscriber based and behind a paywall. They’ve eliminated ads entirely. Pressing Issues is going to have to demonstrate the strength of their content in bulk and fast.

To do that they are making sure their paid contributors provide thought provoking, and entertaining content, both are important parts for Merrill.

Check out the rest of our interview with Merrill on launch day, below.

What is your startup called?

Pressing Issues

What does your company do?

As the death of real journalism looms over the horizon, we’re paying great journalists to produce investigative pieces and long-form essays about topics other publications aren’t covering, and we’re making their jobs even harder by demanding that their stories be entertaining. We’re employing a paid subscription model with a strict paywall on our digital edition (print is coming in a couple of months!), and we’re going the 100% reader-supported route with no ads.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

It all started when a group of journalists decided they wanted something new to read. They were looking for a news magazine that not only told them everything that was happening around the world each week, but that did so in an entertaining way. Ideally it would be gleefully sweary and eager to offend the rich and powerful. They realized this meant it probably wouldn’t include any ads.

Upon realizing that this magazine didn’t actually exist, they decided to create it.

I am founder Brad Merrill, and I’ve written for and edited many digital publications in the past. I’ve long recognized the problems with digital journalism, and I decided that by not being part of the solution, I’m being part of the problem.

Where are you based?

I’m based in Hamilton, Ohio, just outside of Cincinnati. I was very disappointed to have missed out on Everywhere Else – I hope you guys will be back in the area in the future!

What’s the startup scene like where you are based?

As a tech/startup blogger myself, I’ve had the pleasure of connecting with so many brilliant entrepreneurial minds here in the Cincinnati area. The startup community is fantastic.

What problem do you solve?

We don’t have a mission statement, but if we did it would probably say something about “reinventing journalism.” It’s a broken business. Everyone wants to make an app and make journalism smaller and smaller. I say it’s time to make journalism big again. That’s why we’re publishing 3,000-word pieces online, and 10,000-word pieces in print. We’re serious about this.

As for topics, we just like good stories. Bonus points for really big stories. For example, one of our first pieces is about a former cop in Las Vegas who wrote a book encouraging the use of hostage negotiation techniques to manipulate women for sex and, in his words, “get past no.” He’s now in charge of a downtown watch group intended to keep people (particularly women who get off work late) safe in the city—presumably from the very things he advocates in his book. Not the best man for the job, I’d say, so we’re exposing the whole thing.

Where can people find out more? Any social media links you want to share?

People can find out more and subscribe at pressingissues.net