Norfolk’s Hatch Startup Accelerator Reveals New Class

Back in July we interviewed Zack Miller, the director of the new startup accelerator in Norfolk called Hatch. Miller, a Hampton Roads native, decided to start an accelerator program for the region. He decided to put it in Norfolk which is the epicenter for Hampton Roads. Hampton Roads already has three accelerators in Innovation Research Park, Hampton Roads Technology Center and James City County Incubator.

They’ve just unwrapped the latest class which started a few weeks ago. This new class of startups includes:

RoboCent enables small business, non-profits and political campaigns to easily send call and text notifications to their subscribers, starting at 1.3¢ per message. Through RoboCent’s streamlined and user-friendly platform, clients can receive feedback from their customers, monitor their calls and texts in real-time and send out urgent notifications to subscribers within 5 minutes.

Go Wedding Pro is a tool built by photographers for photographers. GWP will help wedding photographers stay on top of their clients’ needs by organizing wedding day details and client info is easier to maintain and access on the go. Go Wedding Pro will make it easier to stay on top of client info, contracts, invoices and tracking post production . From booking to delivering images GWP is the wedding photographer’s best friend.

CampusWise is a college classified company catering exclusively to college students. Our aim is to provide a safe and friendly environment so that students are able to trade both goods and services strictly amongst each other. Each school will have a customized page that will only be accessible to those students who share the same university email.

uVest is the first personal investment application designed for casual investors who do not have the knowledge, desire, or time to do complex market research and analysis to discover trading opportunities. uVest is designed specifically for mobile users who want to casually browse and enter trading opportunities from verified, high return traders at their convenience.

These four startups are going through Hatch Norfolk’s intense 12 week program which includes mentoring, business development, team building and product building. Their applications were evaluated based on team, product, market, pain point and execution.

To find out more about Hatch Norfolk click here

Is an accelerator right for your startup? Find out in the accelerator track, headed up by the Global Accelerator Network at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

Obama Staffer Selected To Run Lerer Ventures SoHo Tech Labs

Ashley Arenson, Lerer Ventures, Soho labs, New York startups

Ashley Arenson working the phones at the Obama headquarters (photo: claytonhauck.com)

Tech bloggers, political bloggers and journalists alike have been praising the 2012 Obama campaign team. Countless articles have reiterated the fact that the Obama tech team was more prepared, thorough and ready to win than their counterparts at the Romney campaign. To win this election technologists and politicos alike needed precise coordination and to remain on the same page at all times. Ashley Arenson was one of those Obama staffers that did just that.

According to Allthings D, Arenson served as a conduit between the technologists and the veteran politicos. “Day in and day out, the job was to identify challenges, and identify people who could help me solve them” Arenson told AllThings D. Obviously she played in important role in the grand scheme of things.

In most positions when you’ve achieved your work place objectives you’re promoted, praised or given a raise. For Obama 2012 staffers, a win (or a loss for that matter), meant they needed to find another job. Arenson was able to do that with Lerer Ventures.

Lerer Ventures is the seed stage venture capital firm based in New York City and founded by Ken Lerer who’s credits include being a co-founder of The Huffington Post. Lerer’s son Ben is a partner in the firm and is the cofounder of his own successful startup, Thrillist.

Lerer Ventures has tapped Arenson to serve as the General Manager at their in-house incubator, Soho Tech Labs. Arenson is going from her position at the campaign as “Director of Integration and Innovation” to a position that’s actually somewhat similar at Soho Labs.

In her role at Soho Labs Arenson told AllThings D that her task is to help would-be entrepreneurs get their projects ready to ship and ready to raise a seed round. She’ll also connect entrepreneurs to Lerer Ventures network of resources which include some of the biggest names in the New York tech and startup scene.

To date Soho Labs has launched Rebel Mouse, CasaHop and Emogo with plenty more in the pipeline.

everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference is the largest startup conference in the U.S. with over 2000 tickets sold and 100 startups in the startup village, more info can be found here.

uSwapia Trading & Bartering Even If You Don’t Want What They Have

Rehoboth Beach Delaware startup, uSwapia, is the latest to tackle direct and indirect bartering. Many sites have tried to replicate and improve upon the bartering model provided on Craigslist.com. uSwapia has found a way to barter, or trade, services and goods with someone even if they want what you have but don’t have what you want.

Rather than being stuck with a service or item you don’t want uSwapia has a better way as Kevin Clark the company founder explains:

“So I’m an acupuncturist, and have listed myself on the uSwapia site. I state that for 1 token, I will offer somebody an acupuncture service. Fred the baker pulled his back lifting a bag of flour and wants some acupuncture. I don’t want any baked goods, because I’m still holding onto a little bit of holiday weight, but that’s ok. Fred comes in, the site transfers a token from Fred’s account to my account after the trade is completed, and then I can use that token to go hire Suzy the personal trainer to help get me back into shape in time for summer. Tokens are really just placeholders for trades, and basically everything is traded for 1 token. (We find that most trades would retail for between $50-150, but by taking dollar amounts out of the equation, we are trying to shift the emphasis to building community in one’s neighborhood, while operating under the premise that sometimes we are ahead, and sometimes we are behind, but that it all evens out in the end.)”

In essence not only has Clark provided a new way to barter and trade online but also a better one that solves one of the main problems that people have with trading and bartering in the first place. When you take to Craigslist for example you see what everyone has to barter and what they want but sometimes you don’t have anything close.

Check out the rest of our interview with Clark below.

R360UND Is The Ultimate Go-Pro Companion Video Interview At CES 2013

Adrenaline pumping, action sports videos have taken a new place in the active sportsmans life thanks to things like Go-Pro. You could spend months watching GoPro videos on YouTube. You’d see people climbing mountains, surfing big waves, ski-ing, ski jumping, sky diving and more. But even with the best technology, and all the best Go-Pro accessories, a barrel roll looks like a barrel roll on video.

What if you wanted to capture more?

What if you wanted to see how much you were actually rolling, or how high you had actually jumped?

Well back in October you may remember Kara Swisher said that sensors would be all the rage in 2013, and they most certainly are.

R360UND (Rebound) is a sensor technology that allows the use to take amazing readings while they’re participating in extreme sports. Whether it’s down hill skiing, sky diving, ski jumping, or any other fast paced adrenaline pumping activity, R360UND is the device that you need to compliment the awesome video you took with the GoPro.

The R360UND device can attach to your helmet, snowboard, skis or whatever else you want to attach it to and it captures all the motion. The device can tell how high up you are, where you are, what motions you did and what actions your snowboard or skateboard did. You can then take that data and overlay it on your action video which helps tell a much clearer story of what you just did and it’s great for bragging too.

Check out our co-founder Nick Tippmann’s video interview with Paul from R360UND below.

Join 2000 attendees, 440 investors, and over 100 startups at the biggest startup conference in the U.S., everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, here’s more info

Display Moves To Thin Air With Russian Startup Displair: CES 2013 Video Interview

Imagine a world where you could just walk right up to something and right before your very eyes in the open air was a display. No monitor, no projector, just a display in the air. Now imagine if it was a multi-touch point display. You’re not far off from visualizing Russian startup Displairs, display technology.

As you can see in the video with our co-founder Nick Tippmann, the Displair unit is showing the hit game Fruit Ninja right in the middle of the air. The best part is you can actually use your hands to slice the fruit right in the middle of the air. It’s like some awesome step into Kinect or Nintendo Wii-verse technology.

The founders of this Russian startup see the potential in 4 dimensional game play. They also see the technologies potential in advertising and marketing. They had impressed some of the people from Coca Cola who stopped by their booth at CES’ Eureka Park last week.

Displair could display virtual Coca Cola water falls and create interactive games far beyond any consumers wildest dreams.

This is just the type of technology and startup that CEA was looking for when they set up Eureka Park last year. We saw some other wild tech this year as well like Tactus, a micro fluid technology that makes tactile keyboards just morph up from the screen of a smartphone or tablet device.

Check out our video interview below with Displair.

Join the over 2000 attendees who’ve purchased tickets to the largest startup conference in the U.S., everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference.

Cariloop The Expedia Model For Geriatric Care

Elder care and geriatric care are on the rise. As the baby boomer generation starts turning towards assisted living and geriatric care, the industry continues to grow. In 2013 we’re starting to see a new trend of somewhat computer savvy seniors, and their kids, turning to the internet to help find care and services. We’re also at a time where more and more seniors are trying to prolong their independence by living at home. However, they still need resources.

Austin based Cariloop is a startup that is applying an Expedia like model to finding elder care and geriatric services.

Cariloop’s co-founder Michael Walsh tells us in an interview:

:Cariloop is a web-based platform designed to help geriatric care and service providers digitally market their capabilities. Cariloop’s search engine then allows anyone – healthcare professionals, consumers, patients – to get a more current, accurate snapshot of the providers in their area, reach out to them directly, or share their information with others…all in real-time.”

This gives users access to information that used to take months and months and hundreds of brochures to sift through. Now it’s all accessible at your fingertips and easily comparable.

Check out the rest of our interview with Walsh about this exciting new trend in elder care:

Uber Introduces Uber Taxi In DC Ahead Of Inauguration

Black car hailing service Uber is no stranger to Washington DC. The nibletz.com team got a chance to hang out at the Uber DC offices in DC’s Dupont Circle over the summer and learned then that DC loves Uber.

Last year for President’s day the creative Uber team had their customers hailed around in actual motorcades which was quite a site inside the beltway.

Over the summer when Uber had some trouble with members of the DC city council everyone from tv news celebrities to members of congress actually took to Twitter to have some legislation that would have halted Uber’s DC efforts, squashed. Eventually the city council backed down.

This time around it’s another good piece of news for Uber as they are unveiling a new form of Uber-ing just in time for the Presidential Inauguration next week. Uber has unveiled the new Uber Taxi feature.

With Uber Taxi customers will be able to use the same app to hail a traditional DC cab. No worries Mr. T won’t be pulling up to cart you away but what you will have as the opportunity to save a little change over Uber’s traditional black sedan and limo services, and also you’ll be able to hail a cab in DC without getting passed by.

“Just like with our black car service, open up your Uber app and you can easily request a DC taxi, pay with your credit card, and do it all with just the tap of a button. In a nutshell, UberTAXI offers the reliability and convenience you expect from Uber at a lower cost, so you can pick exactly what kind of ride you need, whenever you need it.” Uber said in an email to their customers.

They continued “Thanks to the pro-innovation, pro-consumer legislation passed last month by the DC Council, we know that Uber is here to stay, which is why we are rolling out new transportation options like UberTAXI. But make no mistake: it’s still an experiment, and we will continue to improve on UberTAXI as more people use it.”

Uber does warn that their traditional sedan service will be the default when Uber-ing in DC but the Taxi feature will be there after you take the latest update.

We’ll warn you from experience that it may take a little while longer than normal especially based on their service in Charlotte during the DNC. However Charlotte was a pop-up market for the convention while Uber in DC has been running now for over a year.

There are plenty of great DC startups coming to everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, over 2000 tickets sold but a limited number are still available.

Less Than 4 Weeks To Go Until The Biggest Startup Conference In The Country everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

In less than four weeks the nearly 2000 entrepreneurs, investors, startup founders, designers, developers and startup resources will converge on downtown Memphis at the Memphis Convention Center for everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference. (less than 15% of the tickets sold zipcode to TN)

Arrival will be on a Sunday when all the attendees and investors (over 400 who’ve purchased tickets), will check out over 100 startups in our startup village (limited space still available see below). The startups in the village will also be part of a speed pitch contest with a $25,000 cash prize and other service prizes to boot.

The Global Accelerator Network will be on hand throughout the conference helping with three major panels, “What I learned in an accelerator”, an accelerator Managing Director panel, and the benefits of doing an accelerator. They’ll also be on hand at their booth to help startups find the right accelerator for their needs. (more here)

Bill Harris the former CEO of Paypal and Intuit will talk about adult supervision and turning startups back over to founders. He’ll also speak about his experience mentoring and advising some of the valley’s elite including the Paypal Mafia and some of the Facebook millionaires (and billionaires). (more here)

Scott Case CEO of Startup America will talk about his experiences helping cultivate startup regions for the Startup America Partnership. We’re sure he’ll also provide some of his great stories from building Priceline.com into the brand that changed the way travel is purchased.

FedEx will be on hand talking about how one man’s crazy entrepreneurial vision has turned into the largest logistics company in the world, and how it was grown right in Memphis Tennessee, the heart of everywhere else.

Mike Bott, the GM at The Brandery will provide a lecture on branding for startups. (more here)

We’re also having panels like “Kick Ass Female Founders From Everywhere Else”, “Raising money everywhere else” and several others.

We have a handful of speakers that will be announced next week after tickets go off sale, but we guarantee there hasn’t been one single venue conference in the country with as many attendees or with such unparalleled access to speakers, networking and investors as “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference”.

There are still a handful of attendee tickets left that can be purchased below. We also have 5 Startup Village booths that can be purchased below as well. Tickets officially go off-sale on January 21. Don’t miss out on this unbelievable opportunity.

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3D Printed Audio Startup Goes Lord Of The Flies Style At CES 2013

A California startup called Simply Amplified has created a product that amplifies sound from your smartphone or music player without any moving parts, wires, batteries or electricity. In fact it takes the same principles for amplifying sound that you may find in a conch shell. The company has even designed some of their unique speakers to look just like shells.

As you can see from the video below all you do to amplify the sound from your device is simply set it into the shell like frame and listen as the sound comes out the larger opening.

All of the Simply Amplified speakers are designed to look fashionable on any table or shelf where they’ll pull double duty as wireless, non electric amplifiers and as conversation pieces.

Simply Amplified calls their amplifiers Symphony Shells and we really haven’t seen a product quite like it. But what does it sound like? It was just as clear as some of the BlueTooth connected speakers we saw on the main show floor at the LVCC.

Check out our video interview below.

Do you have your ticket for the largest startup conference in the U.S.?

Branding For Startups With Brandery GM Mike Bott At Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

Mike Bott, Brandery, Cincinnati, everywhereelse.co The startup conference, startup, startup event, branding for startups

Brandery GM Mike Bott is speaking on “Branding For Startups” at everywhereelse.co (photo: videonomics)

As we get into the home stretch before the largest startup conference in the U.S., everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, we continue announcing more and more exciting news. Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference is happening February 9-12th in downtown Memphis Tennessee and nearly 2000 people have already purchased tickets from all over the United States and around the world (in fact less than 15% actually zipcode to Tennessee).

The conference is offering unparalleled access to speakers, curriculum, information and networking for startups “everywhere else”.

Startups from “everywhere else”face many of the same challenges. One of those challenges is access to mentoring and information about branding.

Branding is what makes Cincinnati accelerator The Brandery one of the top accelerators in the country. While many people associate things like branding with New York City, Cincinnati is actually the epicenter for branding. It’s home to the largest branded company in the world Proctor & Gamble (P&G), Macy’s and Kroger are also based in Cincinnati.

The Brandery was founded by branding experts like Dave Knox of RockFish, and Rob MacDonald who’s father is the current CEO at P&G.

The Brandery’s General Manager is no stranger to branding either. Prior to joining The Brandery as General Manager, Mike Bott was a brand manager for one of P&G’s most widely known brands, Olay. It was under the supervision of Bott that country music sensation and American Idol, Carrie Underwood became the face of the brand.

Through the three month cohort based accelerator program, startups chosen to participate in The Brandery get access to branding experts like Bott and several others from Cincinnati and across the globe.

Bott will be participating in the Accelerator MD’s (Managing Director) panel highlighting accelerators from across the country on Monday afternoon. On Tuesday though he’ll be giving a lecture on branding for startups.

Attendees, and Startup Village startups will learn tips, tricks and best practices for starting to build the brand for your young startup. Bott’s lecture will feature the things he’s taught as GM at The Brandery and lectured about across the country. He’ll draw from his Brandery experiences and from his experience building brands at P&G.

This can’t miss lecture will be held in the main ball room on Tuesday morning at 11am.

You don’t want to miss out on Branding For Startups, or any of the other panels, lectures and discussions as part of everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference. There are currently less than 200 tickets remaining. There are also 9 startup village booths left which include 3 conference tickets, booth space and 3 different contests worth $50,000 in cash plus prizes.

This is one of the hottest startup tickets ever. You can get an attendee ticket or sign your startup up for the Startup Village below:

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This Amazing Hat Called Cynaps Lets You Hear Music From Your Phone Through Your Head

We saw the most amazing hat at CES 2013 in Eureka Park. The hat is called Cynaps and the startup that created it is called MaxVirtual.

Cynaps, uses bone induction technology which when connected to a smartphone or other music player, lets you actually hear the music through the vibrations in hour head. No headset, no earphones and no earbuds required. The sound is conducted directly into your inner ear through vibration.

Our cofounder Nick Tippmann was able to try the Cynaps out and says that it sounds just as good as headphones. The company spokesperson that we interviewed said that it’s perfect for anything requiring headphones. You can listen to music, watch movies, even take a call or skype with the Cynaps hat.

There are a couple buttons built onto the brim that allow the user to end and start calls and playback.

The South Carolina startup is already up, running and selling the Cynaps hat for $60 here.

Cynaps offers a new level of safety when it comes to hands free operation. While you’re hearing the sound coming through your inner ear with the vibration, you can still hear other sounds as well. The main sound source becomes the focal point but if you were driving or biking with your Cynaps hat on you would be able to hear a car horn or other important noises.

Check out Nick’s interview with Max Virtual Below:

Over 130 startups and 2000 attendees from across the country & around the world are headed to this startup conference

Hundreds of Broken Headsets Lead To Chicago Startup RockRah CES 2013 Interview

If you’ve been a smartphone user for the past few years than you probably have something in common with me, and that is a junk drawer filled with earbuds. Some earbuds are frayed. Some don’t work in the right ear. Some don’t work in the right ear. Some have cords that are too short. Then there’s the other problem of losing ear buds. I’ve lost plenty of pairs of $30 Apple earbuds in my time.

A Chicago startup called RockRah is trying to solve that problem.

While there were plenty of iPhone cases and plenty of earbuds and headphones at CES 2013, in fact enough to bring reporters to near nauseam, they didn’t combine the two like RockRah does.

RockRah has fashioned a smartphone case that has retractable earbuds built into the back of the case. The housing for the case houses the earbuds so they don’t get lost, or tangled up. You have your earbuds right there when you need them and then when you don’t need them they retract right into the case. Kinda smart huh?

RockRah has been in development for about a year now, and it looks like they’ll actually make it to market in the next few months.

Check out our video interview below:

Plenty of startups from Chicago are going to be in the startup village at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, is yours?

We Found A Morphing Tactile Keyboard Startup At Eureka Park CES 2013

A startup in California is working on getting their technology implemented into smartphones at the OEM level. They report that we should see their Tactus product on smartphones soon. So what does it do?

Tactus is a morphing tactile keyboard that literally just pops out of the phone. We’re not talking about some cheesy slide out qwerty keyboard or any kind of hardware accessory. As you’ll see in the almost unbelievable video, the keyboard just morphs right onto the screen.

In the interview the Tactus representative says that their CEO was inspired by Steve Jobs because he refused to switch to a Blackberry or other smartphone with keyboard built in.

Tactus’ technology is called “Microfluid technology” which makes the keyboard rise out of the screen and then when you’re done with it, it disappears as quickly as it appears. Our co-founder and CEO Nick Tippmann got a chance to play with it during this interview and said it was nothing short of amazing.

The startup showed it off to the TechCrunch crowd at their booth in the parking lot of the convention center where Matt Burns reports that it was the most popular demo during the entire show, stealing the thunder away from the likes of the Pebble Watch, Oculus Rift and Razer Edge.

TechCrunch called it “the future” and we’d have to agree. Check out the video below:

Want to see something else amazing, check out the largest startup conference in the country, everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference.

CES 2013: LivMobile Is Simplifying That Second Screen

A startup in Florida called LivMobile is looking to simplify that second screen for anyone that wants to watch any kind of video from any source. They’re doing this with a web based browser app that turns the browser into the video playback source.

We find out in the interview that the idea for LivMobile was born when their CEO was looking for a second way to view video. He was watching a football game and when they went to time out he wanted a second screen to know when the game was back. Nowadays second screens are common place.

With all the different video apps out there, LivMobile hopes to cut through all the clutter and bring together all video in one easy to use HTML5 browser based product.

Nibletz co-founder and CEO Nick Tippmann got a chance to interview LivMobile at their booth at CES 2013’s Eureka Park. Check out the video below:

You can find out more about LivMobile at livmobile.tv

The startup village at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference has 135 startups in it, is yours?