Joist Helps Contractors Be More Efficient On The Go

Contractors spend a lot of time on the road and working on various projects. Typically they have to keep hand written notes in notebooks and on clipboards and then either they transcribe all that information themselves into Excel or Word, or take it back to the office for someone else to do. For some smaller independent contractors that typically means their significant other is spent doing data entry instead of savoring what little time they have outside of “work”.

A Winnipeg startup called JoistApp is looking to solve that problem. JoistApp is a mobile app that contractors can use on their iPad, iPhone or Android device which allows them to manage their business on the go. Contractors can create invoices, create estimates, send invoices, manage projects and accept payments on the go. Sure there are plenty of business management apps out there but JoistApp was created specifically for contractors.

We got a chance to talk with Brendon Sedo, co-founder of JoistApp, check out the interview below.

500 Startups Launching New York Co-Working Space

500 Startups New York based partner Shai Goldman announced on Twitter earlier today that the popular seed fund and accelerator program is opening up a new co-working space in New York. TNW reports that the co-working space is open to 500 Startups portfolio companies and early stage startups.

While 500 Startups in based in Mountain View California (Silicon Valley), founder Dave McClure and partner Paul Singh are very committed to startups outside the valley. McClure is known, for among other things, his Geek On A Plane adventures which get entrepreneurs to build companies in planes flying above far off exotic places.

The 500 Startups accelerator cohorts are always a good mix of companies from across the country and around the globe. We’ve featured interviews with many of the current class here on nibletz.com.

If you’re interested in working at the 500 Startups co-working space, it will cost you $500 per month per desk. In addition to portfolio companies they are looking for startups that are either: bootstrapped, angel/seed funded or series A funded. They have space for 40 people. You can apply here at wufoo.

The space is located at 27th & Park Avenue South and here is a video of the space:

everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference will feature several 500 Startups backed companies from “everywhere else” including a kick ass panel called “Kick Ass Female Founders From Everywhere Else” led by Markerly’s Sarah Ware.

Startup Weekend Company Breadcrumbs, Lets You Know Where You’ve Been

A San Diego startup, called Breadcrumbs is helping people keep track of where they’ve been using their smartphone. It’s like automated checking in but could be more useful later on. Maybe you want to keep a journal of the places that you’ve been. Perhaps the next time you’re in a city or town you want to easily be able to recall a place you ventured into on your last trip. We travel so much around here that it’s easy to mistake some downtown areas with others.

Breadcrumbs is innovating at the EvoNexus incubator in San Diego, alongside other great startups like Nulu Languages, TomNod, Antengo, Barc, and Fashinoning Change. The company also received a $50,000 seed investment from Qualcomm Labs.

Breacrumbs is another success story out of Startup Weekend. Founder Joel Drotleff had pitched the original idea at San Diego Startup Weekend, citing the fact that he could never remember how long he spent at the dog park. The other co-founders joined him for the weekend project and now today they have a product in the Google Play store for Android and the iTunes App store.

Breadcrumb’s Sean Dominguez told nibletz in an interview:

“It’s a pretty cool story. We all met at Startup Weekend San Diego back in June when Joel, our CEO, pitched an idea for creating a self-tracking application since he never knew how long he was spending at the dog park. We all thought it was a cool idea, joined the team for the weekend, and ended up taking the Qualcomm sponsored prize that weekend – as well as another prize at Qualcomm’s event Uplinq two weeks later.”

Obviously they caught the most important eyes at Qualcomm who has continued to support the venture. We got a chance to have a more in-depth discussion with Dominguez check out the rest of the interview after the break.

CES 2013 Preview: Vancouver Startup moj.io Is Doing Amazing Stuff With Cars

As we prepare to bring you continuous round the clock team coverage of CES 2013, we got a chance to do a pre-show interview with a Vancouver startup called moj.io that’s connecting cars diagnostic, internal computers with the cloud and an app store. They are taking the up to 25gb of data that can be generated by a car every hour, and connecting it wirelessly first to the cloud and then to your smartphone.

Combined with info from moj.io‘s GPS and accelerometer, moj.io provides a connected car experience that can be accessed via your smart phone from anywhere, anytime. With moj.io, you can now locate your car on a map, track its movements and speed, govern how far and fast it is being driven(by your teenage son or employee), lock/unlock your car doors just by the presence of your phone, intelligently stop incoming texts and calls when your car is in Drive, be notified instantly when your car is being tampered with or towed, and a whole lot more.

moj.io also offers access to diagnostic information as well. The company provides an SDK so developers can write apps that will give users/drivers the ultimate connected car experience. Cars will be able to tell their owner and even the local service center when they need to be serviced and what needs to be fixed, all the while keeping a log on your smartphone. With the SDK the sky is the limit when it comes to what can be created for the connected car experience.

REV Technologies, the company behind moj.io has been building electric vehicles for the U.S. army.

“At REV, we were building electric vehicles for the US Army, (decoding entire car computers) and making it possible for them to control the direction and flow of electricity of these electric vehicles to use them as generators for their army bases. We did this wirelessly using SIM card-enabled hot sticks and were always seeking the simplest way to do this with OEM-produced electric vehicles like the Nissan Leaf. Eventually we realized that by going in through the OBD port, we were basically piping in the internet. It was a small step from there to imagining an entire ecosystem of apps, car-related companies and drivers of any kind of car interacting on an open platform.” Rev Technologies CEO Jay Giraud told nibletz in an interview.

Check out the rest of the interview below:

What To Do After School? DC Startup Activity Rocket Has The Answer

As the parent of a kindergartener her father and I are swimming in mountains of ideas of things for our daughter to do after school. There are a lot of programs out there but not one central website to go to where we can check out everything. We’re just getting started and have a good 10-12 years more to plan for.

Parents in the Washington DC metro area won’t have to worry about this problem, especially going forward in 2013. Washington area startup Activity Rocket wants to be the Urban Spoon, or Flixter for after school activities.

Two ex-attorney’s and frustrated moms in Washington DC, Lisa Friedlander and Ilene Miller have created Activity Rocket to serve as a portal to the after school world for busy parents. Between the two women they have five children between the ages of 6-11 and before Activity Rocket, they had no place to start.

Now, their startup is filled with activity and program recommendations, referrals, expert written blogs, parent ratings and even calendar tools. Friedlander and Miller have made their system extremely easy to use. A parent searching for activities can go to their website and search as wide or narrow as they would like for the activities they want their child enrolled in.

Whether parents are looking for soccer, baseball, ballet, math club, computer clubs, cub scouts, girl scouts, or tutoring classes, Activity Rocket is the place to search. Right now they are solely focused on the DC metro area, but we’re willing to bet that demand will mean expansion in the coming years.

In between code revisions, meetings, car pooling, and holiday decorating we got a chance to talk with Miller about Activity Rocket, the DC startup scene and what it’s like for busy women to launch a new startup. Check out the interview below.

Berlin Entrepreneurs Trying To Curb Facebook Fatigue With Flowsee

A new Berlin based startup called Flowsee is hoping to take advantage of Facebook fatigue by offering users a social network with a local angle and curated multimedia. Flowsee is a mashup of Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit.

The Flowsee social network has multiple category pages like music, tech and photography. In each of the categories users can upload photos and videos that are relevant to that category or whatever other categories they like. Pictures, links and videos are then voted up or down in a way similar to both Digg and Reddit with the most “likes” getting to the top of the page.

While the site is stating out and focused on Berlin, the company feels that it’s readily scalable. Back in late October they told us that they had already surpassed 10,000 users per month.

Like some other social networking projects, while Flowsee has a definite infrastructure to it, they are letting early adopters use the social network the way that they want to. For instance, vendors at the Mauer Park Flea Market has started using the platform to post their handmade and vintage goods for sale. Co-founder Olivier Jarfas told Silicon Allee that it didn’t take long for the vendors to start adding photos and even videos to their pages.

We all know that Facebook isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, they past the billion users mark last year and continue to move forward despite the fact that their stock market price is a lot lower than they had hoped. Nibletz co-founder and CEO Nick Tippmann also reported earlier this week that Facebook may be perceived by teenagers as “for older people”.

As a result more and more social networks are popping up. Most of the newer social networks are finding verticals to launch in like food, academia and careers.

As for Flowsee, we got a chance to talk with the Berlin based team. Check out the interview below.

No Really The Early Bird Attendee Ticket For Everywhere Else Is Going Away Tomorrow

Everywhereelse.co The Startup conference has quickly become the largest single venue multi day startup conference in the United States. It’s happening February 9-12th at the Memphis Convention Center in Downtown Memphis Tennessee.

The conference features amazing guest speakers and a panel line up geared specifically towards early stage, and pre series-A stage startups from outside Silicon Valley. Scott Case,Bill Harris, Rohit Bhargava,, Tracy Myers Techstars Alum, 500startups alum and many more will talk about their experiences outside Silicon Valley and give entrepreneurs, founders, developers, dreamers and do-ers what they need to be successful.

Startups that participate in the Startup Village will get three attendee tickets, booth space, electricity, wifi, a private party, and three pitch contests for $100,000 in cash (and then prizes) there are a few Startup Village spots left here.

Access to capital is one of the biggest obstacles facing startups outside the valley, this panel “How To Raise Money Everywhere Else” will feature some great funded startups and their founders from outside Silicon Valley, you can read more about that here.

Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference has sold (not pans on selling but sold) over 1700 attendee tickets to date, with only 15% of them zipcoding to Tennessee so this is very much a national conference.

The early bird ticket price was originally supposed to go away Halloween, then before Thanksgiving, then before Christmas and then New Years eve. Well we’re about to officially name our CEO and he’s not happy that we keep extending the date on the conference early bird ticket, so it absolutely positively will end at midnight Pacific time tomorrow morning (Thursday).

You’ll get a great three day conference, access to over 400 angels and vc’s that have already purchased tickets, a Memphis Grizzlies game ticket and a chance to check out a town built on entrepreneurship like Holiday Inn, FedEx, Autozone, Sacks Fifth Avenue and many many more.

Stop reading and go get that early bird ticket now by clicking here.

BargainAdsPlus Is A Curated Smorgasboard Of Video Ads For Every Business

If your business needs to get a video online, one place you may want to try is Sugar Land startup Bargainadsplus. This startup even describes themselves as “no business quite like us”. That’s because they offer video ads, video classifieds, ratings and more. Business owners benefit from having a place to put a variety of video ad content. Consumers benefit because theres no cost to peruse the listings on bargainadsplus.com or connect with service providers.

Bargainadsplus also connects customers with daily deals without having to pay a middle man.

We got a chance to talk with Geoffrey Marlin, founder of Bargainadsplus. Check out our interview below.

Before SnapChat There Was Quimby

Unless you’ve been living under the Christmas and holiday rock, you’ve undoubtedly heard about the “controversial” mobile app startup, SnapChat and the ensuing controversy surrounding Facebook copying the technology as “Poke”.

SnapChat is a mobile texting app that allows multimedia texting. What makes it particularly intriguing is the fact that messages sent with SnapChat can self destruct. Make no bones about it or call it anything less than it is, it is the “sexting” app and its burning up the charts. SnapChat quickly found its place in the top 3 apps in the iTunes App Store where it’s been living for weeks.

Teenagers are using it in droves for sexting, to talk freely about others and for anything else they don’t want accidentally left on their phones.

Facebook was quickly called out, when after seeing the runaway success SnapChat was having, copying the technology completely and releasing it as a mobile app called “Poke”. Poke quickly rose to the top of the charts as well but when people realized how Zuckerberg’s mobile engineers blatantly ripped off SnapChat, Poke began falling as quickly as it rose to the top.

Before SnapChat though there was another app designed to do the exact same thing. We first reported on Toronto startup Quimby back in April when we interviewed the apps founder Heather Burns.

Burns had teamed up with our good friends at Toronto mobile development giant Bnotions. The premise for her app was the same thing, self destructing messages.

Burns tried to take the high road though, she suggested adults may use it for when they are away from each other for long times and long distances. Another use case for Quimby was highly sensitive messages between employers and colleagues. Either way Quimby is just as much for sexting as SnapChat is.

SnapChat also went on the defensive at first but of course any press but your obituary is good press right?

See out interview wit Quimby here

Steal Time Back From Social Media with “Productive Sharing” – James Sposto Founder Of Xtrant

How much do time do you spend on social media? How many hours a week does Facebook take from you? How often do you pause to tweet, to post a photo, even to send a group text?

Yes, you enjoy it.

Yes, there is networking to be done.

Yes, Twitter is part of the fabric of your life…we all get it.

But as those hours get sucked away there are things that need to get done, things you are putting off: It could be that novel you are writing, right? Or that report that’s due on Friday. Or this blog post – the one you are reading now – the one that I put off a few times, and you’ve found thanks to social media (don’t feel guilty, this counts as research.) Social media – or “Social Sharing” is addictive because it’s so useful – so easy to adopt. But like any opiate, it steals from our personal productivity, and in the aggregate it steals from humanity’s productivity as well – deep down you know the millions of hours spent on FarmVille could be used to cure the disease of your choice.

Okay, you can argue that most of the folks who sit and while away the hours on social media wouldn’t be doing much anyway, and it’s better to keep some of them occupied instead of stirring up trouble – but that’s another essay.

Let’s be idealists here – and cite an artificial statistic (I know, damn lies and all.) “When Twitter goes down, worker productivity skyrockets 50%.”

continue reading at the xtrant blog

James Sposto is a film maker, designer, entrepreneur, co-founder of digital creative agency Sposto Interactive and the co-founder of Xtrant, the official project management startup for everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference.

CES 2013: CEA Partners With Launch.It For Eureka Park Coverage

Launch.it a New York startup that bills itself as an event news and social information management platform announced earlier this month that they’ve partnered with the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) to power the official news channel for Eureka Park, the startup zone at the 2013 International CES.

Eureka Park is in it’s third official year and has grown 40% year over year. This year there are 140 startups exhibiting throughout the duration of the show. In addition Startup America will host a content stage with speakers, panel discussions and even pitches throughout the event.

“Every great company starts with a eureka moment, a unique idea that launches the next must-have product or service. And through our partnership with CEA, we have ensured that you can now find these companies within their dedicated home in the Eureka Park TechZone and online through their dedicated interactive news site,” said Brian Cohen, CEO and Co-Founder of Launch.it said in a post on the company’s website. “I’ve worked at and attended CES for more than thirty years and it has been one of the best places to find these fledgling start-ups and diamond in-the-rough companies waiting to be discovered and make it big.”

Launch.it will provide access to all of Eureka Park’s startups to these important tools:

· In-depth social analytics

· Wiki-like environment to make story updates in real-time

· Investors and media can follow companies to get real-time updates

· An action box to engage readers for investment and media opportunities

· Facebook comments for insight and feedback

· Rich multimedia, tags and geo-location for enhanced engagement and discoverability

· “Buy it and Trial it” buttons to drive users directly to point of purchase

· Customized tweets for precise messaging and branding

“CEA recognized early on that startups are now an integral part of the consumer electronics industry and created Eureka Park to cultivate and support the passionate entrepreneurs,” said Trace Cohen, President and Co-Founder of Launch.it. “Having attended CES for the past few years, Eureka Park, in it’s first year last year, was one of my favorite areas to walk through because of the innovative startups looking to disrupt multiple industries. Best of all, I had the opportunity to ask questions, meet the passionate founders behind the ideas and can now support them through our partnership to make sure all their news can be easily found, discovered and shared.”

Of course nibletz.com the voice of startups everywhere else, will be covering the entire show including Starutp Debut and the entire Eureka Park experience as well. We’re looking forward to in depth interviews, pitches and reporting on all of the innovative startups in Eureka Park.

Through our previous web properties, and now nibletz, we’ve covered CES for the last decade. Typically with shows like CES we turn to BusinessWire or TradeShow Wire for up to the minute news releases.

CEA partnering with Launch.it, a startup in it’s own right, will better position the Eureka Park startups to make a bigger splash among the over 3500 companies exhibiting during the week in Las Vegas. Launch.it is better positioned in terms of the newest trends in news delivery and social media over the more traditional news services. This way the startups in Eureka Park have their own clear and coherent voice that’s a bit more relevant than traditional newswire services.

How To Raise Money Everywhere Else Find Out At Huge Startup Conference

Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference is being held in Memphis Tennessee February 9-12th at the Memphis Convention Center. Over 1700 attendees have already purchased tickets including over 400 angels and vcs. The conference will offer startups at any stage pre series-A unparalleled access to investors, fellow entrepreneurs, founders and speakers.

In addition to great speakers like Scott Case, Bill Harris and countless others, “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference” is going to help startups outside of Silicon Valley unlike any other event in the world.

In talking with hundreds of startups every week we’ve found (and you probably know first hand) the biggest obstacle for founders outside the valley is access to capital. Sometimes we hear about it to nauseam.

Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference is going to tackle that issues in a variety of ways starting with a panel of some great startup founders who struggled bootstrapping until they had their big break, most of them staying right where they are.

We’ll talk with Gabe Lozano founder of St. Louis Startup LockerDome who’s raised over $2 million dollars to date from names including Jim McKelvey, co-founder of Square. Lozano is firmly planted in downtown St. Louis.

Rob Kischuck the founder of Atlanta startup bad.gy, who on a chance meeting at a party for Mark Cuban hosted by Nibletz co-founder and CEO Nick Tippmann, met Cuban who loved the idea. Cuban is a big fan of founders putting in enormous amounts of sweat equity and Kischuck could write a book on the topic. Kischuck has now raised nearly three quarters of a million dollars for his startup. Kischuck will talk about his experience at everywhereelse.co

Shawn Flynn, co-founder of Memphis based Restore Medical Solutions will talk about moving his startup from Atlanta to Memphis Tennessee for the ZeroTo510 accelerator. After the accelerator program he and co-founder Ryan Ramkhelawan went on to raise a series A round of $2.5 million dollars in Memphis Tennessee.

McKeever Conwell the co-founder and CEO of Baltimore startup Given.To has had the opportunity to move to Silicon Valley and get in the venture capital rat race but stayed in his native Baltimore to grow his company and help others through his involvement with organizations like Accelerate Baltimore.

Scott Case, founding CTO of Priceline.com and the current CEO of Startup America will facilitate the panel and also talk about Priceline’s experience building a billion dollar company outside Silicon Valley.

Be part of the Startup Village at everywhereelse.co for your chance to pitch in three different contests for $100,000 in cash. Click this link for tickets.

MyMzone Bringing London’s Street Markets To Life Online

Etsy, the crafter’s online marketplace has been around since 2005 and is one of the most visited sites for homemade wears. A new London startup called MyMzone is hoping to disrupt that, at least across the pond.

MyMzone is hoping to become the curated online market place showcasing unique and authentic items handmade, handcrafted and designed by merchants selling in local markets in London. That’s actually the part that differentiates the platform from Etsy.

Back in August we interviewed Nashville startup Street Jelly. The premise for the company founded by Frank Podlaha is to take street performers and put them online to make real money for virtual tips. MyMzone is hoping to provide an avenue for street and market merchants hawking their ways in London, and put them online as well.

MyMzone co-founder Ravi Jay says he’d describe MyMzone to his Grandma by saying: “Grandma, Remember going to Portobello Market in 2006 and not buying that gorgeous handmade sweater from that lovely young woman because we did not have any British Pounds on us? You know what, she is still there and continues to hand made amazingly beautiful sweaters. Finally, you can see her online along with all the other goodness from local markets of London.”

It’s an interesting proposition for a city that has upscale street markets with handcrafted items you could find on Rodeo Drive in the United States.

Check out the entire interview with Jay below.

Vancouver Startup: iWishfor Is Making Gift Giving Easier

With the holidays behind us, gift giving isn’t on the minds of many. However when we go back to work next week there’s going to be some people undoubtedly worried whether they got someone the wrong gift. Typically you can read the fake smile but sometimes you can go all year, or at least until someone’s next birthday, to find out that they didn’t really like the last gift you got for them.

There are startups trying to solve this problem and Vancouver startup iWishfor is one of them.

The idea behind iWishfor is pretty easy. People can take their smartphone and scan the barcode of any item they may want to receive as a gift. From there they can sign up their friends and family members to see the list of the things they want. All of those people become the list follower.

As a follower you can see the list your friend created and you can cross the item off the list if you pick it up. You can also add your own suggestions to the list which the other followers can see but your gift recipient cannot. This way, not only are you getting a gift that your friend or relative really wants but your also getting a gift no one else is getting for that person.

Everyone has heard of a wedding registry or a baby registry, apps like iWishfor allow people to create virtual registries for any occassion.

We got a chance to talk with the team behind iWishfor. Check out the interview below.