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Techstars Now Taking Applications Via AngelList

The popular TechStars accelerator program announced last week on their blog that they are now taking applications via AngelList.

500 Startups was the first to go the route of using AngelList to allow startups to apply their program, with their current session. Traditionally to get into 500 startups accelerator program a startup had to be recommended internally. 500 Startups founder Dave McClure opened up the current session for general applications, but only using the AngelList platform.

TechStars is taking applications through their website and also through AngelList.

Techstars founder David Cohen does say that if you apply via AngelList and you’re selected for further evaluation you may need to answer some of the more specific questions found on the application on the Techstars website. However, applications are welcomed from either site.

Techstars is currently taking applications via AngelList and their website for their Boston program that starts February 25, 2013. The early bird deadline for Boston applications is next Monday December 3rd and the final deadline is December 17th.

Applications are also open for the New York City 2013 cohort. The early bird application deadline is January 4, 2013 and the final deadline is January 18, 2013. That session begins April 2, 2013.

Linkage:

Techstars schedule

Techstars application via their website

Techstars application via Angellist

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Tech Cocktails Speaker Series “Sessions” Returns To DC December 5th

If you’re going to be in the Washington DC area next week, then you definitely want to put TechCocktail’s next speaker series event on your calendar. TechCocktails speaker series, called “sessions”, puts together entrepreneurs, designers, startups, and investors in a setting to discuss topics that are relevant to those in the tech and startup community. They offer unparalleled access to top tier, successful speakers, in a somewhat intimate setting.

The next “Sessions” event is being held in Washington DC at the Atlas Theater (1333 H Street NE) Wednesday December 5th from 6:30pm-9:00pm. They are calling the event “Building Your Team”.

Living up to their mission TechCocktail’s Building Your Team session is of the utmost importance to startup founders everywhere. The success of any startup hinges on the product and more importantly the team.

“At some point, most startups reach a point where they need to build a team. How do you start? How do you find the best possible people to grow your company and represent your new brand? Despite today’s unemployment rates, the technology sector remains highly competitive and building a top notch team might be more challenging than you think. Come hear from our speakers who have a variety of perspectives on building out amazing teams, finding talent and keeping them. ” (from TechCocktail’s event page)

The Sessions event will have three speakers, all who’ve had to go through the team building experience. Blake Hall the founder and CEO of TroopID , Carla Valdes a general partner at Fortify.vc and Peter Corbett founder and CEO of iStrategy Labs, have all had their fair share of team building.

Hall’s company has built the first military focused verification database. Hall has had experience building his startup team and being part of teams in the military including as an active duty Airborne Ranger qualified officer.

Valdes has built up the team at Fortify.vc a Washington DC investment fund and is also instrumental in selecting and solidifying the starutp teams that are chosen for Fortify’s dc based accelerator, The Fort.

Corbett and his team at iStrategyLabs serve as a digital agency to some of the world’s biggest brands like ESPN,Disney, ABC, Nasdaw and Geico. Not only is Corbett managing highly creative left brained teams, but he’s doing it with the intense pressure that comes with running a digital agency.

Tickets for the event start at just $10.00 but you need to get them quick before the pricing goes up. Follow the link below.

Linkage:

TechCocktail Sessions DC event page here

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New York Startup: Unpakt Brings The Expedia Model To Moving

The Expedia model of comparison shopping and booking online for the best discounted prices is a proven model that’s being used for several new verticals. Earlier this week we reported on Tennessee startup MDSave which applies a similar model to finding low cost health care for self pay patients. We’ve also reported on Nashville startup Rentstuff which applies a similar model to the merchandise rental industry.

As a testimony to the success of the Expedia model in other verticals, MDSave just raised $1 million dollars for their startup while Rentstuff was recently acquired.

Today we’ve found New York startup Unpakt which is applying the same type model to moving.

Sharone Ben-Harosh is the founder of Unpakt and a 20 year veteran in the moving industry. His first moving startup is FlatRate moving which he founded in 1991. FlatRate Moving takes away the uncertainty associated with hourly moving in exchange for a more honest flat rate move.

Unpakt works on the same principals, but on a larger scale. Users simply put in where they are moving from and to, how much stuff they have and what, if any, special services they need. Unpakt than brings back several real time quotes of movers that can do your move on the date requested and an actual flat rate quote so you know what you’re getting into. You also book the move online which takes a major part of the headache of moving, out of the picture.

We got a chance to talk with Ben-Harosh about Unpakt. Check out the interview below.

Nashville Featured in CNN’s “Cities Where Startups Are Thriving”

For years Nashville Tennessee has been known as Music City USA. Country music starts in Nashville. This year ABC is even running an hour long drama based on country music and life in Nashville, called “Nashville”. To people from the midsouth it’s no secret that Nashville also has a thriving entrepreneurial, startup and tech scene, but now they’ve been highlighted in a piece on cnn.com called “Cities Where Startups Are Thriving”.

In 2010 the Nashville Chamber of Commerce in conjunction with the Nashville Technology Council opened the Entrepreneur Center. A team of 75 people in an “entrepreneur task force” began researching and discussing the possibility of creating a resource for Nashville entrepreneurs back in 2007, a year after a similar effort was started in Memphis Tennessee by entrepreneur Eric Mathews and Launch Your City.

The center started as an online resource, and eventually became a brick and mortar centralized location that serves as the startup and technology hub in Music City.

In May of 2010 it was announced that successful healthcare entrepreneur Michael Burcham was picked to lead the Nashville Entrepreneur Center after a six month search.

Now the community is thriving. Nashville investors have put $72 million dollars into 21 companies so far in 2012, nearly double the $38 million dollars and 8 companies they invested in in 2009.

Startups like Edo Interactive that originated in Nashville and now has offices in Nashville and Chicago, has raised over $50 million dollars in venture capital. Another startup, RentStuff, which got it’s formidable start in the Jumpstart Foundry accelerator program, housed at the Entrepreneur Center, followed in Edo Interactive’s footsteps, relocating to Chicago and leading to an acquisition first reported here at nibletz.com late last week.

Nashville is just one of 9 entrepreneurial pockets that LaunchTN is supporting with startup accelerators. The nine high growth areas include four major hubs, Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga and also have five shoulder markets as well. Tennessee was the second state to formalize a Startup America region. That much entrepreneurial and startup activity in the state of over 42,000 square miles means that no Tennessee resident is more than an hour and a half away from an entrepreneurial hub.

Linkage:

CNN’s “Cities Where Startups Thrive”

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Austin Startup: SocialGood.TV May Save Al Gore’s “Current” TV Network

Tennessee native, former Vice President and founder of the internet (lol) Al Gore, got into the tv business with long time friend and notorious tv ad lawyer Joel Hyatt, who was well known for his tv slogan “I’m Joel Hyatt and you have my word on it”. In 2005 they launched “Current TV” a left leaning tv network.

After his failed bid in the 2000 Presidential election Gore, wanted to go into the TV business. The idea was to launch a conventional tv news network to combat the likes of right leaning Fox news. Some feel that CNN already had it’s feet firmly planted in that position, which is why Current never really took off.

Today we learned that Austin startup SocialGood.TV may be buying the national cable network and moving it’s operations to Austin. The Austin Business Journal is reporting that in addition to the move, SocialGood.TV may be looking to move the networks programming more into the middle of the road.

Stephen Vogelpohl, co-founder and CEO of SocialGood.TV has been tight lipped about what the startup is working on exactly, however it’s been learned that they have a few employees who are developing a video engagement platform for social causes.

Current currently offers programming from disgraced New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, ex-Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and “The Views” with Joy Behar. The network is beamed into 71 million homes with about 60 million of those being in the United States. In the grand scheme of things those are relatively low numbers for a cable network.

Vogelpohl told the Austin Statesman that if SocialGood.TV was successful in the bid they would move programming to causes “outside of legistlation” adding:

“Making communities stronger isn’t a left or a right issue,” he said. “We’d want the programming to be more inclusive, educating through entertaining.”

Vogelpohl’s stake holders are to meet next month in Austin to discuss the deal further.

Linkage:

Here’s a link to socialgood.tv

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Meet Indian 500 Startups Company TradeBriefs, Email Newsletters Making People Experts

Sree Vijaykumar, the founder of Indian startup TradeBriefs, has turned an email newsletter business into a bonafide startup with big upside potential. Some may think that email newsletters are old school, and that in this age of mobile first startups and apps, apps and more apps, how could there possibly be room at the 500 startups lair for an email newsletter startup?

TradeBriefs is in the current class at 500startups so obviously there’s more than meets the eye with these email newsletters.

“We have managed to silence our naysayers. People didn’t think an email newsletter business could thrive, but we have successfully demonstrated that our formula works.. Our subscribers and advertisers are both happy, which is great and now we are ready to scale.” Vijaykumar told us in an interview. Scaling is what they are focusing on while they are in Mountain View participating in the 500 startups accelerator program.

TradeBriefs is part human editor and part learning algorithm. They say that their newsletters are helping professionals in their concentrated fields become industry experts.

TradeBriefs began with an industry newsletter for India’s retail industry and quickly expanded to four other verticals including; Telecom, Finance, IT and FMCG. They are planning on adding verticals and expanding out of India.

In the US, Fierce has been able to make a viable business out of email newsletters, turned into websites, within the tech industry. Now, in addition to their websites, and newsletters Fierce also hosts major industry events in the telecom, mobile and tech industries. Is it possible for TradeBriefs to do the same thing? Obviously 500 Startups thinks so.

Check out the rest of our interview with Vijaykumar below.

Memphis Startup: Cloud For Good Introduces New Product SynagogueCloud

Tal Frankfurt and his CRM/Salesforce startup Cloud For Good has introduced a new product aimed to help synagogues across the country and around the world get more organized. Cloud For Good is a consultancy and product development company that uses primarily SalesForce as it’s back bone and specifically helps non profits.

Today, CRM (Constituent Relationship Management) is shifting towards cloud computing. Instead of buying and maintaining expensive servers and software to manage constituent conversations and information, synagogues can use Web-based (“cloud”) applications to run their CRM—and receive a higher return on their social investment. More than 16,000 nonprofits and educational organizations (and 160,000 companies) are now using Salesforce to transform their operations, reduce risk, and better serve their members.

“The cloud revolution and the Salesforce platform are changing the way synagogues operate today by providing the cutting-edge technology needed to build deep and meaningful relationships with their constituents. Meet the Synagogue Cloud!” Tal Frankfurt said in a statement.

“We tailored Salesforce, one of the most powerful web based applications, to manage every touch the synagogue has with its members, board, volunteers, partners, and vendors. The application allows the synagogue’s staff to manage one list that is integrated with their website, social networks, and financial systems. This application is going to change how synagogues engage and cultivate relationships with their members,” added Frankfurt.

SynagogueCloud manages over 20 different key areas within today’s busy synagogues.

Household Tracking
Organization Tracking
Constituent Tracking
Prospect Management
Volunteer Tracking
Leadership Tracking
Education Tracking
Relationships Tracking
Activity Tracking
Membership Tracking
High Holiday Seating
Events & Classes
Honors & Aliyahs
Revenues
School Tracking
Membership Portal
Email Integration
Direct Mail
Reporting

Frankfurt and the Cloud For Good Team have incorporated every aspect of a synagogues business including social and religious functionality. There are also custom features that can be built into the system. The pricing is incredible as well.

Linkage:

Check out SynagogueCloud here

Check out Cloud for Good here

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Washington DC Startup: MBA Project Search Connects MBA’s & Businesses For Short And Long Term Projects

We’ve reported on several job and recruitment based startups. Most of these startups are attacking problems with hiring and recruiting with technology like video and social media. Some employment based startups, like Memphis startup Work For Pie, are honed in on specific markets like developers. A new Washington DC startup, MBA Project Search, is connecting businesses of any size with MBA students or alumni.

MBA Project Search is getting it’s start out of the Washington DC area and is tapped into the MBA scene at Georgetown University. They’ve also secured relationships with every Ivy institution as well as MBA equivalents internationally.

On the startup side, MBA Project Search is great for startups that need MBA caliber talent but don’t want to hire someone on full time or do some kind of equity for work scenario. With MBA Project Search startups can hire MBAs for short term projects at an affordable rate.

Currently MBA Project Search is free for both businesses that need to hire an MBA and for MBAs to apply for projects and positions. There are no other hidden costs involved either.

The MBA Project Search team says that for students, it gives them the kind of hands on experience a doctor would get from a $100/hr residency or a lawyer would get from a $50,000 internship. They’re giving MBA students and graduates another resource to find post graduate work that encompasses the degree they studied long and hard for.

We got a chance to talk with MBA Project Search co-founder Rasheen Carbin, check out our interview below.

Startups Need A Product Model Rendered? Try Romanian Startup Renderstreet

If you’re a startup, or any company, looking to have a 3d product rendered than Romanian startup Renderstreet may be just what you’re looking for. This is the latest startup for Romanian startup serial entrepreneur Sorin Vinatoru who was also behind the Romanian startup Pagepeeker, that we profiled back in August.

RenderStreet is an easy and affordable render farm for 3D projects. The startup is also priding itself on great customer support so when you turn to RenderStreet for a project, they will hold your hand through the development.

Vinatoru has already had some success raising money for RenderStreet. He’s looking to announce a seed round in the coming weeks.

3D rendering requires immense amounts of computing power that isn’t often available to just anyone. That’s where render farms like RenderStreet come in handy.

We got a chance to talk with Vinatoru about RenderStreet. Check out the interview below.

Everywhereelse.co Becomes The Largest Startup Conference In The Country

It’s hard to believe the headline above but it’s true. With over 1100 tickets sold and over 400 accredited vc’s and angels from across the country, who’ve already purchased tickets, by attendance everywhereelse.co is the largest startup conference in the history of startup conferences. Less than 10% of the tickets sold zipcode to the state of Tennessee.

We’ve got attendees and startups in our Startup Village from as far away as Israel, Romania, Lithuania and Buenos Aires. Of course we have investors and startups from just about every state in the country as well.

We had 104 startups in the village. Two have upgraded to larger booths, and one is going to launch on the stage at everywhereelse.co we’ve also weeded out a few that weren’t going to be ready by February 10th. That leaves a handful of spots in the village open but they will go incredibly fast.

Startup Village startups will be eligible for three different startup contests with over $50,000 in cash and $100,000 in other prizes up for grabs.

There’s no other conference in the world that will give you this level of access to the investor community. We’ve actually been shocked at the caliber of investors coming to the conference who love the idea to increase their deal flow from outside the normal entrepreneurial and startup hubs.

We’ve got a handful of speakers that we can’t contractually reveal until ticket sales are over. We’re hoping to sell out during the month of December and let everyone know the few top shelf speakers that have already committed.

Of course we all know we’ve got Scott Case,Bill Harris, Tracy Myers, several startup founders from YCombinator and 500 startups and many many more.

The schedule keeps on growing and the parties are even getting better. This will be one event you don’t want to miss.

Here’s the site for the conference

Here’s the link for tickets and Startup Village booth space

Black Friday’s Over, Continue To Save Money With Philly Startup Snip Snap App

Back in May we brought you the story about Philadelphia startup Snip Snap App. We were so intrigued with the concept behind Snip Snap, that we actually posted this story, before founder Ted Mann got off the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC.

Snip Snap App has saved me over $400 personally since last May. The concept is simple, it’s a wallet for your print coupons that allows you to crowdsource print coupons from other users. Now if you’re a real coupon king, or coupon queen, then you know that different regions have different coupons. With internet coupons on the rise, and more and more stores accepting coupons on phones, Snip Snap App is poised to save consumers hundreds of dollars.

Snip Snap App allows you to take photos of the coupons out of your local inserts, post them to the app and the community and then report on their success rate in usage. Gigantic nationally known chains like Kohl’s, Best Buy, Target, Old Navy, Aeropastle, Toys R Us and several fast food chains honor electronically stored coupons from just about anywhere, even if they say “some restrictions apply”.

If you’ve snipped a coupon that doesn’t work on redemption you simply report that in the app for others to know. Users can search coupons by name, location and more and they can see how successful those coupons have been by others that have actually used them.

With the biggest shopping day of the year behind us, we thought it was a great time to check in with Mann about Snip Snap and see what, if any, surge he saw in Black Friday.

Swedish Startup Truecaller Global Directory App For Anyone In The World

A startup based in Stockholm Sweden, called Truecaller, says they are the global phone directory linking you to anyone in the world. If you get a call from a number you don’t know you should be able to tap into Truecaller and find out who is actually calling you. In addition to traditional reverse directory information, Truecaller also says they have millions of prepaid phone users in their directory as well.

By coupling existing directory information and crowdsourcing their user-bases contact lists (opt-in) they create a hybrid of publicly available data and crowdsourced information to put together the TrueCaller directory.

Truecaller is a great way to prevent spam from sales calls and others that users don’t want to talk to.

The founders of Truecaller originally started the idea as a side project. They were tired of missing calls from people who were important but necessarily in their contact list already. As they tell us in the interview below, they released the original, rough version of the app and saw over 10,000 downloads immediately. That’s when they realized they should push forward and turn Truecaller into a real startup.

This is the third startup for founding duo Alan Mamedi and Nami Zarringhalam who met while studying at the Royal Institute of Technology.

We got a chance to interview Mamedi, check out the interview below:

Tennessee Startup: MDSave Raising $1 Million To Connect Self Pays To The Best Care

A Brentwood Tennessee startup called MDSave is connecting self pay patients with a choice in healthcare that they hadn’t had before. Doctors who use the MDSave platform share their prices and extend deals to self pay patients and those with high deductible health insurance plans.

MDSave doesn’t only provide more options for those self pay patients, but in turn they help keep the emergency rooms and urgent care clinics less crowded. Perusing the MDSave website you can find that doctors are competing for those self pay patients so they keep their services affordable.

The doctors on the platform pay a small subscription fee. Patients on the other hand, use the platform to search for the type of medical service they need by zipcode. Once they’ve selected a participating doctor they pay in advance through the MDSave platform and they’re giving a voucher to see the doctor they selected. The voucher is redeemed at the appointment to cover the cost. This way, not only are self pay patients getting much needed healthcare the doctors are eliminating the risk associated with collections and the messy process it can be to collect from a self pay patient at the end of the appointment.

MedCitynews is reporting that a SEC filing has revealed that MDSave is in the middle of a $1 million dollar equity raise.

MDSave’s founder and CEO Paul Ketchel is a former member of former Tennessee US Senator Bill Frist. Ketchel is also the son in law of Tennessee Representative Marsha Blackburn.

According to MedCityNews the capital raised in this round will be used to expand MDSave outside of Tennessee.

Linkage:

Check out MDSave here

Source: MedCityNews

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Dartmouth Startup: Square One Mail Is Your Personal Email Assistant

A Dartmouth startup called Square One Mail wants to help busy people sort their email in the most effective ways. Rather than combing through pages and pages of email Square One Mail will put everything in an easy to view dashboard, automatically sorted out into zones.

Square One Mail is starting out with an iPhone app which is currently in private beta. They plan on adding a web-based interface and an Android app soon.

There are a lot of email alternatives available but most of them, like Sparrow, that still sort email in rows, almost the same way it appears on the iPhone’s original email program. While this may work for some people, the Square One Mail dashboard let’s you take a quick look at what’s come in before scrolling through pages and pages of messages.

“SquareOne Mail is a personal email assistant for busy people. We automatically sort out all of the commercial newsletters and social notifications, and present these in a digest view. The rest of your incoming messages are presorted into Zones, which represent different communication areas in your life, such as different projects at work, or Family, College Buddies etc. Instead of a cluttered inbox list, all your zones are presented in a Dashboard. The Dashboard is the main interface for interacting with email – you get a bird’s eye view of all new messages sorted into Zones, so you can prioritize and focus on what’s important. All messages are displayed in an in-line conversation view, which makes even reply-all conversations with multiple recipients easy to navigate. The user has control over which zones prompt email notifications in what contexts (time of day, geographical location).” Square One Mail co-founder Branko Cerny told us in an interview.

If you’re constantly sorting through hundreds of email messages, Square One Mail could be for you, especially if you want to eventually read all of your email but you just need to prioritize it, easily.

Check out the rest of our interview Cerny below.