Now that I’m in my 30’s it seems that every time I go home to visit my parents I go through photo albums and unless the photo is blatantly obvious, you know like the Magic Kingdom castle is in the background, I have no idea the context for the photo. Mom did a decent job of handwriting notes on the back but that still doesn’t give the photos a real good back story.
Fast forward to the internet age and I’ve got digital photos going back to the mid 90’s. All in all I probably have near 100,000 photos. I’m a big picture taker. The problem is, just like with those traditional photo albums, I have no idea the context on lots of them.
Imagine if the photos talked? Well they can now thanks to Orlando startup PicVoice. Currently PicVoice is a web application that allows you to sign in through Facebook, upload photos and then add up to 30 seconds of audio to accompany the photo. Now your photos can really tell a story.
As we learned in our interview below with Founder and CEO Matt Andrews, they’re working on a mobile app right now. They aren’t alone in this space though. Atlanta startup StoryMark also allows you to add audio to photos. They went the other route and put together a great mobile app first, without a web app. That makes StoryMark great for taking photos and posting them with audio. PicVoice on the other hand is great for people who have thousands of photos that are just waiting for a story.
Comments Off on Hong Kong Startup: DataField Lets Your Field Workers Go Paperless0LikeLike 2,652
Do you run a business with lots of workers in the field? Are they coming back from collecting data with clipboards full of paper? Well Hong Kong startup DataField is hoping to help change that for you and your company.
DataField is a SaaS startup that helps businesses and enterprise with field workers collect data on forms or surveys quickly, easily and digitally. DataField is the perfect solution for route drivers that collect orders while on their route. It’s also perfect for those workers out there collecting data from customers completing surveys. DataField could also be used for political canvassers that are out door to door trying to get easy questions answered.
No matter how big or small the data sample is, DataField offers a paperless way of collecting that data which then also gives companies the option of getting the data back wirelessly in real time.
DataField solves several pain points which all lead to increased productivity. Say for instance you own a food delivery company. Route drivers could use DataField instead of traditional order sheets. When the delivery person is at the customers home delivering their current food order and taking the next, the minute the new order is complete in the DataField system it can be processed back at the warehouse while the driver is on their way to the next customer.
Traditionally, before systems like this, the warehouse wouldn’t see the order sheets until the end of the day when the route driver returns.
We got a chance to speak with Antoine Dercoche co-founder and CEO of DataField. Check out the interview below.
Comments Off on London Startup FlatClub: AirBnb Meets Couch Surfing Meets LinkedIn For College Students0LikeLike 2,968
So what do you get when you take two Israeli guys, move them to London and mash together AirBnb, CouchSurfing and LinkedIn? You get London startup FlatClub.
FlatCub is a network for college students and alumni to find temporary housing situations amongst their friends, friends of friends and trusted acquaintances. FlatClub connects college students from all over with each other to offer spare bedrooms, couches, and even apartments. Say you have a year round lease on an off campus apartment and you’re not going to be at school during the summer, you could use FlatClub to find a trusted renter.
FlatClub utilizes the social web, requires users to be college students, and provides a safe and secure payment system for taking the payments for booking.
The growing startup closed an undisclosed Series-A round back in May from a syndicate of non-traditional VC’s. They are also a product of the London Business School Incubator. But even with the security of a Series-A round and the backing of an incubator like the London Business School co-founder and CEO Nitzan Yudan is far from done the hard, sweat equity type grunt work.
Yudan is planning a US expansion to the top 30 universities and plans to do it with a road show across the country. He’s looking to generate as much buzz as he can. Yudan feels that FlatClub offers a safer more secure way of finding temporary accommodations. By requiring users to be college students or alumni there’s an element of security already in place.
FlatClub also provides an element of real social interaction. Students and alumni renting accommodations will see how they are socially connected to potential renters and vice versa. Also for those students and alumni that are renting rooms, they’ll get the in person interactions that you can’t find with similar services.
We got a chance to interview Yudan. Check out the interview below.
Comments Off on Florida Startup: Seek.ly To Launch Online Speed Dating At DEMO0LikeLike 2,652
Online speed dating isn’t a new concept however it’s one that could use some definite improvements. Online dating sites typically bury their users with superfluous messages. They also give off false positives by matching users with people that aren’t interesting or compatible.
Florida startup Seek.ly plans will eliminate those problems and others to make online speed dating more spontaneous the way that it is when you go to an in person speed dating event at a local restaurant, bar or singles meet up.
Profiles be gone!
While at first this may seem like a crazy idea, one way that Seek.ly puts that spontaneity back into online speed dating is by eliminating profile pictures, and questions. To often people eliminate potential dates by profiles. The other down fall is that profiles are often blown up or only show the absolute best a person has to offer (or what they perceive is their best). With Seek.ly there’s no BS around the profile, more time is spent focusing on getting to know the person.
“Seek.ly does not have profile pictures, questionnaires or compatibility testing because we know that at the end of the day those processes just can’t take the place of human interaction. By eliminating these crutches, seek.ly users are more inclined to get to know the person and not the profile. I’m very excited about our public launch and validating these ideas.” said Susie Steiner, Founder of Seek.ly.
Steiner and co-founder Kim Randall will launch Seek.ly today at the fall DEMO conference in Santa Clara California. They’ll have six minutes to wow those in the audience and those watching from home. Online speed dating needs a makeover and Seek.ly is confident they’ll deliver.
“We are ready to take Online dating to the next level and I am very excited that we are launching our video speed dating platform at DEMO Fall 2012,” said Kim Randall, Co- founder of Seek.ly LLC.
Comments Off on Toronto Startup Picatic Launches; Protects Event Organizers By Crowdfunding Tickets0LikeLike 4,088
Toronto startup Picatic has an excellent proposition for event organizers,”Never lose money on an event again”. They can guarantee this proposition for event organizers that use their platform for their events.
Picatic’s EventTilt platform is a crowdfunding site to fund events. Users take to the traditional crowdfunding model and essentially purchase tickets early for an event that an organizer has posted to the site. If the event gets enough early tickets from the crowd, those that crowdfunded the event will receive discounted tickets based on their contribution. Should the event not get enough commitments than the user’s card isn’t charged and everyone walks away happy.
With EventTilt event organizers can finally host events without worrying that they won’t sell enough tickets to break-even or make the profit they expected. The platform eliminates all of the financial risks of hosting an event by offering a preset number of early tickets at a discount. Once discounted tickets are sold the event Tilts and tickets go back up to full price — the event is on! For events that don’t Tilt within the time allotted, EventTilt will refund buyers 100% of their ticket price.
Just like other crowdfunding sites Picatic can also offer other incentives to those that purchase their tickets early. Incentives like early admission, VIP access,T-shirts and other swag can be used as incentives to the buyers.
“EventTilt is changing the way we plan and market events. Our goal is simple, create a platform that not only ensures events get the funding they need to be successful but also helps organizers engage with their most loyal supporters.” CEO and Co-Founder Jayesh Parmar said in a statement.
There are a few other crowdfunding startups in the ticketing and event space like GigFunder and Queremos. While many view Picatic as a way to eliminate risk for event organizers, others wonder if it’s worth backing or committing to an event that may or may not happen.
Picatic has raised $200,000 in seed funding and their site is up and running.
Comments Off on everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference Announced February 10-12th 2013 In Memphis Tennessee0LikeLike 2,177
MEMPHIS TN, & EVERYWHERE ELSE- “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference” has been announced for Sunday February 10, 2013 through Tuesday February 12, 2013 and has already attracted an all star line up of speakers, panelists, investors,startups and entrepreneurs. The conference will take place in the heart of beautiful Memphis Tennessee at the Memphis Convention Center.
The three day conference will feature over 30 panels, keynote addresses, roundtable and fireside chats geared towards the challenges that entrepreneurs, startups and even investors face outside Silicon Valley. The conference will also include three signature networking events as well as a three day startup exhibition featuring 100 startups from “everywhere else”. Startups from every stretch of the country, and as far away as Israel and Romania have already committed to exhibit in the Startup Village.
Startup America CEO and founding CTO of Priceline Scott Case will keynote at the event. Best selling author and motivational speaker Tracy Myers,Rohit Bhargava,Bill Harris former CEO of Paypal and Intuit and many more, will also speak at the event. everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference will continue to announce speakers over the next two months.
Startups, startup founders, accelerator heads and investors will round out three fun filled and educational days in Memphis Tennessee on topics ranging from “raising money everywhere else”, “what I learned in an accelerator”, “what investors outside the valley expect”, “startups: life after hip hop, music and sports”, “kick ass female founders from everywhere else” and more.
There will also be three startup pitch contests with finals taking place at the conference; “The Best of Everywhere Else”, “The Startup Village People Awards” and the “Top of Tennessee” startup pitch contests will have their finals take place at the conference in front of a panel of well known angels, VC’s and celebrities. With the three startup contests over $100,000 in cash and prizes will be given away.
The Best Of Everywhere Else contest will begin with video pitches on November 1, 2012.
The Top Of Tennessee pitch contest will be open to startups throughout the state of Tennessee and will begin during Global Entrepreneurship Week.
In the Startup Village People Awards, Startup Village companies will compete for $25,000 in cash and prizes by audience participation vote via the official conference app.
“everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference” has made both exhibiting and attending affordable for even the boot-strapping startup from “everywhere else”. Attendee tickets are $60 with an early bird rate of $39 for all three days. Startup Village booths are $480 with a few $295 pre-sale booth spaces still available. An earlybird rate for Startup Village booths of $350 will continue through October 31st.
Comments Off on San Diego Startup: The Tip Network Is PayPal For Servers0LikeLike 3,163
Although restaurant and hospitality industry technology has improved by leaps and bounds over the years, one area where it still falls short is tipping. That’s where San Diego startup The Tip Network comes in.
With the economy the way it is these days restaurant owners and managers are mice-managing their shift schedules even more than they ever have before. Owners are managers are quick to make cuts to their wait staff the minute they can. This causes a major pain for servers. In a lot of restaurants servers either need to stick around after getting cut or at the end of their shift, come back at closing time or wait until the next day to reconcile their tips and tip out. This can be a major pain point for servers.
The Tip Network offers solutions for problems like that and other problems that plague proprietors of tip based businesses.
Tip Network is a cloud based tip management solution for independent and chain restaurants. We enable managers to easily track, allocate, and distribute tips digitally to their staffs Tip Network. Each staff member has their own unique Tip Network profile that allows them to (1) send money to any account, at any bank (2) send money to anyone in the network, (3) and many other things down the road .
Using the Tip Network, servers take ownership and management of their tips over, instantly. Now, from the comfort of their own home, or device they can tip out to support staff, move tips to their bank accounts even pay back loans to other servers. Like PayPal, with The Tip Network users get their own ID and can move their tips around anywhere in the network.
Founder Greg Crisci has first hand experience as a server and knows the pain that his startup hopes to solve. He’s busy these days looking for integration partners and preparing the implementation of his new tipping alternative. He did take a few minutes to talk to us though. Check out the interview below:
Comments Off on New York Startup: Greatist The Go To Place For Health & Wellness Info INTERVIEW0LikeLike 2,761
I’m one of those people that thinks in order to be the best you need to think like you are the best, it’s a motivational mantra that’s driven me since my childhood. Such is the case with Derek Flanzraich and his health and wellness, socially driven info startup Greatist. This New York based startup is a destination site for original, amazingly good health and wellness content. It must be because they’re currently seeing 1.5 million uniques a month, which according to Flanzraich makes Greatist the fastest growing site in the health space.
Whether you’re looking for great healthy recipes, workout tips or even how to get over a hangover, Greatist offers a great variety of wellness and health related content.
While the content on Greatist.com is overflowing, the team at Greatist encourages their users to take it slow, one week at a time. The startups mission is to inspire and inform the world to make at least one healthier decision per week. Whether you want to lose weight, eat better, get stronger, get motivated, relieve stress, or just start working out, greatist.com offers the content you need, in an easy to read format for all of their users.
Flanzraich has been an entrepreneur since his first “lemonade stand” startup dog walking business. All the while friends, family members and new acquaintances would ask him what drove him and one of those main ingredients was health and wellness. That’s why he created Greatist.
We got a chance to talk to Flanzraich. Check out the interview below:
Comments Off on Atlanta Startup LaunchTable Launches Connect, Communicate, Collaborate0LikeLike 3,049
Back in May we got a chance to interview Atlanta based entrepreneur Ian Jones about his exciting new startup called LaunchTable. While there are several startups out there competing in the collaboration space, Jones has created LaunchTable to make it easier to not just collaborate but to communicate and connect as well.
Most of the other collaboration startups out there allow users to collaborate based on teams that they already have in place. Take Facebook Founder Dustin Muskovitz’s startup Asana. Asana is a great tool that allows users to collaborate in a way very similar to Google Wave. Of course with Asana you have the team in place already.
When you sign up for a user account at LaunchTable here, you immediately receive recommendations on other people that you should collaborate with. If the automagical recommendations don’t suit your needs you’re welcome to browse the entire community for the right match without limits.
Once you’ve synced up with a new team LaunchTable makes it easy to keep track of your projects. Everything is saved on your groups “Launch Table” to make it easier to continue working and collaborating. You can also send “LaunchMail” to your teammates ask questions and interact in their forums.
LaunchTable also baked in the collaboration platform that allows you to hold virtual meetings within your LaunchTable. As with everything else in LaunchTable your meetings are saved for later as well.
LaunchTable also wants to be a resource to entrepreneurs and startups around the globe. They’ve opened up their “blog” for any LaunchTable user to contribute their own content to the site.
“Launch Table is for anyone working on any project that could use the help of another individual or a multi-person team. We’ve heard from people seeking startup partnerships, business owners looking to converse on best practices, and even teachers wanting to know what works well in other classrooms. Launch Table tears down geographic and social barriers.” Jones told nibletz.com in an interview.
Whether you’re looking for startup co-founders, someone to do a school project with or a team to launch a community initiative, or really anything else that requires collaboration, check out LaunchTable.
Back in June we brought you the story about Boston startup Toursphere, the virtual tour guide app. This startup lets tour go-ers take waking tours at their own leisure, and at their own pace by putting the tour on a mobile app.
Toursphere’s CEO and Founder Rob Pyles began with setting up tours of Boston using influential Boston locals and celebrities to actually narrate the tours. Dicky Barrett, the front man for the popular Ska band the Mighty Mighty Bosstones is one of the featured tour voices in the Boston tours.
Toursphere also has a way that other municipalities and museums can utilize the TourSphere platform and create their own tours easily. That system has already been implemented in Chicago, Miami, New Orleans and Washington DC as well as other major cities.
Now, instead of just providing a tour for people that have come to a destination, TourSphere has teamed up with the Museum of Bad Art in Boston to bring a virtual tour of the world’s worst art, out of Boston, virtually across the world by way of mobile app. The museum, which has an enormous following, will now be able to let those loyal fans iew the museum from the palm of their own hand. Built on the mobile DIY app platform TourSphere, the Museum of Bad Art’s app gives art enthusiasts everywhere a glimpse into one of the city’s quirkiest attractions from anywhere in the world.
“One of the best things about TourSphere are the unique, out-of-the-way museums and tourist sites that often build apps on our platform,” says TourSphere CEO Robert Pyles. “Our platform enables some smaller and lesser-known museums to create state-of-the-art mobile tour apps that are entertaining and informative and help to engage a wider audience than they otherwise would be able to reach. We give fans in other states and countries a way to check out artwork from all over the world with narration, history and other features you’d normally get on a live tour.”
The Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) has three brick and mortar galleries in the Boston area as well as an online gallery. Its app provides short and humorous narrations of each of the pieces of art. MOBA’s TourSphere app provides a glimpse into the world of bad art to its tens of thousands of fans worldwide, many of whom are unable to visit the galleries in person.“We’ve always made use of technology,” says MOBA’s Permanent Acting Interim Executive Director, Louise Reilly Sacco. “TourSphere’s app for MOBA provides a richer experience for visitors to our galleries as well as access from anywhere in the world.”
Toursphere and MOBA will launch the app on October 17th.
Canadian startup TagMyDoc has introduced a new way to share documents. With the use of 2D tags (QR Codes), users can now share documents from DropBox,Box and Microsoft Office. The easy to use tagging system can be added to virtually any document including Word, Excel, PDF, Images, PowerPoint, Open Office and more.
TagMyDoc works exactly as you would expect it to. You add the tag to your doc and anyone who has access to the QR Code can scan the code and instantly retrieve a virtual copy of the document on their device.
TagMyDoc is perfect for offices. They can post signs, posters or memos with a group of TagMyDoc QR codes and then employees can download the documents when they scan the code. It’s also great for people trying to link information to others. For example a lost dog poster could now contain the important bullet points on the sign, with the QR code linking to more information.
Their system would also be great for events, conferences and even school assemblies where people could scan a QR code to get more information on a topic from a speaker. The QR codes could easily be added to paper event programs and eliminate extra paper for descriptions, white papers and other supporting documents.
Not only is TagMyDoc an greener way to share documents, it also makes documents social. End users who scan a QR code for a document can also elect to follow the document. Users can make comments on documents and follow the document to see additional comments. This is another great feature that could be utilized in big group settings where if one user had a question about the material in the document they could share that question and then the answer would be shared as well.
TagMyDoc is connecting readers, authors and documents in a whole new way. TagMyDoc is like the social network for documents.
Comments Off on Manage Your Personal Web With Michigan Startup: backstitch INTERVIEW0LikeLike 2,990
Imagine if HootSuite allowed you to go out of the “social sphere” and customize all the content you wanted across the internet. In a nutshell, that’s exactly what Michigan startup backstitch does. And, they do it well.
Husband and wife co-founders Jordan and Stefanie Warzecha describe BackStitch as a clean and consistent user experience for managing your personal web. Your personal web includes your social media feeds, your favorite news and blog sites and even your favorite daily deals sites. Now with backstitch you can take all of that content and instead of having an unorganized hodge podge of browser tabs open, everything comes together in a nice aggregated dashboard.
Moreso than just organizing all of your favorite web content backstitch actually saves the user a lot of time. Typically everyone has an internet routine. Although most people start their web routine on a smartphone or tablet, once you get to your computer for the day the routine picks up. For me I open up Hootsuite, Google Reader, Nibletz.com, about five other blog sites and a ton of email screens. This is all before 8am. With BackStitch a lot of that content is in one easy to find place.
backstitch comes out of the box with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Appdotnet. They also have a variety of popular new sites baked in along with all of the popular daily deals sites. They’ve also thought about people who read blogs and sites outside of what BackStitch offers, and allows users to add any site with an RSS feed (although they should add nibletz.com to the catalog).
We got a chance to talk with Jordan. Check out our interview below:
When we were in Charlotte North Carolina for the 2012 Democratic National Convention we got to work out of Packard Place, a gigantic incubator for high growth potential startups in beautiful Uptown (read downtown but that’s what the natives call it), Charlotte North Carolina. Packard Place is home to two accelerators, one focusing on social entrepreneurship while the other one, RevTech Labs, is Charlotte’s first traditional co-hort based tech startup accelerator.
RevTech Labs announced the program back in May. The first class of 7 startups were able to move in the entire month of June and the program kicked off officially on July 2nd. The startups took a one week break (at least from the space) during the DNC when hundreds of bloggers moved into a temporary news room set up in the space.
The accelerator took some cues from other already established accelerators in their inaugural session. For starters, they required that every startup have a developer as a founder or a developer as a co-founder and present at the accelerator. Many accelerators in the past have allowed startups without developers to move into their programs. In some cases the startups spent much of their time in the accelerator either outsourcing development or dealing with the headaches of managing outsourced developers.
RevTech Labs also housed mentor startups in the same space. MailVu and DealCloud were two of the startups selected to mentor those in the cohort. They were able to secure space in the accelerator in exchange for helping their fellow startups.
Wednesday the seven startups in the first class will show off what they’ve been working on throughout the summer. Not only that but Packard Place, and RevTech Labs have partnered with the NC region of the Startup America Partnership, Startup NC, to host a startup expo alongside demo day. Another 10-20 local NC startups will get to exhibit during the three hour event Wednesday afternoon from 2-5pm.
Investors, entrepreneurs and potential customers will hear pitches from these 7 startups:
Viddlz
Welcome to the local community marketplace for scrumptious food. Our viddles (food) are prepared and grown by your neighbors, the bakers, farmers and artisans living virtually next door. Charlotte is the first stop and the Viddlrs (local bakers) provide homemade, beautiful baked goods. Viddlz makes it simple and economical for quality food providers to start or grow a great food business.
Dataset/IO
Dataset/IO provides beautiful, simple and powerful data solutions for the Capital Markets. Our solutions offer the ability to manage enterprise data quickly and easily – scaling on demand – while placing the control firmly back in the hands of our data team.
Spatially
Spatially is developing a better interface for product search in today’s touch-driven world. The technology uses [a technique known as] faceted search and displays search results in a highly interactive 2D interface.
DogDashGame
Dog Dash represents a new genre in mobile gaming by introducing a 3D-audio only concept. Users will have to utilize their auditory skills to navigate them through oncoming traffic and away from the pursuing cops. Head phones are required for the true 3D-audio experience and the game is expected to launch on the iPhone this summer.
The Torch
The Torch helps you plan for the unplanned. The Torch is an online and mobile application that makes it easy to organize your “What if?” plan and share it with the people closest to you, so they will know what to do in an emergency.
Flavma Inc.
Flavma Inc. revolutionizes pharmacy software. We’ve built the first Medicare Part D Plan Finder for the iPad. Currently, we are working with Independent Pharmacies to improve their processes and quality of patient care using modern technology.
Autopilot
Autopilot allows you to book a vetted, professional driver on demand when you can’t, shouldn’t, or simply don’t want to drive your own vehicle. You can reserve a driver with the push of a button, track their arrival, and enjoy the benefits of automated, cashless payments all from your mobile device.
The demo day event will be held at Packard Place and if you would like an event you can email them here
Comments Off on JustDecide Startup Dilemma Of The Week: When To Pivot0LikeLike 2,413
Every week we team up with New York startup Justdecide.com to bring you the Startup Dilemma Of The Week. In this feature we take dilemmas that real startups are facing and put them to the crowd using the justdecide platform to crowdsource advice for that startup.
This week’s dilemma is one that comes about naturally to startups everywhere. It can also be one of the most uncomfortable events a startup has to go through. Our startup dilemma of the week this week is “When to pivot”.
The startup that submitted this dilemma has been slowly, but steadily gaining users with their startup but they’re finding that users aren’t actively using their service. The user count goes up, and the clock ticks. A pivot is inevitable but the question that then comes in to play is when.
Pivots happen all the time, they happen in accelerators, before startups go live, in beta, in alpha, even after a startup has been established for a year or two. Facing the pivot is one of the hardest things cofounders go through. Many don’t want to abandon their original idea. Others know it’s the right thing to do but are scared about when to actually do it.
One of the biggest concerns when pivoting is will the startup lose their current user base while pivoting. Sure in the pivot you’re hopeful that you’ll gain more users but it’s scary as hell.
This week’s startup dilemma of the week offers three options:
Kyle
Now that I’m in my 30’s it seems that every time I go home to visit my parents I go through photo albums and unless the photo is blatantly obvious, you know like the Magic Kingdom castle is in the background, I have no idea the context for the photo. Mom did a decent job of handwriting notes on the back but that still doesn’t give the photos a real good back story.
Check out our interview with Andrews below:
