We Found The Future Of Loyalty & Rewards At Southland

Loyalty and rewards, loyalty and rewards, loyalty and rewards. It’s like a broken record. Everyone thinks they’ve stumbled onto the next big thing with loyalty and rewards. But maybe Nashville-based startup Facedeals actually has.

Facedeals uses a 100% opt-in facial recognition platform that is non-obtrusive to facilitate in person loyalty and rewards in a very passive way.

Users simply sign up for a Facedeals account using Facebook, and the magic starts. When that person walks into an establishment using Facedeals, their face will be captured using an eye-level, inconspicuous camera. In fact, the facial recognition software in the camera can capture the person’s image at their normal pace. They don’t have to do anything but simply walk past it.

The backend software in Facedeals already knows what that user likes and doesn’t like and their habits when patronizing a Facedeals establishment. Facedeals also specializes in relevance as co-founder David McMullen told 60 Minutes’ Leslie Stahl in this interview that aired last month.

In that 60 Minutes piece, McMullen and Stahl walked into a participating merchant, and as they were getting ready to decide what to order, Stahl was delivered a deal to purchase a Ceasar Salad and get a free Diet Coke. Both items, were things that Stahl actually likes. McMullen was offered a different deal on a local beer that he likes.

The secret to this relevance is that when users opt-in to Facedeals and let the service see their Facebook page, it builds a profile based on things they’ve liked..

McMullen told us (and 60 minutes) that the beauty behind Facedeals is that the deals are coming when you’re ready to make a purchase and not in an email first thing in the morning.

The company is working with a variety of different merchants including retail, restaurants, and bars. The robust back-end makes it the easiest way to do loyalty and rewards for any business. In fact they don’t have to do much of anything except let the customer redeem the deal.

Check out our own interview with McMullen from the Southland conference in Nashville.

You can find out more about Facedeals here at getfacedeals.com

Here’s more of our Southland coverage.

Drive Capital’s Mark Kvamme: Brandery Is One Of The Best Accelerators Outside SV

Mark Kvamme, Co-founder and Partner at Drive Capital and a former partner at Sequoia, is high on startups and entrepreneurs outside of Silicon Valley. Kvamme, a life long Valley guy, moved out to Columbus, Ohio, to start Drive Capital and help spur innovation “everywhere else”.

Appearing on a panel Wednesday afternoon at the Southland conference in Nashville, Tennessee, Kvamme defended the hustle outside of Silicon Valley.

“I know people here in Nashville, I know people in the midwest that I think actually work harder than Silicon Valley people. Because Silicon Valley people are all into the appearance of what I’m doing versus actually getting down and “gettin’ ‘er done,” Kvamme said in response to a question from panel moderator and Solidus Partner Vic Gatto.

Gatto had eluded to the fact that he feels that some entrepreneurs in the Southeast don’t hustle the way people in the Valley do because there is no competition.

Through Solidus, Gatto funds multiple accelerators in Tennessee including Nashville’s Jumpstart Foundry and Memphis’ Seed Hatchery. Earlier in the discussion Gatto had brought up accelerators so Kvamme took the opportunity to talk about one accelerator in particular: the Brandery.

Most Nibletz readers know that our co-founder Nick Tippmann has been through the Brandery with two different startups, and we work out of the Brandery facility in Over The Rhine when we’re in Cincinnati.

During the panel Kvamme spoke very highly of the Brandery calling it “one of the best accelerators outside Silicon Valley,” in effect putting The Brandery in league with Techstars and MassChallenge.

Kvamme said he just funded a company out of The Brandery, as did Khosla and Tony Hsieh. He goes on to say that the Brandery is successful because of the ecosystem that surrounds it, and that the ecosystem could be replicated in Nashville and pretty much everywhere. Check out the video clip below:

We’ve been tracking The Brandery, and their companies, heavily over the last two years. Check out more of our Brandery coverage here.

Here’s more from Southland.

After Everywhereelse.co Win, AspirEDU Keeps Proving They’re Not A One Hit Wonder

Last year when Kim Munzo went to the Startup Weekend EDU event in Florida, she didn’t know what to expect. The career long educator had a problem and the solution, and with fingers crossed she hoped for the best. She had no idea what a ride it would be.

Munzo has worked in online education for the past 15 years. For those keeping score, that’s just about when online education became accepted as a legitimate source of education. In her position she found that there were a lot of people who dropped out. They get too busy, they get bored, and sometimes they just didn’t feel like continuing.

Munzo was at Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, we weren’t able to see much of her business. Fortunately, at Southland we found out the big picture behind this Florida startup.

Munzo developed an analytical system that can predict which online students are at risk of dropping out. An online student can elect to take one class, or a whole degree program online. Some students choose to get multiple degrees. At that rate, the tuition adds up and the revenue for online institutions is in play. A drop out, depending on the cost of their tuition and programs offered, can cost an institution up to tens of thousands of dollars.

AspirEDU lets online institutions know which students are at risk. Then the institution can follow up in a variety of ways. AspirEDU co-founder Kevin Kopas also told us that they are developing features that will automatically send online students at risk emails or text messages to get them re-engaged with their online education. The end result is less attrition for online institutions and students who finish their degrees and certifications.

Following a win at that Startup Weekend EDU event, AspirEDU started taking their show on the road, exhibiting at conferences, pitching in pitch contests, and submitting business plans for business plan competitions. All of those avenues proved to be great for the company.

AspirEDU won $25,000 in cash in the Best of Village pitch contest at Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference I. After that they won the Florida Atlantic University business plan competition which included $55,000 in cash and services prizes. All of which came in handy for the bootstrapped startup. They also came in 7th place in a global business plan competition.

Although the entire team is still employed elsewhere full time, they are working 40-70 hours more per week on AspirEDU.

“I’m taking off from my day job to be here at Southland,” Kopas told us. Kopas works for a major domain name provider during the day, and dedicates all of his free time to AspirEDU, time he used to use to enjoy the waters of Florida.

AspirEDU is a certified partner with Canvas by Instructure and the team will be traveling to Utah next week to present in a conference with 9 other certified partners.

While the education space is filling up rapidly, there’s no other startup that is using analytics to help keep students enrolled. While it’s a great idea and great technology, the team is leery of taking an investment right now. They already have clients and some major deals with big institutions across the globe in the works. Munzo and Kopas are hoping that they can start creating substantial revenue and not have to give up any equity, at least in the short term.

An investor told us that anyone can make a $4 million dollar business; we want to hold off on an investment in case we need it to get to the $100 million dollar mark. That’s a good possibility with the online education industry counting for billions of dollars on a global scale.

Munzo and Kopas credit Startup Weekend and the people they’ve met while traveling all over the country to promote AspirEDU with where they’ve gotten thus far.

You can find out more about AspirEDU here at aspiredu.com and by watching the interview video below.

Check out more of our Southland coverage here!

Distil Networks Is Following Us Around The Country Because They Block Bots

We were in Washington, DC and Baltimore last week as part of the Sneaker-Strapped Startup Road Trip. That’s where we ran into Distil Networks CEO and co-founder Rami Essaid. A few days and 665 miles later, we’ve run into Essaid again, this time at Southland in Nashville, Tennessee.

Distil Networks was one of 50 regional startups chosen to exhibit at Southland’s Startup Village. They were also one of 20 startups selected to pitch onstage at the conference as well.

We first reported on Distill Networks back in August when they were going by the name Distil.it. Since then, they’ve added more features, more employees, more users and changed their name to Distil Networks.

The company offers a very useful service. Through a simple line added in a websites DNS entry, Distil is able to quickly check a website and identify and disable “bots” that can often pirate content, hype statistics, and do other aggravating things. Their technology allows content sites big and small to function faster and stop worrying about their content being auto-posted to thousands of blogs world wide.

One of their customers is the site ripoffreport.com. Ripoffreport came to Distill because they suspected that bots were stealing their articles. One quick analysis and Distil found out that they were correct, but that was just the beginning. After turning Distil’s service on they found that they were stopping 50,000 malicious bots a day that were reducing their server load by a whopping 70%. Distil increased the site’s load time by 50% and by stopping the theft of their content, for the first time in years, ripoffreport saw an increase in visitors to their site.

But malicious bots aren’t just about stealing content and hogging band width. As Essaid says in his Southland pitch below, malicious bots steal e-commerce site data, post fake posts to forums, auto-click on ads and other things that are harmful to businesses who rely on their server infrastructure.

Distil is constantly updating their base of malicious bots. When they find a new malicious bot on one of their client sites, they test all of their client sites for the same bot. They also have other safety features in place, like randomizing their code every few minutes so bad bots can’t penetrate it.

Check out Essaid’s full pitch at Southland below and for more information visit them at distil.it

Here’s more coverage from Southland 2013 at Nibletz.com The Voice Of Startups Everywhere Else.

Banyan, The Git Hub For Science, Shows Off New Features & A New Deck At Southland

On Wednesday, Chattanooga transplant startup Banyan was selected to pitch on stage as part of the Southland Summit in Nashville. You may remember Banyan; they won the entrepreneur track at the GigTank demo day last summer and took home $100,000 dollars. Although it wasn’t a condition of receiving their prize, the Banyan team–Toni Gamayel, Travis Staton, and TJ Weigel–decided to relocate their startup from Florida to Chattanooga late last year.

Banyan billed itself as a collaborative research tool that could handle enormous amounts of data. They were the only GigTank participant that really talked about the effects of 1gb ethernet and big data during last year’s Demo Day. To make his point, the company’s pitch man, Gamayel, point it this way: To take two terrabytes of data from Stanford to London, it would be faster to get on a plane with two hard drives than it would be with conventional Internet speeds. In contrast, Chattanooga’s 1gb ethernet pipe would allow that data to transmit in just four hours.

During the Southland pitch Gamayel revealed that scientific research hasn’t fundamentally changed since the 1700’s. Even in present day scientists have a really hard time collaborating because they need to keep control of their authorship. Gamayel also said that universities are very protective of their researchers as well. Gamayel pointed to a case where Stanford University lost $50 million dollars when they couldn’t clearly state whether or not a professor worked on a certain piece of research under his university role or independently.

The newest iteration of Banyan solves all of these problems. For starters they’ve added profiles for scientists and researchers on the system. Scientists can clearly list their accolades and achievements, skills, and research they’ve authored. There is also the base tool for collaboration as well as a way to leave comments and feedback. Finally Banyan has incorporated a system that can time and date stamp each iteration of the research and correctly credit the author. So in that case at Stanford, it would be clear whose “time” the professor was on.

Although we thought Gamayel did a fine job pitching their exciting product, he was a little hard on himself, stating after the pitch that it was the first time that he’s talked about the new features to a large audience, with some of their investors in the crowd.

Banyan is a fascinating product and is sure to continue changing the way researchers and scientists work. Check out Gamayel’s Southland pitch below.

Here’s more of our Southland Coverage at nibletz.com

Tennessee Is Great For Startups, Bill Hagerty Tells Us Why

Tennessee Economic Development Commissioner Bill Hagerty took the stage at the Southland Conference in Nashville on Wednesday morning to introduce the conference and highlight why Tennessee is great for startups.

Since the current administration took over two and a half years ago, Tennessee has become number one in the southeast and number four in the nation for manufacturing job growth. Tennessee is also number one in the southeast for personal income growth.

But one thing that we found interesting is that Tennessee has the best balance sheet in the country.

“I think everybody knows that the nation has experienced a serious fiscal crisis and if you start looking across the states you’ll see a very wide divergence in terms of the fiscal situation that each state faces. What that does is present a different risk profile for the companies that choose to locate in those states. Tennessee has the lowest debt per capita in America.”

This is important because Tennessee hasn’t put itself in a position where they haven’t raised the debt ceiling to a point where it can’t be manageable.

All of this means that Tennessee is a great place to grow jobs, personal wealth and families. Hagerty went on to discuss the regions history of entrepreneurship including companies like FedEx that call Tennessee home.

Finally, Hagerty pointed out one of the biggest claims to fame for Tennessee in regards to startups. Since the Haslam administration took over Tennessee has become home to nine startup accelerator regions all administered by Launch Tennessee. Each startup accelerator region has an incubator or accelerator program.

While many don’t think of Tennessee in terms of entrepreneurship these highlights along with the infrastructure in place already for business owners, job creators, startups and entrepreneurs, it’ s no wonder that Tennessee is first for startups in the South East.

Check out this video of Hagerty’s speech at Southland.

Check out more of our Southland coverage here.

Memphian Sarah Lacy Gives Away Big Omaha’s Secret At Tennessee’s Southland Conference

A refreshing side of Sarah Lacy returned to her native Tennessee on Wednesday morning to kick off the first Southland Conference. If you’ve seen Lacy on her best you know she can be a hard edged interviewer that commands respect in the room, after all with her storied career and climbing through Business Week, TechCrunch, authoring books and two children, she’s earned it. But Wednesday morning her southern Tennessee charm returned when she welcomed her interviewee Gary Swart, CEO of Odesk for a fireside chat.

Before the interview though, Lacy wanted to hand a secret over to the organizers and attendees of the first ever Southland conference. Lacy talked abut Big Omaha, the centerpiece of Silicon Prairie News’ “Big Series” and a must attend conference for entrepreneurs everywhere. “Do you know how they get big names at Big Omaha” Lacy asked the audience. Then she proceeded to show everyone.

First off she made it clear as southerners and entrepreneurs we were going to “steal” what Big Omaha does. After that she showed off Jeff Slobotski’s (the organizer of Big Omaha and founder of SPN) secret.

It was a huge warm welcome that made each of the speakers, big and small, feel like the biggest person on earth. “Pretend Gary is Oprah and she just gave everyone a car” Lacy told the audience as she asked everyone to practice the big welcome.

Although Southland is in Nashville it’s designed to celebrate entrepreneurship throughout the south east and with that in mind Lacy made plenty of references to her Memphis upbringing during her talk with Swart. Lacy made the trek from Silicon Valley with her 8 week old baby in tow.

Here’s some video

Check out more of our Southland coverage here.

Southland Kicks Off With Emmy Lou Harris, Rodney Crowell And A Party With SouthernAlpha

Southland, Southern Alpha, startups, Tennessee, Launch Tennessee

The Southland conference officially kicks off Thursday morning at 9am but the pre-festivities started Wednesday night in historic downtown Nashville.

Investors and VIP’s from as far away as Vancouver were treated to a swank VIP party at the legendary Ryman Auditorium to kick off the two day conference celebrating startups, culture and technology. Baker Donelson’s Emerging Technologies Practice Lead, Chris Sloan said it was “the most amazing investor party I’ve ever been to” Why? Because Launch Tennessee, the producers of the conference, were able to get local national country stars Emmy Lou Harris and Rodney Crowell to dazzle the crowd with an intimate performance.

Launch Tennessee CEO Charlie Brock getting into an exciting discussion with one of the hundreds of entrepreneurs at Southland

While that party was going on, event attendees who arrived Wednesday evening were treated to a roof top party at the Rock Bottom Brewery hosted by our cousins at SouthernAlpha. Southern Alpha’s Walker Duncan, Kelly Boothe and Dave Ledgerwood were meeting and greeting startup founders, entrepreneurs, startup support organizations and investors from up and down the east coast. Even 500 Startups partner and founder of dashboard.io Paul Singh, was on hand, with his lovely wife Suki mingling with the crowd, talking up startups and what dashboard.io can do for founders and investors.

We bumped into Kim Munzo, founder of Florida based Aspiredu and the winner of $25,000 best in village award at Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference. Munzo made the trek from Tampa Florida to see what the Southland buzz was about and to update us about the progress their educational analytic startup has made since winning the crown at our conference.

Steve Buhrman the CEO and founder of am>venture backed (we are also backed by am>ventures) WannaDo gave us a sneak back of a bad ass upgrade to their event discovery app and assured us that they will be adding new metropolitan areas rapidly.

Our Memphis startup community was in full force. On the hot and muggy night people kept saying Memphis brought the heat, and that we did. Pam Cooper (Boosterville), Brittany Fitzpatrick (MentorMe), Richard and Richard (ScrewPulp), Charleson Bell (Bionanovations) and Allan Daisley (Memphis Bioworks), shut the party down (as usual).

If Tuesday evening was any indication of what to expect from Southland this is going to be one epic conference. Stay tuned for more Southland coverage here at nibletz.com the voice of startups everywhere else.

Entrepreneur Magazine Trying To Rain On Nashville Entrepreneur Center’s Parade

We are two weeks from the grand opening of Nashville’s new multi million dollar 22,000 square foot Entrepreneur Center. The effort, pioneered by Nashville’s startup community and Nashville Entrepreneur Center CEO Michael Burcham, is attracting bigwigs like TN Governor Haslam and Scott Case, the Interim President of UpGlobal and Founding CTO of Priceline.com.

Two days of festivities slated for later this month will christen the new space that will house startups, startups, and more startups. The facility features educational space, space for accelerators, and space for startups at all stages.

In a private walk through back in April, Burcham was gleaming from ear to ear highlighting the vision that the entire Nashville startup community has partaken in. Community contributors will be recognized in cloud-like structures in the ceiling of the new facility and in big round plaques in the floor.

But, it’s not all rosy in Nashville. The Tennesseean reported Tuesday that there is one California company hoping to rain on their parade. Apparently, Entrepreneur Media Inc bought the trademark rights to the word “entrepreneur” over two decades ago and has sued the Entrepreneur Center to force them to change their name.

Burcham, who was recently called Nashville’s Rocket Man by the Nashville Business Journal, doesn’t have time for this nonsense ahead of such a critical event for Nashville entrepreneurs (there sue me too). To comply, The Tennesseean reports that they’ve added “Nashville” to the name of the facility and organization, effectively calling it “Nashville Entrepreneur Center”.

EMI, which owns Entrepreneur Magazine, has prevailed in many cases when it’s taken someone to court, even though they say they don’t “own the word”

“We don’t claim we own the word. We have limited trademark rights on it,” Mark Finkelstein, attorney for the company told The Tennesseean. “If the company goes national, could it cause confusion? Could it dilute the brand?”

The argument itself comes down to the fact that entrepreneur is such a common word. We use it all the time, and there are several entrepreneurial organizations that use the word in their name.

The Tennesseean spoke to Daniel Gervais a law professor at Vanderbilt who specializes in trademark battles. He pointed out that it would be one thing if we were talking about a word like Kleenex or Xerox, proper nouns. However “entrepreneur” is different.

“This would be a good example of trademark law used to limit speech,” Gervais said. “It looks like they’re trying to own the word, but how far do they have to go to police the use of a word that is otherwise common?”

Both Burcham and the Nashville Entrepreneur Center have been featured within the pages of Entrepreneur magazine and their website. While the lawsuit is evaluated and a judge considers where a trial would occur, it’s full steam ahead for the new nonprofit.

The Nashville Entrepreneur Center will hold their grand opening in two weeks, next week, this big startup event will occur on June 12th and 13th, in Nashville.

Southland Conference Announces Investor Panels Including Mark Kvamme, Founding Investor For LinkedIn

Launch Tennessee’s Southland conference, happening June 11-12th in Nashville, Tennessee, will highlight the best in startups, technology, and down-home Southern culture. The event is intentionally sandwiched between the CMA Music Festival and the legendary Bonnaroo, and adds an element of entrepreneurship, almost SXSW-style to these two historic events. With the way Southland’s schedule is shaping up, it too will become a staple in the Music City.

Over the weekend we reported on the 50 startups from across the Southeast that were chosen to participate in Southland’s Startup Village. Eleven states were represented, with 17 startups hailing from Nashville.

On Monday, Launch Tennessee CEO and conference organizer Charlie Brock announced some heavyweight investor panels, which will provide firsthand, top-notch knowledge of early stage investing to startup founders, entrepreneurs, and local angels from across the Southeast.

The first panel “VC Trends: From Silicon Valley To The Southeast” will feature Mark Kvamme, Paul Santinelli, and Jason Sibley. Kvamme is a co-founder and partner of Columbus, Ohio-based Drive Capital. Previously, he was special limited partner and general partner at Menlo Park, Calif.-based Sequoia Capital, where he was the founding investor of LinkedIn, Cast Iron Systems (acquired by IBM), MarkLogic Corporation and Funnyordie.com.

Santinelli is a partner at North Bridge Venture Partners in Palo Alto, Calif., where he specializes in communications and infrastructure and focuses on investments in open source, software, security, Internet applications, and infrastructure and communications. He founded and ran NOCpulse, a Silicon Valley software startup that was acquired by Red Hat Network.

Sibley is a director at GE Ventures, Healthymagination Fund. He was previously a Vice President at GE Equity and a member of its healthcare investment team. He is currently building out GE Ventures’ Boston investment office, which is focused on life sciences, medical technology, and energy investments.

“Mark, Paul, and Jason are experienced investors who can provide the kind of insight that early-stage companies need,” Brock said in a statement. “This panel will be an outstanding opportunity for entrepreneurs to get an insider’s perspective on what investors are looking for today.”

The regional investor panel, “VC Trends: Focus on the Southeast,” includes Rik Vandevenne with River Cities Capital Funds of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Raleigh, N.C.; David Jones with Southern Capital Ventures/Bull City Venture Partners of Raleigh, N.C.; Spence McClelland with Noro-Moseley Partners of Atlanta; and Sid Chambless of the Nashville Capital Network.

In addition to investor panelists, representatives from more than 35 venture capital companies are attending Southland, including Durham, N.C.-based Hatteras Venture Partners; Menlo Park, Calif.-based Shasta Ventures; and Battery Ventures, which has offices in Waltham, Mass., Menlo Park, Calif., and Israel.

Other Southland speakers and panelists include Slava Rubin, co-founder and CEO of Indiegogo; Dan Pelino, general manager of IBM Healthcare and Life Sciences Industry; Ali Partovi, co-founder of Code.org; George Kliavkoff, executive vice president and deputy group head of Hearst Entertainment & Syndication; Gary Swart, CEO of oDesk; and Paul Singh, partner at 500 Startups.

Stay tuned to Nibletz for even more Southland coverage. Here’s what we’ve covered so far.

No You’re Not Better Than Silicon Valley: How To Support Your Entrepreneurial EcoSystem

Cliff McKinney is the CEO and cofounder of WorkForPie and a community leader in the Memphis startup community. This post, which also appears on his personal Tumblr, can easily be applied to any town, any city, everywhere else.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Memphis lately. Where it is, where it’s been, and where it might go. What I think should be done to grow the entrepreneurial ecosystem here is perhaps a post for another day. Today though I thought I’d share a few words about how to support an entrepreneurial ecosystem. No doubt this applies in Memphis, but I’ll try to leave it general enough to apply to most any growing ecosystem. I’ll try to limit things to five general themes:

Theme One: Be Successful

Brad (my cofounder) and I talk a lot about how we might help Memphis. We do a lot of small things that we hope add up. We both serve as mentors to local entrepreneurs and lead user groups, but we always come back to the same general idea: the best thing we can do for Memphis is to become wildly successful. Doing that will bring in more investors and more interest, more jobs, and even a couple new angel investors. This goal trumps all the others, as it should. If our efforts to be successful leave us no time for all of the other stuff, then so be it.

This should be paramount for you and your company too. If you have to move to be successful, then move (but come back and invest later). If you have to put another company out of business to be successful, then do it. If taking advantage of some opportunity means others won’t have the chance, that’s okay too. It’s okay to be competitive. It’s okay to want to be better than the next guy. The success of your company is what matters most. Never forget that.

Theme Two: Give Time

I’d love to give money to my local ecosystem, but as a poor entrepreneur I just can’t afford it. What I can afford is my time, and I’d like to think that in some ways that is more valuable to local entrepreneurs. My office is always open, and my phone is always on, and I’m happy to give local entrepreneurs an earful (and often more than they bargained for) anytime they ask. Brad leads the local Python user group, and I lead the local Startup Meetup. It’s something we both do for fun, but we also do it because we feel obligated to give back to a community that has given us a bunch and that continues to support us.

Giving your time means a lot to local entrepreneurs—especially those who are just starting out. You don’t have to lead a startup meetup. Just make it a priority to attend once a month. Email startup CEOs and offer your help. It only takes a little while, and the good karma you’ll earn is totally worth it. Do what you can. Every little bit counts, and giving something, no matter how little, is always better than giving nothing.

Theme Three: Be Honest In Your Support

So here comes the first controversial part of this post. Truth is, I don’t think supporting local startups means blowing smoke up their asses. I’m a big fan of honesty, and if a local company has a terrible business model or distribution model or team then the fact that they’re local shouldn’t preclude you from saying so. In fact, I think you’re more obligated to say something if they’re local. It’s what I give, and it’s what I expect from the people I really respect.

I gave a little talk during the Seed Hatchery demo day last year. I won’t bore you with the details, but the general theme was that the companies at Demo Day weren’t competing with Memphis companies, or even Tennessee companies. They were competing with every company everywhere. If we didn’t treat them accordingly, then we were doing them a disservice. I’m hard on the local companies I mentor. I don’t call them out publicly, but in private I do as much as I can to convince them that this isn’t a mutual admiration society. You can’t build an ecosystem by calling a local company awesome when it’s clear to everyone else that it’s not. It just doesn’t work that way.

Theme Four: Pay and Get Paid

One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made as a founder was thinking that someone deserves some kind of discount or special recognition because he or she is a friend. That should never be the case. If a local company does awesome work and they charge companies $150/hr for it, then I expect to pay $150/hr. I honestly don’t care if the company is in Memphis or even if it’s run by my mother or my spouse. If the service is valuable to me, I expect to pay for it. If it’s not, and the company happens to be local, then I’ll take the time to tell them why, and if they correct the issue, I’ll pay for their service then.

Now (but not always) I feel the same way about the services I provide. I trade value for value. I have something valuable, and I expect companies to pay for it. It’s nothing personal, it’s just business. The only time we consider offering some discount for our services is when working with some company at a discounted rate is somehow highly valuable to us through the association. Despite the fact that they have millions more dollars than all of my local startups combined, I’m more likely to work with some company like Facebook at a discount than I am to discount our rate for a local company. I want to establish my value, and one of the most important places to do that is in my own hometown.

Theme Five: Talking Shit Hurts You More

It’s important to be proud of your city. The best way to show that pride is to talk about all the wonderful things your city is doing to support entrepreneurship. The worst way is to talk trash about other cities or other ecosystems. I’ve heard people say things along the lines of “our city is better than Silicon Valley because….” When I hear that, I almost immediately assume the person saying it is an idiot. Your city is not better than Silicon Valley. That’s why you’re comparing it to Silicon Valley. If your city was better than Silicon Valley, in any way whatsoever, then they would be comparing themselves to you. Honestly, the same goes for any criticism of another ecosystem. If you’re talking shit about them, then you’re wasting time you could be spending making your city better.

On the other hand, I happen to think that it’s completely okay to criticize your own ecosystem, and even startups or leaders within it. But, if you do, make sure you’re actually talking directly to the person or company in question. If they can’t take it then they probably need to hear it even more. And nothing sucks worse than hearing criticism secondhand. I’ve had more than my fair share of secondhand criticism and it sucks way worse than hearing it from the source.

See this guest post by McKinney’s co-founder Brad Montgomery, on “Minimum Working Thing”

Carlton Crothers Named President/CEO At EmergeMemphis

EmergeMemphis, the incubator and technology hub in downtown Memphis, has named Carlton Crothers as the new President and CEO. Crothers has 14 years experience in cultivating, developing, and bringing early stage technologies to market.

Most recently Crothers was a Principal at Innovation Ecosystem Design based in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. According to his LinkedIn profile, the private company provides successful innovation ecosystem solutions. Before Texas, Crothers was the CEO of Technology Incubation and Acceleration as part of the Michigan Tech Enterprise Corporation (MTEC SmartZone).

In his position in Michigan, Crothers oversaw 54,000 square feet of office space housing 19 companies with over 170 employees. Those companies created over 500 spinoff jobs with $68.3 million invested in a rural community of 12,000.

“Our organization’s mission is to provide value-added services to our members that will positively impact their growth, accelerate the successful development of member companies, springboard high technology education programs, and recruit new companies and talent to Memphis,” Scott Fountain, chairman of EmergeMemphis and senior Vice President/Chief Development Officer of Baptist Memorial Health Care, said in a press release. “Our board is thrilled to attract Carlton to Memphis, especially given his proven track record of job creation.”

“The measurable goals of EmergeMemphis generate wealth and economic stimulus into the Mid-South economy,” Steve Bares President and Executive Director of Memphis Bioworks said in a statement. “In addition, they seek to assist emerging businesses that are not residents in the building through our many programs aimed at assisting entrepreneurs succeed.”

Eric Mathews, Co-President at Start Co, who also served as the most recent Interim Director at EmergeMemphis, said, ” I am excited in welcoming Crothers to our growing Memphis entrepreneurial ecosystem. With EmergeMemphis, Bioworks, and Start Co operating on all cylinders, Memphis will grow its leadership role in technology, entrepreneurship, and job growth across the southeast”

Mathews’ organization, Launch Your City (recently renamed Start Co), “graduated” out of the EmergeMemphis incubator earlier this year.

EmergeMemphis is a business and technology incubator with the goal of helping high-growth start-ups and early stage companies become self-sustaining. They do this by strategically aligning entrepreneurs with various resources, a compelling environment, and mentors that help ensure the success of the participating companies. Emerge operates as a 501-c-3, but plays a unique and critical roll bridging the public and private sectors. EmergeMemphis was formed in 2001 and serves as an incubator for high-growth companies. While this often means technology-based business models, Emerge also seeks companies across a wide range of industries and models. Their renovated, historic property in downtown Memphis includes 35,000 square feet of tenant space. Today, 37 companies as well as FedEx’s Innovation Lab, are residents at Emerge.

Memphis startup organization, Launch Your City,rebrands as Start Co

LaunchTn Reveals All 50 Startups In The Southland Startup Village, 17 From Nashville

Launch Tennessee the private/public partnership designed to support 9 accelerator regions for startups in entrepreneurship across Tennessee is highlighting the entire south east region, it’s culture, technology and startups at the upcoming Southland Conference in Nashville in two weeks.

Of course the day and a half long conference, being held at The Cannery Ballroom and Mercy Lounge in Nashville’s historic Cannery Row District, is going to feature some great keynotes, like a fireside chat with Sarah Lacy, author, technology writer and founder of Pando Daily interviewing Gary Swart the founder of oDesk. The next 30 hours after that are packed full of great talks, performances, pitches and an exhibition Startup Village.

For their Startup Village, Launch Tennessee used an application and vetting process. Originally, startups that submitted had to have raised or made at least $250,000 that was quickly rescinded based on the work of startups statewide going through or just recently completing accelerator programs.

With that requirement out of the way, Launch Tennessee took a hard look at just about every state in the Southeast from Virginia to Florida and of course as far west as Tennessee to fill the booths of the Startup Village.

Over 11 states are represented from a mix of technology spaces including social, mobile, media, health tech, ed tech, social entrepreneurship and even consumer packaged goods. Nashville had a whopping 17 startups make the startup village.

Here’s the entire list, congratulations to all:

Company Name	City	State	About
American Songspace	Nashville	TN	American Songspace is an online platform for songwriters.
Angel Eye	Little Rock	AR	Angel Eye is a camera that allows parents to see their kids in the neonatal ICU unit from their mobile device or computer.
ArchiveSocial	Durham	NC	ArchiveSocial archives businesses’ social media data.
AspirEDU	Tampa	FL	AspirEDU is educational analytics software with performance metrics used by education administrators and teachers.
AudiencePoint	Chattanooga	TN	AudiencePoint provides smart email marketing/connection to social media.
Banyan	Chattanooga	TN	Banyan is software for scientists to collaborate.
Beam Technologies	Louisville	KY	Beam Technologies makes the first connected toothbrush with sensor embedded in the brush.
BioNanovations	Nashville	TN	BioNanovations provides a device that allows you to monitor the progression of bacteria in cultures.
Cardagin Networks, Inc.	Nashville	TN	Cardagin Networks provides a customized mobile-enabled customer loyalty program for large and small businesses.
Checkd.in	Nashville	TN	Checkd.in helps companies effectively use multiple social media marketing platforms via their application and consulting work.
Consensus Point, Inc.	Nashville	TN	Consensus Point provides crowd-sourced prediction software.
Creative Allies	Asheville	NC	Creative Allies is a crowdsourced merchandise design business used by musicians.
Distil Networks	Arlington	VA	Distil is a content protector network/cloud-based intelligent gatekeeper.
Do 5 Things	Knoxville	TN	Do 5 Things is a marketing optimization platform.
Everly	Memphis	TN	Everly makes drink flavor packets.
Evermind, Inc.	Nashville	TN	Evermind is a consumer-friendly senior monitoring system.
Facedeals	Nashville	GA	FaceDeals allows users to check in to a location on Facebook through facial recognition scanning.
Fuelzee	Nashville	FL	Fuelzee is a product development stage app that allows users to identify cheap gas and rewards associated with gas and then check in to specific gas stations to redeem these awards.
Gamemaster	Greenville	SC	Gamemaster is a scavenger hunt business platform.
Gastke Inc.	Greeneville	SC	Gastke is a cloud-based accounting software.
iCitizen	Nashville	TN	iCitizen is a social media platform connecting constituents to local leaders.
Kufikia	Memphis	TN	Kufikia is a code school for experienced programmers.
LeanKit, Inc	Franklin	TN	LeanKit is a workflow IT system for large businesses.
Maxx Tech d/b/aBarMaxx, LLC	Fort Lauderdale	FL	Maxx Tech is a liquor inventory management system that works on mobile devices.
NextGxDx	Nashville	TN	NextGxDx is an online marketplace for genetic testing.
Oqulus	Gainesville	FL	Oqulus is a medical imaging analysis company for detecting eyesight related issues for diabetics.
OverDog, Inc.	Nashville	TN	OverDog connects fans with athletes via video games.
PatientFocus	Nashville	TN	PatientFocus is a health care billing company.
Populr.me	Nashville	TN	Populr.me allows users to easily create and share single web pages.
PowWowHR	Atlanta	GA	PowWowHR provides online benefits administration, including HR & payroll.
PushLocal	Natchez	MS	PushLocal is an application that allows you to send daily specials to your followers.
Quickcue	Chattanooga	TN	Quickcue is an app that handles a restaurant waitlist, reservation system and table notifications.
RedeApp	Louisville	KY	RedeApp is a mobile messaging service for large companies to send secure messages to various audiences, including employees.
RidePost Inc	Greeneville	SC	RidePost is an online transportation company.
Sagent Partners, LLC	Nashville	TN	Sagent Partners is a vendor-buyer procurement matchmaking service.
ScrewPulp	Memphis	TN	Screwpulp is a platform for online publication for independent authors.
Sideqik	Atlanta	GA	Sideqik is a web platform that allows marketing teams of different companies to cross-promote their products or services and track how many leads are coming to their Sidequik designed landing page.
Skuid	Chattanooga	TN	Skuid is a tool that layers on top ofsalesforce.com to simplify user experience and improve user interface.
splitsecnd	Nashville	TN	splitsecnd is a plug-in crash detection device.
Streamweaver	Nashville	TN	Streamweaver is a mobile video app capable of split screens.
The Royalty Exchange	Raleigh	NC	The Royalty Exchange is a marketplace to buy and sell royalties from movies, music, etc.
Variable, Inc.	Chattanooga	TN	Variable is an expert technology and network security consultant.
Vatex Explorations LLC	Cocoa Beach	FL	Vatex Explorations provides blister packs with chips embedded providing data via GPS system to know when the medication was opened and how frequently.
Vendor Registry	Knoxville	TN	Vendor Registry is an online portal connecting vendors and buyers that matches vendors and buyers by type of service.
Verdeeco	Atlanta	GA	Verdeeco is a smart grid analytics company offering big data solutions for utilities.
viaCycle	Atlanta	GA	ViaCycle is a bike sharing system.
VIPAAR	Birmingham	AL	VIPAAR is remote presence software.
VoiceHIT	New Orleans	LA	VoiceHIT is an emerging electronic health records (EHR) and clinical documentation software provider with a mission to use technology to drive improvements in care quality, coordination and collaboration.
World Housing Solution Inc.	Orlando	FL	World Housing Solutions provides reusable, energy efficient housing structures.
Yellow Jacket, LLC	Baton Rouge	LA	Yellow Jacket is a stun gun iPhone case.

Source: VentureNashville.

Check out ScrewPulp one of the three startups selected from Memphis Tennessee.

Bob Metcalfe, Inventor Of The Ethernet, To Keynote Chattanooga’s GigTank Demo Day

We weren’t kidding yesterday when we said that Chattanooga was a happening place for startups and tech. Yesterday we reported that Chattanooga was the 7th city to add the Kauffman Foundation’s new, 1 Million Cups, weekly morning networking and startup events.

Today, Chattanooga news comes to us by way of our friends at SouthernAlpha. It was announced earlier this week that Bob Metcalfe, would be the keynote speaker for Chattanooga accelerator, GigTank’s, Demo Day on August 6th. The GigTank Demo Day kicks off a month of Demo Days for Tennessee accelerators. GigTank, JumpStart Foundry (Nashville) and the ZeroTo510 accelerator (Memphis) all graduated on consecutive weeks in August.

For those of you that don’t know, Bob Metcalfe was the person who invented ethernet. For those of you not familiar with ethernet (man I’m feeling old here), it’s the “cat 5 cord” that plugs into your computer when you “hardline” yes we are well aware that there are actually computer users out there that have never been “plugged into” the internet.

Ethernet was created 40 years ago and recently celebrated it’s 40th anniversary at an event in Mountain View California.

It’s only fitting that the inventor of ethernet keynote the GigTank’s demo day. GigTank is an accelerator that was built on top of Chattanooga’s 1gb ethernet. Despite what some may believe, Chattanooga was the first city with 1gb ethernet to residents and businesses, a year before Kansas City turned the light on.

I am looking forward to being in Chattanooga … [for] GIGTANK Demo Day,” Metcalfe said in an email. “Are we not all engaged in gigafying the Internet?”

Metcalfe created ethernet as part of the infamous Xerox PARC lab (Paolo Alto Research Center), this is the same facility where the Xerox technology that was allegedly stolen by both Apple and Microsoft, was created. That story was chronicled in the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley.

In 1979 Metcalfe founded 3Com which eventually purchased US Robotics, the world’s leading manufacturer of external and internal modems. US Robotics is also the company that created the first Palm Pilots, although the 3Com brand took the Palm project over after buying US Robotics.

Metcalfe now serves as the Professor of Innovation at University of Texas, Austin.

You can check out the great startups in the GigTank and Bob Metcalfe at GigTank Demo Day, here’s a link to request an invite.

Speaking of Tennessee here are the first 20 startups selected for the Startup Village at Southland.