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.

Overnight Carriers Probably Owe You Money, This Florida Startup Will Get It For You

Every year more than $2 billion is wasted in unclaimed shipping refunds. While many people know that there are “guaranteed delivery times” for all of the major overnight carriers, very few actually know what those times mean and how they affect your bottom line.

Sure “guaranteed by 3pm” means guaranteed delivery by 3:00pm. Typically though, when a package arrives at 3:05pm we brush it off, thankful that the package arrived at all. What many folks don’t know is that UPS and FedEx both offer 100% refunds if a package is delivered even 60 seconds late. The package delivery time is scanned by the delivery driver, and chances are, if you ship a lot, you’ve even looked at packages that have been late and not thought a thing about it.

Well Jose Li, who at one point led FedEx’s retail and e-commerce practices, has started a company of his own that helps shippers get the money rightfully owed to them by the major overnight carriers.

71lbs is a software platform that analyzes customer’s shipping data and audits shipments against their guaranteed delivery times. 71lbs then retrieves the refund for the customer and takes a small commission when the refund is retrieved.

The service is free and according to the company it takes just 45 seconds to sign up. The rest is automatic. The best part is it’s totally legal and totally ethical.

What is your startup?

71lbs is a software technology company that is making it easy and automated for small businesses to claim shipping refunds. So when your FedEx or UPS package is delivered 60 seconds late, both companies have policies that entitle you to a 100% refund. Lots of people don’t know about this or don’t have the time to go through the tedious claim process. More than $2 billion dollars is wasted in unclaimed shipping refunds every year.

This inspired former FedEx executive, Jose Li, to create 71lbs, a software that automatically analyzes customer’s shipping data, audits shipments against guaranteed time commitments, and retrieves refunds for the customers. It’s totally free to use, takes 45 seconds to sign up, and is growing like crazy. 71lbs only collects a percentage fee when a refund is successfully claimed.

The company believes all businesses should have access to the same tools and resources that the “Fortune 500” utilize today. 71lbs also believes technology and software should enable small businesses to become as efficient, if not more, than their Fortune 500 counterparts. 71lbs believes in democratizing shipping.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Jose Li, former FedEx executive, has 15 years in the shipping, logistics, and e-commerce industry. He experienced first-hand the lack of tools and resources while managing Jamba Juice’s supply chain of 450 stores, and also wore the carrier’s shoes, running a business unit for FedEx.

The management team has decades of experience in the shipping, software, and technology industries, with companies such as FedEx, DHL, and Tangoe Software to name a few.

Where are you based?

Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

South Florida is gaining a lot of activity in start-up and tech, through a number of anchors like The Lab Miami, The Knight Foundation, universities, incubators and workspaces.

What is one challenge that you’ve overcome in the startup process?

Two particular challenges – raising funds and recruiting. We don’t call victory yet. It’s an on-going process. We call this ABR – Always Be Raising, and Always Be Recruiting. Being in South Florida the investor community is not as dense as other start-up tech places like Silicon Valley, New York City, Chicago, or Austin. So it just means we have to work harder at it. We leveraged a number of resources – old work colleagues, University alumni, networking, introductions, travel, conference calls, AngelList, LinkedIn, etc to share our story and mission with a number of potential investors. We were fortunate to get accepted into what is now Techstars Chicago and met a group of our investors there.

We faced and continue to face similar challenges with finding great people. We have taken the approach of sharing our story with community members, local media, Universities and continue to interview and recruit tech and business people to join 71lbs.

A.B.R. Always be recruiting. Always be raising.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

We were able to average over 50 customer sign ups per week and we hope to build on that momemtum.

What are your next milestones

We would like to continue developing our technology and go live with our next software release which includes invoice auditing.

Who are your mentors and role models?

I’ve been fortunate to have a number of mentors throughout my years. One piece of advice I was told early on my career was to recruit a personal “board of advisors”, which I personally invested a lot of my time and effort into making happen. Most recently, my former boss at FedEx was instrumental in helping me develop a number of skills, like leading without authority, influence and persuasion, and presentation.

What’s next for your startup?

We would like to continue to grow and offer additional cost saving products and services for our customers. We are working on adding a number of partners to our ecosystem, which will allow us to increase reach and distribution.

Where can people find out more, and what is your Twitter username?

71lbs.com

facebook.com/71lbs

twitter.com/71lbs

This Chattanooga startup aims to simplify your social life

Cincy Startup Pingage Changes Name To Ahalogy

2011 Brandery graduate Pingage has picked up a lot of steam. Since their graduation, from Cincinnati’s prestigious branding-focused accelerator, the Cincinnati Business Journal reports that the startup that helps people get the most out of Pinterest has scored Proctor & Gamble as a client and secured an $850,000 seed round led by CincyTech.

So with all of this traction in such a short period of time, the cofounders decided to change their name from Pingage to Ahalogy. Ahalogy is a made up word that, according to the company, allows us to better communicate our unique positioning and vision. Ahalogy gets its name from that “Aha!” connection made by the company’s new Ahalogy Content Network.

Ahalogy has created a content network that gives leading content creators free use of the company’s Pinterest management tools. In exchange leading brands repin their content on their own Pinterest accounts. This two way content sharing network gets brands great content and content creators awesome tools and additional traffic.

Ahalogy cofounder Bob Gilbreath told the Cincinnati Business Journal: “Most users would agree that Pinterest itself is about the delight of discovery and inspiration. We, in turn, use data to uncover when, where, and why delight and discovery happen, then we help brands and content creators better deliver those ‘Aha!’ moments.”

“Branded content and pins are important, but authentic blogger content is often much more effective in driving engagement,” Gilbreath, said in a statement. “In addition to providing the much-needed content volume brands are seeking, the Ahalogy Content Network also provides a way for brands to engage with Pinterest users in a more genuine way, while delivering win-win benefits on both the brand and the content owner side.”

Are you a content creator? Check out Ahalogy here.

See how this Cincinnati startup went from Startup Weekend to the TechCrunch Battlefield.

Is iTunes Radio The Pandora Killer?

Almost a month ago, Google held their annual developer’s conference known as Google IO. At the conference over 5000 Google developers across all of their platforms gathered at the Moscone Center in San Francisco for three and a half days of pure Google.

In that same venue, more than 5000 Apple developers, across all of their platforms, are gathered this week for the World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC).

Last month Google unveiled a new product called “Google Play All Access”. During the ceremonious unveiling, Google touted all kinds of features that positioned the part-radio, part-streaming music, part-cloud library, customizable music platform as a Spotify killer. Unfortunately, since the unveiling we haven’t heard much else about it. For all intents and purposes Google’s new music service has gone the way of Google Music, which is far from Apple’s stranglehold on library functionality and Spotify’s streaming offerings.

Today, during the WWDC Apple announced iTunes Radio. This was one of the longest rumored announcements for this year’s conference, which is being held more 200 days since Apple’s last announcement..

iTunes Radio will give users a variety of ways to get “radio like” streaming services via iTunes. Without any customization an iTunes user will be able to use iTunes Radio to hear radio stations generated by algorithms based on what’s already in the users iTunes library. Apple has also curated several stations based on genre, very similar to Pandora.

The service will be ad-supported and free to any iTunes user. Those users who pay for iTunes backup service iTunes Match will get to use iTunes Radio without ads.

Apple plans to make money by selling the streaming tracks at regular iTunes store prices. When you’re listening to an iTunes radio track, a purchase button will come up that will enable a friction-less download of the song that you are listening to.

Apple has some advantages over Pandora, Slacker, and even Spotify because they already have 600 million devices on the market, which means 600 million iTunes users. They’ve also already negotiated their own licenses with most of the major labels. Billboard Magazine reports that Apple will pay $.16 cents per stream in addition to a portion of the advertising revenue. However, payments won’t begin until Apple reaches a pre-established threshold of users on the iTunes Radio service.

Will iTunes Radio bring the music streaming crowd back to Apple? U.S. residents will be the first to test it out.

Images: VB

Apple is throwing a curve ball to would be iPhone thieves.

Apple Solves The Stolen iPhone Problem

A stolen iPhone or iPad can be an incredibly big problem for a lot of people. The problem can get even worse for a startup founder. Often times startup founders have test flight, alpha versions of their product on their iPhone. They may also have proprietary user data and other really important information. Sure using a number code to unlock your iOS device can hinder some would be thieves, but plenty of them know the work-arounds.

Well today at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC), Apple software VP Craig Federighi put a damper on future iOS device thefts.

Apple has baked a new feature called “Activation Lock” into the new iOS 7 operating system. The feature works side by side with “Find My Phone.” When the user loses their iPhone, they can use their iTunes account to disable that particular device from getting re-activated for any reason. In effect the stolen iPhone has just become a total brick.

Now of course, like “Find My Phone,” the user is going to be responsible for actually turning the service on. Once it’s on though, you’ll have the comfort of knowing that no one else can access anything on your device or get it reset and start using it as their own. As for actually getting your phone back, well, for now you’re on your own.

iOS 7 will be available to developers today and the public beginning later this fall.

Source and image: VB

Top Android Developer Cyanogen gets the startup bug.

Andreessen Horowitz & More Back DC 500 Startups Company Spinnakr

We’ve been in DC meeting startups from 1776 DC, hearing Mayor Vince Gray speak, attending a party for Speek, and also attending AngelHack. And, there’s other big news.

This morning Spinnakr announced a substantial seed round led by iconic Silicon Valley venture firm Andreesen Horowitzh. Co-founder Michael Maynerick wouldn’t comment on the exact amount, but he told Nibletz that the round was “substantial.” It also included 500 Startups, Point Nine Capital, Sand Hill Angels, and others.

Last year the Washington, DC company was chosen for the 500 Startups accelerator program in Silicon Valley. While the team moved across the country (and is still out there), Mayernick is still firmly planted in the DC Tech scene. He’s one of the organizers for the DC Tech Meetup, the curator for Startup Digest DC, and was named a Tech Titan by Washingtonian Magazine in 2011.

Back in March when we visited 500 Startups, we spoke to Mayernick, who talked about how important it was to lay foundational roots in Washington DC before trekking out to 500 Startups. Dave McClure, the founder and Managing Partner at 500 startups, grew up and went to college not too far from Washington, DC. Paul Singh, a 500 startups partner who has now ventured out on his own, is also from the DC area. Markerly, founded by Sarah Ware and Justin Kline, is also a DC startup that went out to 500 Startups for the 2013 winter session.

For the past year, the company has quietly been working on a novel approach to web optimization. “We found it intolerable that users should have to do all this work to extract any value from their analytics,” noted Spinnakr co-founder Adam Bonnifield in a statement. “We saw a future of analytics where insights are simply delivered to you, alongside actionable recommendations that you can deploy instantly.”

Here’s how it works: Spinnakr’s novel real-time insight engines analyze the endless stream of visitor data the instant a visitor arrives to a site. These insight engines can detect changes and trends on the fly, such as the arrival of a certain type of visitor, a spike in a set of search terms, or a surge of traffic from an article. Site owners are notified immediately of the event and are empowered to “respond” to these events by changing their site or adding custom messaging targeted to that visitor segment. These changes can be made directly in the Spinnakr application, sent from an email, or crafted using Spinnakr’s on-site editor. Once the changes are made, this custom messaging is shown to arriving the visitor segment. Over time, this leads to a powerful and complete personalization of a site owner’s content.

Spinnakr’s real leg up on the competition: traditional analytics products require you to analyze meaning by working through charts and graphs, a process that takes time and expertise. “Spinnakr automatically discovers these insights in real-time, and tells you exactly what you need to do to benefit from that intelligence, closing the loop as quickly as the data comes in,” Maynerick said.

Bonnifield adds, “All of our evented insights contain actionable recommendations to boost signups and sales for our users. They can choose to accept the recommendation, and if they like, deploy custom, targeted messaging to their site to respond to the traffic event directly from the app.”

Notably, Spinnakr has found so far that this approach to website optimization produces strong and immediate improvements in conversions that significantly outperform existing approaches. Spinnakr users frequently see over 100% conversion lift on messaging compared to the 10 – 30% typical of traditional web optimization methods like A/B testing.

Spinnakr’s founders believe this represents a new web analytics paradigm for the big data era. “When people think about website optimization they think of a slow-moving, marginal process,” said Mayernick. “But the world is filling up with data, creating an endless stream of opportunities. The real winner is the person who can discover them instantly and react in moments. We see a future where analytics will work this way, and we believe we’re building the product that will help define it.”

Spinnakr currently serves SMB, ecommerce, and emerging enterprise customers, while currently optimizing 10 million page views per month.

Spinnakr founders Mayernick and Bonnifield had previously built some of the first online targeting systems used in politics, working with Congressional, Senatorial and gubernatorial campaigns while setting fundraising records in 2006 and 2008. Spinnakr was previously awarded the top startup at both the Data 2.0 Summit and the Founders Showcase.

Check out Spinnakr here.

See what DC Mayor Vince Gray had to say about DC Tech this week!

Check out this must attend conference early bird deals are almost up!

Florida Startup Ziipa Helps You Navigate The Ocean of Apps

Sure there are a lot of app discovery startups out there, but ziipa, a startup based in West Palm Beach Florida, is helping people discover the diamonds in the rough. In the application discovery space there are two users, the app developers and the actual app users. Most app discovery platforms do one of those users well, but not both.

Ziipa is using their proprietary algorithms to help users really dig deep and find the apps that they need and want. It’s also helping app developers reach out and fund users they couldn’t’ get from a quick spike in the iTunes app store or Google Play store.

“This results in discovery of sites and applications that would most likely not have been discovered. The outcome is a benefit to the user as well as the developer,” ziipa founder Lee Starusta told Nibletz.

Starusta founded ziipa after getting frustrated that his other apps were hard to discover. Not only are there a lot of apps in the marketplace, but there are hundreds of new apps and startups coming out daily. Add to that the fact that a lot of the other app discovery platforms are “gameable” and the deck gets stacked against you quickly.

“Ziipa ranks applications using a passive approach that eliminates bias and cheating,” Starusta said.

Check out this Q & A ziipa below:

In layman’s terms, how does it work? (In other words how would you explain it to your grandmother)

Just go to ziipa and search for applications in a field of interest. As a user surfs ziipa for applications, ziipa identifies a users interest and anticipates any change in interest and recommends sites and applications to the user. This results in discovery of sites and applications that would most likely not have been discovered. The outcome is a benefit to the user as well as the developer.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Lee Starusta – Founder & CEO. Creator, dreamer and out to disrupt! Industrial engineer by education, entrepreneur by genetic predisposition. self employed for 25 Years with loads of experience. 100% ziipa

Hugo Aponte – co-founder & CTO. Technology guru! Crazy amounts of experience running technology startups, patent holder and loves mathematics and artificial intelligence. (Who doesn’t!!)

Where are you based?

ziipa is based in West Palm Beach, Florida, United States.

How did you come up with the idea for ziipa?

The genesis for ziipa came from personal experience in trying to launch, run, and grow several internet start-ups. It is very difficult to get noticed and acquire customers as the underdog. ziipa offers a platform that gets you noticed quickly and connects applications with users based on interest.

Why now?

The explosion in mobile and web applications requires that there be more than a few players in the space. In addition ziipa offers a different approach to solving the problem of how to be found. ziipa helps by shortening discovery time, increasing the long tail and fairly ranking applications without money and bias.

What sets you apart from any of the other hundred+ app discovery platforms out there?

The main differences are as follows:

1- ziipa ranks applications using a passive approach that eliminates bias and cheating.

2- ziipa can recommend users not only based on interest but it can anticipate a user’s change in interest. This dynamic approach to recommending helps content stay fresh and relevant to the users.

What are some milestones you’ve achieved?

Considering that our marketing budget is zero, we are very proud of the fact that we have experienced steady growth and that tens of thousands of visitors find awesome apps on ziipa every month. Acceptance is a key metric, and I feel that our approach is certainly paying off for users as well as app developers.

What’s your next milestone?

ziipa will be rolling out a marketplace for applications where developers will be able to sell their applications.

Who are some of your mentors and business role models?

I could mention many and some would be obvious. I have been an entrepreneur for over 20+ Years and my mentors and models have to be the everyday person with a dream who actually stops talking and does it. Without these entrepreneurs life would be very boring!

Where can people find out more and what is your Twitter username?

ziipa.com @ziipa facebook.com/ziipa

Love Florida? Check out this developers conference on Atlantic Beach.

AngelHack DC Attracts Over 100 Hackers To 1776

It wasn’t a big weekend in DC Tech this past weekend. Launch and startup parties at DC’s technology hub, 1776, are regular occurrences, as are startup events, designer events, and even hackathons. With the amount of tech and startup activity in DC, they are well on their way to becoming the “Silicon Valley of the East” as DC Mayor Vince Gray said in his remarks Friday.

Hackathons are awesome and are becoming more and more common. They come in any number of sizes and formats; there are informal hackathons called at a moment’s notice, hacking for a specific project, social hacking, and building companies. Two of the biggest hackathon formats for building companies are Startup Weekend and AngelHack.

Both events are ongoing and have meetups at multiple locations throughout the world. Startup Weekend’s happen every weekend and in multiple cities per week. AngelHack happens twice yearly and multiple cities compete over one weekend. Hackers, developers, designers and coders are encouraged to come on day 1 and pitch their project idea. Hackers in the crowd will vote on the best projects and build them out over the remaining hours in the weekend (24). From there judges select one winning team that they will send to the AngelHack “finals” in Silicon Valley with over $100,000 in cash and prizes on the line.

The Washington DC AngelHack is chaired by DC startup mega enthusiast Anton Gelman, CEO and cofounder of Cont3nt. Gelman is no stranger to hackathons and pitch contests. He won the New York Angel Hack last year.

“Over the summer, I happened to be in New York and decided to check out AngelHack New York. Crazy enough, I won! They sent us to San Francisco in the following month to compete with other winners from other countries. It was probably one of the coolest events I’ve been to, and then I thought, this was such an amazing experience in New York, why can’t we have one in D.C.? So I arranged a few meetings, made a few phone calls, and was able to convince them to host an event here in D.C” Gelman told Nibletz last year before the first AngelHack competition in DC.

This year, AngelHack DC attracted over 100 hackers to 1776 dc, the epicenter of technology startups. They pitched a wide range of ideas from big data to health tech, to social entrepreneurship, and even Kickstarter tracking. Check out some of the Saturday morning pitches in the short video below.

Mobile Polling Done Right, Check out 1776DC startup YoPine here.

Belgium Startup Favebucket Is A New Way To Save, Share and Inspire

The founders of Belgium startup Favebucket have been burning the midnight oil lately so that they can bestow upon the word a new way to save, share and inspire, any kind of web content in an all in one, feature packed, but extremely easy to use web app.

Going all the way back to the Netscape Navigator days, bookmarks (or favorites) have been a way to save your favorite web pages. As internet browsers evolved they made it easier to share. Truth be told, in my opinion, sharing is easiest on the mobile versions of Safari and Chrome, however all of the current major browsers support url sharing through a number of channels.

Well what if you only want to share an image, video, or social media update? Sure you can right click a photo and then pull it out of your saved photos and attach it to an email, and of course you can always “pin” it using Pinterest or any of it’s clones, but Favebucket takes it one step further, making it about 5 clicks easier.

With Favebucket you simply use the bookmarklet on the content you want to save or share, add some tags to a quick pop up form and voila, it’s saved for your reference. If you want to share it, Favebucket allows you to quickly share it as well.

All of your faves, no matter what kind of web content they are, are saved to your Faveboard. You can go back to your Faveboard and decide if you want to heart it (making it a favorite fave), share it, go to it or see the details you saved about it. Sharing lets you share it directly from Favebucket (ala dropbox style), email it, share it through Twitter, Facebook or pin it on Pinterest.

While none of these ideas are new or earth shattering, bringing it all together as one, and making it so darn easy, is.

We got a chance to talk with the founders of Favebucket, check out the interview below.

What is your startup, what does it do?

“Favebucket is the assistant that helps you to save, recollect and share your favorites online!”

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds

CHRISTOPHE NOVALET: chief creative technology. hybrid guru between technology, user experience and design. loves guitars and good food. hates: web dev stupidity – noise & clutter. loves: creation – the web as we’ll make it – simplicity

MARCEL CRAMER: social media, online marketing, business development, guiding teams. more than 15 years of online expertise. innovative mind. hates: boxes & beaten paths – bad food – bad UX. loves: people – design – strategy. married. 2 daughters. a cooking aficionado

What is the startup culture like in Belgium?

It is a very open culture, obviously much smaller than US and still with a lot to learn. Benelux startups need to get out in the open more and established business and venture partners should stimulate the entrepreneurs more and transfer knowledge and spirit. Reinvigoration would be welcomed by many.

What problem does your startup solve?

We assist people to manage the massive amounts of information coming to us every day. Making their life online easier and save them time and effort when trying to find, remember and share content.”in a world where information is created constantly, at lightning speed, where clutter is everywhere, you need a place to go where all your personal favorites are. information you want to keep, recollect, and use. Just for you.”

What is one challenge that you’ve overcome in the startup process?

Keeping our heads together when the going got tough (thnx Billy Ocean). We have been creating and building what we just soft launched with our own time, sweat, effort, burning the midnight oil for months. And that is not easy, its a “make or break” test for a team. In that period you find if you fit together, if there is maximum trust and inspiration. And we found our modus, we got closer together, we actually did overcome.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

We as a team achieved many milestones. Big ones and smaller ones. The first one was the deciding moment to throw away the first version we built, and then the second. Another milestone was the soft launch some weeks ago and also setting up a larger team. We needed that and we made it. Not done growing yet by the way ;)

What are your next milestones

Mobile – Plug ins with partner (can’t disclose yet) – New teammates – Getting the needed investment in

Who are your mentors and role models?

Roles models is a strong word. We create our position based on a mix of what we learned from great brands and their forerunners but also look at people we have around us. People in the advisory board with entrepreneurial knowledge and all sorts of different skills. Also in our families, mothers who are the best operational managers, dads who are great thinkers and tinkers. Not just one example but many.

What are some of the advantages/disadvantages growing your startup outside of Silicon Valley

Being outside makes you want to prove more that you don’t need to be in a specific location as long as you are in the right market. It is about finding the right people, that is true, but we do not feel that being in the super heated center of all things “startup” is a good thing. It seems a very volatile culture with changing trends and a specific savoir faire that is not necessarily a good thing. People you hire might just leap away to the next big thing, the next “Meme”. That is not a fact in Europe. The bad thing is that the position investors and people take towards startups in Europe is held back. Less interest, lower investment levels and less specific knowledge in what you might call “typical Silicon Valley” ventures.

What’s next for your startup?

Keep the audience in our market interested like we do now, tend to them, assist them. Find a good partner for advice, support, investment and business development experience.

Where can people find out more, and what is your Twitter username?

favebucket.com or on Twitter at @favebucket

This startup, Cabcents, applies the “Priceline model” to ground transportation.

DC Mayor Vincent Gray Celebrates, Speek, DC Tech and 1776

“I think I’ve been here every week since it opened,” DC Mayor Vincent Gray told a standing room only crowd at the Speek launch and thank you party held at 1776DC on Friday evening. Gray and Newark Mayor Cory Booker are two politicians very friendly to startups.

Gray and his constituents working on DC’s economic development were instrumental in helping 1776DC secure their prime real estate at 1133 15th Street in Northwest Washington. The center, directed by Donna Harris and Evan Burfield, is the epicenter of startups in DC and the go-to place for some great startup events and parties. “1776 sure knows how to throw a party,” Gray told the audience.

“We’ve got it down to a science,” Burfield told us in regards to flipping the space from mega co-working to a great place to party. Walls, desks, and even mock windows are all on wheels which makes the space customizable for anything from hackathons (Angel Hack is being held there this weekend) to small strategy meetings, to parties with upwards of 500.

And that’s exactly what happened Friday evening.

As for Gray, the very active mayor arrived early and stayed late, making sure to speak with anyone who wanted his attention. Gray, who proudly sported a 1776 DC Tshirt at SXSW earlier this year, was enthusiastic about everything having to do with DC startups.

“There were 75 startups knocking at the door when 1776 opened,” Gray told the crowd during his official remarks. Burfield quickly piped up to announce that the final number of startups at launch, a little over a month ago, was actually 103.

Gray said that for DC to continue in the right direction they need to reinvent the economy and startups play a big part of that. Gray said that over 600,000 people live in the district and he wants more to live, play, and work in our nation’s capital.

Gray was very enthusiastic about Speek, the gamechanging technology that is making conference calls easier. Gray told Nibletz that his job dictates that he’s always on conference calls. In our informal conversation Gray was able to cite details about 1776 and startups (by name) without a crib sheet. Gray also mentioned the dedication of DC entrepreneurs to their companies and their city, laughing about the dedication of Speek’s co-founders and this tattoo stunt from SXSW.

As you’ll see in the video, the Mayor of DC is also the Mayor of DCTech and as such, a very enthusiastic cheerleader for all DC startups.

J. Cole Partnered With Cincinnati Startup LISNR For Nationwide Mobile Listening Parties

First the Internet changed the music industry and the way artists do business and market themselves by creating a clear path between artists and fans. The use of the web and social media launched the careers of number one artists like Soulja Boy, Macklemore, and Ryan Lewis.

Now artists are gravitating towards mobile technology. This puts the artist in their fans’ pockets, available wherever they are.

That’s why Grammy nominated RocNation artist J.Cole has turned to mobile technology and Cincinnati startup LISNR with his unique idea for listening parties. For decades, artists have held listening parties at intimate locations just prior to an album launch. In the past they would do a mini tour and fly across the country to reach as many core fans as possible.

For the release of Cole’s new album Born Sinner, Sony Music, RocNation, and Beats by Dre utilized LISNR’s technology at private listening parties in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Fayetteville, NC (Cole’s hometown), Chicago, Boston, Houston, and Atlanta.

Through social media, fans were instructed to download the LISNR app, which hosted map coordinates informing fans where the parties took place. Once on site, fans listened to the entire Born Sinner album from start to finish through their headphones. Attendees accessed Born Sinner through LISNR, which activated and “sent” the music once a fan had been identified in range of LISNR’s content-unlocking signal. The entire experience was synchronized across all phones and cities at 8:00pm Thursday night, creating a unique, national listening party.

LISNR had previous success in the music space delivering exclusive content to fans through their branded mobile app. In March of this year, electronic dance trio Swedish House Mafia partnered with the company to deliver a fan-led laser light show during their final U.S. tour dates, specifically Masquerade Motel in Los Angeles, California.

LISNR was founded in March 2012 on the SXSW Startup Bus.

Now check out: Brandery startup alum FlightCar faces lawsuit

J.Cole Image: Radioplanet.tv

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.

Florida Startup IntelligentM: The Sensor Packed Handwashing Police

Hospital Acquired Infections, or HAIs, are a very serious problem and very serious business. Over 100,000 people in the U.S. die every year from infections they acquire once they are admitted to the hospital. The biggest culprit in the passing of infections in the hospital is improper hand washing.

While it’s such a critical part of patient care, doctors, nurses, techs, volunteers, and other hospital caregivers either skip hand washing all together or quickly run their hands through water without washing them thoroughly.

IntelligentM is trying to fix that problem using sensors. The Sarasota startup has been through the BluePrint Health accelerator in New York, the GE Startup Health program, and the SXSW accelerator program.

The sensors, actually in this case RfiD tags, are embedded in a bracelet that hospital care givers wear. Sensors are also installed at hand washing stations and most points where a caregiver needs to administer care.

The water safe bracelet, similar in size and material to a “Live Strong” bracelet, communicates with the sensors on the hand washing stations. The bracelet can tell how long it’s been at the hand washing station. They emit a buzz or vibration that tells the caregiver to wash their hands and gives a shorter signal when hands have been washed.

The bracelet also has a microUSB connection that can output historical hand washing information for hospital administrators.

With the introduction of “ObamaCare” HAIs became an even bigger focus area. Hospitals will now have their infection scores posted publicly, and infection rates will play into reimbursement rates for hospitals.

The IntelligentM has been testing at a Sarasota hospital since last year.

Find out more at intelligentM.com

Image: GizMag

New York Startup Wants You To DoItInPerson

There’s a new kid in town in the event space, and it’s New York startup DoItInPerson.

Founder Aron Schoenfeld realizes that the event space is very crowded but it’s also very fragmented. There are event discovery startups, event community startups, event social networking startups, and event ticketing startups. DoItInPerson is taking all of these fragmented pieces and putting them together in one platform. Their all in one platform promises one place to go for managing, promoting, and discovering events and communities.

Schonfeld has covered everything about an event with DoItInPerson. Using their platform you can create and manage your community, find and book speakers and sponsors, create and sell tickets, create partnerships, invite attendees, and monitor how it all fits together. Schonfeld found, through putting his own events together, that he was using different tools for each thing.

There are already a handful of great event organizers who have turned to DoItInPerson and discovered that the platform delivers everything they say it will.

(Disclosure: We’re using this product to help organize our Everywhere Else Conference and it’s been extremely helpful.)

What is your startup, what does it do?

DoItInPerson.com is an online event platform that allows people to create, manage and promote events and communities. It brings all of the fragmented pieces of the event space together; from creating and managing your community, sending newsletters, booking speakers, selling tickets, adding sponsors to managing partnerships. Our goal is to simplify the event process and create data around events and communities that will help organizers sell more event tickets.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds

The company was founded by Aron Schoenfeld. Aron is an accountant by trade and has worked on multiple startups. His first startup, which he still currently runs, is DreamArtists Studios, a boutique music production company that has composed theme music for shows such as ABC’s Good Morning America and 20/20 and ESPN’s Year of the Quarterback.

Where are you based?

We are based in NY

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

Very intense. Everyone wants to work on a startup and there is a lot of hustle going on. Unfortunately, I think that in NY we see more ideas and less actual startups than in other cities.

What problem does your startup solve?

Our company aims to solve and eliminate the fragmentation in the event space to make it easier for organizers to create, manage, and promote their events in a way that adds meaning and relevance to their events. Currently organizers are forced to use multiple sites and platforms, which leads to a lack of cohesive data across the event space. Through consolidation, we will be able to provide organizers with the data they need to create better events and collect more event registrations.

What is one challenge that you’ve overcome in the startup process?

Getting people to see the value proposition and why we are different then our competitors. Many people are familiar with other ticketing sites or other community management sites. We spent a lot of time refining our message to show people we are not just a ticketing or community platform.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

We recently had our 100th event run on the site and have had over 1000 registrations.

What are your next milestones

Our goal now is to hit 500 events, get more activity in the community aspect of the site and focus on having people use the speaker portion of our site more, which I believe adds tremendous value to the events and seems to be a lot of people’s favorite feature.

Who are your mentors and role models?

My mentors include Sergio Fernandez de Cordova, who taught me a lot about what I know about entrepreneurship and has helped me any time I have had questions or issues.

My role model is my father who as a salesman, worked extremely hard all the time to make sure we had whatever we needed, but more importantly, always put family first. Whether driving to the Catskills in traffic every Thursday night in the summer to spend the weekends with us, or never missing a school event, he put family first, no matter how busy work was.

What’s next for your startup?

We just launched a redesign for the site and are focusing on making the site a more responsive design. We also plan to launch 5-6 new key features to give the site broader appeal and are hoping to get 4-5 large conferences using the site over the next few months.

Where can people find out more?

doitinperson.com

Speaking of events did you see these 50 startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt NY