Mother’s Stroke Inspires NY Entrepreneur Chad Ruble To Create TapGram

Here at nibletz.com The Voice Of Startups everywhere else, we’ve profiled a few startups that have made the lives of those living with autism easier. Often times these technology startups come in the form of mobile or tablet applications to assist with communication. Whether it’s picture based short messaging or assigning pictures and graphics to simple sentences, doctors have praised the work of those entrepreneurs creating these kinds of apps.

Chad Ruble, a New York based entrepreneur has created something similar, but this time for his mother, who suffered a stroke.

We met Ruble on our sneaker strap road trip when we stopped at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013. It was there that he told us that communicating with his mother was very important to both her and him. So he went to work to create a mobile app that allowed her to send simple messages that were assigned to pictures.

TapGram lets users communicate by tapping large icons to signify moods and needs. After suffering a stroke TechCrunch reports that Ruble’s mother has been dealing with a condition called Aphasia which prevents her from processing language the way that she used to. TapGram was born out of a Microsoft Kinect hack that Ruble put together to help his mom write emails.

TapGram has been in public beta over the last four months and Ruble has found that people who suffer from Autism, brain injuries and of course strokes are using TapGram to assist in their communication.

Check out our interview with Ruble below and for more information visit tapgram.com

This Pittsburgh startup has created a robot called PopChilla for kids with Autism.

Norwegian Startup OogaBaby Is Instagram For Babies

I’m going to date myself here and say when I first heard the name of this Norwegian startup I thought about the fat baby dancing on Ally McBeal. I’m sure some of you are thinking, who the heck is Ally McBeal.

After getting over the uber cool name (and you know we love great named startups here at nibletz) we got to talking with the startups co-founder Gunnar Wold, about just what an OogaBaby is.

In the simplest explanation, OogaBaby is Instagram for babies. Using the OogaBaby app, gushing parents everywhere can upload baby photos to their hearts content. They can also track their baby’s height, weight and even the circumference of their heads. Parents can add milestones and special moments as well in this social network for babies and their parents.

Now as a parent myself I totally understand and get it, I just wish I had it five years ago. Speaking of which Wold says you can track your kid as long as you want but it’s primarily designed for baby’s up to age five.

Oogababy is great for parents and their friends with kids, but it’s also great for friends without kids. Why? Because with OogaBaby parents can stop flooding their Facebook walls with pictures of their babies.

Wold created OogaBaby after he became a father and realized there was really nothing like it on the market.

Check out our interview with Wold below and for more info visit Oogababy.com.

This Athens Georgia startup began with a bee’s dance.

Demo Days Are The Worst Source Of Deal Flow? Mark Suster Says Yes

Since starting our nibletz sneaker strapped startup road trip last year we’ve seen hundreds of startups pitch at countless demo days. Nick and I were finally relaxing with one of our advisors, Patrick Woods’ with a>m ventures, on the last night of SXSW and we had counted over 65 startups that we saw pitch through a variety of demo events at the annual festival.

We’ve also seen countless accelerator demo days and with it being May and most of the spring accelerators graduating this month, we’re on track to enjoy another dozen or so before we get to the thick of the summer. Speaking of summer, last August their were three accelerator demo days in Tennessee alone.

Startup community members and leaders are constantly debating “the rise of the accelerator” and where accelerators should focus their resources. Is the best accelerator model general tech and cohort based? Or vertical and rolling? Who knows, it will take several more iterations until each community finds the accelerator model that works best for them.

But what about demo day?

On Friday Business Insider ran this piece which references an indepth article about YCombinator and it’s historic demo day from the New York Times. In it, author Nathaniel Rich, quotes an investor saying that YC’s demo day, often thought of as the super bowl of demo days, “used to be a can’t-miss event, but that’s not so anymore. It’s a different vibe. Some major investors are starting to skip it.”

Rich points out that one investor said that YC Demo Day used to be a feeding frenzy for deal flow and it’s just not anymore.

Of course YC’s demo day is all the way at one end of the spectrum. Y combinator is said to take the best of the best and with hits like DropBox and Airbnb, the newer teams know they can set their valuations and standards higher, pricing a lot of smaller VC firms out of the deal. This either leaves VC’s empty handed or startups empty handed.

“The only way for a company to be overvalued is if there’s someone willing to pay that price,” Graham told the NYT. “So what they’re saying is: Going through Y.C. causes companies to raise money on better terms than they would have otherwise. We wouldn’t have the barefacedness to make that claim ourselves!”

Graham acknowledges that YC does take some bad startups though, saying sometimes investors can’t pick out the good startups; “Well, it’s not because the good start-ups look bad,” Graham says. “It’s because the bad start-ups look good! Which means we’re doing our job.”

Business Insider recently shared some of Mark Suster’s, a VC with GRP Partners and the founder of LaunchPad LA, best and worst sources of deal flow from his personal blog.

Surprisingly, blogging was revealed to be the best source of deal flow available. “The sheer number of relationships I’ve built through being public, transparent and being willing to engage in comments and through social media has enabled me to get to know entrepreneurs even before they launch their next company,” Suster said on his blog.

Investment bankers were said to be bad sources of deal flow, but the worst? Demo Day.

“Getting excited about a company at a conference and investing is a sucker’s bet,” Suster writes. “Entrepreneurs raising at prices not normally supported by progress face risks downstream when they have to raise more capital. And that fund raising is part of the job of being an entrepreneur – not something that gets in the way of your doing your job.”

Startup accelerators everywhere else are having a hard enough time getting investors in the door for demo day as it is. One accelerator participant in the middle of the country told us “outside of the investors that had a stake already in the cohort, no investors came to our demo day last year.” That can be hard to swallow.

As to the blogging, we have a handful of angels and VC’s that email us from time to time to get the vibe on some startup we wrote about. We also get thank you cards in the mail from startups that have gone on to raise money after getting their first piece of press from nibletz. To that end, we live off of our crowdfunding so to help out the everywhere else cause, click here.

See Dave Tisch’s biggest pet peeve when VC’s are talking to women entrepreneurs.

Smokers Are Going To Love This California Startup, That’s Helping Veterans

Rob Howell is a Marine Corps veteran, who is trying to make life easier for smokers while at the same time helping veterans. He is the founder of a product startup that first tried crowdfunding with fundable.

HelpingHandz is the thing smokers have been looking for, for years, that protects the flame of a disposable lighter from the wind. There have been so many times that I personally have struggled with a lighter because of the crosswind. HelpingHandz is a ligher hood that fits around any standard sized disposable lighter, providing the shield the flame needs to stay lit. As an added bonus, HelpingHandz is also a keychain and a bottle opener.

As for the veterans, as a retired Marine Corps veteran, Howell will be donating a “significant portion of profits to programs that help veterans heal both psychologically and spiritually from traumatic combat experiences.” he said in an interview with nibletz.com.

The HelpingHandz product is one of those things that’s so simple you wonder why it wasn’t done before. The fact that Howell is helping sufferers of PTSD is a tremendous added bonus. Check out our interview with Howell below.

What is your startup, what does it do?

HelpingHandz (HHz for short) produces and sells a versatile lighter accessory that protects the flame of a disposable lighter from being blown out by inclement weather: wind, rain, snow, etc. Our product also functions as a bottle opener and keychain, making it the ideal tool for outdoor activities like camping, boating, or a day at the beach.

HHz currently works only with standard Bic lighters. We hope to have future designs that are compatible with other lighter models.

HelpingHandz is driven by the objective of helping United States Armed Forces combat veterans. The CEO and founder, Rob Howell, is a veteran of the Marine Corps committed to donating a significant portion of profits to programs that help veterans heal both psychologically and spiritually from traumatic combat experiences.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Rob Howell is the founder and CEO of HelpingHandz. After serving in the Marine Corps for four years, I moved to Wyoming to attended Central Wyoming Community College in the Environmental Science and Leadership Program. This is a program that works hand and hand with the National Outdoor Leadership School. While attending school, I worked for a local tree trimming company. My experience in Tree Care inspired me to start my first business, Continental Tree Care, a full service tree company that offered organic pest control and fertilization. Tree care required long, hard hours and a grueling amount of physical labor but it helped build a resiliency and determination within that served me well for my future inventions.

After six years with my first company, I began focusing on different invention ideas but came across a lot of issues getting the necessary patents. Finally, in January of 2012 I invented HelpingHandz and fell in love with the concept and mission of the product. I haven’t looked back since.

Where are you based?

HelpingHandz is an internet based company operating out of San Clemente, CA.

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

Southern California is a fertile environment for young entrepreneurs. While we haven’t actively started looking for investors yet, the response from our local community has been extremely positive and supportive. I think if you have a good idea or a good product, this is the place to be. It is a great place to start a business.

What problem does your startup solve?

Anyone who has ever struggled to light a cigarette/cigar on a windy day knows how futile and frustrating of a task it can be. It’s equally difficult to start a campfire or fire up the grill using a lighter outdoors in inclement weather.

HelpingHandz provides a cheap, easy solution to this problem. All you need is our product and a disposable lighter.

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

Overcoming a lack of experience in manufacturing and product sales has been the biggest challenge. While doing hours and hours of exhaustive research was helpful, the most beneficial learning tool for me was speaking with dozens of product and manufacturing professionals who had already established a disciplined, effective business process. While it’s taken longer than anticipated to bring this product to the market, I’ve always been confident my concept is a good one and after months of hard work and patience, we’re on track to launch in May 2013 with our first production run shipment!

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

2012 brought us a number of fortunate milestones — we filed for two necessary patents (one which has already been approved). We’ve filed trademarks for our name and logo. We’ve finalized the design and prototype phase for our product. We’ve launched our marketing campaign by building our webpage, producing a video demonstrating how our product works, and promoting our company via social networks and blogs. Also – we’ve completed other business systems like packaging, warehousing and shipping protocols. Finally, we’ve received quotes from dozens of manufacturers, and we’ve begun negotiations with a few large distributers we think are good fit for us.

What are your next milestones?

Our next milestone is funding. We’re looking for the right investor to help reach our funding goals. We need enough orders of HelpingHandz from our manufacturers so that we can fulfill our distribution chain and have enough left over to take on new customers without running out.

Who are your mentors and role models?

I’ve had had too many to name them all but I would definitely start with my parents — they taught me how to work hard and the importance of always keeping commitments. These values were further instilled in me by the Marine Corps.

There are countless friends and teachers that I’ve learned so much from. I try to take a piece of the good from everyone I meet, regardless of their status. I have learned a great deal from my life experiences. I look up to people who focus their efforts on helping others and who make positive impacts in their communities. I could also say that I am fortunate to have met people who have shown me the negative side of society because I gain a better understanding of what I don’t want to be.

What’s next for your startup?

Next is laying out the distribution map. We’re in discussions with major convenience store distributers right now that can help us reach our goal of being in fifty-thousand stores by the end of the year. We would also like to start a video contest in the near future, where people make their own videos showing how they helped someone in need of an HHz. The winner will be voted on by the HelpingHandz community and the grand prize will be something really amazing like a trip to Hawaii.

Where can people find out more?

We are currently running a crowd funding campaign on the website Fundable. Here’s the link https://www.fundable.com/helpinghandz. You can get more information about our product, watch a two-minute demonstration video, and pre-purchase a first run HHz (there’s also an option to purchase a limited edition gold-plated HHz). We also have a website, www.myhelpinghandz.com and we are on Facebook at HelpingHandz. My Twitter name, which I just signed up for, is Rob Howells @HelpingHandz1

Now Read: DC Startup Troop ID Validating Veterans Past & Present In The Civilian World

Maryland Startup CoFoundersLab Is About Much More Than Just Founder Dating

Serial entrepreneur, restauranteur, and startup junkie Andrew Batey, the cofounder of Los Angeles startup Hater, credits Maryland startup CoFoundersLab with helping to lead him to Jake Banks the founder of Hater. We ran into Batey talking with Shahab Kaviani, the founder and CEO of CoFoundersLab at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013.

Batey and Kaviani were talking about how CoFoundersLab is way more than just a place to find co-founders. There are several startups in the “cofounder finding” space. One of the most popular ones is Silicon Valley based FounderDating. Many entrepreneurs feel that FounderDating is too selective and doesn’t reach the core of the startup community.

Community is what drives Kaviani who’s already had his successful exits and is working on CoFoundersLab to help startups find the perfect team.

CoFoundersLab helps link cofounders through a profile based system. Kaviani is quick to point out that the perfect cofounder may not be that friend or relative you think you want to start a company with. Through their online system and their in person events, hosted in 25 cities so far, CoFoundersLab is about linking real people with each other to foster great ideas.

The non elitist community at CoFoundersLab is over 10,000 members strong and to date has helped 100 teams form. One startup founder came over to Kaviani’s TechCrunch Disrupt booth to tell him that not only did they cofounders find each other on CoFoundersLab but to date the team has raised over $2.7 million dollars.

CoFoundersLab is also about the community. In addition to finding a cofounder you may find other key team members within the community or find a community member that can help you get over a hurdle or a pivot.

CoFoundersLab was a finalist in the Startup Maryland, Pitch Across Maryland bus and they are also a member of the Fort in DC which is now housed at 1776.

It’s free to join CoFoundersLab however there is a pro membership available too that gives founders access to personality assessment tools and other tools to refine the cofounder search. There is a small fee, usually ten bucks or less, for their in person events.

Kaviani founded CoFoundersLab after realizing it was the founding team at the first startup he was part of, HyperOffice that became the widely known WebOS.

Go join CoFoundersLab now by clicking here. Watch our video interview with Kaviani below.

We’ve got over 30 more startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 here.

Memphis Woman Takes Her Startup Pink Robin Avenue From 48 Hour Launch To Black Enterprise Pitch Finals

In 10 days thousands of entrepreneurs will convene in Columbus Ohio for the biggest celebration of African American entrepreneurship in the country. The Black Enterprise Entrepreneur’s Conference and Expo is four days of celebrating startups, and small businesses led by some of the brightest entrepreneurs in the country.

Names like Robert Johnson (BET), Daymond John (Fubu/Shark Tank) and Magic Johnson are staples within the pages of Black Enterprise Magazine and in the halls of the conference in years past, and present.

One of the biggest attractions at the conference is the Elevator Pitch Competition. Entrepreneurs with new startups and small businesses have 60 seconds to pitch a vetting panel and if selected, a panel of judges on site at the conference. 10 semifinalists have been selected from across the country. Those semifinalists will have 60 seconds to pitch the judges. Then, they will eliminate five of the semifinalists and the remaining five will pitch the judges for 30 seconds. After the 30 second pitches, there is a Q&A session with the judges and then one entrepreneur will win $10,000 to help grow their company.

Danielle Inez, Memphis native and founder of Pink Robin Avenue, has been selected as one of the ten semifinalists. Her startup is a tech hybrid that allows users to order everything they need for the perfect party online and in one box. Their favors, decorations, theme pieces, and everything else they need for the perfect event is then delivered to their home.

Inez initially pitched the concept in Memphis at the Upstart 48 Hour Launch in December. Her idea was quickly chosen to develop out over the 48 hour hackathon. By Sunday afternoon she had won the weekend competition. Early feedback recognized how valuable Pink Robin Avenue would be, especially for busy people.

The founder is also key to the success of Pink Robin Avenue. Inez owns a PR company that specializes in high profile, luxury and celebrity events. Inez also spent part of her career as a wedding planner with exquisit taste and is incredibly organized with an eye for design, and detail that many people are just too busy to notice.

Inez is a busy woman. She spends her days tending to the details of her PR firm, diPR which includes a mixed portfolio of clients that touch the luxury world, celebrities and even non profit organizations. She spends another full time jobs’ worth of hours working on Pink Robin Avenue.

Although relatively new to the startup space, Inez has been an entrepreneur her entire life. She got a taste of entrepreneurism and non profits when she started a company focusing on mentoring with her mother. Inez put herself through college helping people plan weddings, events and eventually pivoting that business to the PR company.

Now Inez is ecstatic that a magazine that’s been inspiring her since high school has selected her in the contest. “I’m amazed! I’ve followed the contest for a couple of years and I’ve read the magazine since high school. I’m so happy to be able to represent my city and my network of entrepreneurs from the main stage.” Inez told nibletz.com in an interview.

Inez brings a well versed pitch with a bubbly personality, and she knows her stuff, but above all she’s a fierce competitor; “I’m extremely competitive, so first and foremost, I wanna win! This is also an incredible opportunity for exposure for my business and myself; I plan to plant the seed for potentially valuable connections. Last – but certainly not least – I hope to inspire someone else to step out of their comfort zone and take advantage of the platforms that can help grow their business.”

Inez is one of the founding members of Memphis’ Upstart program. Upstart is initiative set in place by Launch Your City and focuses on empowering women entrepreneurs. Elizabeth Lemmonds is the Chief Relationship Office for Launch Your City and the Director for Upstart. She’s been working closely with Inez since December.

” Ever since Danielle brought Pink Robin Avenue into the Launchpad and to our female founder 48 Hour Launch, I’ve been impressed with both her concept and her sheer tenacity. This remarkable opportunity is a testament to both. I’m proud to have worked with her and look forward to the huge things ahead for Pink Robin Avenue!” Lemmonds told us.

Inez’ Pink Robin Avenue and other startups like Mentor Me, currently accelerating in the Seed Hatchery program are a testament to the fast success Upstart Memphis has seen.

The finals for the Black Entreprise Elevator Pitch contest are bitter sweet for Inez who will miss Seed Hatchery’s Demo Day while she is pitching in Columbus at the Black Enterprise Event. “I can’t believe I’m going to miss Brittany’s pitch (Mentor Me), Brit’sbusinss has evolved into something that seems incredibly profitable”. Mentor Me was one of the other startups selected to build out at that Upstart 48 Hour Launch event where Pink Robin Avenue was born.

Here’s Pink Robin Avenue’s second ever pitch at 48 Hour Launch.

Check out Pink Robin Avenue here.

We’ve been tracking Inez and Pink Robin Avenue since day 1 find out more here at nibletz.com

This Startup From The British Countryside Pays You To Search! [video][disrupt]

We love talking to British entrepreneurs and founders, it’s just something about the way they say process that makes them seem so professional and articulate. The same goes for Jonathan Knight the cofounder and CEO at Qmee. Knight was quite animated when he told us that Qmee was based in Gloucester England, in the countryside where they have cows and hills, but very few tech startups.

So it was the perfect place for Knight and his co-founder Nick Sutton to launch an internet startup. What amazed me was the idea that these guys have come up with.

Qmee is a platform that pays you to search for stuff on the internet. It works with all of the big search engines like Google, Bing, Amazon, Ebay and Yahoo.

Once you install the browser plugin everything magically happens in the background. When you search for something that Qmee has advertisers for you will see an unobtrusive sidebar on the left side of your browser. This sidebar serves up relevant ads and alongside those ads is the amount that you’ll actually get paid for clicking through to the ad. Now this isn’t some kind of crazy deal where you only get paid if you agree to three offers that will set you back $1000 this is pretty simple, search, click, get paid.

One of the best parts about Qmee is that users can take their payments whenever they want. Payments accumulate in a “Qmee Piggybank”. You can look at your piggy bank balance anytime you want and see what you’ve made so far. Whether it be $80, $800 or 80 cents, you can have Qmee pay you via paypal whenever you would like.

Not bad for some guys from the British countryside right?

Check out our interview with Knight below and for more information visit Qmee.com

Here are over 25 great startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013

Brazilian Entrepreneur Leaves Finance World To Launch Art Startup [video][Disrupt]

Luca Parise was working at a nice cush job in Sao Paulo Brazil for FRAM Capital, an investment management firm, when he decided to launch his own startup in the art world.

Nailonwall helps take the offline world of Latin American art and put it online for people around the world to find. But Parise doesn’t see it as a show and tell site by any means. He’s hoping to apply what he’s learned in the finance world to Nailonwall because “Art is a huge market and an investment opportunity”, he told us in an interview.

Parise hopes that by linking the Latin American art world to art collectors and investors globally artists’ works will become worth a lot more. So in affect Nailonwall is an entire art marketplace rather than just a showing of art work from Latin America.

Parise hopes to bill $500,000 in commission from helping to facilitate the sale of the artwork on nailonwall, this year, according to Portugese site exame.com.

There are several art marketplace startups out there, but so far none that have focused on artwork in Latin America.

Check out our video interview with Parise below, and for more info visit nailonwall.com

We’ve got a ton more coverage of startups everywhere else, from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013.

No Really Dialexa Is The Most Bad Ass Startup In Dallas

This year marked my third trip to TechCrunch Disrupt NYC and my 7th trip to a TechCrunch Disrupt event overall. Typically we expect to see some cool big data startups, social mobile startups, food startups and over the last two years, hardware startups. I don’t think in all the startup events I’ve ever been too, I’ve seen anything quite like Dialexa.

Dialexa is a startup themselves, but what they actually are is a technology development company. The company, formed by entrepreneurs Mark Haidar and Scott Harper, Dialexa was founded upon recognizing a huge market demand for innovative and scalable technology solutions. Mark and Scott serve as Co-CEOs jointly spearheading operations, strategy, local and international sales, product development and engineering for clients and Dialexa Labs.

Harper and Haidar met each other at 2GO Software where Haidar was the CTO and Harper joined as Head of Operations. 2GO was the recipient of the 2010 Honeywell Scanning and Mobility ISV Partner Of The Year.

Prior to meeting at 2GO, the founders had a multitude of experience in technology and starting companies. Previously Mark led the development of a state of the art research and development project for the US Army Tank Automotive Research Development Engineering Center (TARDEC). He was able to successfully research, design, develop, and validate an original service-oriented intra and inter-vehicle communication system for transportation, robotic, and military systems. This technology enhances each vehicle’s situation assessment and awareness in military combat situations and has the potential to help create safer and more efficient highway systems. Scott previously started a web based marketplace for tutors in the college tutoring market, a web based suite of software tools that helped non-profit organizations enable their supporters to give money for free, and was part of an initiative to start up a bank focused on the medical community that heavily leveraged technology and eventually led to the buyout attempt of a several hundred million dollar bank.

So what are they working on at Dialexa? Oh just little stuff like:

A surveillance and protection system for the Nigerian navy. The Nigerian navy is losing $6 billion dollars a year in crude oil. They don’t have the man power or equipment to cover their entire shoreline. Dialexa is developing a system using drones, small submarines, cameras and a monitoring system to alert the navy when people, or machines are stealing their oil.

They also have a GPS system in the works that will allow someone to track anything. The system can track packages, people, kids, money in armored cars, etc. What’s unique about this system is it’s designed to require just a charge once a week and works through a variety of mobile systems.

They also have a system in development that will print 3D teeth from 2D scans. Haidar told us in an interview the entire process of evaluating a tooth for surgery could take months. Now it is down to just hours.

Haidar credits the team they’ve assembled to the success they’ve had so far and the team continues growing. No project or startup is too big or too small for Dialexa. They even have your general mobile startups within their portfolio of companies that they are helping take to market.

Watch our video interview with Mark Haidar below and for more information visit dialexa.com

We’ve got over 25 more startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 here at nibletz.com the voice of startups everywhere else.

Skrillex Parallels Art & Entrepreneurship, And Then Interviews Summit’s Jeff Rosenthal

Skrillex,Jeff Rosenthal,Summit,IMS Engage,Entrepreneurship

Summit founder Jeff Rosenthal and Skrillex, interview each other at IMS Engage (photo: billboard.com)

Sonny Moore, who’s much more widely known as electronic artist Skrillex, was part of a fireside chat at the IMS Engage event in Los Angeles last month. IMS Engage is the International Music Summit’s event that bridges music, technology and innovation. To give you an idea of the scope, in addition to this fireside chat with Skrillex and Jeff Rosenthal, Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom, had a fireside chat with Diplo at the same event.

The interview opened with the usual background story that Skrillex tells, but they spent less than five minutes on the background. Skrillex seemed more impressed with what Rosenthal and his co-founders with the Summit Series have done as entrepreneurs and innovators.

The Summit Series is a series of events created by Elliott Bisnow, Ryan Begelman, Brett Leve, Jeremy Schwartz and Rosenthal. They wanted to create networking experiences for young entrepreneurs, not just run of the mill conferences. Their first event was a free ski trip to Park City Utah and had just 19 attendees.

Now they’ve grown into a global organization with headquarters in Malibu. Tony Hsieh, Russell Simmons, Imogen Heap and Dhani Jones have all attended their events. They were also able to garner support from former President Bill Clinton.

They are now preparing on their next big thing which is purchasing a mountain ski resort to create an innovation city.

Skrillex spent a majority of the interview actually digging this information out of Rosenthal. While Skrillex has also taken on building community and creative space for electronics “in the box” musicians in Los Angeles, he resonated with the entrepreneurial growth inspired by the Summit team.

Rosenthal talked about how he and his co-founding buddies had maxed out their credit cards and gone in debt on their first couple of events. Skrillex said he can totally relate having been in debt $50,000 just 1000 days (three years earlier). Like a true entrepreneur, Skrillex leveraged everything he had to build his artisti base. He had rented a warehouse and lived in it with his buddies. The warehouse space served as studio space and at one point Skrillex was evicted. He finally started making money and had $1 million dollars in the bank and then he made a conscious decision to blow all of that money on production giving his fans “the most incredible shows in the world”.

Skrillex credited Hypem the music blog aggregator and Soundcloud with helping bring him to fame.

Rosenthal and Skrillex both agreed with musicians and entrepreneurs it’s all about a body of work.

Towards the end of the conversation Skrillex asked Rosenthal why they created the Summit Series. Rosenthal replied that at first it was for them, they didnt have a peer group. “We like to connect and inspire the thought leaders of our time” Rosenthal told Skrillex.

Really this is a great interview, Skrillex is so passionately into what Rosenthal is doing, and really this was a fireside chat, not an interview.

Check out the interview video below.

Now check out Ashton Kutcher on the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013.

Memphis Answers Call To Task On Women Entrepreneurs With Upstart Accelerator

On Tuesday at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013, Alexia Tstotsis got some of the more influential names in the tech/vc community to talk about women entrepreneurs and venture capital. David Tisch offered this tidbit in regards to what really pisses him off when VCs are talking to women. Aaref Hilaly (Sequoia) offered this opinion on why there is such a divide. Hilaly also called everyone to task to help increase the number of women entrepreneurs ready for venture funding.

While startup communities everywhere are starting to embrace and cultivate their women entrepreneurs. One startup community in particular has taken a very proactive role.

Eric Mathews, Andre Fowlkes and Elizabeth Lemmonds the team behind Launch Your City and Launch Memphis started a women’s initiative in 2012 called Upstart. Upstart is a multifaceted initiative with their latest phase coming into fruition now. It began with a meetup group, office hours for women entrepreneurs and a 48 Hour launch event for women founders.

Upstart is just one of the many startup community initiatives that Launch Your City has developed. They are also responsible for Seed Hatchery, a general tech accelerator that is two weeks away from their third graduation (demo day). Interestingly enough there are two startups in the class of six that have women founders; Boosterville and Mentor Me. A third woman entrepreneur, Rachel Hurley, started as a co-founder for one startup, Soundstache and has since segued to another team, Musistic. Hurley has always been active in the Launch Memphis startup community and took the challenge to apply to this years Seed Hatchery class.

In addition to all of this, Lemmonds, served as the moderator for the “Kick Ass Female Founders From Everywhere Else” at the everywhereelse.co inaugural conference. It was there and on a trip to Silicon Valley that Lemmonds continued to forge relationships with women entrepreneurs across the country, some of which will serve as mentors for the upcoming first session at Upstart.

The Upstart Accelerator basically starts as soon as Seed Hatchery graduates. The application deadline is May 24th and the application can be found here.Those accepted will be notified by May 31st. The session starts in Memphis at the Launch Your City Launch Pad on June 20th and runs until October 3rd.

Upstart participants will get access to the four M’s, mentors, milestones, money and Memphis. The Upstart team is encouraging women led startups from across the country and around the world to consider their program. Memphis is a great place to launch startups, cost of living is incredibly low and the startup community is close knit and growing. And YES their can be men on the team as well, but one of the cofounders must be a woman.

You can find out more here at upstartmemphis.com

See why this woman, and her husband, the founding CTO at Cha-Cha moved to Memphis for an acceleartor.

Pittsburgh Startup PayTango Will Make Sure You Never Lose Your Wallet Again

Last month we brought you this story about Pittsburgh startup, turned Y-Combinator company, PayTango. They were one of the first in the biometric wallet space.

When we spoke with PayTango co-founder Brian Groudan at TechCrunch Disrupt he acknowledged how crowded the biometric mobile wallet space has gotten after their videos and pitch decks started popping up online. We talked about New Jersey startup PulseWallet, that we met at CES 2013 and Groudan pointed out another biometric mobile wallet startup that was also in the Startup Alley at Disrupt.

PayTango was one of the first in the space and for now they are focused on smaller networks where they can really get a feel for the technology and what it can do.

What is PayTango and a biometric wallet?

Well by now everyone has heard the term mobile wallet. We all know that you can use your NFC enabled phone and other forms of mobile commerce without having to bring credit cards along. What PayTango and other startups in their space hope to do, is to eliminate the wallet altogether and use your finger print as your wallet.

Using a biometric wallet is not just easier and more convenient but it’s a lot safer when it comes to fraud.

PayTango tested on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University and has also tested in some health clubs as well. While students who signed up for the beta can use their finger print to pay for meals, there’s also the capacity to store your entire academic history in the cloud, accessible by finger print.

While only saying that PayTango is looking at a lot of different uses, it’s easy to see that the team behind PayTango is looking at a much bigger picture than just syncing your American Express card with your index finger.

Groudan was actually excited about all the competitors in the space because it gives PayTango more market validation.

Check out our interview with Groudan below and for more info visit paytango.com

We’ve got more startup coverage from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 here.

Clap On, Clap Off With Israeli Startup ClapTo [interview][disrupt]

The old lady in “The Clapper” commercials would be very proud of Israeli startup, ClapTo. We found them in the Israeli pavilion at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013.

Shay Dadush, the founder of ClapTo, created the starutp after experiencing a real world problem that many workers face. Whether you work in a customer service center, data entry office, or coworking space, if you work with headphones on, communicating within the workplace can be a challenge.

“Sometimes you think someone wants you and they don’t, other times the boss wants you and you don’t hear them” Dadush told us at Disrupt. That’s why he created ClapTo.

ClapTo is a piece of software that fits ontop of your audio settings and listens for two claps in a row. If ClapTo hears the right claps then it quickly pauses whatever audio source you’re listening to so that you can hear what’s going on around you. Now all Mr. Lumbergh would have to do is clap two times to cut your music off so he could ask you to work this Saturday.

Dadush tells us that ClapTo knows the difference between the clapping, and someone making a loud bang.

This seems kind of cool but if ClapTo builds massive scale what’s going to happen when 30 people in the office have it installed and someone claps. Tell us what you think of ClapTo in the comments below.

Here’s the video, you can find out more at clapto.com

Now check out what Ashton Kutcher said about Bitcoin at TechCrunch Disrupt

Keen Homes Does For Your Vents, What Nest Does For Your Thermostat

The nest thermostat was the coolest piece of hvac innovation ever. It’s got a beautiful design and the functionality is amazing. Now if you’re not familiar, Nest, learns the behaviors of those in the house and programs itself to optimize your comfort and energy in regards to your heating and cooling.

What New York entrepreneurs Ryan Fant and Nayeem Hussain have discovered, is that the thermostat is only about half the problem. Energy loss and discomfort also stems from the vents itself. Nest, controls the heat pump or the ac unit. The vents are controlled manually.

“We found that just by closing four vents in an average-sized home, we’ve reduced the run time of the furnace by about 30 percent,” Fant explained in an interview. “So not only were we redirecting air to rooms that were actually in use by intelligently closing vents, we were increasing efficiency, as well.”

Their vents can be controlled by smartphones, learn a users behavior and open and shut automatically based on imported data. Overall this will improve the energy efficiency in homes and make them more comfortable.

The duo are predicting a 32% reduction in run time on hvac units thus resulting in money and energy saved. Vents haven’t changed in 60 years they’re basically the same design. When making their pitch it’s obvious that they are looking to the immediate future as smart homes become more mainstream and less sci fi.

In an interview with Nibletz Hussain tells us that the Keen Vent is just the beginning. Their next products are equally as simple, and equally as life changing. Check out our interview below and for more info visit mykeenhome.com

And we’ve got more great startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt here.