Kyle is the Founder and Content Director of Nibletz.com and the creator of everywhereelse.co. He has over 23 years in traditional and new media experience encompassing everything from a long career in top 40 radio to launching one of the most well known social brand in mobile tech. Kyle lives breathes and loves writing about startups and tech. Find me on Twitter http://twitter.com/startuptechguy & Rebel Mouse http://startuptechguy
Comments Off on Rovio’s Angry Birds Makes Another Move Towards Disney [sxsw]0LikeLike 9,811
Rovio’s Peter Vesterbacka and me at Rovio’s SXSW party (photo: NMI 2013)
Three years ago when we first met Rovio’s chief marketing eagle, Peter Vesterbacka, and he was talking about Angry Birds toys, balloons, books, restaurants, airplanes and tv shows, we thought he was nuts.
The following year when we saw him at the launch of AngryBirds Space at SXSW12 his vision was coming together. We had seen him speak throughout the course of the year as Angry Birds became more than a household name. At an event in Hong Kong Vesterbacka was talking about how they had to rip off the rip offs to keep up with the phenomena of Angry Birds merchandise.
At South By South West this year we got a chance to talk with Vesterbacka and Mack McKelvey a mobile marketing expert and consultant to Rovio. She told us that the company had recently taken over several McDonald’s restaurants in China and launching a separate game called Angry Birds McDonalds.
In the midst of all the startup and PR hype at SXSW, Rovio Entertainment hosted a swank pool party high atop Austin Texas. This time though they weren’t introducing the next wave of the game. They were talking about bigger and better. They were launching a new cartoon and media network that would stream through the Angry Birds apps. They also launched the Angry Birds network with several cable operators.
The apps alone give the Angry Birds network access to over 1.3 billion users (with a B).
The Angry Birds network will feature original content centered around the game characters. You can watch the Angry Birds network on the most recent versions of the game and on select cable operators.
Comments Off on Myth Busters: Money Does Not Grow On Trees In Silicon Valley [video]0LikeLike 5,786
Communly co-founder Neil Parikh talks with Memphis based entrepreneur Ryan Ramkhelawan at the LaunchLounge on location in Silicon Valley (photo: NMI 2013)
We just wrapped up the LaunchYourCity, nibletz.com mission to Silicon Valley. On that trip we spent lots of time connecting to investors, accelerators, incubators, entrepreneurs and startup founders from San Francisco to Mountain View and everywhere in between.
As the voice of startups everywhere else, we kept our minds open throughout the trip and soaked up every nook and cranny of information that we could.
In working with hundreds of startups across the country, and around the world (everywhere else), we have found that a lot of people think money grows on trees in the valley.
In talking with a variety of Silicon Valley based startups in various stages we found that, that’s not the case. In some cases it’s actually harder to raise money in the valley because there’s much more competition.
Silicon Valley is like the Hollywood of statups. Founders move to Silicon Valley in droves in hopes of getting their big idea discovered. It certainly isn’t that easy.
You have to figure for every idea out there, there are three more people working on that same thing. Sure the biggest VC’s are based in Silicon Valley but they’re getting pitched every minute of everyday. One VC we spoke with said he, like Mark Cuban, routinely gets pitched in the bathroom.
Sure all startups are looking for their big funding break and all VC’s are looking for the next Facebook or Instagram, but the chances that the two will connect are very difficult.
More than one startup founder told us that they had raised money at home, and thought that was the signal that they were ready to raise in Silicon Valley and now they’ve moved onto another startup.
There are several factors that could account for this happening. One is that when you grow your startup in your hometown and can pick up any bit of local traction, your local investors know you. They’ve seen you grow and seen your failures and victories. When you venture out to Silicon Valley you quickly become just another startup.
There’s also a much better chance that an angel or VC in Silicon Valley has heard your particular idea hundreds of times, where your local investors have only heard it once, from you.
Does this mean that you shouldn’t move to Silicon Valley? Not necessarily there are advantages too that we’ll be posting about later. This is definitely some nourishing food for thought though.
We got a chance to talk to 21 year old serial entrepreneur Neil Parikh of Communly about the myth that money grows on trees in Silicon Valley. Check out the video below and check out communly here.
Comments Off on Gangnam (style) SpringBoard Startup Flitto Is THE Translation App0LikeLike 9,433
Flitto, a SpringBoard London graduate has the Gangnam style for sure, that’s because they are based in Gangnam South Korea. They are truly rockstars for graduating from SpringBoard London which has become TechStars.
When you think about Flitto don’t think translation app. Simon Lee, Flitto’s founder describes the app as: “a social translation platform that lets you access all kinds of content in your own native language. Any user can add translation and earn points and ‘karma’ from other fans for your translation work.”
Flitto serves up translation from the crowd, making it easy to get quick, real life translations on content rather than mechanical translations which can sometimes leave the user just as lost as before the translation.
“The language barrier can be broken down by hiring professional translators. But we’ve tried to be smarter than that. We can get rid of the language barrier without hiring one single translator just by using the greatest tool humans have ever made – the Internet.” Lee said on the SpringBoard/TechStars London Blog.
We got a chance to catch up with Lee at the SXSW Interactive Tradeshow in the Gangam Style startups showcase.
Comments Off on California Startup Uptoke Raising A Series A To Bring Weed To The Board Room [video]0LikeLike 4,765
Jason Levin, founder of UpToke. (photo: fortune.com)
California entrepreneur Jason Levin is a formally trained engineer on a mission. He’s not a hippie, a dope man, or a pot head, but he does see the opportunity in Cannabis.
His company, called Uptoke, has produced an upscale vaporizer used to inhale marijuana. The cigar like vaporizer, brings a more “professional” appeal to smoking marijuana. Even in prototype form it’s a well designed, high class looking device.
The technology, Levin says, doesn’t actually ignite the plant, but rather heats it up, incredibly fast.
The Uptoke vaporizer can get to 375 degrees, in a sealed packages so users don’t burn themselves, in under 6 seconds. The battery life lasts all day and Levin says you just charge it up like a cell phone at the end of the day.
Levin doesn’t look like a guy who would fit in a “stereotype”. He sees the opportunity in the Cannabis industry. He’s also very careful not to step on the toes of those who aren’t supportive of the industry.
He will not market his device in markets where there are no laws governing cannabis use. He has a legal team in place and has an industrial designer coming on board to help design the final product.
Levin is currently raising a Series A round for Uptoke and was just recently in Seattle pitching a group of investors at the Washington Athletic Club.
Comments Off on Henry Blodget On Which Screen Is Best: All Of Them [video][SAI]0LikeLike 4,588
Henry Blodget, the CEO and Editor In Chief, at Business Insider, kicked off the Ignition Mobile conference in San Francisco this past Thursday. Blodget’s long and storied career in investment, media and technology makes him an expert in all things mobile.
While everyone, startups specifically, are inundated with the words “Mobile First”, that doesn’t necessarily jive with the way things in the world really are.
During his quick keynote Thursday morning, where he showed 105 slides in less than 15 minutes, Blodget showed one photo of the newsroom at Business Insider, where his reporters are still using monitors, big monitors, small monitors, horizontal monitors and vertical monitors.
So is Blodget saying “mobile first” is wrong?
No, towards the end of the presentation he said that companies need to be everywhere. On the big screen, the phone, and the tablet.
Consumers are consuming content anywhere and everywhere. People are reading websites, downloading apps and watching videos everywhere from the bathroom to the boardroom.
In this video Blodget actually talks about how the TV is just about a thing of the past and more people are using their tablets in the bedroom.
The Business Insider empire is one of the quickest growing media sites in the world, and they continue to grow every week. If you’re running a startup this is definitely food for thought:
Comments Off on Everywhereelse.co 2014 Early Bird Tickets Down To 12, Village Booths 50LikeLike 5,672
After the huge success of everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference last month in Memphis Tennessee, we immediately went to work on 2014.
Dell, American Airlines, Amazon, .co, Baker Donelson, and Archer Malmo have signed on to support the 2014 event of the year and we’ve got more programming, more workshops, FOOD and more for 2014.
Everywhereelse.co 2013 the startup conference featured three days of programming, three startup pitching contests with $60,000 in cash given away, three amazing after parties and every attendee (1280) went to the Memphis Grizzlies NBA game that sunday night.
Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference is the event for startups “Everywhere Else” we saw attendees from 41 different states and 7 countries with 72 startups from across the country. It’s the largest single venue startup conference in the country and the largest startup conference in the world dedicated to startups everywhere else.
1280 people packed in the ballroom for everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference 2013
Some of our speakers in 2013 included: Scott Case (CEO of Startup America and Co-Founder of Priceline), Ingrid Vanderveldt, Rohit Bhargava, Danny Boice, Brant Cooper, Pat Vlaskovitz, Gabe Lozano, 500 startups graduate Sara Ware and more.
2014 we add more content, a hackathon with Amazon Web Services, Free breakfast and lunch and more.
We introduced the 2014 tickets at 2013 prices, ending on March 27th when our first price increase kicks in. We set aside 400 attendee tickets at the early bird rate and 50 startup village booths. As you can see below we’re down to 12 attendee tickets and 5 startup booths (at least at the time this was written)
Comments Off on Dave McClure: Buying A House Is Far More Risky Than Investing In Startups0LikeLike 3,694
Startup people love to hear about Dave McClure the founder of 500 Startups and early stage investor. Most clamor at the opportunity to get just a glimpse of facetime with him and everyone hopes that their startup makes it into the 500 program so they can learn from one of the masters.
A lot of people love to hear him speak because his speeches and appearances are always riddled with curse words, GASP, but really he’s just using language that allows him to communicate as fast as his brain is moving.
In talking with a mutual friend who grew up with Dave McClure, the friend said “Dave is like a whirlwind, like the tasmanian devil. I used to worry that his brain would explode”.
So needless to say people listen because McClure is always making great points. One of those points was in his appearance last month on This Week In Startups (TWiST).
While everyone is waiting for the SEC to stop twiddling their thumbs on crowdfunding, McClure was talking about what a pain in the ass it is for someone to invest in startups and get “accreditation”.
It’s much easier to buy a house than it is to invest in a startup, but as McClure pointed out in the interview with Jason Calicanis, buying a house is a far more risky endeavor.
There’s a certain amount of money that anyone should be able to fucking burn or blow on startups. We encourage a ridiculous amount of money to go into the residential real estate market which has burned people fucking terribly in the last five years. Ridiculous numbers of people in this country are upside down on their mortgages and bankrupt because legitimate, regulatory-approved agents have shoved real estate fucking mortgages down their throats. We have subsidized this with our tax dollars, we are the people.
Like you fucking blame the investment bankers? Fuck You.
It’s you voting for your representatives who are in the pockets of Sallie Mae Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae, whatever who are shoving shit down the pipe. Like Moody’s and all these other people who have crap verification. . .
If you want to protect the small investor, don’t let them buy a house in this country, because that is the most dangerous thing you can do with your money. Period.
Investing in startups which might fail? You only lose $1. You invest in a house, you put 5% down or sometimes 0% down and you can lever up a ridiculous amount of money. You can lose 20 times your investment and people do it every day and they think it’s a good idea. McClure said on the show.
When you trace back the super genius that is Dave McClure, Sith Lord of 500 Startups you’ll come to find that he isn’t some Zillionaire throwing money at startups for fun. He’s done well for himself but he’s still raising money as fast as he’s investing it. Sure, like everyone else he wants to make money but he’s looking more at making an impact on the world through the technology companies he and his partners touch.
Many people don’t realize that even if they saved up say $50,000 over the course of two years to do some small angel investments, if they’re only making $150,000 they can’t technically be an accredited investor. Of course they could put a down payment on a house, or two.
Comments Off on American Airlines And Their Partnership With Startups [video][AAMRQ]0LikeLike 6,251
When startup people talk about airlines and airplanes they are typically talking about some new startup to order up a jet plane or to help you find the cheapest fares. Well lately we see more and more American Airlines signage, and people at startup events.
Are they scoping startups for their next talent? Are they trying to find the next innova
tion? Are they looking for their next customers?
Quite frankly the answer is all three. American Airlines has been partnering with startups to get the conversation going about entrepreneurship and innovation.
They found that many people taking American Airlines these days are entrepreneurs, startup founders and small business owners. While every airline has a program for huge enterprise corporations, no other airline has started working on partnerships to fuel the next w
ave of American business, startups and small business.
Now, Amer
ican Airlines has a team set up across the country to talk with startups, entrepreneurs and small businesses everywhere about the benefits of American Airlines.
Through their Business ExtAA program, American Airlines offers similar benefits to entrepreneurs and startup founders that Fortune 500 corporate officers get. Their Business ExtrAA rewards program offers increased mileage earnings, discounts and amenities that are second to none.
They’ve also partnered with several startup organizations like Startup America, Startup Weekend
, Tech Wildcatters, Tech Cocktail, Launch Tennessee, and even Nibletz and Everywhereelse.co. They know the importance of making that connection and developing brand loyalty early on.
While programs like the Founder’s Card are great, many entrepreneurs have found out the hard way that most of the benefits to programs like those require at least a series A round or even a series D. American Airlines has made their programs accesible to even bootstrapping founders.
Their team across the country isn’t just a bunch of sales people hawing American Airlines, all of the team members are engaging and they’re connectors. While they are very up
front about their goal, to get more small businesses and startups in the habit of booking American, they are eager to connect startups with other startups and other resources in their network. For instance the everywhere else conference in 2014 will offer a special rate from American Airlines and a special rate from their partner Avis.
Down at South By Southwest Aleda Schaefer and Paul Swartz, two of the people on American Airlines’ startup team, were frantically running around introducing people, meeting people and even engaging in startup pitch contests and other events. Their attitude and likeness to startups couldn’t be more genuine.
American Airlines was one of the key sponsors for the Launch Your City trip to Silicon Valley. This trip allowed several startups and ecosystem partners from Memphis Tennessee to spend a week in Silicon Valley touring VC firms, accelerators, incubators, co-working spaces and networking. The American Airlines team also set up meetings for the group including a tour of RocketSpace and they took some of the group to a startup job fair Thursday morning to meet other startup founders, who were at the stage where they were hiring employees.
American Airlines has strategically placed one of their “startup liasons” in Boston, New York, Dallas and San Francisco, adding their Silicon Valley rep last, because they realize the importance of startups everywhere.
Check out the video below where Schaffer offers a little more insight into American Airline’s involvement with startups:
Comments Off on stopped.at Returns To The Dolphin Tank At SXSW 20130LikeLike 6,542
Mara Lewis, the founder of California startup stopped.at returned to pitch her startup in the Dolphin Tank at SXSWi. The Dolphin Tank is a pitch panel session held at the Startup America Live stage in front of influential judges. The reason it’s called the Dolphin Tank is because the judges are instructed to give constructive feedback rather than criticism as seen on the hit ABC show Shark Tank.
This was the second time Lewis has pitches stopped.at in the Dolphin Tank. After here appearance in 2012 she was able to secure an angel investment. We ran into Lewis while on the LaunchYourCity mission trip to Silicon Valley on Thursday where she told us she’s working on raising another round, it’s time to move her startup out of her apartment and eat more nourishing than Ramen Noodles.
She’s also received a bit of traction for stopped.at which is a platform that turns users onto the newest sites on the web by recommending sites that friends are using. According to her pitch, over 150,000 websites are launched every 24 hours in the US alone.
Check out her pitch below. For more info visit stopped.at
Comments Off on “Early Bird” Tickets And Startup Village Booths Running Out For EE20140LikeLike 4,674
Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference was the largest single venue startup conference in the US and the biggest startup conference in the US focused entirely on startups outside the valley. Over 2000 tickets were sold and 1287 people checked in at the three day event in Memphis Tennessee.
Everywhereelse.co 2014 is poised to be bigger and better, especially because we’ve had a lot longer to plan and the first event is under our belts so we know what needs to be improved.
Great sponsors like Baker Donelson, archer>malmo, Independent Bank, Dell and American Airlines are already on board for 2014 with many more announcing soon. If you’re interested in sponsoring send an email to info@everywhereelse.co
With our sneaker strapped road trip, SXSW and our recent trip out west we haven’t been keeping an eye on the early bird tickets and Startup Village booths, well we just looked and as of the publishing of this article there were only 9 Startup Village booths left at the early bird rate and only 18 attendee tickets. The early bird rate ends in 5 days on March 27th and it gets you in the conference as an attendee or Startup Village booth at 2013’s rates. After that they go up!
The Startup Village booth ticket gets your startup booth space, in multiple pitch competitions and three attendee tickets. The booth space includes a table, two chairs, backdrop, and a waste paper basket. This year it will also include a sign with your startups name on it! Startups also get access to a private party and their name and contact info in the take home program, and their description on the website.
Don’t wait once these tickets are gone they’re gone and at the rate they’re going they’ll be gone this weekend.
Comments Off on Stripe CEO Patrick Collison On The Paypal Mafia [video][Ignition Mobile]0LikeLike 2,998
This morning at Business Insider’s Ignition Mobile, Deputy Editor Nicholas Carlson interviewed 24 year old Irish rock star entrepreneur, Patrick Collison the CEO of payment startup Stripe.
While there was much debate as to whether Collison became a millionaire at ate 19, one thing that’s been turning heads about this mobile payment startup is that their investors include Peter Thiel, Max Levchin and Elon Musk, the original founders of Paypal who are widely known as the “Paypal Mafia”.
One might find it odd that these three men who helped shape the web payment and now mobile payment space, may not want to invest in a company that competes with the one they founded.
Collison said that he believes that Thiel, Musk and Levchin, are still determined to solve the problems that they set out to solve with Paypal and the new problems that have cropped up in the mobile age.
All three founders are now removed from Paypal after selling the company for $1.5 billion back in 2002 to eBay,Paypal’s largest user.
While Paypal has been busy pushing an offline product to retail and working towards a more prominent position in the mobile space, Collison said he felt that innovation at Paypal stopped when Levchin, Musk and Thiel exited.
Comments Off on Business Insider’s Ignition Mobile: Henry Blodget On How We Use Mobile0LikeLike 5,026
Business Insider’s Ignition Mobile conference kicked off this morning in San Francisco. To kick off the general session, Business Insider’s CEO and Editor In Chief, Henry Blodget ran through 105 slides in just under 15 minutes, basically providing an overview of what’s going on in the mobile industry’s to date.
Is this relevant to startups, and startups everywhere else?
Of course it is. Mobile is the fastest growing technology space in history. Mobile is now outpacing traditional PC sales, and most people have not one, not two but three or more screens.
Mobile usage is increasing ten fold. Gaming, music, social, video and of course search are dominating mobile.
Mobile, specifically tablets have increased in the bedroom. Consumers are consuming content on their iPads laying in bed more so than watching tv.
Mobile is giving advertisers a much more holistic approach, but Blodget warns that mobile is extremely intimate and advertisers with intrusive ads are going to lose. Blodget sees value across a variety of opportunities for new mobile apps and mobile startups.
Comments Off on 500 Startups Company Waygo Talks To Nibletz [video][500 startups]0LikeLike 3,318
Earlier this morning we brought you the interview with Spinnakr founder Michael Michael Mayernick who talked with us about laying their foundation in Washington DC which helped them prepare for and then graduate from 500 Startups in Silicon Valley.
Ryan Rogowski, the cofounder of translation startup WayGo, also talked with us about their experience in Rhode Island before being chosen for 500 Startups.
In the video below Rogowski talks to us about the much lower cost of overhead in Rhode Island, and how it allowed them to speed up their development process. Waygo was able to catch the eye of 500 Startups founder Dave McClure, who is a very frequent traveler, the kind that Waygo was designed for.
As for what they do?
Waygo is a mobile app that allows you to hover your smartphone camera over text or images and get a translation. For instance, if you want to order Chinese Food from a Chinese menu written in their native tongue, Waygo would allow you to scan the menu and get real time translations. The best part? Everything is done locally on the device side which makes the translations come extremely fast.
Waygo is designed with the tourist in mind. You can use Waygo to translate Chinese food menus, and signs on the road, bars and restaurants.
The idea came about over two years ago when Rogowski was living in China and realized how hard it was to translate things in real time.
Comments Off on Detroit Startup Glocal: Share Your Local Content With 113 Cities Around The World [video][sxsw]0LikeLike 5,196
Detroit startup Glocal is a new local sharing site that allows you to share your pictures, videos and other content with 113 cities worldwide.
Glocal aims to be the source for localized content, shared with the world. Content creators can share their articles, photos and videos from their city. Content consumers can use Glocal to find out what’s going on, what to do, where to eat, local news and more for any of the 113 cities (and growing) that Glocal has a community for.
The company, founded by Lincoln Cavalieri, launched back in October after a three year development period, and after raising $1 million dollar seed round from Compuware’s venture capital arm.
One of the things that makes Glocal unique is the diverse range of content being created by community members. For instance, content creators in the Memphis community have offered everything from great burger and restaurant suggestions, to photos from a tour of the Fedex world headquarters.
A quick check in Chicago has highlights captured from various Saint Patrick’s day parties, to fan pics of the Chicago Bulls and even local news like a recent lawsuit in McDonald’s.
A tour of the Berlin community turns up beautiful photos of the city, the newest Mercedes Benz and a variety of local news.
Right now Glocal can be accessed via mobile web but Cavalieri already has his team working on native apps for Android, iPhones and iPads.
Kyle
At South By South West this year we got a chance to talk with Vesterbacka and Mack McKelvey a mobile marketing expert and consultant to Rovio. She told us that the company had recently taken over several McDonald’s restaurants in China and launching a separate game called Angry Birds McDonalds.
