From Conference Volunteer To Startup Founder, Audrey Jones Is In The Zone

Last February I had no idea who Audrey Jones was. We were preparing for Everywhere Else Memphis and knee deep in getting ready. diPR consulting’s Danielle Inez was recruiting volunteers and handling many of the pre-show logistics.

When the conference time finally arrived, we met up with all of the onsite volunteers. Audrey Jones was one of them. She told us in an interview that she had heard good things about the conference and was curious about what it was all about. She received an email from one of the civic groups she works with for volunteers and decided she would sign up for one shift.

That day, she took control of registration and front end organization and then stayed on throughout the entire conference, never missing a beat. It was like we had planned and rehearsed her role for months, but for Jones, organization and execution come naturally. It’s one of the qualities her full time employer, Memphis based AutoZone loves about her.

In fact several people from AutoZone’s marketing and IT departments attended at least some part of the inaugural conference in Memphis. At some point during the conference an AutoZone employee came up to me and congratulated us on a job well done. He then said that we could have Audrey for the remaining two days of the conference, but not only that she wouldn’t have to take time off, AutoZone was paying her to work for us.

But this story isn’t about a great conference volunteer or a great company in Memphis. The story continues.

Jones was so intrigued by what she witnessed at the Startup Conference that she started spending her free time with Start Co, the Memphis organization that serves as an umbrella for many of Memphis’ startup efforts. Jones stayed in touch with many of the people she met at the conference from across the country and started to work on an idea.

What intrigued Jones most about Start Co and their various startup initiatives was Upstart Memphis, a women’s startup initiative that included a women’s only 48 Hour Launch and a women’s only startup accelerator.

Jones’ preliminary idea revolved around the way that parents, loved ones, family members, and caregivers communicate. There’s so much technology out there now that phone trees are pretty much dead wood.

“It’s a platform that allows parents to list their children’s emergency contact information electronically. It’s the alternative to the cluttered file cabinet in emergency situations. Parents can grant access to whomever needs access, like sittrs, tutors, daycare and childcare providers,” Jones told us.

Jones had no idea she was an entrepreneur or a startup founder in January of this year. By spring she was talking to people about this idea. Then Start Co put a call out to women led startups to apply for their inaugural summer cohort for their women’s accelerator. Jones admitted she felt like she didn’t think she would get in, but went forward with the application process, even citing Nibletz as a reference after her work with the conference.

Kids360 was one of the four startups selected for the women’s only cohort that puts the women founded startups through a bootcamp-style, intense business and entrepreneurial accelerator. The hope for Start Co co-presidents Andre Fowlkes and Eric Mathews is that founders will be launch ready at the end of the accelerator, which is really just the beginning.

For Jones it’s been non stop since the accelerator kicked off at the beginning of the summer. She continues to work full time for AutoZone and spends another 40-50 hours a week on Kids360.

“Audrey is a great example of the type of entrepreneur we find here in Memphis. She is constantly grinding whether it’s her own startup, helping others or on her job. She’s putting the resources of StartCo to work for her every chance she gets,” Mathews told us by email.

It helps that Audrey works for AutoZone, a company founded by serial entrepreneur Pitt Hyde. The company was very supportive during those few days of the conference and continues to support Jones with a little extra flexibility in her schedule while she is going through the accelerator program. This isn’t the first time that AutoZone has supported one of their employees going through one of Start Co’s accelerator programs. In fact it’s their third go round and they would continue to do it over and over again, Jones tells us.

Why?

“Because entrepreneurs make the best employees,” Jones told us. She is very open about her startup and what she is doing in the program. Everyone on her team all the way up to Pitt Hyde knows that she’s in the program. “Whenever I see Mr. Hyde in the halls I smile with my AutoZone uniform on and re-pitch him again,” Jones said.

“We’ve seen quite a few entrepreneurs come through the ranks at Autozone, which is very supportive of our young entrepreneurs and Start Co. Audrey markes the third time that we’ve been able to help an Autozone employee hone in their inner entrepreneur,” Mathews said.

Hyde is also very supportive of entrepreneurial efforts in Memphis. He is a major supporter and director for Memphis Bioworks and their Zeroto510 accelerator, which is run in partnership with Bioworks and Start Co.

So now with just weeks to go before demo day at the UpStart accelerator, Jones is gearing up to have a booth at Everywhere Else Cincinnati’s Startup Avenue. She’s looking forward to real life pitch practice, talking to investors, and of course helping out the Everywhere Else team.

You can find out more about Kids360 at kids360now.com

It’s not too late to get your own booth or attendee ticket for Everywhere Else Cincinnati.

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West Capital Advisor and Draper Triangle’s Mark Richey Added To Everywhere Else Cincinnati!

With less than 2 weeks to go for Everywhere Else Cincinnati, we’re still letting speakers out of the bag. Everywhere Else Cincinnati is shaping up to be the destination conference for startups everywhere else. The conference will feature 30 great startup and investor speakers from across the country. We’ve kept ticket prices low to allow even the most bootstrapped startups from everywhere else the opportunity to afford and attend a major startup conference.

We are pleased to announce that Mark Richey, Venture Partner at Draper Triangle Ventures and Managing Director/Founder at West Capital Advisors, will be one of our featured keynote speakers during the Everywhere Else Conference September, 29th through October, 1st in Cincinnati Ohio.

Mark is an experienced technologist, executive, founder, and private equity investor. Most recently, he served as a Managing Director in Draper Triangle Ventures, an early stage venture fund and affiliate of the Draper Network of funds headed by Draper Fisher Jurvetson in Menlo Park, CA. Mark maintains a relationship with Draper Triangle in the role of Venture Partner.

Mark has been involved in many entrepreneurial ventures. Mark founded Synchrony Communications in 1997 raising $38 million in funding from leading VCs and strategic investors, including Charles River Ventures, APAX Partners and GE Equity. He grew the company to a size of more than 130 employees in four cities serving over 80 customers, including Cincinnati Bell, Bank of America, and Proctor & Gamble. In prior years Mark served in management roles with a series of venture backed Silicon Valley companies, including Gain Technology (sold to Sybase), Siebel Systems (IPO), and Genesys Telecommunications (IPO). After graduate school he worked in management consulting with Theodore Barry & Associates (Los Angeles). Mark began his career as a software engineer with Cincom Systems (Cincinnati).

Mark holds an M.B.A. from The Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, and a BS Systems Analysis from Miami University. He currently serves as an observer on the boards of Thinkvine, Oversight Systems, and CardioInsight, the advisory board of Priority Consult (division of Mayfield Spine Clinic), and the TechColumbus Investment Committee. Mark is a past member of the Business Advisory Council of Miami University’s Richard T. Farmer School of Business Administration.

You can get attendee tickets or register for a Startup Avenue booth below. For more info on the conference visit eecincinnati.com

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Pros And Cons of Working At A Startup [INFOGRAPHIC]

Entrepreneurship is on the rise. The US, as well as other parts of the globe, are turning to startups, innovators, and entrepreneurs to reinvigorate the economy. As entrepreneurship and startups become more popular, working for startups is becoming the “in” thing to do. It seems more and more MBA’s, college graduates, and even people who didn’t go to college at all are turning to startups for work rather than blue chips.

The folks over at VentureVillage have compiled an infographic that shows off the Pros and Cons to working at a startup.

The Pros are of course things like culture, flexibility, and more responsibility. Factors like low compensation, bad work/life balance, and instability top the negatives when looking at a startup job.

If you’re looking to work at a funded startup you may have better luck than working at a bootstrapped startup. However a bootstrapped startup may offer you opportunities a funded startup can’t, like outrageous equity.

It’s apparent that working for a startup is a gamble in itself, but it could payoff. It’s hard to believe but companies like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even Google were at one time startups themselves. Their earliest employees are all pretty well off now.

Take a look at the infographic below and for more visit venturevillage.eu

Tennessee’s Master Accelerator, The TENN Wraps Up Statewide Demo Day Roadshow

Accelerator, Launch Tennessee, The Tenn, Startups

(photo: Brandon Dill/ commercialappeal.com)

Every startup accelerator everywhere else wishes they could have participation at demo day from their top industry leaders. While some of their leading companies may have a presence at demo day, the real influencers are often too busy to attend a four hour demo day. With this problem in mind, Tennessee had a great idea for their startups: bring them to those companies.

Ten accelerator graduates from across the state of Tennessee just completed a weeklong statewide roadshow. Each of the ten startups chosen to participate in the statewide master accelerator program were all graduates of one of Tennessee’s nine accelerator programs.

The master accelerator program, called The TENN, was put on by Launch Tennessee, the public/private partnership spearheading the accelerator efforts across Tennessee. Launch Tennessee partnered with the Blackstone Foundation to put the program on, as well as other key state sponsors.

Twenty accelerator graduates that wrapped up their programs by August of this year competed in a final pitch off in Nashville on August 27th. At that event a group of judges from outside of Tennessee had the daunting task of narrowing down those 20 to just 10 for the road show.

In addition to going on the road in a wrapped tour bus, each of the companies received $10,000 for their business and will have access to office space at their accelerator’s office space, or they will receive a subsidy for space they may already occupy.

The ten companies chosen were:

eClinic (Nashville)
Got You In (Nashville)
Gun.io (Nashville)
Hatponics (Knoxville)
Health & Bliss (Memphis)
Mobilizer (Memphis)
Screwpulp (Memphis)
Survature (Knoxville)
Vendor Registry (East Tennessee)
View Medical (Memphis)

Health & Bliss had to drop out of the roadshow due to a scheduling conflict. They were replaced by Chattanooga startup HutGrip.

The roadshow kicked off in the Tri-Cities area with stops at Eastman Chemical and AccelNow. On Tuesday the bus made its way to Knoxville, where they stopped at Scripps Networks and the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center. Wednesday the bus stopped in Chattanooga at Society of Work. Thursday the group traveled to Nashville and the Nashville Entrepreneur Center. The trip wrapped up in Memphis on Friday with stops at First Tennessee Bank and FedEx.

The ten companies will continue working on their businesses and with mentors and corporate leaders across the state.

You can find out more about The TENN at TheTENN.org

Image: CommercialAppeal

One Direction Uses London Based YC Startup To Raise $780,000 For Charity

The extremely popular British boy band One Direction sells everything in the world with their logo on it. Go into a retail store of any kind, and you’ll find 1D branded merchandise from bed sheets to school supplies to talking dolls and everything in between. In fact the band makes more off licensing than album sales. But when the lads decided to raise money for charity, they decided they needed a little help.

Forbes online reports that One Direction turned to a Y Combinator startup with roots at Oxford University. The startup, called Prizeo, harnesses the power of an amazing Rolodex and relationships that range from Samuel l Jackson to Khloe Kardashian to help build up their already amazing client list.

The company uses a raffle model that gives every entrant into a charity contest one entry. They also work with celebrities to offer huge prizes for fans, visits, or interactions with those celebrities.

For the One Directions charity contest ,they chose British non profit Trekstock, which provides funding for cancer research.

The prize in the contest was an evening on the town with Harry Styles and Liam Payne, arguably the band’s two most popular members.

Before One Direction, Prizeo had raised $1 million dollars across 10 campaigns Forbes reported. 1D raised $780,000 in six weeks.

The campaign attracted 1.4 million views, 240,000 shares and 445,000 video views on YouTube. The hashtag for the campaign trended number one globally.

Trekstock was extremely pleased with the results. “We had no idea how much the campaign could raise,” Sophie Epstone, the company’s CEO, told Forbes.

One Direction Image.

YES!!! Denver Hutt To Speak At Everywhere Else Cincinnati

Denver Hutt, Everywhere Else Cincinnati, startups, Bad Ass Startup Chicks

Denver Hutt (center) surrounded by entrepreneurs. (photo: Facebook)

We’ve got some great news to report this Friday morning! Indianapolis bad ass startup chick Denver Hutt says she’s feeling up to speaking in a couple of weeks at Everywhere Else Cincinnati.

Hutt is a true startup champion. She’s a connector, an entrepreneur, and a startup junkee. The native of Santa Monica, California moved to Indianapolis for college and by choice stayed there to start pursuing her entrepreneurial career, which includes running the Speak Easy startup and coworking space.

She’s been a hustler all of her life right up until, and now through, the point where she was diagnosed with cancer. When (with her permission) we first reported the news back in May the startup world was devastated. Hutt is a person who’s known to go to as many events as she can. She’s a networking machine, and she really gets things done. Her story also became a lesson for entrepreneurs with the go-go-go lifestyle to take a minute to take care of ourselves.

Prior to this news Hutt was one of the first women featured in our Bad Ass Startup Chicks spotlight.

While Denver is putting up a tremendous fight, the way only a die hard entrepreneur could, she’s unfortunately not out of the woods just yet. Fortunately for us though she’s well enough to make the trek from Indianapolis to Cincinnati for Everywhere Else! She is looking forward to reconnecting with many people that she met at our Memphis conference back in February.

We ran a follow up piece in August and challenged Denver to make it to the conference.We’re so glad she’s accepting the challenge!

What? You don’t have your Startup Avenue booth or Attendee ticket yet? Get them below.

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Memphis Startup Restore Medical Becomes First To 510 (K) Out Of Zero To 510 Accelerator

The ZeroTo510 startup accelerator in Memphis Tennessee is the first cohort-based medical device startup accelerator in the country. The joint venture between Start Co and Memphis Bioworks puts medical device companies through an accelerator program and helps shape scientists and engineers into startup founders.

The other, important goal for ZeroTo510 is getting these medical device startups to the 510(k) approval from the FDA. This approval is a quicker path to market roughly based on the idea that your product is expanding on an idea or improving an idea previously approved by the FDA. In short a typical FDA approval for a new device can take anywhere from 3-10 years while a 510 (k) approval can shorten that time down to 1-3 years.

All of the companies selected for the first two completed cohorts at ZeroTo510 (summer 2012 and summer 2013) werelooking to get that approval and get their product to market.

We’ve covered Restore Medical almost from the point when founders Shawn Flynn and Ryan Ramkhelawan made the move from Atlanta to Memphis for the accelerator at the beginning of summer 2012. At that time both founders told Nibletz that they liked Bioworks and the cohesiveness of the Memphis startup community, despite the fact that Atlanta is a much larger city.

Restore Medical has developed a system that more thoroughly, cleanly, cheaply and greenly sterilizes surgical instruments. The way surgical instruments are currently sterilized is time consuming. Not only that, but if one instrument is found to be unsterile the entire batch of instruments for a particular surgery needs to go through the process again. This can take hours at a time, so the OR teams must make a decision on whether to wake up the patient or to keep the patient under anesthesia which can be costly for the doctors and the patients not to mention dangerous.

“Our product allows hospitals to clean and re-sterilize surgical instruments more efficiently, saving time and money,” Flynn, the company President said in a statement. “More importantly, it improves the sterilization process, reducing the chances that a patient will be infected by contaminated instruments.

Restore Medical Solutions announced on Thursday that they had received their FDA 510(k) clearance. The company is also pleased to announced that it has successfully completed the certification process for internationally recognized medical device specific quality management standards ISO 13485:2003 and the Canadian Medical Device Conformity Assessment System (CMDCAS). Certification was conducted by BSI Group, one of the world′s leading certification bodies.

“These clearances allow us to market our products domestically and internationally, and they show that our product is safe, effective and meets regulatory requirements in both the United States and Canada,” said Ramkhelawan.

Restore Medical Solutions is moving into a larger 2500 square foot space in the Memphis Bioworks complex which will allow them space for assembly and distribution.

You can find out more about Restore Medical Solutions here.

Mark Cuban Never Sleeps: Backs Harvard Startup HourlyNerd

HourlyNerd, Boston startup, Harvard Startup, Mark Cuban

(HourlyNerd team photo: HourlyNerd)

Just yesterday we reported on Mark Cuban’s two most recent investments. Now we have a third. Back in July we reported that Mark Cuban had backed Harvard startup Tivli, a company that brings live TV over the internet to college students. The company allows college students to view their live TV content over any connected device no matter where they are on campus.

Well Cuban is back at Harvard investing in another high growth potential startup, again in a totally different industry.

HourlyNerd, the Harvard startup, is the latest startup trying to connect MBA’s to work. The company says they have 900 MBA’s who are willing and ready to work for small businesses on an as needed basis. The service is ideal for “small businesses that want to access premier quality professionals at reasonable rates and on an ‘as needed’ basis,” HourlyNerd told the Boston Business Journal.

There are a lot of MBA graduates and MBA students that upon completion (or nearly completing their MBA) struggle trying to find the ideal long term placement for themselves. There have been a handful of startups that are trying to find ways to connect these MBA’s to work, be it extremely short term or on a project by project basis like DC based MBA Project Search which we profiled back in November.

In regards to HourlyNerd, Cuban said in a statement that the company “fills a need every entrepreneurial company faces,” and said he expects to use the service “heavily.” Cuban is investing rapidly in several startups that run across a variety of industries, often times outside of his direct scope.

Cuban led HourlyNerd’s $750,000 round with a reported investment of $450,000. The company was founded in a Harvard University course by Rob Biederman, Peter Maglathlin, Joe Miller, and Patrick Petitti.

The Business Journal notes that Accanto Partners and Connect Ventures also participated in the round.

See how our co-founder Nick Tippmann directly helped Atlanta startup Badgy get an investment from Mark Cuban.

Fred Wilson: The C In 5C Means Clueless Not Cheap

The godfather of New York venture capitalists Fred Wilson took to his blog Wednesdaywith his reactions to the New York City Mayoral race and, the all important news to the world, Apple’s release of two iPhones. When the story started crossing my alert box, I hadn’t had time to read the blog post and thought perhaps Wilson had gotten it wrong. I was thinking he didn’t see the need for the iPhone 5C.

Wilson took a look at what really happened on the stage at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California on Tuesday morning. The first indicator that things were awry with this iPhone announcement is that they were holding the press event in the town hall room at Apple vs the Moscone or the Yerba Buena Center For The Arts. The significance in the venue is how many people it holds. Holding the event on campus meant a tighter, more curated press corps.

So what did happen on Tuesday?

Apple’s Phil Schiller, Jony Ive, and CEO Tim Cook announced not one but two new iPhone models. The iPhone 5s is the annual upgrade to the original iPhone (now in it’s 6th iteration). The iPhone 5c is supposed to be a cheaper version of the iPhone, designed to start competing with Android.

Most tech pundits have said time and time again over the last three days that one would be silly to “upgrade” your current iPhone to the iPhone 5c. The colors are cool but you can get a case for the new iPhone 5s in any color imaginable. Heck a 3d printer can print you one.

The 5C isn’t supposed to be an upgrade. It’s supposed to be an entry level iPhone, which is Wilson’s exact point over on his blog. When Apple held their press event, they showed the subsidized two year contract prices. The iPhone 5c would start at $99 while the 5s would start at $199. Yes you get a whole lot more for $100 dollars, but that’s not the point.

The point Wilson brings to our attention is that the iPhone 5C is supposed to be the low cost point of entry in the iPhone ecosystem. Abroad most wireless users buy a phone outright and just pay for SIM cards from the carrier they want. They own the phone and don’t have to get into a ridiculously long contract to obtain it. In the US those contracts are two years and in Canada they are three years.

So if you look at what’s really happening as Wilson reports: “the 5C is a big disappointment. It will sell for $100 less than the 5S in the unsubsized market, which means $549 for 16gb and $649 for 32gb. The C in 5C does not mean “cheap” as I had hoped. It means clueless, as in clueless about how the vast majority of new smartphone users are paying for their phones.”

So it looks like Wilson is right. The 5C may not be that entry point Apple’s been looking for to disrupt the low cost Android phones that are gobbling up market share.

Mark Cuban Shows Variety In Portfolio With Latest Startup Investments

Some may think that Mark Cuban’s investment strategy is all over the place, but teh truth of the matter is it goes hand in hand with his varied background. Cuban’s career crosses a variety of industries, all of which were self taught.

Cuban began his career as a self taught computer salesman who didn’t even own a computer. From here his next big accolade is selling broadcast.com to Yahoo, starting HDTv (now axs). Now he’s also a NBA franchise owner, shark on ABC’s Shark Tank, dancer on Dancing With The Stars, startup investor, philanthropist, and more. With all of that in mind Cuban is still just one of the guys, just ask anyone that knows him or frequents places he likes to hang out.

Cuban’s investment portfolio encompasses lots of industries. He’s invested in things that touch his TV business like Tivli and One Condition. He’s also invested in app selling company Apptopia, multilingual analytics firm Linquasys. and local rewards startup Badgy. That doesn’t even scratch the surface of Cuban’s portfolio; you can find more of his investments here.

Cuban’s two most recent statup investments are equally diverse.

After meeting Kim Taylor at the Kaplan accelerator program for edtech startups, Cuban led a $500,000 round for Ranku. Taylor also happened to be one of the featured entrepreneurs on Bravo’s reality show about startups called Startups: Silicon Valley.

Ranku ranks colleges by the success its graduates have with finding jobs rather than how they rank on the US News & World Report list. Obviously this is a much more relevant way to rank schools for students headed into college.

On Wednesday evening TechCrunch’s Anthony Ha reported that Cuban has also backed legislation tracking and prediction startup FiscalNote. The $1.2 million dollar round will help the startup continue working on new technologies to support their original model.

FiscalNote provides a service to businesses that keeps them up to date with legislation across all 50 states that may affect their business. Co-Founder and CEO Tim Hwang told Ha that many businesses are affected by these changes in legislation and for a business to keep up with them they would need a large staff hitting refresh on all 50 states websites continuously. Beyond that they would need to decode that legislation and see how it really affected their business. FiscalNote’s algorithm does all of that for them.

For more on Mark Cuban and his startup investments check this out.

Kansas City Startup Trellie Makes A Splash At NY’s Fashion Week

Trellie, KC startup, wearable technology, New York Fashion Week

The Trellie device (pictured here) was featured at New York Fashion Week. (photo: trellie.com)

It’s Fashion Week in New York, and while New Yorkh is growing as a hub of technology, it’s all about fashion throughout Manhattan and the surrounding areas. Tens of thousands of designers (the fashion type), stylists, and others in the fashion industry make a pilgrimage to New York to show off the latest trends for the spring season.

One of the companies making the trek out to New York this year was Kansas City startup Trellie. This tech startup makes a fashion accessory that attaches to a woman’s purse and lights up to alert the owner when a call is coming in or they’ve missed a call. Because women keep their phones in their purses, they can miss calls because they can’t hear the phone ring or feel it vibrate. This device gives them a subtle way to know when there is a call coming.

The Kansas City Business Journal reports that a New York Daily News writer called the startup “wearable productivity meets fashion.”

Heidi Lehmann a Trellie advisor added, “Many retailers are creating floor space now for such products apparently. We were the only brand called out in such a manner during the panel discussion.”

It’s been a great month for Trellie, the startup closed a $900,000 seed round last month and with this showcasing at Fashion Week they were also featured in the nationally syndicated Parade Magazine.

State Of Virginia Backed CyberSecurity Accelerator, Mach37 Prepares For Launch

New accelerators can be exciting, especially those touching new verticals. Mach37 is a public partnership formed from an initiative to grow the State of Virginia’s cybersecurity industry. Between the federal government, military, and the CIA based all in the northern parts of the state, cybersecurity is a very important industry. The initiative, called Semper Secure, is backed by the state of Virginia in conjunction with Northrop Grunman, one of the biggest defense contractors in the world.

The program was modeled after traditional 90 day cohort accelerator models, except for the fact that it’s focusing just on cybersecurity. This siloed model has worked for other cities in other industries as well, like New York’s Digital Health Accelerator and Code for America’s civic accelerator.

While the region is ripe with longstanding security firms, Virginia is excited about the new wave of cybersecurity startups. According to civisourceonline.com there are a number of private sector firms as well as angel investors and VC’s interested in the highly lucrative space.

The first group of startups will be announced this week, and they will begin the first of two 90 day cohorts that Mach37 hopes to hold each year. While the accelerator follows the cohort model, they wanted it to be different thsn other startups that call themselves “boot camp.”

” We’ve studied other accelerator programs, and we didn’t want it to be a boot camp, each entrepreneur is going to come away with a very different experience from others in the program,” Rick Gordon the Managing Director at Mach37 told CiviSource.

1776 Names First Members Of Global Startup Federation

1776 DC, Global startup federation, Washington DC startups, Co-working

Donna Harris, co-founder of 1776dc chatting with an entrepreneur (photo: NMI 2013)

1776 has been extremely busy. Just Monday we reported that the Washington, DC incubator, coworking space, and starutp hub had partnered with General Assembly to bring their programming to the Nation’s Capital. 1776 has big plans to help startups and entrepreneurs everywhere, and they continue to rollout new initiatives.

One such initiative is the Global Startup Federation, a group of like-minded facilities across the globe that would extend membership benefits to each other’s members. Now if a 1776 member startup is in a city with a federation member, they can go use that space to work without paying additional fees.

On Friday 1776 announced the first members of the federation.

New York’s General Assembly
London’s Warner Yard
Berlin’s Beathaus
Moscow’s Digital October
Chicago’s 1871
Austin’s Capital Factory

They plan on bringing more and more similar spaces into the federation over the next year.

“In major metropolitan areas around the world, there are world-class programs serving as the center of gravity – all with a massive convening space for entrepreneurs and startups, educational programs, mentoring, and incubation/acceleration programs,” 1776 co-founder Donna Harris said in a statement. “In coming together, we can give startups the ability to tap a truly global startup ecosystem in ways that were never before possible.”

You can find out more about 1776 here.

Y-Combinator Is NOT The Guarantee Some Think, Two 2011 Startups Close Up Shop

It’s no secret that startups fail, and they fail in large numbers. It may seem like startups “everywhere else” have the deck stacked against them from the beginning, because they do. Access to capital, mentors, and talent are three of the biggest road blocks to startups outside the major tech hubs. That’s one of the big things that will be discussed at Everywhere Else Cincinnati.

There are startup accelerators everywhere. Some of them are naturally better than others. Some accelerators focus on a theme, like the Brandery on branding and ZeroTo510 which is solely for medical device startups. Others, like Techstars and Y-Combinator have huge brand equity.

Even after a demo day at an accelerator, many startups have trouble locking up follow-on funding. Some are able to raise a decent seed or Series A round and then run out of steam. While we hear these stories all the time from everywhere, there are still some founders and entrepreneurs who believe Y-Combinator, 500 Startups, and Techstars companies don’t shut down. It seems we believe there is some kind of fairy dust sprinkled on the co-founders, while others feel that Valley based accelerators have to be great because they’re in the Valley.

Y-Combinator is often thought of as the creme de la creme when it comes to startup accelerators. It’s the first application startups from everywhere fill out in hopes they’ll get into Paul Graham’s highly esteemed program and then be on “autopilot.”

Well we’ve learned this week that this couldn’t be further from the truth. Sure there are a ton of startups that went through Y-combinator and failed, but we rarely hear those stories. This week we’ve heard two.

On Monday PandoDaily’s Carmel Deamicis pointed out that Spring 2011 YC graduate Leaky has shut it’s doors. The company offered a price comparison web platform for finding the best insurance quote. Call it Kayak for car insurance if you wish. It seemed like a good idea.

That was until the founders decided that rather than building lasting partnerships with auto-insurance companies, they wanted to take the disruptive way. Co-founder Jason Traff and his team weren’t patient enough to build those vital partnerships. Instead, according to PandoDaily and Greg Isaacs the President of competing startup CoverHound, the team at Leaky actually scrubbed the insurance carriers’ websites without their permission and then published the information.

Without the blessings of the insurance companies, the startup was doomed. This is despite raising over $600,000 in a seed round from YC, 500 Startups, and Box Group. As soon as they started publishing rate information without permission they were served with cease & desist notifications.

The Leaky team came up with a way to circumvent the insurance companies based on the fact that insurance companies had to publicly report how they came up with their data and pricing. Leaky built its models around that information, but that too failed.

On Sunday, TechCrunch’s Colleen Taylor reported on the untimely demise of Tutorspree, a Winter 2011 graduate from Y-Combinator. That startup was often dubbed the “Airbnb of tutoring”

After graduating from Y-Combinator TutorSpree went on to raise $1.8 million dollars from investors including Sequoia Capital. They also bulked up their staff to ten to help develop the product that matched students with high quality local tutors.

TutorSpree didn’t go into specifics as to why they shut down. The company’s three co-founders Ryan Bednar, Aaron Harris, and Josh Abrams said:

Ultimately, we learned about the challenges of willing a company into existence, of building an incredible and unique team to tackle constantly shifting challenges. And finally, we learned about how to make the toughest decision of all – to shut Tutorspree down, not because it was not a business, but because we could not make it the company we wanted.

In an email to TechCrunch, Tutorspree CEO Harris added, “We built something we were incredibly proud of, but got to the point where we realized it would not scale in a way that would meet our goals. It was a tough decision emotionally, but it was the right move from the rational perspective.”

We talk startup failure with Lucas Rayala the founder of Altsie, a startup that failed last year. As they failed Rayala chronicled the experience on TechCrunch. See Rayala speak at Everywhere Else Cincinnati.