Nominate Your Favorite Female Speaker for Everywhere Else Cincinnati

Everywhere Else Cincinnati is fast approaching, and the Nibletz team is working like crazy to make it the best event everywhere else. We’ve already announced tons of speakers, and we have even more waiting for unveiling.

But, we want YOU to be involved, too! We need to know who you want to hear speak at Everywhere Else Cincinnati. Fill out our quick survey, and we’ll send personal invitations to the fan favorites.

Here at Nibletz, we love to celebrate women starting up. We have our Bad-Ass Startup Chick series that highlights awesome women starting awesome companies. At our Memphis event, the Kick Ass Female Founders panel was one of the most popular. In fact, women swept the pitch contests at the Everywhere Else Memphis conference.

Female founders face unique challenges, and the best ones do it with so much grace, you’d never know starting up was hard. They have amazing stories that entrepreneurs–male and female–can learn from. And we want to make sure our Everywhere Else Cincinnati attendees are getting the best in-the-trenches stories possible.

That’s why your input is so important to us. The survey is super-quick (2 questions!), and you can make sure the best women get a prime spot in our lineup.

So, let us know: which women should we invite to Everywhere Else Cincinnati?

By the way, after you nominate your favorite women speakers, make sure to get your early bird ticket. We’re selling out fast!

Event management for Everywhere Else Cincinnati – “Start Where U Are” powered by Eventbrite

6 Reasons to Keep Accelerators Everywhere Else

There’s an accelerator bubble.

Accelerators, except for Ycombinator/TechStars, are irrelevant.

We should get rid of the Demo Day.

If you’ve been in the startup space for more than a minute, you’ve probably heard someone say something like this. Founders and startup advocates have naturally critical minds; it’s why we can solve complex problems in innovative ways. But, that also means we spend a lot of time second guessing and rethinking every single thing we do.

I’ve had my own doubts about the accelerator model, and they mimic most of the concerns people bring up. There are so many (2000 around the world). What company can really be built in 3 months? It seems that the only real success comes from the big names, so why bother with smaller, local accelerators?

But, this week I was convinced that accelerators everywhere else can be just as beneficial to companies as the more publicized YCombinator and TechStars. Yesterday I attended the Investor Day for Jumpstart Foundry, in Nashville, TN and was duly impressed with what I saw. Of course, they had the bells and whistles–cool venue, great food, open bar. But more impressive were the companies that presented.

Every company had made significant strides in the 3 month program. Most could give detailed explanations of revenue. Quite a few already had traction and are well on the way to making real money already.

Vic Gatto, founder of Jumpstart Foundry and partner at Solidus Company, is well aware of the negative perception accelerators carry.

“We’re definitely a young industry going through definitional challenges,” he told me. He talked about meetings with other accelerators around the world. The leaders of these accelerators are talking about what defines success. Is it funding? Exits? Revenue? Level of mentor networks?

By most metrics, Jumpstart Foundry is finding success. 65% of its graduates are still in business, either bootstrapping or with funding. They have over 100 mentors, and that network grows each year. Gatto insists, though, that another real metric of success will be future exits, and most of the industry is still too young to really see that achieved yet.

One mentor told me that this year’s cohort may be the best she’s seen. “And they didn’t start off particularly special,” she said. “I think that really speaks to how the program itself is growing.”

And, as far as getting rid of Investor Day, Gatto won’t be doing that any time soon.

“That pressure is important,” he said. It’s the deciding factor sometimes when a new founder is tired and wants to call it a night. With Investor Day looming, it’s easier to focus and do the hard work of a young company.

Make sure to check out Jumpstart Foundry’s latest cohort because there are definitely some companies to watch. We’ll cover some of them here on Nibletz in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, here are a few reasons we shouldn’t give up on the accelerators everywhere else just yet:

In the life of a young company, it can be easy to let an idea go when it gets hard. Surrounding yourself with mentors and good advice in an accelerator can help you push through those first stage challenges.
The pressure of Investor Day can give you more traction than you thought possible in 3 months.
Accelerators everywhere else understand companies everywhere else. We’ve talked before about how companies outside of Silicon Valley are innovating in industries besides the Internet and apps. Local accelerators inherently “get” that more easily than accelerators that are used to churning out consumer-facing apps.
A good accelerator can be a rallying point for a whole ecosystem. Yesterday in Nashville, it was a packed house. Not just investors, but anyone interested in the startup scene showed up to support the cohort.
Even if your first company doesn’t succeed, the 3 month MBA you get by doing the hands on work of an accelerator will be invaluable to the next companies you build.
Accelerators may not be perfect, but what is?Anything that spurs innovation is good for the local community as well as for global issues that need creative problem solvers.

TeacherGraph Streamlines Parent/Teacher Communication

Memphis kids have already been back in school for a week and a half now. Kids across the country will return to school in the next month, and parents know that means tons of paperwork.

I homeschool my 3 boys now, but I remember the mountains of paperwork my oldest brought home last year. Often 5 or more sheets a day including notices, announcements, and progress reports. And that was just one kid!

Our dining room table was buried under mountains of papers I didn’t really need, and the recycling bin needed constant emptying. And, honestly, I so rarely paid real attention to them that I often had to email the teacher or room mom to double check dates and times. (I’m sure they loved that.) I remember thinking that in our modern world, it was ridiculous there were still so many papers coming home.

I think the guys at TeacherGraph read my mind.

The Austin startup, founded by former Facebooker Joseph Van and Tony Le, officially launches in 3 days, on August 17th. The system allows schools or teachers to enter information once and be delivered to parents in the digital format they prefer. The platform will also enable schools to analyze data, such as the correlation between communication activity and academic performance.

Edtech startups are a mixed bag. Across the country people are thinking a lot about how to improve our schools, and that means smart people like Van and Le are thinking up solutions to every problem imaginable. And, as my story above indicates, school communication is definitely a problem.

The challenge for TeacherGraph will be adoption. Schools are notoriously bureaucratic, and it can be extremely hard to get in with a system. Van and Le probably figured that out, as they used UT Elementary Charter School for their beta testing. Charter schools are an easier market for tech startups because they can make decisions without consulting a larger school system. It was also a smart move because charter school parents are often more engaged than typical elementary parents.

The other challenge for TeacherGraph (and most other edtech startups) is competition. The field–only recently opened–is now full of companies trying to beat each other to the punch. Companies like EduBuzzer and Remind101 also have their own takes on parent teacher communications, and all 3 companies are competing against entrenched–if outdated–systems that are hard to route out.

Still, TeacherGraph is addressing a problem so obvious we often forget it’s there. I like the idea of information being delivered in the format parents prefer, but without extra work for the school. They’ve made great progress with their beta, and the addition of data analysis could be interesting for teachers and schools trying to do the best for the children.

To learn more about TeacherGraph, check out their website or follow them on Twitter.

Indiana VC Kelly Schwedland Has Advice for Startups Everywhere Else

Kelly Schwedland is no stranger to entrepreneurship. After a few startup successes, he moved to Chicago to attend the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. During his 5 years in the city, he spent a lot of time in and around the infant Chicago startup scene.

Now back in Indiana, Schwedland is using all those years of experience to help local entrepreneurs on the road to success. As an Entreprenuer-in-Residence at Elevate Ventures, he spends most of his days traveling northern Indiana, coaching dozens of teams at various stages in the startup process.

In a traditional venture capital arrangement, the VC provides money, occasional connections, and often a vote on the board. They have little to do with the actual development of a company.

With the help of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, Elevate Ventures does things a little differently.

“We try and surround the entrepreneur through the entire process,” Schwedland explains.

One way this happens is through varying levels of funding. There are grant opportunities for entrepreneurs looking to develop a product. Angel funds are available for companies with a little bit of early traction, and there is also a diversity fund for women, minorities, and veterans.

Elevate works with a broad range of companies, but they all have 2 things in common:

They are Indiana-based. The core mandate of the organization is to build Indiana companies.
They are innovation-driven, usually with a national or global scale.

Once a company wins investment from Elevate, the entrepreneurs-in-residence like Schwedland step in. He helps companies start where they are, both geographically and in the life of their company. From there, he coaches them on how to maximize funds to gain traction and how to pivot into the right business models.

So, what advice would Schwedland give to entrepreneurs everywhere else looking to catch the eye of a VC?

“Traction! It’s hard not to underscore this enough. Unless you have been successful several times in the past, VC’s still look at traction with customers as the primary proof that what you say is true. And, really, they are looking for traction on your business model, proof that a dollar of marketing gets 2+ dollars of profit.”

He acknowledges there are different kinds of traction. 10,000 email addresses of people waiting for your launch is a good starting point. Actual paying clients is even better.

“In the end it all comes down to customer validation,” he says. “And the best validation is when customers give you dollars in exchange for your products.”

In his “spare time” Schwedland is also developing his own resources that give advice based on his own experiences. He likens them to the Silicon Valley pitchbooks, collections of VC advice passed from company to company.

Schwedland’s version will be developed in several different formats. One is a slide deck on SaaS companies and the freemium model. Pulling from research he did in Chicago, the deck breaks down the whys and hows of a successful freemium model.

Another resource will discuss crowdfunding, a popular way to gain both money and traction without a lot of capital. There are plenty of successful and unsuccessful crowdfunding campaigns, and Schwedland will use them to point out a few best practices. One successful campaign he will pull from is that of JustFoods. This Indiana company is developing real food meals for people that must eat from a tube. Their Indiegogo campaign provided just the traction and money they needed to move from idea to product development.

It’s common “knowledge” that funding is one of the biggest challenges for startups everywhere else. We tend to believe that all the money lives on the two coasts.

But Kelly Schwedland and Elevate Ventures are disproving that belief. Not only is there money available for promising companies, VC firms everywhere else are innovating their own industry. Because of them entrepreneurs are better served and more able to succeed.

To learn more about Kelly Schwedland and Elevate Ventures, check out their website.

disclosure: Elevate Ventures is one of our Indiana content sponsors.

PlanG Is All Things Giving–Right In One Place

My favorite thing about working in startups?

Companies like PlanG. We are inundated with apps, social networks, and games that seem to make little real difference in the world. It’s often hard to identify the real problem companies are solving, even if those companies are creating something fun.

PlanG isn’t like that. Instead, PlanG is taking philanthropic giving and making it easier and more efficient. Individuals simply create a “giving” account and deposit funds into it from their credit or debit cards. They can also create fundraising campaigns to get their friends involved, or give and receive PlanG gift cards. Then, each person can pick from over 1 million charities to give to, as many charities as they want. The PlanG account gives the money securely, and at tax time, there’s a tax report all ready to go.

Personally, I love this idea alone. It makes it easier to manage the money you give to causes you love, and increases your awareness of what you’re giving. I’m sold on just those features.

But, the best thing about PlanG is the platform they’ve created for brands.

We all know how giving-through-shopping works: brands pick a cause and customers know when they purchase something, a percentage goes to the advertised cause. Think Gap’s (red) campaign.

This tactic is called cause marketing, and it allows brands to promote brand loyalty through the emotional connection people have with giving to others. By some measures, 80% of customers are willing to switch if a brand is associated with a good cause.

How much more powerful would that be if the individual shopper could pick the cause themselves?

PlanG’s “Spend and Give” platform allows brands to offer just that kind of customization. When you shop at businesses with the free platform, a percentage of your purchase is deposited into your PlanG account. Then you can give to whichever cause you see fit.

With their suite of business products, PlanG helps brands build customer loyalty, but it also makes giving more frictionless for individuals. Sometimes the big name organizations a brand might partner with are actually pretty controversial. Customers may not want their money going to that particular cause. Allowing individuals to channel their money to causes they love will also increase their loyalty to the brand.

Win-win-win

The Richmond-based company has had a busy 16 months.Founded in 2010 by Marti Beller, Heather Loftus, and Melina Davis-Martin, they closed a $4 million angel round in February 2012. They used that money to build their beta site and various features of the product. The site launched out of beta in February 2013, and now they are focusing on new strategic partnerships with businesses that may want to utilize PlanG’s giving platform.

Check out the PlanG website for more information and keep up with them on Twitter. This female-led startup is doing great things.

This 14 year old social entrepreneur in Chattanooga has been at it for 4 years already.

Jordanian Woman Builds Top-Notch Foodie Site

Nadia Shomali started her company for the same reasons a lot of entrepreneurs do. She had a problem and built her own solution. She originally intended to only use the site herself and share it with her friends. She had no idea how many other people needed a food collection site! As the popularity grew among her friends and acquaintances, Shomali realized she may have a business on her hands.

Foodlve.com is a fully integrated site for foodies. Shomali describes it as merging all the most important features:

Google for food
Pinterest for food
Tumblr for food
Store for food…
All in one account.

On the Oasis500 website, the company says they “provide the opportunity to learn, add, and promote everything about food in a fun and interactive environment. Our users have access to informative articles, interesting recipes, engaging videos, and so much more.”

Shomali at Oasis500 training

Drawing on 12 years of experience in web design, development, and marketing, Shomali built the original version herself. Now, she leads at team of 9 as they continue to improve and market the site.

Although Shomali started foodlve.com on her own, she credits Amman-based incubator Oasis500 with much of her team’s success.

“Through Oasis500 we could get the angel investments, the support, and the weekly mentorship meetings that helped to create a very strong business model,” she says.

Oasis500 is the first early stage/seed investment company in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region. They hold boot camps around the region and invite the most promising companies to incubate at their Amman headquarters. The invitation includes capital, access to other angels, and mentoring. The company big vision is to launch 500 startups in the MENA region in the next 5 years.

Foodlve.com is one of those companies. Four months into their incubation, they’ve brought on additional investment from Leap Ventures. Shomali was also very proud to share that in those 4 months, they’ve also reached 4 million page views a month.

We talk about female entrepreneurs a lot at Nibletz. I was curious to know if starting up as a woman in a predominantly Muslim country was any different than a woman starting up in the US.

When I asked, though, Shomali–who is a Christian–had answers very similar to the women I’ve talked to stateside: It’s challenging to start up as a mother (she has twin 3-year-old girls), but her husband and family are very supportive. That answer could have been taken from one of my own on the subject!

Shomali and her team aren’t slowing down, though. With the growing popularity of their current site, they are looking to launch a new one called karazak.com. The version of foodlve.com will focus on the Middle East only, and Shomali describes it as an Arabic Pinterest.

There is a growing wave of entrepreneurship in the MENA region. With woman like Nadia Shomali and the foodlve.com team, the future is looking bright.

Check out foodlve.com and, if you speak Arabic, the new karazak.com, which is coming soon.

JumpStart Inc Announces Its Next Partnership, Heads to the Mid-South

JumpStart Inc. has an impressive record. Founded in 2004, they have grown an ecosystem in northeastern Ohio basically from scratch. The numbers look something like this:

$29 million in funding to pre-seed stage companies
1000s of hours of human capital to more than 400 companies
3,000 new jobs

In 2010 JumpStart received funding from outside sources to take the lessons learned in Ohio to other parts of the country. Since then they have partnered with 15 other regions to grow local startup ecosystems and create jobs. JumpStart’s approach involves working with local leaders to identify a region’s strengths and build from there.

They have a presence in regions like upstate New York, Baton Rouge, Detroit, and central Georgia.

And, now they’re coming to Memphis.

“After two years of discussions, we’re excited to kick off this collaboration with JumpStart,” co-president of Start Co Andre Fowlkes said in a press release. “Working with JumpStart further supports our mission of relentlessly building companies and founders for the advancement of Memphis’ entrepreneurial ecosystem.”

We write a lot about Memphis here at Nibletz. Part of that is because we’re based here, but it’s also because we believe in the possibilities in this city. Currently the city has a 9.5% unemployment rate, the highest of all metro areas of more than 1 million people. That number is pretty bleak, but entrepreneurs like ones that Start Co helps launch are a bright spot in the city.

Memphis also has a history of racial tension, which probably comes as no surprise. Yet the Fowlkes and co-president Eric Mathews know that to really pull Memphis employment up, everyone needs to engage. With their history in Cleveland, the folks at JumpStart have experience in reaching out to diverse groups of people and encouraging entrepreneurialism.

“2/3 to 3/4 of our talent isn’t even in the game,” said Mike Mozenter, President of JumpStart’s regional consulting arm, at a press luncheon yesterday. “How can that be good for any of us?”

So, how do JumpStart and Start Co plan to grow jobs in Memphis?

Like any good startup, they are still in the customer discovery phase of the project. Over the next few months, they will be talking to local leaders, universities, and entrepreneurs to begin to figure out what Memphis needs. At the end of the discovery phase, they hope to have a 5-year plan that will accelerate Memphis’ growth as a leading startup ecosystem.

The Accelerate Memphis Project hopes to secure at least $50 million in investment capital and another $15 million for technical assistance, support, and pre-seed investment money in the next 5 years.

Memphis and JumpStart are a natural partnership, and both expect great things for Memphis in the coming years.

Mozenter said in a statement: “We chose to work with Start Co because of their track record in supporting high growth technology startups in the Memphis market. Our organizations have complementary missions, and I have been impressed with the resources and support that Start Co offers startups.”

Check out the JumpStart Inc and Start Co websites to learn more about those organizations.

6 TED Talks for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

I love TED. I love the complete randomness of videos you’ll find there. There are discussions on every topic under the sun: business, technology, art, and the magnificence of spider silk. I also love that each talk is 20 minutes long, max. Some of my personal favorites are even shorter.

I haven’t made it to the actual conference yet, but the website is a great place to go when you need a little extra inspiration. Below are some great TED talks for aspiring entrepreneurs. They’re in no particular order, but our list spans inspiration from Steve Jobs to tech tips from David Pogue.

I know my list isn’t by any means exhaustive. Check out the links and send me a tweet. What did I miss?

Simon Sinek–How Great Leaders Inspire Action. Sinek discusses his theory about the “golden circle.” Great leaders ask “why” before they ask “what” or “how.” He uses examples like Apple, Martin Luther King, Jr, and the Wright brothers. Any entrepreneur should start with the “why.” Why do you get up in the morning? Why are building your business?
Richard St. John–8 Secrets to Success. This is a short one, only 3 minutes long. St. John whittles down a 2 hour talk to explain the simple steps to success.
Steve Jobs–How To Live Before You Die. Jobs’ Stanford commencement speech is famous. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a must.
Elizabeth Gilbert–Your Elusive Creative Genius. We want to believe that geniuses are rare, but Gilbert asserts that we all have our own genius. She describes the moment of inspiration and the paranormal feeling when we brush up against brilliance.
David Pogue–10 Top Time-Saving Tech Tips. Tech entrepreneur? See if you know all these little tricks. Pogue is particularly passionate about stupid voicemail instructions. The NYT tech columnist is pretty funny, and this is another short one.
Luis von Ahn–Massive-Scale Online Collaboration. One of the inventors of CAPTCHA realized we can harness time in 10 second increments to digitize books. If we can digitize books like this, what else can we do with mass human capital in small time increments?

Is Downtime The Key to Success?

I think downtime gets a bad rap. In our startup culture, it’s all about hustle, late nights, and crazy schedules. We brag about how much we work, and we really don’t want people to think we aren’t passionate about our businesses.

I believe in passion and work and doing what you love. Hence, I left a crappy job to homeschool my kids. I landed a job I love at Nibletz, and my kids are being raised in a family culture that encourages finding your passion and working hard at it.

But there’s nuance when we talk about “hustle” and “passion”: a silent assumption that if you don’t want to work all the time, you aren’t really passionate. If you aren’t passionate, you won’t be a success. And, in the startup world, your “lack of passion” will keep you from succeeding, so there’s no point in anyone investing in you.

Yet, there are studies that show that time off is critical to job satisfaction. In 2009 two Harvard researchers studied the effects of enforced time off for a local consulting group. They found that, while initially resistant, consultants at the company ultimately became better at their jobs when they were forced to take time off throughout the week. It turns out that hunkering down isn’t always the best choice.

In an episode of On Being, Krista Tippett interviews neuropsychologist Rex Jung about creativity and the everyday brain. After studying both intelligence and creativity, he says that the two are very different and use different parts of the brain. Intelligence occurs when the back and front part of the brain work well together, firing information efficiently. Dr. Jung compares this to a superhighway. Creativity, however, is more like back roads, a meandering path that may seem inefficient but produces something new and useful. There’s even a name for this: transient hypofrontality.

Both are useful, but how do we increase the creativity part–the part that keeps us good at problem solving? Rex Jung says the answer is downtime.

If you’re constantly in knowledge acquisition mode, there’s not that quiet time to put it together.

The “putting it together” is critical. Your passion means nothing if you don’t have the downtime you need to really consider your path. Working just for work’s sake is stupid. What if the work you’re doing is heading in the wrong direction, or you miss a big piece of the puzzle because you don’t take time to look around? In that case, all the going going going is a detriment, not a help.

Instead, we should reconsider what we call “work.” Accomplishing tasks and crossing off to-dos are important. But so is a leisurely walk without a phone or iPod. Studying cloud shapes or reading a book solely for enjoyment are good for recharging, but it turns out they may also be imperative for your work itself. The connections your brain makes when you aren’t focus could be the ones that lead to breakthrough success.

Crowdentials Makes It Easier to Crowdfund Investors

There’s been a lot of chatter about the April 5 signing of the JOBS Act. Most people in the startup community are especially excited about the possibility of offering equity via crowdfunding platforms.

What many have missed in all the exultation is that, while it’s easier to offer equity, the standards for investors have risen. It’s now more difficult and invasive to prove you’re an accredited investor, but companies have to take “reasonable steps” to ensure their investors are accredited. This means more intrusive questions that few investors are willing to answer.

As Richard Rodman, CEO of Crowdentials, puts it: “There are two sides to this ruling. On one side, the bar for advertising has been lowered. On the flip side, the bar for verifying accredited investors has been raised dramatically.“

Crowdentials is on top of the new problem. This week they launched the Certified Accredited Investors (CAI) program. The program will use a simple form and third parties to verify that an investor is accredited. After that, they will certify that the investor is accredited. No need for every crowdfunding platform to have access to your bank statements or tax records. The program is secured by multiple passwords, randomly generated IDs, and pages that expire within a certain amount of time.

“Transparency with privacy” is the goal of the new program.

Crowdfunding platforms that expect a big need can license the technology based on monthly requests. Individual companies can use the service just once or twice for a smaller fee.

Crowdentials is accelerating at the new FlashStarts accelerator in Cleveland. Investors, crowdfunding platforms, and statups can check out the new program on their website. Below is an infographic explaining how it all works.

Where to Find a Startup Job (Infographic)

If you read Nibletz, you’re probably interested in startup culture. You are learning about VC’s, lean methodology, exits, and IPOs. You may even have a niggling idea for a great company.

But, what if you aren’t quite ready to dive in to founding yet? This happened to me a little less than a year ago, and it’s how I met the Nibletz team. I had an idea, met with a local startup leader, started doing customer discovery and…it went flat. In my case, the idea wasn’t feasible in our area, and I wasn’t really the right person for it anyway. With 3 young kids, I didn’t feel comfortable going all in with this idea, and founders are nothing if not “all in.”

I was hooked on startups, though. I didn’t think too much about being hired by one, but when Nibletz needed an editor, I knew I would do whatever it took to land the job. For now, working at a startup is just as good as founding one. Besides contributing to a greater vision I believe in, I’m learning more every day about what it takes to start a company. I also have the freedom, for now, to play with my own ideas and research potential problems to solve.

Maybe you’re in the same boat. Love startups, but aren’t in a position to found one yourself yet. Landing a job with a startup could be a great way to prepare yourself for your future world-changing idea. The infographic below shows some great places and industries to consider when looking for that perfect startup job.

My advice, though: don’t sweat it too much if you aren’t in the “right place.” Keep your eyes and ears open, and the right job will present itself.

DC Company Social Tables Announces $1.6 Million Round

Any event planner knows how difficult it is to juggle all the different tools they use to plan. Microsoft Office, iCalendar, Evernote, paper and pens. It can be a headache to pull of a great event.

Since September 2012 Social Tables has been helping solve the many organizational challenges of event planning. They also provide tools specifically for the hospitality industry and catered events. They are making event planning easy and fun.

And, they are announcing a new round of capital with which to do it.

Yesterday, Social Tables announced a $1.6 million round led by Militello Capital. Most of the new money came from previous investors like 500 Startups and Fortify Ventures, as well as previous angel investors. New investors include Goldin Ventures, Middeland Ventures, K Street Capital, customer-turned-angel (always a good sign) Philip Dufour, and Sameer Gulati.

Jonathon Perelli of Fortify Ventures talked to Nibletz about his firm’s participation in the round: “It was a quick decision for Fortify and other existing investors to increase our investment in Social Tables in this current round. Dan Berger is a unique blend of hacker, hustler, and designer, he is a visionary CEO and he leads, hires, and manages well. Socia lTables is a clear leader in the event planning software arena and we at Fortify are strong believers in the company’s future.

Perelli will be on hand for the upcoming Everywhere Else Cincinnati conference in September.

In the last year, Social Tables has shown plenty of reasons for investors to be confident. Each month they average about 65% growth in booked revenue. Their hotel clients include franchises of Renaissance, Crown Plaza, Sheraton, and Hilton. Nonprofits, corporations, and academic institutions have all used the tools to plan events.

“Over the last year we’ve been able to prove our business model and the company’s true potential. We’ve decided to take advantage of the market opportunity by bringing in new capital so that we could scale the business even faster,” said Dan Berger, the company’s founder and CEO in a statement.

The new money will be used to expand staff and explore other markets and verticals.

We often hear that it’s too hard to get funding if you start a company outside Silicon Valley. But, Social Tables is proof that the right companies everywhere else can be just as successful at raising money as companies in the Valley.

At the Soutland Conference last month, Paul Santinelli gave startups everywhere else some advice:

Stay put.

Find great talent.

Tackle a big problem.

The money will follow.

With stories like the one from Social Tables this week, the everywhere else ecosystem has reason to believe that’s true.

Austin Startup BigCommerce Books $40M Series “C” As In Case, Steve Case

A few years ago, people were concerned about the likes of Walmart and Barnes and Noble coming into a town and closing down small businesses.

Then, Amazon came along, and we were suddenly worried about the local Barnes and Noble going under.

Amazon is obviously a giant, selling everything from clothes to books to niche home accessories. They operate on razor thin margins and are constantly expanding and revamping. Now, in our home at least, it’s common to hear, “I’m checking out on Amazon. Need anything?”

Amazon could easily take over the world.

Except, people still love their small, local businesses, too. While Amazon is growing in popularity, so is the local movement, and plenty of people would prefer to shop 100% local. They like supporting small operations. If only shopping at small businesses was as easy as shopping on Amazon…

Thanks to Bigcommerce, for a lot of businesses it is.

Based in Austin and Sydney, Bigcommerce has been battling the curse of Amazon since 2009. Small businesses–both brick and mortar and fully virtual–can use the service to set up an online store, and Bigcommerce’s tools will make it as fluid and easy for customers as Amazon. They also have a variety of features that help a small business rank high in search, build apps, and analyze data.

Most small businesses may know very little about running an online business. Bigcommerce helps them out with the Success Squad, a group of employees who train business owners in using the platform. And, their prices cater to the small business crowd with packages starting at $25/month.

On Friday, Bigcommerce announced a series C round: $40 million exclusively from Steve Case’s Revolution Growth VC firm. Case will join the company’s board.

Before this round, the company had already raised $35 million. They weren’t hurting for money, but they have big plans for the extra funds.

“The new funding will help us build out our platform even more quickly, with a focus on empowering mobile commerce, creating a more robust app ecosystem, better serving our clients, and going global,” Bigcommerce said on their blog.

With the explosion of mobile in the US market, the ability to sell through a smartphone is critical. Bigcommerce will soon offer the service to their customers, making them even more competitive with Amazon.

Bigcommerce’s goal is to democratize e-commerce, to make it as easy for the little guy to succeed as the Amazons of the world. With their new investment, the future is looking sunny.

Pearson Supports Startup Land, Partners With DC’s 1776

It is no secret that education in this country is in a state of flux. Scores are low, dropout rates are high, and standards are constantly being changed. There’s constant discussion about what education should even mean in this century. More and more people are homeschooling, not out of religious belief but simply to bring sanity to their children’s education.

Pearson is a big name in education. They produce many of the textbooks and mulitmedia materials used in our schools. The company has been publishing educational materials for more than 100 years. 100+ year old companies aren’t typically the first ones to jump on the startup bandwagon, but Pearson is leading the way.

Yesterday, they announced a partnership with DC incubator 1776. Through the partnership, Pearson will support and collaborate with edtech startups associated with 1776.

In a statement, 1776’s Evan Burfield said:

America’s education system is at a crossroads and a forward-thinking approach is needed to solve many challenges. Pearson is using technology to invent new ways of learning; and by working with organizations like 1776 and our startups, Pearson’s experts not only provide insights around data and technical integration strategies, they can advise startups on effectively penetrating and scaling in the education market.

Edtech is a rocky field, at best. With perhaps thousands of individual school systems across the country, mass adoption can be difficult. Each system has its own way of deciding which tools to use, teachers are often worn out with all the new systems to learn, and there’s always something new to consider. The one thing every edtech startup can guarantee: schools have no money.

Bureaucracy within the school systems rivals only the bureaucracy found in Washington, DC. That makes 1776, located in the heart of the capital, the perfect place to incubate. The folks in and around the campus know about bureaucracy, and they specialize in startups that may have institutional difficulties: energy, healthcare, government, and education.

This isn’t Pearson’s first dip in the startup pool, though. They’ve already partnered with 1776 to identify good candidates for their own accelerator, Pearson Catalyst. With their experience in education and 1776’s experience in startups, there’s a good chance we could see some great things happen in edtech.

1776 hosted the National Accelerator Demo Day earlier this month.