Permission Not Required for Assemble Detroit, Michigan’s Own SXSW Event

Assemble Michigan, Michigan startup, Michigan startup event, eventKevin Krease and Garrett Koehler recently lost the ESPN X Games bid for Detroit, but turned this failure into Michigan’s own and very first SXSW-like event. The event called Assemble will be hosted in Detroit during the Summer of 2014, and will combine tech, music, art and extreme sports.

The duo who attracted national media attention for the ESPN bid shared with us at last night’s Fifty Founders event how they got started and what they aim to do with Assemble Detroit. It was a great turnout at Bamboo Detroit where the community gathered to network and hear this young startup speak.

When Kevin Krease and Garret Koehler started the X Games bid in Detroit, it was because they wanted to make a positive impact in the city that had always fascinated them. Krease worked in publishing and Kohler had experience teaching art, traveling through Palestine, and eventually working at Groupon in Chicago. Koehler left to join Krease in Detroit this past year.

During the bid, their team raised national awareness, launched a viral video, and created a social media movement around the event. Along the way they setup strategic partnerships. The loss of the bid helped them garner enough support for Assemble Detroit.

Here’s what the duo says they learned along the way:

No Permission Required. This is the internal motto for the Assemble Detroit team. Why? Because they learned that to make something like a large scale event happen you need to take your own initiative. The duo said the resources are always there, and that there are plenty of startup resources in Detroit. You just need the idea to get started and inspire others to believe. For events, they said it’s about the idea and the brand. Then, you hire local talent to help make it happen.

Build relationships and trust. To get excitement for the ESPN bid going the team had to create a video. They had little budget to work with, and partnered with another startup to create their video that eventually went viral. The startup trusted them and covered the costs until the group received funding. What did they learn? It’s about building relationships and trust with others to get an idea off the ground. The video was a huge success in building momentum for the team. They were able to pay the other business back when funding came in.

Always add value. The team used this piece of advice to help maneuver how they would build up momentum for their extreme sports event. Every time they went to make a decision that may have seemed like a leap, they asked themselves if it added value to their goal. If the answer was yes, they found a way to make it happen.

It’s about perception, not risk. The duo said that they did hear some negative feedback on their journey. Others called hosting a large event with extreme sports in the city risky. They pointed out that risk is all about your perception on the place and the people. Risk to extreme sports is falling down during a dangerous jump. Risk in Detroit isn’t that risky as others might see it. The duo said:

“Detroit isn’t a liability. Its grit and resources are a bonus. Risky is believing that Detroit won’t turn around. It’s thinking you can move and make it in New York City.”

Failure can be fun. When the bid was lost, they realized how fun it could be to build their own large scale event that included sports. The idea for Assemble was to create a similar event to SXSW, but one that included extreme sports too. They’re aiming to bring 100,000 people to Detroit for the event next summer.

Remember the community. Both Krease and Koehler remarked that Detroit has a a strong sense of place. The name “Assemble” reminds us of coming together as an assembly line, to work, and to innovate in the city. It also brings together a larger community into the current narrative of a city that’s often described as rebuilding. They are aware of the sense of community, bringing up the X Games bid through grassroots marketing strategies. They expressed the importance for including the community, but also doing great work that isn’t tied to only Detroit.

Next Fifty Founders Event: The next Fifty Founder’s event which will feature Ryan Blair in September. Fifty Founder’s is a fireside chat series hosted in Detroit, bringing successful entrepreneurs in Michigan and around the country to Detroit. The series goes in-depth to share details about startup lessons learned. Sign up now here: https://ryanblair.eventbrite.com/

This event was sponsored by Start Garden and TechTown Detroit. Learn more about Fifty Founders and stay tuned for the next event.

 

From our content partner michipreneur.com! Written by: Amanda Lewan. Blogger. Marketer. Cupcake baker. I like helping startups with marketing. I also blog on digital storytelling Amandalewan.com. Follow Amanda at @Amanda_Jenn

Domino’s Realizes They Are Startup Fuel! Offering $500 Pizzavestments To Startups.

Domino's, Pizzavestment, Ann Arbor Michigan, Startup

Domino’s is embracing the fact that their pizza fuels thousands upon thousands of hours of time spent working on startups. Pizza and Red Bull power hundreds of hackathons. I’ve spent many a Startup Weekend eating pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Now the Ann Arbor-based pizza giant has embraced its relevance in the startup world with a brand new TV advertisement.

“Without pizza, school projects and music albums might go unfinished. Startups, unstarted. …No one’s coming up with a world-changing idea over halibut. No way. It has always been pizza,” the announcer says in the commercial.

“No one knows the power and possibility of a great idea more than Domino’s, having been the ones that truly revolutionized pizza delivery over fifty years ago,” said Russell Weiner, Domino’s Pizza chief marketing officer, in a statement. “Gatherings that create great ideas often include pizza — and we want to do what we can to fuel the next revolutionary concept that will also continue to be celebrated fifty years from now.”

This ad is part of a new campaign to show Domino’s support of startups. The company has also announced that they are giving 30 startups $500 pizzavestments, $500 gift cards for free pizza. These pizzavestment cards will be delivered in the above pictured pizza box shaped attache case. The company hasn’t announced how to get the pizza cards just yet.

They are also partnering with crowdfunding site, Indiegogo, to give people who support upstart projects free pizza as well, reports creativity-online.

Watch the new TV spot below and as soon as we find out how to enter to get that pizzavestment, we’ll pass it on!

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Saving Detroit: Grand Circus Is One Of Many Startups Hoping To Reinvigorate Detroit’s Economy

GrandCircus, DVP, Detroit startup,startups, startup interview

When we think of startups, tech, and entrepreneurs we don’t usually think of the industrial revolution, or the invention of things like the automobile. We don’t often equate names like Henry Ford, William C Durant, Charles Stewart Mott, or even Berry Gordy. Decades ago these were the innovators and entrepreneurs that bucked the system, created companies and created jobs. Henry Ford created Ford Motor Company, Durant and Mott were behind General Motors, and Gordy is the king of the R&B music we know today, the founder of MoTown.

All we think, when we hear Detroit today, is $10,000 mansions in foreclosure and a city government that’s filed for bankruptcy. Now it’s up to the next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators to refuel the city that was once a thriving mecca of modern day technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship.  Detroit startups are at the foreground now of breathing life back into one of America’s industrial beacons.

One of those startups is Grand Circus. While Grand Circus is a startup itself, they are on the ground floor of Detroit’s technological revolution. Grand Circus is 15,000 square feet of tech training space. But we’re not talking about traditional certificate-based classroom learning.

“…we dismiss that true skill comes with a certificate. We focus instead on outcomes that matter. With project based instruction our training delivers real world expertise. We call it training with a purpose. Our curriculum is based on the latest in technology, business, and design, and we have partnered with the best and brightest. Our instructors are real world practitioners who are at the top of their field and committed to the success of their students. [We’ll offer] More than 30 different classes this fall – including Build an iPhone App, The Design Process, and Digital Marketing,” Grand Circus’ Kelly LaPierre told Nibletz in an interview.

Michigan, and Detroit specifically, already have a handful of great startups, that if successful will continue to create jobs in the Motor City. But this time instead of motors they’re using keyboards, computers, laptops, the internet and iPhones. We’ve recently covered myfab5, a Detroit startup making restaurant reviews and decision making much easier. Two weeks ago we reported on UpTo, a Detroit shared calendar startup that raised a $2 million series A. DVP (Detroit Venture Partners) has also graced the pages of Nibletz quite a bit over the last year.  So there’s no doubt that people in Detroit are stepping up.

Grand Circus is making it even easier for people to step up by learning the skills that they really need to create the next wave of startup companies. They will also play an instrumental part in grooming the next generation of employees for these startups.

We got a chance to interview the team behind Grand Circus. Check out the interview below:

What is your startup called?

Grand Circus – named after Detroit’s historic Grand Circus Park that our new space overlooks in downtown Detroit. We are located in 15,000 square feet of space in the newly renovated Broderick Tower.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

Grand Circus was kick-started when co-founders Damien Rocchi and Brad Hoos met while working at Detroit’s collaborative tech space in the M@dison building. “We saw the opportunity and quickly converged on a mission to create an amazing home for tech training in Detroit, a city with immeasurable talent that is just starting to reach its full potential,” said Rocchi.

What’s the startup scene like in Detroit?

Detroit startup scene is booming – SA Today names Detroit one of the “10 Great Places to be Inspire by Innovation” Fast Company’s piece “How A Young Community of Entrepreneurs is Rebuilding Detroit” called the city a “refuge for techies looking to tackle real problems.” The New York Times also spotlighted Detroit’s tech scene, nothing that hiring in the city’s tech sector is pulling developers from the coasts. Detroit has seen a 10 percent year-over-year increase in tech job listings, which makes the city the fourth in the nation for total employment in the tech industry.

What problem do you solve?

There is an ever-growing need for tech professionals in Detroit’s burgeoning digital hub. “As Detroit continues to grow and evolve its technology core, developing creative and talented technology professionals is critical. We are excited about the important role Grand Circus will play in the city’s continued revolution,” said Josh Linkner, Managing Partner of Detroit Venture Partners.

Why now?

“Detroit’s tech scene is dynamic and there’s a certain vibe and feel that exists here that you just have to experience,” said Hoos, COO and Co-Founder of Grand Circus. “We’re excited to be at the epicenter of Detroit’s tech earthquake just as it’s making waves.”

What are some of the milestones your startup has already reached?

Grand Circus joins Detroit Venture Partners’ (DVP) portfolio, a venture capital firm formed by Detroit business leaders Dan Gilbert, Josh Linkner, and Brian Hermelin.

What are your next milestones?

Classes start this fall

Where can people find out more?  Any social media links you want to share?

grandcircus.co or www.facebook.com/GrandCircus or @grandcircusco

Join lot’s of Michigan and midwest startups at this huge, national  startup conference Sep 29-October 1 in Cincinnati. 

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Detroit Startup To Make The Dinner Decision Easier Beginning Thursday

MyFab5, Michigan startup, startups, startup interview

Many of you know that for a long time in a previous life I was involved in top 40 radio in medium and major markets. As a music director and program director at several stations, I had access to very expensive, all-consuming research tools. Focus groups, call out research trade reports, and more were designed to make “picking the hits” much easier. What I found, though. was a little concept a few of us had come up with called “3 favorite songs.” Go to events, go to the mall, and ask the people, what are your three favorite songs.

What the heck does this have to do with a startup in Detroit? Well our best research, the research that led to great ratings was just asking what are your three favorite songs, without clutter and all this excess meat and fat.

Clutter, and fat, are what clogs up the arteries of what would be good recommendation engines and apps for discovering things like restaurants. On our sneaker strapped road trip a few weeks ago, I got invited to a brain picking. A funded startup wanted to bounce some ideas off me and offered to take me to any restaurant in Chicago at any cost for the time. I started Googling, yelping, urban spooning and every other -ing I could think of to pick a restaurant. I came across the restaurant I ultimately picked, but this was maybe 2 hours after I got the invitation call in the first place.  It was also after I had read a review that would have taken up 10 written pages. What a time suck.

The team at Detroit startup myfab5 takes that simple, clutter free way of asking or recommending, to help people navigate a restaurant decision. Users just rate their 5 favorite restaurants in any food related category and voila, the magic happens. The app takes all of that data and serves up good recommendations.

Startups in Detroit are looking to help the city make a comeback sweeter than Twinkies. myfab5 is one of those startups. The company has residence in both the TechArb accelerator in Ann Arbor and the Launch Detroit accelerator in Detroit. We got a chance to interview co-founder Calvin Schemanski. Check out the interview below.

What does your company do?

myfab5 is a platform that reinvents the restaurant review. Designed to mimic offline human behavior, myfab5’s platform let’s people recommend restaurants by talking about their favorite. On myfab5 you can rank up to five of your favorite restaurants in any food related category (e.g. my favorite places for #DeepDishPizza in Chicago). myfab5 instantly aggregates everyone’s rankings to power dynamic search results that tell you how popular each restaurant is for different types of food (e.g. how a pizza place ranks in the #DeepDishPizza and #ThinCrustPizza categories).

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

Omeid Seirafi-Pour is the Co-Founder and CEO of myfab5 and has previously worked in consulting where he helped fortune 500 companies develop winning growth strategies. He gained experience with online reviews when helping a big box retailer understand how consumers use reviews/recommendations when going about the multi-channel shopping experience. Omeid and his Co-Founders are passionate entrepreneurs and are members of the University of Michigan startup accelerator known as TechArb.

myfab5 Co-Founder Calvin Schemanski paid his way through college when he owned and operated a pedicab business for three years. Through this, he gained experience working with local businesses managing the growth of a venture, and managing a small workforce.

myfab5 technical Co-Founder John Gulbronson has a diverse software development background and previously worked at the University of Michigan Pathology department, developing algorithms that identify gene fusion pairs found in the genomes of cancer patients.

All three co-founders are graduates of the University of Michigan. John and Omeid graduated in 2011 and Calvin graduated in 2012.

 

What’s the startup scene like where you are based?

The startup scene in Ann Arbor and Detroit is small but quite energized. There is a big movement to revitalize Detroit; and entrepreneurship is at the heart of it. Several large corporations have relocated their headquarters to downtown Detroit and some venture capital firms and business accelerators have set up shop downtown as well. Even the State of Michigan is getting involved through economic development programs targeted at launching and growing startups in Michigan.

45 minutes to the west, Ann Arbor’s entrepreneurship scene is also developing. The University of Michigan is alma mater of some of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs. Many are now getting involved in educating and mentoring UM’s next entrepreneurial generation. The university is also churning out thousands of highly qualified engineers and other professionals every year. More and more of these talented individuals are choosing to stay in Michigan to either start a company or join a young startup.

What problem do you solve?

Star ratings and long reviews make finding and recommending restaurants time consuming and frustrating. Imagine searching for a pizza place on a site like Yelp; you will see a list of places between 3.5-4.5 stars, but will not be able to tell which of those places is popular for deep dish pizza, thin crust pizza or cheesy bread. To find out you’ll have to read a bunch of long reviews that bury the useful information. It’s bad enough having to read those reviews, it’s even more time consuming to write them.

With myfab5 you never have to deal with these problems again. myfab5 makes discovering and recommending fabulous restaurants easy and fun by getting rid of star ratings and long reviews. On myfab5 you can rank up to five of your favorite restaurants in any category (i.e. pizza or thin crust pizza). myfab5 adds up everybody’s votes so that if you search for pizza, not only will we show you the most popular pizza places, we’ll also show you the other categories each pizza place is popular for (i.e. deep dish pizza or cheesy bread).

Why now?

The social era has dawned, and people are tired of review sites that make recommending a business so time consuming that less than 1% of people contribute reviews. Furthermore, people are using mobile devices more than ever and demand content that is concise and consumable on a mobile device. Ratings and reviews go against the social and mobile experiences consumers need and demand

What are some of the milestones your startup has already reached?

In November 2012, we began developing and testing a prototype in Ann Arbor, MI.

In January 2013, myfab5 recruited our technical co-founder.

In March 2013, myfab5 launched an alpha version of myfab5 in Ann Arbor, MI.

In May 2013, myfab5 secured over $20k in startup grants.

On June 27, 2013 myfab5 won the Detroit Technology Exchange pitch competition in Detroit, taking home the grand prize of $15,000 in marketing/branding services.

On August 2nd, 2013 myfab5 graduated from the LaunchDetroit accelerator and received the “MVP” grant for being the best contributor to the program and the “Go” grant for being most commercially-ready company.

myfab5 users have made over 3600 rankings. On average, each ranking includes 3 businesses, resulting in over 11000 business recommendations.

 

What are your next milestones?

Launch nationally and gain traction in key markets outside of Michigan.

Iterate within food category to increase myfab5 use cases and engagement.

Offer more categories on myfab5 besides “Food & Drinks.”

Where can people find out more? Any social media links you want to share?

www.myfab5.com

@my_fab5

Check out this amazingly awesome, gigantic hackathon in Michigan.

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Detroit Startup UpTo Closes $2 Million Series A, It’s Like FourSquare For The Future

UpTo, Detroit startup, Detroit Venture Partners, startup fundingCheck in apps have come and gone. Of course the biggest player in the space is still probably FourSquare. After that is Facebook checkins or even Google Plus. I personally find the only time I actually use FourSquare is when I’m at a big tech event. Judging by my FourSquare feed, I’m not the only one who has resorted to part time checking in.

But what if there was an app that could tell you where I’m checking in later. I don’t necessarily want to open up my schedule to everyone in the world,but between events, being a parent, and the sneaker strapped startup road trip, I typically catch up with someone a few weeks later and they were like, “hey I can’t believe I missed you at xx event.” I’d imagine most of my colleagues and most of our readers are pretty busy people. Typically if I check in on FourSquare or Facebook or even on Twitter, at an event, it’s too late to get on my schedule.

Well Detroit startup UpTo is taking that pain away.  By opening up the parts of your calendar you want to share socially, your friends, colleagues, and family members can see where you will be later in hopes that maybe you can schedule something social or for work.

I like this idea a lot, and so do investors.

UpTo raised a pretty hefty seed round of $875,000 back in 2011. Now they’ve just closed on a $2 million dollars Series A round.

The downtown Detroit-based startup currently has 9 employees and plans to add even more.  They also plan on evolving the platform to include interest-based entries like concerts and sporting events. They’ve incorporated more calendar features and even a business-to-business component as well.

“UpTo is now a full calendar with social networking instead of the other way around,” Founder and CEO Greg Schwartz told Xconomy. “A lot of users wanted to use UpTo as an every day calendar. We realized we could be highly differentiated from every other calendar.”

Detroit Venture Partners, Venture Investors, and Ludlow Ventures all participated in the round.

“[The $2 million round] allows us to really focus on building our sales team and the growth of B2B,” Schwartz says, adding that the company plans to hire four or five people within the next few months. “Right now, we’re focused less on selling and more on building our network,” he says. “We want to grow our customer base to the point that we look back and say, ‘I can’t believe we had calendars that were so static.’ ”

You can check out UpTo here.

 

 

The Biggest Student Run Hackathon Is Back! Hack In The Big House!

Mhacks, University of Michigan, startups, hackathons

Last February 500 students got together at the Palmer Commons on the campus of the University of Michigan for a hackathon. Michigan Hackers and MPowered, two student groups on campus, put together the hackathon which Forbes called the largest student-run hackathon.

The February event was inspired by a similar hackathon on the campus of Penn State called PennApps. David Fontenot, the director of MHacks, attended the Penn State gathering and wanted to hold something similar in Ann Arbor.  The February event spurred 125 hacks, which did in fact make it the largest student run hackathon.

mhacksIn September, the hackathon returns to the University of Michigan, and this time they’re making it much, much bigger. For starters they’ve changed venues and moved the hackathon to Michigan’s football stadium “The Big House.” The hackers, who are welcome won’t be hacking on the field but in the luxury suites on top of the stands. Organizers do promise fun activities on the field itself.

They’re picking up the hacks as well. 125 hacks was quite a feat, but at the September event they plan on having over 1000 hacks.

Students from any college are welcome, and the organizers at U of M have extended invitations to 100 universities in surrounding areas. They are sponsoring buses from surrounding colleges, making travel to the hackathon free. If a student hacker wants to attend and hack at MHacks and there’s no bus in their area, MHacks will provide a $200 travel stipend. There will be plenty of caffeine, and all six meals will be provided free of charge.  Undergraduate students from anywhere in the world are welcome to participate, and they will make exceptions for some high school students and graduate students.

Student teams can have up to 4 members and there is no limit on the amount of student teams. Teams can hack together whatever they want. They just can’t work on an existing or previous project.

MHacks will be held September 20-22nd (Friday night through Sunday morning). You can register here for free!

A week later in Cincinnati, is this epic startup event…

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New VC Fund Is Linking Michigan To Silicon Valley

Michigan eLab, Venture Capital, Michigan startups, Ann Arbor startups

While the bankruptcy of Detroit has put Michigan in the news in a negative way, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel coming from startups and entrepreneurship. This isn’t anything new for the state of Michigan; after all at one point even cars were new technology.

While Detroit has a blossoming startup scene and is preparing to rebuild, Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan have a startup scene that’s starting to thrive. The latest startup-focused venture, a VC fund called Michigan eLab is the most recent organization to join the cause.

Most startup communities “everywhere else” struggle with two major things: access to capital and access to talent. The new Michigan eLab is positioned to help entrepreneurs in Ann Arbor with both.

MichiganeLablogoCrain’s Detroit reports that the new Michigan eLab is raising a first fund of $40 million dollars. While any startup community would welcome a new VC fund, Michigan eLab is uniquely positioned to bridge Ann Arbor and Michigan with Silicon Valley.

For starters the fund has two offices: one in Ann Arbor, the other in San Mateo California. An even bigger benefit that eLab brings to Ann Arbor is that three of the fund’s four founders have ties to Michigan. Doug Neal, one of the fund’s founders is originally from Mt. Pleasant. Neal spent 15 years in Silicon Valley with companies like Hewlett-Packard and Symantec before co-founding his own startup Mobile Automation.  That company sold to iPass Inc in 2005 for $20 million dollars.

Rick Bolander is another one of the Michigan eLab founders with ties to both Silicon Valley and Michigan. Bolander graduated from the University of Michigan with a master’s in electrical engineering. He went on to launch Chicago’s Blue Sky Ventures and then co-founded San Mateo-based Gabriel Venture Partners.

Bob Stefanski is the third founder with ties to both Silicon Valley and Michigan. He is a graduate of UM earning both an engineering and a law degree. Stefanski is a partner in the Silicon Valley-based Reed Smith LLP. He is also the cofounder of Tibco Software, which has more than $1 billion in revenue according to Crain’s.

The final partner, Scott Chou, has no direct ties to Michigan or UM, but he is a managing director at Bolander’s Gabriel Venture Partners. Chou’s first venture deal was a 2001 seed round investment in NextG Networks, a California company, which sold to Texas-based Crown Castle International in December of 2011 for $1 billion dollars. That earned him a spot on the highly coveted top 100 venture capitalists in Silicon Valley list from AlwaysOn.

The founders of Michigan eLab hope to link Ann Arbor’s tech community, startups, and entrepreneurs with other famous founders with ties to the region. Those include: Larry Page, Dick Costolo, Skype’s Josh Silverman, Sun Microsystems co-founders Scott McNealy and Bill Joy, Groupon co-founder Brad Keywell, former Palm Inc. CEO Donna Dubinsky, and more.

Source: Crain’s Detroit.

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Ann Arbor Venture Firm Raises First $11 Million Dollar Fund

Huron River Ventures, Ann Arbor VC,Michigan startups, startup,venture fundingHuron River Ventures, an Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids, Michigan-based venture capital firm, announced late last week that they have raised their first venture capital fund.

“We started working on this fund in 2010 and we had our first close at $7.5 million in March 2011,” managing director Tim Streit told AnnArbor.com.

Huron River Ventures is a ten year fund and to date they’ve deployed about 30% across seven different companies. They plan to invest in another 7 or 8 companies within the next two to three years and round out the fund at 15.

The fund was started by Streit and college friend Ryan Waddington, who met at the University of Michigan. The goal of the fund was to invest in Michigan companies and with that mission they were able to raise an initial $6 million dollars from the State of Michigan as part of their Accelerator Fund Program.

“We’re here, we want Michigan deals, and that’s what we focus on… we invest in Michigan-based companies or companies that have a strong presence in the state. Almost all of our capital is from the state or investors who are from Michigan or still live here.” Streit said.

Announcing a fund’s closing is basically a formality; however it sends a signal to Michigan entrepreneurs that Huron River is funded and ready to invest.

Find out more about Huron River Ventures here.

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Check out this new startup accelerator in Michigan, Coolhouse Labs.

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Michigan’s Newest Accelerator, Coolhouse Labs, Launches Tomorrow

jordanbreighnerMichigan’s new startup accelerator is launching its first cohort tomorrow. It’s not in Detroit, Pontiac, or even Ann Arbor.  The Coolhouse Labs accelerator is based in a resort town off Lake Michigan called Harbor Springs, the hometown of 27-year-old Jordan Breighner, co-founder and Managing Director of Coolhouse Labs.

Harbor Springs is a small town with under 2000 year-round residents. It was once a popular summer destination for autoworkers, the life bread of Michigan’s economy. Like many others, Breighner sees the path to improving an economy is through entrepreneurship and startups.

Although he has no “formal” entrepreneurial experience, Breighner has a diverse background, including a stint working for the Obama administration and going to college in Utah to become a ski racer. His vision, passion, and tenacity to get things done has helped him secure the seed investments for the first five teams in this first cohort. He’s also stocked his team with a Program Director, Resident Designer, and Resident Developer.  Breighner has also been able to attract a top notch advisory board.

Now, just four months after launching the idea, the first cohort is ready to move into Coolhouse Labs. Coolhouse has attracted teams from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Taiwan.  3 out of the 5 teams have a female co-founder, 3 out of the 5 teams have an international co-founder, and the average co-founder is traveling over 2700 miles to be part of Coolhouse Labs.

Here are the five teams.

Every Last Morsel – Every Last Morsel is a community marketplace for locally grown food – like an Etsy for small farms and backyard gardeners. It provides growers with web-based record-keeping tools and easy-to-use sales outlets that allow farms to focus on doing what they love: growing good food.

Lorious – Lorious is an online marketplace for expertise, where users can buy and sell one-on-one live video chat consulting services, at any time and from any location. Lorious empowers people to gain skills, from crafting to accounting, and to take ownership of their professional identities in response to this ever-changing economy.

Novi Times – Novi is aiming to redefine mobile news discovery through search. They have developed an editor-guided algorithm that helps users discover news through topics they want to follow.

QuickFixNow – QuickFixNow delivers fast and reliable home repair, connecting consumers with contractors on-demand through a mobile and web-based platform.

TRNK New York – TRNK New York is the online shopping destination for the discerning male who seeks an inspired and character-filled home.

Find out more about Coolhouse Labs here.

 

See what accelerator Drive Capital’s Mark Kvamme said was “One of the best outside Silicon Valley”

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Startup Founder Spotlight: Alex Schiff, FetchNotes

Alex Schiff, FetchNotes, Startup Spotlight, Founder Spotlight, Guest Post, YECAlex Schiff is the founder and chief executive officer of Fetchnotes, which makes productivity as simple as a tweet. Prior to Fetchnotes, Alex was the vice president of Benzinga and a student at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Follow him @alexschiff.

Who is your hero?

Aaron Patzer is one of the entrepreneurs I look up to most.

What’s the single best piece of business advice that helped shape who you are as an entrepreneur today, and why?

Optimize for speed, not cost. Your entire organization should be structured around how you can accelerate progress and learning. That $20 a month here or $50 there is NOT going to mean anything in the grand scheme of things, but if it frees up a few hours of your life, then it’s worth it.

What’s the biggest mistake you ever made in your business, and what did you learn from it that others can learn from too?

Not focusing on one thing. At one point, I was working on three startups, working for another, and still in school full-time. They all suffered from my lack of attention. I learned that when you’re a founder you need to be thinking not “What do I need to do today?” but “What can I be doing to advance my business forward?”

The former has a finite amount of work; the latter is limitless.

What do you do during the first hour of your business day and why?

I take care of all the little things. Respond to email, complete quick tasks, etc. I actually purposefully put off anything that will take more than 30 minutes until after lunch because then I know I have the longest period of uninterrupted activity.

What’s your best financial or cash-flow related tip for entrepreneurs just getting started?

You can make money in weird ways. We offered to sing karaoke to any of our users who donated money.

Quick: What’s ONE thing you recommend ALL aspiring or current entrepreneurs do right now to take their biz to the next level?

The best part about being an entrepreneur is that you get to choose who you work with — don’t take that for granted!

What’s your definition of success? How will you know when you’ve finally “succeeded” in your business?

Honestly, I have no idea. There will always be a new mountain to climb.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Check out Alex’s guest post, Here’s A Better Way To Ask For An Email Introduction.

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Startups Here’s A Better Way To Ask For An Email Introduction

Alex Schiff, Fetch Notes,Startup Tips,Guest Post,YECI ask for and receive a lot of requests for introductions. Whether it’s someone at a company looking for a partnership or job, an investor, a journalist, or someone else, it’s an integral part of pretty much any profession. At the same time, such requests often arise in the least efficient way possible for the middleman: in person, in the middle of another email exchange talking about the other party, or simply with no details at all.

Once I got involved in the startup scene with Fetchnotes, I found that the startup crowd has email introductions down to an exact science. I’m sure similar rules apply outside our bubble, but inside it there are a very specific set of expectations, and it was a bit cryptic and counterintuitive to pick up at first. But hopefully this helps you maximize the success of your introduction requests.

First of all, no matter where the request for an intro arises, always send a separate request email. That way, the receiving party can act on it directly (since most intros are over email). You’re asking someone to spend their social capital on you, so your number one goal is make it as easy as possible. Here’s how:

Hey Alex,

Hope all is well! I saw you’re connected to Mark Zuckerberg (contact) on LinkedIn. I was hoping to connect with him about a partnership (reason), the details of which are below. Do you know him well enough to make an intro (gives middle-man a way out in case they don’t know each other well)?

StartupWithFriends is an awesome new app that lets you start a company with your friends, right on Facebook (what you do). We have 150K+ active users, and on average they’re starting 1,000 companies per day (credibility + traction). We’ve been integrating with OpenGraph already (shows you’ve done work already, otherwise they often point you to their API page) but we think that we can make it a huge revenue driver for them if we get access to some of the data not available in their APIs, specifically the number of times a user looks at the profiles of their ex-girlfriends (basic benefits + needs outlined).

Let me know if you can make the connection. If not, no worries, I can reach out cold (shows them you have confidence that this is going to happen one way or another).

Thanks!
Networker McAwesome

When I receive an email like this, I forward it to my contact and ask, “Hey, these guys were looking to connect. Can I make an intro?” If he says yes, I make the connection. If not, I say I tried but he doesn’t want to talk. Unless you know someone really well (or know they are looking for such opportunities), you want to give them a chance to say no. Otherwise, they’ll feel obligated to take it and have bad feelings toward the person from Day 1. Not only is it just good etiquette to give them a choice, but it prevents the value of your introduction from being diluted too.

Is it contrived? Obviously. Does the other party realize its contrived? Usually. And yet I write every email intro request in this exact format because it does three really, really important things:

  • Makes it easy for the middleman to make the intro (just hit forward and type a sentence)
  • Gives the person you’re trying to get connected with a basic overview (so they feel more comfortable taking a meeting)
  • Limits the amount of aggregate back-and-forth.

That makes the intro more likely to happen, the person you’re trying to meet more likely to take the meeting, and most of all, makes the most efficient use of everyone’s time.

Happy connecting!

This post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

Alex Schiff is the founder and chief executive officer of Fetchnotes, which makes productivity as simple as a tweet. Prior to Fetchnotes, Alex was the vice president of Benzinga and a student at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Check out our interview with FetchNotes here at nibletz.com The Voice Of Startups Everywhere Else

Dress Your Personal Web Presence To Impress With Detroit Startup Workfolio

Workfolio,Detroit startup,startup interview,startupThere are thousands of  “do it yourself” (DIY) solutions to designing your own web page. There are blogging platforms, free overnight do it yourself web tools, and many more. When it comes down to it though, most of them are about saving time and sacrificing design.

Well a Detroit startup called Webfolio is looking to change that by helping users create a “stunning personal website in minutes”.

The startup, founded by Charles Pooley and Aaron Smyth, comes with everything people need to create their own beautiful website in a very short amount of time. Simple editing, magazine quality blogging, file and media hosting, promotional tools, traffic analytics and personal domain and email services make Workfolio a one stop shop for whatever your personal web needs are.

We got a chance to interview the team behind Workfolio. Check out the interview below.

What is Workfolio?

Workfolio is a web application that allows anyone to create a beautiful, distinctive website to highlight their personal brand.

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

We make it easy for anyone to create a website, removing many of the technical and content-writing hurdles that complicate the process for the average person. We help users register their own domains, choose a beautiful website theme, and create high-quality content so they can feel great about their website and get back to business.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Charles Pooley is the CEO and visionary force behind Workfolio. He comes to Workfolio having previously run a successful marketing and design agency, and having served as a technology executive at a publicly-traded company.

Aaron Smyth is Workfolio’s technology lead. He previously worked as a developer for CafeMom and FoxNews.com, and was the second employee at a successful New York startup company. In addition to his product development experience, Aaron is an instructor in front-end web development at General Assembly in New York.

Where are you based?

Workfolio operates from Detroit and New York City.

What’s the startup scene/culture like where you’re based? 

Detroit and New York have very different startup cultures. Because Detroit’s tech scene is still small, the atmosphere is very collaborative, and there is a greater opportunity for individual companies to be recognized within the community.

We chose to open an office in New York in order to take advantage of the tremendous network of technology entrepreneurs, investors, and media that exists here.

How did you come up with the idea for Workfolio?

About a year ago I was invited to do a number of speaking engagements, and I decided I needed my own website to help build my personal brand. I tried to use several of the popular website builders but found them to be complicated and frustrating. I realized that if I was having such a problem, being a designer and a fairly technical person, then this process must be close to impossible for less tech-savvy people. We ran a survey and found that 80% of respondents wanted their own website, but only 7% of them actually had one. And when asked why, the two most popular reasons were exactly what I encountered — people thought it was too difficult to set up their own website, and they had no idea what content to add to the website once they set it up. I took these results to my partners, and Workfolio was created shortly thereafter.

How did you come up with the name?

We struggled for a long time to come up with a fitting name for our product. We eventually landed on Workfolio because it concisely conveys the essential function of the product (and we also think it’s catchy).

What problem does Workfolio solve?

If you’ve ever tried to set up your own website, you probably remember feeling frustrated trying to get your website hosting, domain, and code to work together. If you somehow managed to get those to cooperate, you then had to create or buy a design theme, and let’s face it — most of us are not good designers. Then you’re left with another big question: what content goes on my website? Most people get stuck just after purchasing their domain — the learning curve is just so steep. We eliminate the technology and design hurdles for you, allowing you to focus on the important part — creating content to let the world know what you’re all about.

What’s your secret sauce?

We believe design and user experience are the keys to the success of every application. If we can find a way to get users to share their content and feel good about the sites they create, they will be loyal customers for life.

Are you bootstrapped or funded?

Workfolio is funded by angel investors.

What are some milestones you’ve achieved?

We’re still in the early stages of the business, so most of our milestones have been related to product development. We have hit every product development milestone we have set so far.

What’s your next milestone?

Since our soft launch, our milestones have shifted from product development to customer acquisition.

Who are some of your mentors and business role models?

Randy Whitaker, the Executive Vice President of Operations for Victoria’s Secret, Dr. David DiChiera, the founder of the Detroit Opera, and Dave Hill, former President of General Motors Trading, stand out as the three people who have been most influential in helping me develop as an executive. I also admire a number of thought leaders in business, Tom Peters for example, and designers such as Jonathan Ive at Apple.

What’s next for Workfolio?

We have several new product enhancements in the works to provide more customization options for subscribers.

Where can people find out more?

The best place to learn about us is on our website: workfolio.com. Follow us on Twitter, as well: @WorkfolioHQ

We’ve got more great startups from Detroit here.

Do you have your startup village booth for everywhereelse.co yet?

 

Detroit Startup Glocal: Share Your Local Content With 113 Cities Around The World [video][sxsw]

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.

Glocal,Detroit startup,startups,startup interview, SXSW,SXSWiThe 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.

You can sign up to contribute content, or peruse the Glocal offerings here at Glocal.com

Check out our quick video interview from SXSW below.

We’ve got a truckload more SXSW 2013 coverage here.

We Caught Up With Fetchnotes At SXSW INTERVIEW

Fetchnotes,Michigan starutp,Boston Startup,Techstars,SXSW,SXSWiLast April we first started reporting on Ann Arbor Michigan startup Fetchnotes. This startup was born out of the University of Michigan which is where Co-Founders Alex Schiff and Chase Lee met.

While they are tons of note taking apps available, Fetchnotes secret sauce is that the app is based on how the user takes notes rather than having the app dictate how notes will be taken.

Fetchnotes allows the user to organize their notes by hashtag. The user can use any hashtag methodology they want and they can categorize notes with multiple hashtags. For instance Schiff explained that if he wanted to write a note on me he could code it email, nibletz, SXSW and I would be on his list of people he met at SXSW, he would know I’m from nibletz and that he should email me.

Fetchnotes is no longer a Michigan based startup. They relocated to Cambridge Massachusetts after going through the last session at TechStars Boston.

We got the lowdown on what’s new and exciting with Fetchnotes from Schiff. Check out the video interview below.

Find out more about Fetchnotes here.

More startup coverage at SXSW can be found here