Startup Demo Day Month In Tennessee The Good, The Bad, The NSFW

August is just about over and “Demo Day Month” in the great state of Tennessee concluded last Thursday at JumpStart Foundry’s Demo Day in Nashville. It was a month that Vice President Gore should be proud of afterall nothing says innovation like inventing the internet.

Overall it was an impressive month for innovators in Tennessee. Tennessee has nine regional accelerators and groups like Launch Tennessee are paramount in keeping the statewide ecosystem flourishing and the accelerator leaders connected with each other.

“Demo Day Month” kicked off in Chattanooga Tennessee with the graduation of the GigTank. The GigTank was in its first year and actually included two simultaneous classes; entrepreneurs and students. The entrepreneurs group accelerated at Colab in downtown Chattanooga while the students accelerated at the Lamp Post Group’s offices. The classes came together on Thursday August 9th to show off their startups.

Out of all three demo days Chattanooga had the most pizzazz. They really did a great job of setting up a bunch of entrepreneurial networking events on Wednesday evening all over town. Thursday’s Demo Day event was one to be reckoned with, professional lighting, big signage, and a simulcast on the local PBS channel all helped set the stage for some great demos.

To top that off, unlike the other two demo days, Chattanooga’s GigTank featured a $100,000 cash prize for the top voted startup in the entrepreneur class (Banyan) and a $50,000 prize for the top student startup (Babel Sushi).

Chattanooga merged traditional southern hospitality with blazing fast internet. The blazing fast internet was the reason it was called “GigTank”. Chattanooga was the first city in the United States to offer 1 GB ethernet to the home and office within a 600 square mile area.

The bad: We found out late Wednesday night that the startups would actually pitch in front of the judges first thing Thursday morning and again on Thursday afternoon in front of the people. We went around in circles about it and I even spent some time with Colab Director Shelddon Grizzle, who had come up with the idea for the double pitching. Regardless of the reasoning I didn’t like it and once I knew it was happening it detracted from my view of the actual presentations.

The other downside to GigTank is that we saw a lot of slides, a lot of presentations and a lot of business plans. Unfortunately we didn’t see nearly enough working demo products. Also most of the startups said they would build scale organically and virally over the next year and make money in year two. This isn’t a practical path to scale in a market outside Silicon Valley or New York. I felt that go to market strategies needed improvement.

The NSFW: Check out this story about the first startup that presented at GigTank.

The following week we moved on to Memphis Tennessee and the Zeroto510 accelerator Demo Day. Zeroto510 is a cohort based accelerator based on medical devices. It’s a joint venture between Memphis Bioworks and Seed Hatchery.

The ZeroTo510 Demo Day was very academic in nature and top-notch professional. You could tell that all of the startups had worked extremely hard on their presentations. One of the biggest challenges that ZeroTo510 startups overcame was actually “dumbing” their presentations down so that the public and investors without medical backgrounds could understand. Luckily all of the startups were able to do that.

The startups that we really liked at ZeroTo510 Demo Day were Bionanovations and Restore Medical.

Restore Medical offers a new system for cleaning and sterilizing surgical instruments. Their system is vital as we head into Obama Care in 2014 because it helps reduce cost, but more importantly it’s more effective in the sterilization process which will drive down hospital born infection numbers. This couldn’t come at a better time. In 2014 hospitals will need to publicize and keep down their hospital born infection numbers in order to get reimbursement on the millions of extra patients that will be seeking hospital care.

One of the biggest moments at ZeroTo510’s Demo Day was when onstage Restore Medical co-founder Shawn Flynn revealed on stage that they already had a $3.75 million dollar purchase order pending their 510k approval from the FDA.

BioNanovations is the first pre-culture bacterial infection diagnosis platform. There were some shocking facts about hospitals in co-founder and CEO Charleson Bell’s presentation that echo why we like this startup so much and why it will also be crucial going into 2014.

There was no NSFW in the Zeroto510 Demo Day however the bad was definitely Urova Medical. This wet behind the ears team of entrepreneurs had great technology and did a fair job of presenting they just didn’t have the same vigor that the rest of the startups had. They immediately left Memphis to go back home and it appeared that the young student founders of Urova simply participated in the program to get $50,000 for “summer camp”. Just calling it like I see it.

Nashville’s Jumpstart Foundry has had some practice at this. They’re definitely the veteran accelerator out of the bunch and it shows. Co-Founder and Managing Director Marcus Whitney is a serial entrepreneur himself. In addition to overseeing the day-to-day at JumpStart Foundry he is also a co-founder and the CTO of startup MoonToast a social media/network management platform with a top shelf list of clients.

The theme about Whitney was echoed over and over again throughout Jumpstart’s Demo Day, and that is he’s a pull no punches take no crap kind of guy. In fact, together with Solidus Partner and Jumpstart Foundry co-founder Vic Gatto, they ran such a tight program that three startups called it quits before demo day.

The venue for the Jumpstart Foundry demo day was great, it was open, and they did a great job with lighting and ambience. The presentations showed that the startups had been working hard on refining their message for the public and potential investors. All of the presenters did a great job of talking more and relying on slides less. When slides went up on the screen they were very graphic and very easy to understand.

The entire class had great presentations. Whitney and Baker Donelson Emerging Technologies Lead Chris Sloan (also a mentor at JSF) both agreed that the most improved startup was PhotoRankr. Sloan and Whitney both commented that if any startup in this years JSF class showed what an accelerator does it was PhotoRankr.

PhotoRankr definitely topped our list of favorites at the JumpStart Foundry Demo Day. We also really liked The Skillery and their off-line workshops platform that empowers small business owners to teach classes on subjects they actually know and love.

We can’t report on JSF Demo Day without mentioning EverMind either. EverMind is a consumer monitoring system for the elderly. It works as easily as installing a “Clapper” you simply take the plug-in modules to your elderly loved ones home and hook them up to the coffee maker, television, lamp, toaster or other small electronics and it monitors their daily routine. When your loved one deviates from the routine you’re notified and you can check on them. The system gives them independence and piece of mind. It helps that it was also founded by a group of folks from Griffin Technologies, a Nashville company that makes some of the most widely known iPhone, iPad and Android accessories.

As for the NSFW, it wasn’t really NSFW it was more just ugly. The startup we liked the least at JSF was by a landslide KiWi, first off there are hundreds of other short form video services out there, can anyone say SocialCam. But the thing that drove us to even point this out was that at the end of the micromachine-man-esque presentation the founder of Kiwi actually said he would look for term sheets in Nashville for 30 days and then go somewhere else. Seemed like an F-U to the hard work that Whitney, Gatto and the entire crew at Jumpstart Foundry Demo Day put on.

It was also great that folks from Memphis like Biowork’s Allan Daisley and a>m ventures Patrick Woods were right there with us at all three demo days to support Chattanooga, Memphis and Nashville as parts of a whole “Tennessee”, the Nashville guys.. not so much.

Linkage:

More Demo Day Coverage Here

Nibletz is the voice of startups everywhere else

Startup Weekend Toledo Coming September 14-16th Further Validates Ohio’s Startup Ecosystem

By now most everyone who visits nibletz.com knows exactly what an officially sanctioned Startup Weekend is. As a refresher though, Startup Weekend is a 54 hour hackathon event where entrepreneurs, developers, designers and local business mentors gather to build companies in one weekend. The officially branded “Startup Weekend” events are organized in partnership with Startup Weekend based in Seattle. The organization has put on nearly 500 events worldwide.

Startup Weekend is headed to Toledo in just a couple of weeks. This will be the first officially sanctioned Startup Weekend event in Toledo however the state of Ohio is no stranger to the concept. Startup Weekends have already occurred in Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland.

Since Toledo is new to the Startup Weekend concept, the organizers are holding an orientation style event on September 6th. The mixer will be held at Seed Coworking 25 South Saint Clair Street in downtown Toledo from 5:30-7:30. Interested entrepreneurs, designers, and developers should attend this event to comingle with other like minded individuals and meet the local organizers.

Nashville Startup: PhotoRankr Captures The Essence Of Jumpstart Foundry

Now in their third year the cohort based startup accelerator Jumpstart Foundry, in Nashville Tennessee has ironed out a lot of kinks. We got a chance to spend some time with Marcus Whitney a co-founder at Jumstart Foundry, who also serves as the accelerator’s Managing Director. Through each of the last three cohorts Whitney has spent the most day to day time with all of the classes.

Throughout the Jumpstart Foundry demo day the theme surrounding Whitney’s role was consistent. Whitney, while a great and likable guy, means business. He’s a serial entrepreneur himself who’s founded a handful of his own successful startups. That also means he knows the struggles first hand at what a founder and a founding team at a startup goes through. That’s why he’s one of the best possible people in Nashville to serve as Jumpstart Foundry’s Managing Director.

While a three month boot-camp style accelerator can be a fun and life enriching experience, Whitney is known for telling teams like it is and establishing the ground rules on day one. He’s also known for pushing entrepreneurs to their limit. As far as the program goes there’s no bs in the selection process. Whitney told us that they don’t take teams without a technologist. We’ve seen teams at accelerators all over the country who come with an idea guy, a business development guy and no developer or coder. Often these teams blow most of their seed money on outsourcing and barely have a product ready for demo day. One of the biggest things we noticed at Jumpstart Foundry’s demo day is that all seven teams had a product up and running. No wireframes, no mock ups, no business plans, every team had a working product you could go out on the internet and try right now.

We asked Whitney along with Baker Donelson’s Emerging Business Practice Chair, Chris Sloan, what team at the Jumpstart Foundry this year, was the most improved. They both unanimously and at the same exact time said PhotoRankr. In fact they both agreed that PhotoRankr captured the essence of what a cohort style accelerator program was all about.

Whitney talked about PhotoRankr’s day one pitch. Sloan, who is a pro-amateur photographer in his s

pare time recalled thatPhotoRankr’s pitch on day one included a slide show with no photos. Who does that? A photo platform slide show with no photos.

When Sloan introduced the PhotoRankr team on Thursday he spoke very proudly letting the audience know that not only was their pitch deck filled with photos, every photo in their slide show was procured from PhotoRankr.

So what is PhotoRankr, it’s an online community for photographers. It allows photographers to chat with one another, get advice, vote pictures up and down and the biggest part, it provides a platform to sell photos. As PhotoRankr co-founder Tyler Sniff pointed out in the presentation, the stock photo resources on the internet right now are relatively weak, most have had the same images for years and the ones with great photos are way too costly.

Now, someone looking for a photo for their website, book, magazine, movie or any other use can peruse the pages of PhotoRankr and find what they need. The photographers themselves set the prices for the photos, along with the licensing terms which typically means they will be fairly priced.

Sloan recently joined PhotoRankr and wasn’t sure what to expect. He had tried most of the other photo sharing services out there, but he was excited when he started receiving emails notifying him that people had liked his photos.

As for the team itself, they work and operate like a family. That could possibly be attributed to the fact that three of the four members of the founding team are actually brothers. Tyler serves as the company’s Head of Business Development. Their CEO is Jacob Sniff who will be graduating from Princeton this year. Their third brother Matthew Sniff serves as the company’s CEO. Noah Willard, a family friend, serves as the Creative Director.

Whitney said that one of the teams keys to success throughout the program was their reaction to criticism. Rather than being head strong and ego driven, the PhotoRankr team took every piece of criticism in stride, often asked questions about what their mentors were telling them, and then sought advice immediately after making changes.

From where we stand the biggest challenge for PhotoRankr is going to be exposing the features to the market place and what sets them apart from Flickr, Photo Bucket and that product formerly known as Picassa.

When you watch the pitch video below you’ll see what a great job PhotoRankr did during the Jumpstart Foundry program:

Linkage:

Check out Photorankr here

Check out Jumpstart Foundry Here

Nibletz is the voice of startups in the southeast and everywhere else

Nashville Startup: OurVinyl’s Final Pitch From Jumpstart Foundry Demo Day VIDEO

Demo Day at Jumpstart Foundry was amazing. The class was great and miraculously every single team that presented had a working product. Of course that’s the goal behind every accelerator but we’ve been to quite a few accelerator demo days where that wasn’t the case.

So what is OurVinyl, no it’s not an online record shop for vinyl buffs. OurVinyl is actually a music video platform that encompasses the user and allows the user to curate their own channels, playlists and discovery new music. Where most music discovery startups focus on just the audio, OurVinyl is all about video.

OurVinyl has started with indie artists and other video content that you won’t find anywhere else on the web. The founders have backgrounds in video and it shows with the intuitive user experience created within OurVinyl.

The OurVinyl team has equated most of their best practices to Spotify rather than Pandora. Of course neither Spotify nor Pandora actually do video, they are both just audio only. OurVinyl is changing that by offering a streaming video platform accessible by Google TV, Apple TV, Xbox and Roku.

They have an easy to understand subscription model which guarantees you access to all of your favorite videos on the platform and customization features for your specific tastes. Many don’t realize that YouTube is one of the top places people go to source not just videos, or music videos but music itself. OurVinyl is capitalizing on that fact with their unique new platform.

In their pitch video from Jumpstart Foundry’s Demo Day, they explain exactly how the platform works and how they plan on monetizing it through advertising and subscription plans.

Another feature that’s rather new and baked into OurVinyl is not just the ability to like or not like songs and music videos themselves, but the advertising as well. After an ad unit plays you can tell OurVinyl whether you like ads like that or not. If you say “no” you won’t have to see the same ad again.

Check out their pitch video below:

Linkage:

Check out OurVinyl here at ourvinyl.tv

Here’s more Demo Day coverage

Nibletz is the voice of startups in the southeast and “everywhere else”

New York Startup Jamplify Presents At Jumpstart Foundry Demo Day

What do you get when you take a bunch of good ole Goldman Sachs financial guys from New York and throw them into an accelerator in Nashville Tennessee? You get a social media, hybrid, promotional, crowdsourcing platform called Jamplify. Now at the first glance of the description I just gave them you may think we’re dealing with another Vooza, no that’s not the case at all.

Jamplify’s finished product, that’s actually available now (what a novel idea building an actual product at an accelerator), you get the most logical promotional vehicle for bands, musicians, and bloggers that’s available to date.

Jamplify crowdsources people for promoting the bands that they love. Rather than crowdsourcing for actual capital Jamplify is crowdsourcing for social capital and human capital, and then there’s the payoff.

Jamplify is like the kickstarter for fan based, crowd based musical promotion. As a fan of a band or a promotional ambassador you can agree to promote a band or musician. Based on your social graph and the amount of people that you actually touch with the campaigns short, trackable url you will become eligible for prizes from the band or artist you’re promoting.

The most interesting promotional “reward” or “perk” to date has been from a hip hop band where the artist actually recorded the outgoing voicemail message for that Jamplifier’s personal voice mail. Cool huh?

If you’re lost, you really shouldn’t be, but it would be great to check out the pitch video from JumpStart Foundry’s demo day in Nashville below:

Linkage:

Get Jamplifying today here

Here’s more Demo Day Coverage

Nibletz is the voice of startups in the southeast and everywhere else.

Nashville Startup: The Skillery Pitches At Jumpstart Foundry Demo Day VIDEO

The Skillery CEO Matt Dudley pitching at Jumpstart Foundry demo day (photo nibletz llc)

Jumpstart Foundry demo day continues with the team from The Skillery. When their mentor introduced the team she talked about how CEO Matt Dudley started his entrepreneurial roots when he was just 7 years old and put up signs in his neighborhood advertising his services as a GhostBuster.

The Skillery in it’s simplest description is a platform to sell tickets to workshops. They are in the same space as Dabble and Skilshare but with a twist. Dudley and his team are specifically targeting small business owners who want to teach classes.

For instance, the local woman who owns a shop selling hemp and weaved products could start a class on The Skillery. Here in Nashville they’ve had teachers come out of the community that did whiskey tastings and even classes on the value of cotton diapering as opposed to disposable diapers. In fact the woman with the disposable diaper business saw 25-30 people come to her workshops that were listed and promoted on TheSkillery, and she was able to convert students to customers.

Dudley is charismatic and explained his pitch in a way that everyone in the room understood exactly what he was talking about but with the passion that would come with the next Instagram and not a learning platform. As for a learning platform, Dudley is quick to point out that The Skillery is not about online classes, it’s one of those startups that bridging the online world back with the real world, something that will be vital to the next wave a startups, according to the New York Times.

Check out Dudley’s pitch below:

Check out The Skillery here

Here’s more demo day coverage

Nibletz is the voice of startups in the southeast and everywhere else

Nashville Startup Evermind Pitches At Jumpstart Foundry Demo Day VIDEO

Today marks the end of Tennessee demo day month with demo and investor day for Jumpstart Foundry in Nashville. Jumpstart Foundry is a nationally known startup accelerator currently based at the Entrepreneur Center in Nashville. They were recently recognized with an honorable mention in the 2012 national accelerator rankings, reported by TechCocktail just yesterday. This is the second year in a row Jumpstart Foundry has appeared as an honorable mention.

Evermind is a very unique new, “ambient monitoring” solution geared towards family members that care or are worried about the care of their elderly family members and loved ones.

Evermind is not nearly has obtrusive as many of their competing products. The founding team, who was part of the founding team at Griffin Technologies in Nashville, has approached this product with care and with always keeping both the end user and the consumer in mind, never losing site of that.

To that end, some of the things that immediately stood out to me with Evermind included:

– The non obtrusive design. The Evermind product looks sleek and it doesn’t look like a medical device
– The pricing is at $199 for three Evermind units
– easy to use website
– non obtrusive monitoring.

As for the way the system itself works, it’s simple. You plug an appliance that your elderly loved one uses everyday into an Evermind remote unit and every time your loved one uses that appliance it sends a message to the Evermind cloud and then to the loved ones phone. For instance if your grandpa John makes a cup of coffee at 7:30am every morning, you would plug the coffee maker into the Evermind unit and when he made his cup of coffee it would signal you. If he misses the cup of coffee you’re alerted, maybe there is something wrong. These remote plug devices can be set up on any small appliance, can openers, tvs, bedside lamps etc.

There is no need to worry about a life alert pendant or security cameras, it gives the elderly person privacy and the care giver, piece of mind.

Check out their pitch video at JumpStart Foundry video below:

Linkage:

Check out more Demo Day coverage here

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” here are more startup stories from “everywhere else”

Check out Jumpstart Foundry at jumpstartfoundry.com

Memphis Startup: BioNanovations Shows Off Amazing TestQuick Technology

BioNanovations CEO/Co-Founder Charleson Bell Presenting at Demo Day (photo: nibletz llc)

It was Demo Day at the Memphis based ZeroTo510 startup accelerator this past Thursday. ZeroTo510 is the first cohort based medical device accelerator and was created with a partnership between Seed Hatchery and Memphis BioWorks.

We were really excited when Charleson Bell, the CEO and co-founder of BioNanovations presented their TestQuick technology on Thursday. First off, Bell and his partner Andre T Stevenson had spent some time with us a few weeks back during office hours. It was then that we learned how BioNanovations was preparing to really change the world. We all know that most startups say they’re going to change the world, the ZeroTo510 class is really going to do it.

Bell and Stevenson gave us a crash course in nano particles when we first met for office hours. Bell has done a great job of “dumbing down” the science behind their technology for laymen like myself.

We were fascinated by the BioNanovations team when we first met them. While Bell had been working on using nano particles to find bacterial infections early on and Stevenson had discovered the biomarkers for cancer before they had become cancer.

The BioNanovations team will most likely bring many great products to market but their debut product “TestQuick” will have a huge impact for millions of people suffering from bacterial infections.

Bacterial infections kill more people than AIDS, breast cancer and automobile accidents combined, every year. What’s even more troubling than that is the fact that over 1.7 million bacterial infections are hospital born. That means that people who have gone into the hospital for something else, incur some kind of bacterial infection. These hospital borne infections cost over $40 billion dollars.

That’s not all though. One of the most alarming facts in all of this is that these bacterial infections can claim a life or a limb in less than 48 hours, however the traditional diagnostic testing can take 4-5 days. Yes, unfortunately, the traditional way means that several people lose their lives before getting the diagnosis back on the infection.

What BioNanovations TestQuick product offers is a testing platform and reader that can confirm the type of infection and the level of the infection in under 30 minutes and patient side.

Bell was quick to point out his competition. That’s actually key in an investor pitch day.

BioNanovations main competition is a company called Nanosphere. They offer a diagnostic testing platform that comes back in three hours. Nanosphere received FDA approval and has 200 orders already. Their testing cassettes are $75 a piece and the machine to scan them is $100,000.

Compare that to BioNanovations TestQuick cassettes that sell for $100 a piece but the reader costs just $1000.

But that’s not all. Nanosphere’s technology has a three-hour turn around time, post culture. That means after the initial diagnosis. BioNanovations, TestQuick platform is the first pre-culture diagnostic tool, saving critical time and lives.

Check out Bell’s ZeroTo510 Demo Day pitch video below:

Linkage:

Check out BioNannovations here at their website

Investors, reach bell at charleson.s.bell@bionanovations.com

Here’s more Demo Day coverage from Nibletz

Memphis Startup: EcoSurg Pitches At Zero To 510 Demo Day

Every startup that has participated in an accelerator program wants to change the world. Some founders verbalize that they wantto change the world while others just think it. Well the six startups that participated in the inaugural class at Zero To 510, a cohort based medical device accelerator in Memphis Tennessee, are doing it.

Every startup that presented at Zero To 510’s demo day has developed to solve problems in the medical space. EcoSurg is one of those startups.

There is an environmental problem that stems from just about every surgical procedure, every day. Most surgeries use medical positioners which are foam devices that are designed to position patients in ways that are both safe, and the most convenient for doctors. These foam positioners keep legs propped up, arms propped up, patients on their side and other positions so that the surgeons have better access to the surgery site.

According to EcoSurg CEO Ray Randall, over 20 million surgical procedures per year use these foam positioners. This of course creates tons of non biodegradable waste. Specifically these foam positioners contain petroleum-based derivatives. Not only are these medical positioners harmful for the environment, but because of that, they cost more in disposal which is passed down to the customer/patient.

Randall’s company EcoSurg has developed a new line of patient positioners which are manufactured using alternative foam comprised of soybean-based composites.

With Obama Care coming into play in 2014, the amount of surgeries is going to increase significantly. EcoSurg’s medical positioners will help hospitals cut down on costs and help the environment in the process.

Check our Randall’s pitch video from Zero To 510 Demo Day below:

Linkage:

Find EcoSurg on the web here

See more of our Zero To 510 Demo Day Coverage Here

Nibletz is on a sneaker-strapped nationwide startup roadtrip here

Two Down One To Go: Nashville’s JumpStart Foundry Prepares For Demo Day

Last week we were in Chattanooga Tennessee for GigTank. GigTank was the first ever accelerator focused on startups building around 1 GB ethernet. Chattanooga was the first city in the United States with one gigabit fiber optic internet to every home and business in a 600 square mile radius. They beat Kansas City, who’s 1 GB fiber project with Google debuted last month.

We saw some great startups present great ideas. Banyan, a collaborative research tool, that is both up and running,and demonstrated first hand the effects of super fast 1 GB ethernet, was the winner. GigTank broke the mold of the traditional accelerator demo day by offering a $100,000 cash prize to the startup that won their pitch contest in the entrepreneur category.

GigTank broke the mold yet again when they ran a student track along the entrepreneur track. The students received free room and board and incubated at the LampPost Group’s offices in downtown Chattanooga. The student track had a $50,000 cash prize won by two girls whose startup Babel Sushi, is an on the go translating platform. The entrepreneurs incubated at Colab a few blocks down the road from LampPost. The entrepreneurs however, received a $15,000 seed investment.

This Thursday was Demo Day for the ZeroTo510 accelerator in Memphis Tennessee. The ZeroTo510 accelerator was a joint project of the Memphis Bioworks Foundation and Seed Hatchery. It was also the first cohort based medical device accelerator.

Zeroto510’s demo day was more traditional in that there wasn’t a cash prize but rather a showing of what the six teams were working on and what they had accomplished in the 90 day period. All six teams did a great job presenting. They all had viable go to market strategies as well as thoroughly researched projects. Some actually had products to show off, which is a break from the traditional web based accelerators.

Patrick Woods, Director at archer>malmo’s a>m ventures group said “there was actually physical products you could touch” making reference to the several accelerator demo days he’s seen where everything was either on the web, in the cloud or still in pre-release formative stages.

You can see a quick background on the six teams at ZeroTo510 here.

Some of the presenters had already secured physical trials, others, like Restore Medical had great news, like the fact that they already had a purchase order for $3.75 million.

Next week marks the end of the current session of Nashville’s Jumpstart Foundry. Now in it’s third year, the JumpStart Foundry has a great class of startups that will be pitching next week.

Life in an accelerator is tough. Tennessee Venture Capitalist and Partner at Solidus, Vic Gatto, told nibletz last week that there were originally ten teams in JumpStart Foundry and three have since dropped out. The best of the best for next week are ready present and include:

Contigo Financial, an online consumer lender offering a suite of responsible loan products through the workplace.

Jamplify (formerly OKDJ), a social media marketing platform which turns fans into active promoters of online content.

The Skillery, a marketplace for classes and workshops led by experts in the community.

Evermind, the first consumer-friendly senior monitoring system. If you can plug-in a surge protector and use a smartphone, Evermind is easy.

Kiwi (formerly Wax), the best way to capture any exciting moment on video.

PhotoRankr, the first online photography marketplace to leverage the power of social media.

OurVinyl, allows users to discover new music through video. The modern day MTV minus the re-runs.

Nibletz is the voice of startups everywhere else and the national voice of startups in Tennessee we can’t wait to see what these great startups have to offer.

Linkage:

There are still a limited number of tickets available for JumpStart Foundry’s Demo Day get them here

Nibletz is the national voice of startups in Tennessee and everywhere else, check out our southern coverage here

Memphis Startup: Restore Medical Kicks Off Demo Day With A $3.75M Purchase Order

We have no problem admitting that ninety percent of the ideas, and startups that are showing off today at Zeroto510’s demo day fly way over our head. There’s one thing we know real well though and that’s millions of dollars.

Today in Memphis Tennessee, Zeroto510, the first cohort based medical device accelerator in the country graduated their first class. For an overview of the accelerator and the startups presenting today, click here.

One of the startups we’ve gotten a chance to know here in Memphis is Restore Medical. We met co-founders Ryan Ramkhelawan and Shawn Flynn at an office hours event we held in Memphis in June. That’s where we first heard about there new and innovative way to sterilize surgical instruments.

Traditional methods of sterilizing surgical instruments have been in place since Flynn was a surgical assistant in the US Army 20 years ago. Yes, with all the innovation we’ve experienced in the country in the last two decades, the sterilization of surgical instruments still resembles the way a high volume chain restaurant washes their silverware for a dinner rush. Instruments are piled into a basket with no regard for blades, needles, pins and of course accidents.

Restore Medical has two key elements to their business; protecting patients from infections from dirty instruments and saving hospitals money. Restore Medical’s new sterilization process does both. Restore Medical’s process keeps the surgical instruments separated, or rather organized and spread out in a way that every instrument is equally sterilized throughout the process.

When we met at office hours the duo explained that there are a lot of faults in the current system. They should know this as both have had surgery support career paths for over 20 years. One of the faults is the fact that if one tool is missing from a set of tools for a procedure the operating room needs to call down for a brand new set. This can take up to two hours, on a rush. Doctors are faced with whether they are going to keep a patient under anesthesia for the wait or wake them up and put them back under. Of course both of those options can be costly and risky.

During the presentation today Flynn highlighted the fact that with Obama Care taking effect in 2014, there will be 30 million more patients in the system. Now is the time that hospitals need to streamline processes, cut down costs and maximize their certifications. Hospitals need to make sure that their infection rates are low so that they can be reimbursed for patients they take without traditional insurance.

Restore Medical can increase revenue for hospitals by $14.5 million dollars per year (each) and save $500,000 in hard costs.

Their technology, coupled with the revenue by changing to Restore Medical’s system has attracted 5 Wellstar hospitals to already putting in a purchase order. The purchase order hinges on Restore Medical getting their 510K. If their 510K is approved that purchase order is $3.75 million dollars.

Linkage:

Check out Restore Medical Here

Check out Zero to 510 here

Nibltez is the voice of startups “everywhere else” here are more startup stories from “everywhere else”

Memphis Gears Up For Zeroto510 Demo Day

When you think about Memphis Tennessee thoughts of music, culture, barbecue and Elvis Presley often consume those thoughts. You may not be quick to associate the birth place of Rock & Roll and the overnight package (FedEx) with startups, innovation and bio medical devices.

Since 2006 Memphians have band together to launch several entrepreneurial and startup resources. In fact the city of just under 650,000 residents has an infrastructure of resources for startups and entrepreneurs that would rival cities twice it’s size.

Four of those resources, Seed Hatchery, the local startup accelerator program; Memphis Bioworks Foundation, the local bio and life sciences incubator; along with Innova and MB Ventures (both venture capital firms) have created Zeroto510.

They’re calling Zeroto510 the first cohort-based medical device accelerator. To that end Eric Matthews the President of Seed Hatchery is working with Allan Daisley, who runs Memphis Bioworks, to apply the Seed Hatchery and familiar tech incubator model to medical device ideas, and turning them into startups.

Charleson Bell, a PhD candidate at Vanderbilt University, and the co-founder of Zeroto510 resident company, BioNanovations explained: “Doctors and researchers have great ideas that often times get shelved because they don’t have the resources or skills to apply a business model to those ideas”.

That’s exactly why Seed Hatchery and BioWorks started Zeroto510. Chief Brand Officer at LaunchYourCity, the company that manages Seed Hatchery told us: “In addition to seed capital and mentorship the six companies in Zeroto510 also receive advice on marketing their idea and pitching it to investors”.

Mike Hoffmeyer CEO and Co-Founder of Memphis based Paytopia was a recent graduate from the 2012 class at Seed Hatchery, and told us “I consider myself a smart guy but after a few minutes of Zeroto510 pitches I was totally lost”. Hoffmeyer is helping the Zeroto510 residents with refining their pitches into laymen’s terms.

For a better understanding to Bell’s company for instance. Bell and his co-founder Andre T. Stevenson developed separate research projects at Vanderbilt. Bell had discovered a new nanoparticle that could be used with far better accuracy than what’s currently available, to identify and track virus’, bacteria and infections. Prior to Zeroto510 Bell would roll through his presentation despite losing people’s attention because he was talking over their heads.

Now his pitch includes a great description of a nanoparticle “imagine taking one piece of human hair and dividing it by 1000, that’s roughly the size of a nanoparticle”. The PhD scientist seems a little uneasy about the example because you can’t objectively measure one piece of human hair, but it gets the point across.

The name Zeroto510 comes from the term 510K clearance which is the clearance given to medical devices. With a 510K a similar device or process that has already been approved by the FDA is compared to the new process or device, which fastracks the approval process at the FDA.

The goal around ZeroTo510 is to take the medical device and process startups from 0 to a point where they are ready for their 510k

There are six startups in all going through the current session at Zeroto510 which are:

BioNanovations uses nanotechnology to more quickly diagnose specific types of bacterial infections. Rather than treating with broad antibiotics and waiting days for test results, TestQuick provides physicians a portable option that can recognize a flesh-eating bacteria in only 30 minutes.
HandMinder is building a glove-like device that aids the rehabilitation process for stroke victims. Self-contained and battery-operated, the glove provides an affordable and convenient alternative for regaining motor control.
Nanophthalmics brings engineering concepts to clinical medicine, creating microscopic tools with etched glass for ocular surgery which will help remove scar tissue for patients with retinal or corneal diseases.
Randall Surgical is working on soy-based surgical positioners, an eco-friendly alternative to the foam currently used that contains petroleum and releases toxic chemicals when incinerated after use.
Restore Medical Solutions increases the speed and effectiveness of the sterilization process necessary for surgical instruments. Their product could lead to cleaner tools and the ability to perform more surgeries in a day- wins for both hospitals and patients.
Urova Medical is building UroGuide, a device that can be implanted during an outpatient procedure that provides a permanent and safe solution to stress urinary incontinence in women.

Like most incubators, the current session at Zeroto510 will culminate with an investor pitch day later this afternoon. If the program is effective, the audience will have no trouble understanding the brilliant minds behind these startups.

Linkage:

More about Zero To 510 here

Check out LaunchMemphis.com

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” here are more startup stories from “everywhere else”

Madison Startup Entrepreneurs Wow’d By St. Louis Venture Draft Event

You may not think about it every Sunday, Monday night and Thursday night that you’re watching your favorite NFL football team but an alarming number of pro athletes actually go bankrupt after their professional careers end. In talking with a few celebrities who have almost gone down that route, it’s not even ignorance that some may think. It’s not living beyond your means as a national celebrity, sometimes pro athletes and celebrities really get too busy to manage their money. They also get too busy to think about what happens afterwards.

We’ve all heard the sad stories too, of people like Fantasia Barrino and other stars who have turned their finances over to someone less than qualified to handle such large amounts of money. Celebrities and pro athletes assume that everyone has their best interest at heart.

Well former NFL star and entrepreneur Brandon Williams does. Williams, through his Brandon Williams Economic Development Corporation is trying to connect athletes and celebrities with entrepreneurism. He’s not talking about the kind where a celebrity quickly endorses a product and moves on. Williams is trying to connect entrepreneurs, startups, sports stars and celebrities in a new kind of ecosystem so that entrepreneurs can benefit from investment and athletes and celebrities have a plan for when their careers slow.

One of Williams initiatives is Venture Draft, a startup and entrepreneur event, pitch contest and showcase that happened in St. Louis this past weekend.

ABC Shark Tank Shark, Founder of Fubu and partner in Shark Branding, Daymond John, was one of the top level keynote speakers at the event. We didn’t raise enough money in our last crowdfunding leg to attend ourselves, but our good friend Scott Resnick in Madison WI led a group of 6 from Madison to St. Louis for the event.

Resnick was “Wowed” by the event and wrote a great entry on his blog where he said:

The first annual Venture Draft Conference was held in St Louis this weekend. The mission of the conference was to bring professional athletes, venture capitalists and technology experts face-to-face to create business opportunities (aka allow entrepreneurs to mingle with and teach current and former NFL players about technology). A tip of the hat to the Brandon Williams Economic Development Corporation: the Venture Draft was a success.

Rarely do I experience a “wow” moment at a tech conference. However, this one was different. Maybe it was the personality of the highlighted speakers (who attended every event) or the charm of St Louis, but there was something special about Venture Draft.

My “wow” moment came right after I had the opportunity to bounce business expansion ideas off keynote speaker Henry Wong of Garage Technology Ventures at a local cigar bar. As I was walking out of the bar to a sponsored after party, Jim Sorgi struck up a conversation about his future with the Colts and time on Gilman Street. Wow, this conference was pretty cool.

Continue here to the Hardin Design & Development Blog for the rest!

Big Data Conference Coming To Philadelphia At Temple University

Big Data is a big deal this year. We were the national media sponsor for the recent StampedeCon Big Data conference in St.Louis and both coasts have been bustling with events, conferences, and conventions dedicated to big data. We also saw some great big data usage cases in Chattanooga operating on 1gb ethernet.

The Big Data phenomena has made it’s way to Philadelphia and Temple University.

Next month on September 27th, The Fox Business School at Temple University is hosting a big data conference called “The Business Value of Big Data, potential,reality and success stories.

Adrian Gardner the Director of Information Technology and Communications Directorate and Chief Information Officer at NASA’s Goddard Flight Center, is keynoting the event. Gardner has spent over 20 years in government and is an Air Force Veteran. He was the recipient of an Air Force Achievement Medal in 1987.

Walmart’s President of Enterprise Information Management, Suja Chandrasekaran is the other keynote speaker of the one day event.

Speakers from Merck, Campbell Soup, Chartis, Pfizer, Lockheed Martin, and WaWa are also presenting at the conference.

This big data conference will demonstrate major corporations and government usage of big data. Whether you’re a startup founder in the big data space or in the business of big data you don’t want to miss this exceptional event. There are some spaces for attendees still available but space is limited to 125.

Linkage:

For more information or to register click here

Nibletz is the voice of startups everywhere else.

Check out our coverage of StampedeCon