Twelve Cities Founder And Thiel Fellowship Liason Nick Arnett On Three Themes For Building Great Cities

While Brad Feld’s book on Startup Communities has become a bible to many people trying to jumpstart startup ecosystems across the country, one entrepreneur has been looking at not just the startup community but the city as a whole, and he’s been doing it since he was 15.

At an age when many high school students are considering the football team, the wrestling team, or a homecoming date, Nick Arnett was sitting in on economic development meetings in his hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana. It was there that he started working on an idea to visit 12 great cities and see what they had in common.

The project officially began in 2011 when a team of individuals, spearheaded by Arnett, went on a series of twelve trips throughout the continental United States. Arnett pointed out to a standing room only crowd at the Fireside Talks event on Monday night that Chattanooga was the first city they visited.

The group working on twelve cities started noticing three big themes that existed across all twelve cities. Arnett said it doesn’t matter if they were talking to the Mayor of Grand Rapids, Michigan or a resident in Tucson, Arizona. these three themes always come up.

The importance of openness and embracing the weird. Arnett explains in the video that being open and embracing everyone in the city is crucial for entrepreneurship. A city needs to embrace those who are working on startups, their own ideas, or freelance. Long gone are the days of everyone going to work at the plant.
The ability to make a difference no matter who you are. A lot of cities have a gap between their older leadership and younger leadership that makes it hard for one group to make a difference. Cities that don’t have that gap are more successful.
The importance of social connectivity, connecting the connectors. Having your local city connectors connect with another city’s connectors. Cities need to leverage these kinds of people that have both strong internal and external connectors.

Arnett really goes deep into all three of these themes in the video below. If you’re working on a startup community, do you have the city component as well? I’ve seen a lot of startup communities that are struggling because the city is still stuck in old ways. Make your city great, and your startup community will be greater.

14 Year Old Social Entrepreneur Jack Skowronnek Has Been At It 4 Years Already

Accelerator week in Tennessee kicked off on Monday evening with a VIP reception for the GigTank accelerator and then an event called Fireside Talks, which featured members of the Thiel Fellows Program and local Chattanoogans under the age of 20 who are doing great things.

The Fireside Talk event was kicked off by serial entrepreneur, angel investor, advisor, mentor, and “Mr. Chattanooga” Stephen Culp. Culp, who speaks on entrepreneurship and is passionate about startups. wanted to be brief and insisted that the focus be on the young entrepreneurs who he said “had me questioning what I was doing at age 20”.

Before he left the stage though Culp drove home three major points:

everyone has entrepreneurism in them
entrepreneurism isn’t just for profit
entrepreneurs need support

The second point was manifest Monday evening when Jack Skowronnek took the stage. This unique 14-year-old didn’t start some social mobile game, nor did he develop some kind of note taking app for school students. Rather, Skowronnek is a social entrepreneur. The best part: he’s been doing it since he was ten years old.

It was when Jack was 10 and going into the sixth grade that his elementary school teacher in Chicago recommended he read the book “Drums Girls and Dangerous Pie” by Jordan Sonnenblick. He told the standing room-only audience at the Chattanooga Theater Center that “you’d never guess what the book was about,” and of course who knew that a book with a title like that would be about a boy who shaved his head in solidarity with his brother who has cancer.

Shaving one’s head to support someone with cancer isn’t anything new. Former President George HW Bush just recently shaved his head when he found out that members of his secret service detail had shaved theirs in solidarity with one of their agents whose son Patrick has leukemia.

What’s unique about Jack is that upon completing the book he immediately told his parents that he needed (not wanted) to shave his head. After stating his case his parents allowed him to do just that. Along with shaving his head he started raising money for St.Baldrick’s, a national non profit organization that encourages people to shave their head and donate to help cancer patients. In two years Jack had raised over $5,000 for the charity.

When he moved to Chattanooga, he continued to shave his head and raise money. His story got picked up by local radio stations and Paul Smith, General Manager at the Chattanooga Market, heard about Jack and immediately contacted his mother Dawn Skowronnek. Smith wanted to host Jack’s head shaving event at the market, a very popular destination in Chattanooga.

As the event evolved, Jack was convinced to start his own charity to help the Children’s Hospital Foundation, which would keep the proceeds at a local level and help more than 50 Chattanooga area children with cancer. Jack’s foundation was christened Jack’s Chattanoggins, incorporating Chattanooga and noggin.

Young Jack moved the audience near tears when he told the story about a girl named Kennedy who he had befriended at the hospital. Kennedy had suffered through losing a lung and a leg to cancer but remained positive and upbeat. At one point she donated $20 to Jack’s campaign, even though he found out from the girl’s mother she never parts with her money. Jack also realized the significance of his efforts when the people he was trying to help were turning around and donating as well.

Last year Kennedy passed away, which made Jack start doubting his efforts. He explained that he attended the young gir’ls wake but couldn’t bring himself to come to the funeral. Jack dedicated the most recent Jack’s Chattanoggins event to Kennedy’s honor. It was also the most successful to date.

Jack obviously has hair in the picture above. In between events he grows his hair out so it can be shaved again. At the last event even the Mayor cut a lock of Jack’s blonde hair for the cause.

Jack plans on continuing this kind of work for the rest of his life. His entire family and the city of Chattanooga back him 100%. Jack’s looking forward to starting the 9th grade on Thursday and continuing to change the world one hair at a time.

Triangle Startup Factory Considering St. Louis For Next Location

Techstars, Dreamit Ventures, and even Bizdom are successfully running accelerator programs in multiple states. It’s a growing trend with accelerators that do well with their original programs, typically in their hometown.

The Triangle Startup Factory has been very successful over the past few years. It’s one of the more popular startup accelerators everywhere else. The program had its first cohort in the fall of 2012, and this spring they completed their third class. The Triangle Startup Factory infuses each company with $50,000 in seed capital and hands on mentorship from their network of active angels, successful founders, and experienced technology experts. This combination is often a recipe for a stellar program.

Chris Hievly, the co-founder off Mapquest and the co-founder and Managing Director at the Triangle Startup Factory will be in St. Louis on Wednesday for an evening startup and networking event called Plug in2 STL, according to techli.com. The regional tech blog, founded by entrepreneur Edward Domain, says that Hievly is highly considering St. Louis for his next accelerator program, and those with creative startup ideas should attend the event to help court Hievly and the startup factory.

The free event also includes a tour of the new @4240 startup space. If you’re in the St. Louis area, you can get free tickets by following this link.

photo: Trianglestartupfactory.com

This huge national startup conference in Cincinnati is encouraging startups to “start where u are”

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

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.

In 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…

Andrew Warner, Wil Schroter, Naithan Jones & Andy Sparks Added To Everywhere Else Cincinnati Line Up

When we announced our next national conference Everywhere Else Cincinnati this past Monday, we promised more big announcements all the way up until the event itself. (September 29-October 1st at the Duke Energy Convention Center in downtown Cincinnati, by the way.)

The time has come to announce 4 more great speakers coming to celebrate startups and entrepreneurship everywhere else.

Nait Jones the founder of AgLocal, Andrew Warner the founder at Mixergy, Andy Sparks co-founder of Mattermark, and Wil Schroter, serial entrepreneur and founder of popular crowdfunding startup, Fundable have all joined the amazing line up of speakers that will take to the main stage.

Naithan Jones, AgLocal:

Nait Jones comes from a family of chefs, and delicious fresh food has always been a part of his life. Living in the Kansas City area, Jones observed a problem connecting independent and family meat farms to wholesale and retail buyers. He created AgLocal in 2011 to deal with that problem head on.

Jones is no stranger to startups and entrepreneurship, he left his last full time job as the Director of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation’s Aspiring Entrepreneurs FastTrac Program to start AgLocal. He obviously made the right decision as AgLocal was able to attract marquee venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz to lead their $1 million round last summer.

Andrew Warner, Mixergy:

Andrew Warner is one of those life long entrepreneurs who has a brilliant sales mind. He and his brother Michael created their first company when they were in their 20’s. They called their company Bradford and Reed because they figured with a name like that, people would always take their calls. Warner explains in this post that a name like Bradford and Reed sounded like a law firm, which could mean trouble, or a VC firm, which could mean opportunity.

Bradford and Reed hit it big making online greeting cards, which resulted in nearly $40 million in annual sales.

After taking a break about 10 years ago, Warner was refreshed and wanted to take on mentoring and help entrepreneurs in an entirely new way. Mixergy was born. Chances are if you read Nibletz and plan on coming to Everywhere Else Cincinnati, you are well aware of Mixergy, a platform that allows you to learn from proven entrepreneurs through courses, interviews, and events.

In a Nibletz story in June Derek Capo the founder of Next Step China said this about Mixergy: “My investment in Mixergy’s premium membership has paid itself back 1 million times over. I have learned so much from the interviews, the classes, and the discussions. I’ve gained an MBA-type network without the $200K tag. Andrew Warner, the owner of Mixergy, is great at getting guests who can contribute tangible advice to other entrepreneurs, regardless of what industry they are in.”

Warner’s got a great story and his brain is exploding with entrepreneurial nuggets of wisdom from one of the biggest networks in the world.

Andy Sparks, MatterMark,

MatterMark is one of the best weapons in many VC arsenals to help sniff out the best startups. The company was founded by Refer.ly founder Danielle Morrill, her husband Kevin, and Andy Sparks who was brought into the Y-Combinator backed Refer.ly team when they acquired his 500 Startups backed, LaunchGram. Just four months later Refer.ly was shut down to create Mattermark.

With roots in Y-Combinator and 500 Startups, the rockstar team behind MatterMark is now backed by NEA and Andreessen Horowitz.

Sparks founded LaunchGram in Columbus before relocating it to Mountain View to go through 500 Startups.

Sparks has ties to 500 Startups and Y-Combinator, and he’s a facilitator for Startup Weekend. He’s also a huge believer in the fact that startups can come from anywhere.

Wil Schroter, Fundable and several other amazing startups.

Wil has literally been an entrepreneur since the age of 19. Now at the age of 36 he’s still never “worked for” anybody but himself in his entire adult life. His entrepreneurial journey started when he created Blue Diesel, an interactive marketing agency that eventually merged with inChord Communications where Schroter helped build the company to $700 million in annual billings.

At least 10 years before incubators were the “in thing,” Schroter created Virtucon Ventures, an incubator for startup companies that is still running today. Schroter’s other startups include Startups.co (2004), Gotcast.com (2006), Affordit.com (2008), Bizplan.com (2009), Unsubscribe.com (2010), and finally Fundable in 2011.

Fundable is a crowdfunding site that’s seen a lot of traction. Fundable offers both rewards and equity based campaigns, and often attracts out-of-the-box winners for funding on their site.

Schroter has been named the Young Entrepreneur Of The Year by the US Small Business Association, Ohio’s Business Person Of The Year, and named to Business First’s 40 under 40. Schroter was also recognized by Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur Of The Year Program.

Jones, Warner, Schroter, and Sparks join this already great list of startup speakers from across the country who will be in Cincinnati September 29-October 1st for Everywhere Else Cincinnati:

Jake Stutzman, founder evlevate.co
Jonathon Perrelli, Managing Director, Fortify Ventures
Justin Gutwein, Filmmaker and Entrepreneur startupland.tv
Mark Hasebroock, Founder Dundee Venture Capital
Jason Healy, Founder, Blu
John Bracken, Founder e-vite and Speek
Dave Knox, CMO Rockfish, co-founder, Brandery
Patrick Woods, Managing Director a>m ventures
Sarah Ware, Founder Markerly
John T. Meyer, Founder lemon.ly
Raghu Betina, Managing Patner, The Starter League
Ryan O’Connell, VP Influence & Company
Blake Miller, Managing Director, Think Big Accelerator
Michael Bergman, Founder Repp.

Attendee tickets are available at the early bird discount rate of just $99. Startup Village booths, are available at the early bird discount rate of just $495 (only 18 remaining).

Online Ticketing for Everywhere Else Cincinnati – “Start Where U Are” powered by Eventbrite

StartupLand Sneak Preview And Panel At Everywhere Else Cincinnati September 30th

Justin Gutwein, the filmmaker and entrepreneur behind the documentary series StartupLand, will debut a limited edition special sneak preview to the attendees, startups, investors, and entrepreneurs at Everywhere Else Cincinnati.

The documentary series was filmed during the spring session of The Fort accelerator housed at Washington DC’s 1776. StartupLand takes a no-holds-barred look at the entire accelerator experience and then talks to the startup founders upon completion of the accelerator, shining a light on the ins and outs of the Fortify Ventures-backed startup accelerator.

The five teams that are chronicled in the series are:

LegCyte (DC) leverages technology to make legislation easier to understand. http://www.LegCyte.com

RidePost (DC) is an online marketplace connecting drivers and riders for safe & social ridesharing. http://www.RidePost.com

SnobSwap (DC and San Francisco) is an evolved marketplace where fashion lovers can swap, sell, or buy coveted pre-loved designer clothing and accessories. http://www.snobswap.com

TrendPo (San Francisco) analyzes the political world daily using news, sentiment, and social metrics. http://www.trendpo.com

The Trip Tribe (DC) has cracked the code on how travelers can have the experience of a lifetime. http://www.thetriptribe.com

Jonathon Perrelli, the Managing Director of Fortify Ventures and co-founder of The Fort, will be on hand at Everywhere Else Cincinnati. He and Gutwein will answer questions about the documentary, the process, and the accelerator.

StartupLand just completed a Kickstarter campaign to help with the costs of post production. Gutwein was looking to raise $75,000 for the documentary series and surpassed that goal by over $10,000.

You can see Justin Gutwein, Jonathon Perrelli, and some of the featured startup founders in a panel at Everywhere Else Cincinnati. Gutwein will also show a special sneak preview of StartupLand during the conference. They hope to completely wrap up production later in the fall or in the early winter of 2013.

Get your ticket or startup village booth by clicking the banner below. For more information on StartupLand visit startupland.tv

Everywhere Else: The Startup Conference Comes To Cincinnati

It’s official. Everywhere Else Cincinnati is the startup conference helping you start where you are. The second event in our Everywhere Else series will take place September 29th – October 1st in Cincinnati, OH at the Duke Energy Convention Center.

This conference will unite the startup community everywhere else for 2 1/2 days of learning, inspiration, and connecting. Enjoy two full days of content from our amazing line up of nationally recognized speakers, three killer parties, a pitch competition between some of the hottest startups, and so much more. Things will get under way with a huge party September 29th in downtown Cincinnati.

Everywhere Else Cincinnati kicks off a huge month of innovation in Cincinnati. The Brandery Demo Day immediately follows the conference on October 2nd, and some of the best designers in the world will be in town for Cincinnati Design Week.

When you’re starting up outside Silicon Valley, you face huge challenges, and it can often feel like you’re all alone. But, all startups everywhere else struggle with the same obstacles.

It’s time for the “everywhere else” ecosystem to come together. Nibletz and the Everywhere Else conference series believe that when we collaborate, “everywhere else” is THE place to be.

Everywhere Else Cincinnati comes with a new theme, tag line, and mission: Start Where U Are. Through our conferences, events, and activities, we want to help entrepreneurs from around the globe start right where they are. There’s a startup renaissance happening right now, and events like the Everywhere Else conference series are here to highlight that.

Speakers for Everywhere Else Cincinnati include:

Jake Stutzman, Founder & Creative Director Elevate.co
Dave Knox, Cofounder of The Brandery & CMO at Rockfish
Jonathon Perrelli, Founding Partner Fortify Ventures
Dan Porter, Founder of OMGPOP
Jason Healey, Founder of Blu eCigs
Patrick Woods, Managing Director at a>m Ventures
Raghu Betina, Managing Partner at The Starter League
and more..

A full list of current speakers can be found here, and many more will be announced soon. And, we all know entrepreneurs work hard and play hard. Soon we will also announce the three huge parties where you can relax with 1000 of your closest new friends.

Everywhere Else events are geared towards startups everywhere else, which means we keep the ticket prices low enough that even bootstrapped startups can afford to attend and exhibit. Tickets will sell out fast, so don’t miss out. We have 200 early bird attendee tickets available for $99 and 30 Startup Village Booths discounted to just $495 (includes exhibit space, 3 tickets, and a huge pitch contest).

You can book your room for Everywhere Else Cincinnati at the beautifully remodeled downtown Cincinnati Hyatt for a discounted rate here.

Come join us as we learn, network, party, and build something huge–the everywhere else ecosytem.

Online Ticketing for Everywhere Else Cincinnati: Start Where U Are powered by Eventbrite

Get your tickets now and find more info at eecincinnati.com

Startups Everywhere Else, This Is The Big Announcement

Get your early bird ticket or early bird startup village booth here.

node.js Developers Can Count On Cincinnati Startup, Modulus [VIDEO]

We have an incredible knack for running into Charlie Key ,the co-founder of Cincinnati startup Modulus, everywhere. We spent some time with the Modulus crew in Austin at SXSW, and two weeks ago our CEO Nick Tippmann ran into Key at the Innovation Showcase at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Modulus is a platform for node.js developers. They host node.js applications in the cloud in such a way that it makes it incredibly easy for developers to scale. Key tells Nibletz, “When you want to go from 1,000 users to 100,000 user,s we can do that.” They can actually go far beyond 100,000 users.

The cloud stuff is the easy part, though. Modulus also offers a robust layer of statistics and analytics for all of the node.js developers on their platform. They can give their developer users a snapshot of exactly how many people are accessing their app, what features they are calling, and a whole lot more.

Modulus accelerated last year at The Brandery in Cincinnati and just recently moved into their own office.

Key told Soapbox Cincinnati that Modulus was actually a hodge podge of other projects the team was working on: “The business started slowly out of other projects. The Brandery application process really forced us to consolidate our ideas into a single vision; Modulus officially kicked off when we were accepted into the program.”

Now a year later the company is doing very well. Check out Nick’s interview with Charlie Key in the video below:

Indy Startup Adproval Simplifies Direct Advertising For Any Blogger [VIDEO]

Most of our readers know I’m into my 7th year as a full time blogger. Both of the new media startups I’ve founded produced fresh content six days a week. After creating Nibletz in the summer of 2011, I sold Thedroidguy the following spring to concentrate on Nibletz full time.

Like many of the serial entrepreneurs we’ve profiled here at Nibletz, I learned a lot of lessons from my previous startup, and at the same time brought with me habits from my previous startup as well.

With a new media startup (in a lot of cases a fancy schmancy word for blog), or as a full time blogger, and now one with a staff, people often wonder how we do it. There are so many people out there that think they can buy a $1.99 domain name, activate Word Press, and be in business. Well as Indianapolis startup Adproval’s, founder Mathew Anderson talks about in the video below, it’s not that easy. A lot of bloggers either stop blogging altogether or move to part time blogging because they can’t figure out how to monetize.

In 2013 there are so many different things involved in monetization, the least lucrative of those is ad networks. Through both sites we’ve tried just about every available ad network. Now with tech focused sites we’re at an even bigger loss because most of our readers are trained not to click network ads. With advertising though, the trick is to be engaging and to capture the attention of the reader. That’s why our state and local partnerships are the best way to reach an engaged audience of millions across the site and social media.

But attracting those partnerships takes a lot of time.

Even with a permanent Managing Editor on board and a co-founder picking up a lot of the backend work, I spend a lot of time working on direct sales. Anderson is hoping to solve that problem, not just for us but for everyone. Anderson explains his “aha moment” in his conversation with Nick Tippmann in the video below, and he shared a lot about it in our interview with him back in November.

Adproval provides a platform that makes it easy to reach targeted direct advertisers for whatever your niche in blogging is.

Are you blogging recipes, kite flying, paintball, or even tech? Adproval helps you set up their system to reach those advertisers or sponsors that will engage the audience.

At Thedroidguy we used one of the biggest and best ad networks in the world, outside of Google AdSense. Still, an Android-focused blog, we would get huge skyscraper or interstitial ads for macaroni and cheese, cleaning product,s and Brita water filters. As internet sensation Sweet Brown would say, “Ain’t nobody got time for that.”

Here at Nibletz for instance, the best ads would be for startup lawyers, PR firms catering to startups, accelerators, startup conferences, the latest mobile technology, incubators, and coworking spaces. Our readers don’t care about Velveeta Shells & Cheese; they’re still eating Ramen noodles.

Adproval’s knack for connecting bloggers with the sponsors and advertisers that will fill these needs and actually get eyeballs is making the Indianapolis-based company successful.

Check out our video interview with Anderson below and for more info visit adproval.com

Boston’s HackFit Puts A Healthy Spin On The Startup Building Hackathon

We’ve been to several Startup Weekends, Angel Hacks, 48 Hour Launch events, and other hackathons. On the surface they attract a similar “type” of person: the guy or gal who sits around and codes around the clock eating pizza, drinking beer, and keeping their eyes open with 5 Hour Energy and RedBull. Justin Mendelson, the founder of a new hackathon in Boston called HackFit, is preparing to change that.

In addition to coding and building, HackFit attendees will also have ample time to sleep, a variety of workout classes, healthy foods, and of course sessions for coding developing and company building.

Mendelson has been an entrepreneur, product builder, mentor, and business developer throughout his career. He’s also a runner and an athlete, which is why he founded HackFit, a natural mesh of his two passions.

“I’ve participated in a lot of other startup weekends because of previous ideas that I had for fitness-related startups, and I learned that the best teammates were often the ones who were runners themselves. However, I felt like any time I attended one of those startup events, I’d aged a year when the event was over. I wanted to create an active, healthy startup event system since none currently exist,” Mendelson told bostonmagazine.com.

The inaugural HackFit event will be held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, September 20-22nd. “Like a typical startup event schedule, people will first pitch ideas that pertain to the fitness tech space,” Mendelson says, explaining the weekend schedule. “But instead of people just coming up to you after your pitch and asking to join you, we’ll have a physical exercise ice breaker that will help people meet each other. Then people will form teams and go home for the night to sleep.”

In addition to a schedule that includes ample time for fitness and team building, all of the startups created will be fitness and health related. Like most startup-building hackathons there will be a judging panel on Sunday. Participants will receive prizes from area sponsors including gym memberships.

To find out more about HackFit click here.

This startup event may not be so healthy but it’s gonna be a ton of fun and huge.

12-Year-Old Vegas Tech Rockstar Set To Speak At SXSW V2V

We’re hearing about more and more kidpreneurs and teenpreneurs. There was a 14-year-old who won Cincinnati’s most recent Startup Weekend. Another 14-year-old won Tampa’s most recent Startup Weekend as well.

Ethan Duggan may not be the winner of a recent Startup Weekend, but he is an app developer and startup founder. His app “LazyHusband” launched at SXSW this year in Austin, Texas.

Ethan is growing up in the Las Vegas startup community, VegasTech for those in the know. His father Rick Duggan, is the cofounder of vegasstartups.com. The elder Duggan is also “coach,” with the younger Duggan preferring the keyboard and the app store to the baseball diamond or the football field.

The young but witty tween, knows a thing or two about apps, launching, startups, founding, and entrepreneurship. He also knows about monetization. When asked about monetizing his app, he told Vegasstartups.com’s John Lynn “$0.99 per download…Coder’s gotta eat.”

Lynn reports that down in Austin during SXSW, the young Duggan scored over 10 interviews and several high profile posts including one by Brad Feld, and another from GigaOM that ended up on CNN Money. Not too shabby for a member of the VegasTech community that couldn’t even get into the legendary VegasTech party. No worries though. The elder Duggan and the VegasTech community made sure Ethan could join the party via FaceTime. (How 2013 is that?)

Now father and son are going to host a talk at SXSW V2V next month in Las Vegas. They’ll be talking about how Ethan overcame stereotypes of proper childhood activities. They’ll also talk about how Rick Duggan is his “coach,” the app Ethan has created, and how you’re Never Too Young.

You can still purchase passes for SXSW V2V here. and sign up for Duggan’s session here.

Nibletz will be on the ground in Vegas for SXSW V2V, with your help. We’ve got great sponsorship opportunities here where you can get your startup, or startup support organization in front of millions at the most high profile startup event of the summer.

Ethan Duggan image: vegasstartups.com

BlueBridge Digital Founder Talks About One Year Journey From College To 15 Employees

Last year Santiago Jaramillo was a senior in college. From his dorm room, he created a business building apps for other businesses. What happened over the next year is a story much more common to Silicon Valley and New York than Indiana. Jaramillo took that app-building business and turned it into his startup: BlueBridge Digital, a company that does “apps as a service”.

BlueBridge Digital is an app development company that specializes in three verticals: travel and tourism, higher education, and religious institutions. Their clients include Gatlinburg, Tennessee, University of Arkansas, and several well known large churches.

One of the biggest things that sets BlueBridge Digital apart from other app development houses is their subscription model. They charge their clients a monthly fee rather than making them come out of pocket with one big payment, something that often times prevents companies in their verticals from going forward with their app projects.

By focusing on just three main verticals, making their service accessible to businesses, and offering superior customer service, Jaramillo’s startup is cash flow positive and employs 15 people, just a year out of college.

Jaramillo told Nibletz co-founder Nick Tippmann in an interview that one of the biggest keys to his success was focusing on sales and getting people to actually pay for his services. This made it easier to attract a great team of established co-founders, great employees, and more clients. With all that in mind, Jaramillo was able to bootstrap BlueBridge Digital to revenue.

Check out the video interview below and for more visit bluebridgeapps.com

37 signals founder Jason Fried talks about product design.

When Sh!t Hits The Fan, There’s Indiana Startup Evacua

Bloomington, Indiana startup Evacua is a platform/marketplace for people when sh!t hits the fan. What kind of sh!t? How about evacuations.

Often times when an evacuation is necessary, nobody is prepared. That lack of preparation makes an evacuation take 10x as long as it would if more people were ready. Hurricanes, wildfires, and floods are just a few of the disasters that can displace you and your family. If you had a safety network in your back pocket ,you would breathe easier and know that anything dictating an evacuation would be more manageable.

Evacua is a network of verified travelers, companies, and transportation providers that can quickly pool resources together during an evacuation.

Evacua isn’t just about natural disasters and what you would think of as traditional “evacuations.” It’s an emergency travel safety net. If you were on a business trip and your wife went into labor or you had a death in the family, Evacua members would have access to last minute travel without the huge cost of paying commercially for it.

The startup accelerated at RunUp Labs, the travel industry accelerator based out of Bloomington, Indiana’s SproutBox. The idea is to quickly connect its members to be mobilized and ready travel companies and providers at a moment’s notice. At the same time, they are also working on the rideshare model for aircraft.

“Simultaneously, we are fixing the ride sharing model for aircrafts. By using a low cost to entry, we can appeal to a broader base of travelers. During emergencies, this base of travelers is more flexible with price, destination, and departure times, allowing for more likely matches of flights and passengers,” the company says on it’s AngelList profile.

Nibletz’ Nick Tippmann was in Indiana for the Innovation Showcase last week where he got to spend some time with Mike Beckwith the General Manager and co-founder of Evacua. Check out our video interview below and for more info visit evacua.com