Canadian Startup: YourExtraLife Is The Game Of Real Life

Imagine if you lived in a game. No, not virtual reality or something you could play on Google Glass, but if you had a game to complement your real life? That’s what Canadian entrepreneur Philip Barclay is doing with his latest startup, appropriately called “YourExtraLife.

“YourExtraLife is a game for real life. It’s all about venturing out of your comfort zone and trying new things, inspiring your friends, and discovering inventive people. You complete creative real-life challenges by taking pictures, and you unlock harder and harder ones as the community validates your photos,” Barclay told Nibletz.

YourExtraLife essentially takes a mobile online game and brings it offline, which seems to be a popular trend with startups these days.

We got a chance to talk with Barclay about YourExtraLife. Check out our interview below.

What is your startup called?

YourExtraLife

What does your company do?

YourExtraLife is a game for real life. It’s all about venturing out of your comfort zone and trying new things, inspiring your friends and discovering inventive people. You complete creative real-life challenges by taking pictures, and you unlock harder and harder ones as the community validates your photos. We already released a total of 125 challenges for 5 different themes: romance, culture, nightlife, altruism and gourmet.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

Philip Barclay – CEO – Studied Advertising, had a blog with 200k+ readers. Takes care of the growth and marketing strategies.

Gheorghita Catalin Bordianu – CTO – M.Sc. in Computer science from McGill. 4 years of experience in startups, used to be the Platform Director at Silentale. Takes care of our platform.

Samuel Dion-Girardeau – CCO -Currently doing his M.Sc. in Linguistics. Takes care of the content creation (he is behind all these awesome challenges!)

Samuel Chenard – CFO / Designer – Studied accountancy (yes!) – Takes care of the design and the video production.

Where are you based?

We’re in Quebec City right now.

What problem do you solve?

The routine and the passivity. We realized a lot of people needed more incentives to try new things and get out of their comfort zone.

Why now?

It was the perfect moment: mobile phones are powerful (and intelligent), millennials get bored easily and they are looking to be mind blown, brands are looking for new ways to reach/connect with people on their phone, social medias made a lot of people passive.

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

-We raised seed money.

-We launched a kickass product.

-We made it to the front page of the App Store in several countries, including Canada, U.S.A., UK, etc.

-We reached 10k users in under a week.

-We have a major partnership with one of the biggest music festival in the world: Le Festival d’été de Québec.

-Some major blogs (The Next Web, TechVibes) covered our story.

What are your next milestones?

-Raise Series A

-Hire

-Partner with more major brands

-Release 5 more challenge trees

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

https://yourextralife.com

This Boston startup gamified the asthma inhaler for kids.

We Talk With Chicago Startup SimpleRelevance About Simple, Personal Email

Chicago startup SimpleRelevance has been on the startup radar for quite some time. Back in May the company, founded by Chicago serial entrepreneur and founding team member of iContact Erik Severinhaus, raised $1 million dollars. While there are several companies out there vying for the position as your mass emailer, SimpleRelevance has found a way to make mass emails personal.

Just the other day I received an email pitch from someone that was obviously sent out using a mass emailer without much preparation and about zero relevance. With SimpleRelevance you don’t need to worry about that.

“Using data intelligence, we combine your customers’ demographic, social, and previous purchase data with our data intelligence to create emails that are individually personalized down to the subject line, product recommendations shown, and time of day the email is sent,” Laura Boring, the companies Head of Marketing and Program Management told us.

According to the company, this degree of customization can increase conversion by 51%, while increasing click through’s by as much as 29%. This can lead to an increase in revenue for companies using SimpleRelevance of as much as 400%, reported VentureBeat.

SimpleRelevance is one of many awesome startups currently housed at 1871, the startup and technology epicenter in Chicago. We talked with Boring about that and more. Check out our interview below.

What is your startup, what does it do?

SimpleRelevance make it easy for companies to personalize, target, and automate their email marketing using data intelligence. We combine your customers demographic, social, and previous purchase data with our data intelligence to create emails that are individually personalized down to the subject line, product recommendations shown, and time of day the email is sent.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds

Erik Severinghaus is a Chicago based serial entrepreneur and business leader. He was a founding team member of iContact, a leading email service provider which was sold to Vocus in 2012. He later joined IBM, where he spent six years as a consultant in IBM’s IT Optimization Practice before founding SimpleRelevance.

Where are you based?

Chicago, IL – currently based at 1871, the tech-startup hub in the Merchandise Mart.

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

We couldn’t ask for a better working environment. At 1871, we are surrounded by some of the top startup talent in Chicago. So far, I haven’t seen any direct competitors here at 1871. Everyone is willing to help each other out.

What problem does your startup solve?

Companies now have access to massive amounts of customer data from various sources,

However, few companies know how to combine this data and make it actionable, especially from an email marketing perspective. Email marketing is one of the easiest and cost effective forms of marketing; however it is still significantly behind from a technology perspective. Our goal is to not only give companies the ability to upgrade to customer focused, data driven marketing, but to make it completely seamless on their end. Firms of all sizes using SimpleRelevance now have access to sophisticated technology that was once only available to firms with million dollar data analytics budgets.

What is one challenge that you’ve overcome in the startup process?

One key challenge for SimpleRelevance’s startup process was finding a viable product-market fit. We found ourselves with a fantastic piece of technology that basically created an intelligent inbox, highlighting of-interest emails. We weren’t getting sufficient traction operating as a B2C company and found that our tech would be much more relevant as a SaaS for B2C companies – we made a huge pivot from a B2C to a B2B company.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

To date, we are personalizing emails for over 25 million email addresses. Since January, we’ve seen double digit month over month growth in both our small and midsize businesses as well as our enterprise solutions. We’ve set up partnerships with top Email Service Providers and E-commerce platforms. Our recent round of funding and acceptance into TechStars has been great external validation of our concept, however, the biggest form of evidence for us is the internal validation – which is the significant increase in revenue we are creating for our clients.

What are your next milestones

Our next key milestone is to find a scalable customer acquisition model. We’ve found that batch-and-blast email marketing, or sending the same email at one time to a massive group of people, is still a very prevalent marketing strategy. It’s also completely archaic. To find a scalable customer acquisition model, we basically have to 1) educate the market about the benefits of sending an email with personalized product recommendations (think Amazon Recommendations) at the time the customer is most likely to be checking their inbox and 2) let B2C companies know it’s actually possible to have a one-on-one conversation with every customer on their email lists.

Who are your mentors and role models?

As part of the TechStars Chicago program, we have amazing access to brilliant mentors in the Chicago area. There has been a lot of momentum in the Chicago startup community and we are very excited to be in the middle of the action.

What are some of the advantages/disadvantages growing your startup outside of Silicon Valley.

One of the advantages of growing SimpleRelevance outside of Silicon Valley is that the Chicago startup community holds itself to standards equal to, if not greater than, those of Silicon Valley. After all, it is one of the hot new startup hubs of the Midwest. We’ve found this results in an environment that demands very defined and validated business models.

One of the disadvantages is that Chicago is still some time away from having the support and rapport of Silicon Valley. Being a Chicago startup is cool, but it’s not yet Silicon Valley cool. Undoubtedly, this is changing as companies like Groupon and SurePayroll call Chicago home.

What’s next for your SimpleRelevance?

Next on our agenda is to end the era of batch-and-blast email marketing. We will not rest until every company is sending personalized and relevant email. You can look at it from this perspective; we want every company to send every single email with a personal mailman who will deliver only relevant mail at the most appropriate times.

Where can people find out more, and what is your Twitter username?

www.simplerelevance.com

twitter.com/simplerelevance (@simplerelevance)

facebook.com/simplerelevance

Check out more startup stories from 1871 here at nibletz.com.

Entrepreneur Moves From Palo Alto To New Jersey To Launch Phroogal

“You can think of us as Google, Quora, and Yelp melded into one cohesive idea around money,” New Jersey startup Phroogal founder Jason Vitug says.

“Interesting,” we thought, so we wanted to find out more.

Most people want to know about money, where to invest it, how to invest it, what terms mean, who can you trust, who can’t you trust. All these are questions that many of us turn to Google for. However the results can be overbearing; millions of patches on investing show up no matter how you refine the search. If information on money and finances were indexed, aggregated, and peer reviewed, it would be a whole lot easier to take control of your money. That’s why Vitug built Phroogal.

Google provides great information on so many things, but mixed into those search engine results are advertisements and paid listings. With Google, the person or company with the best SEO wins. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they have the best financial information for you or your best interest at heart. When you’re looking to make decisions about your money and your finances, this is problematic at best.

Phroogal solves this problem by leveraging social networks to form a community and adding peer reviews and suggestions. If hundreds or thousands of real people are suggesting one financial service over another, there should be merit to that, right?

That’s what Phroogal is hoping.

Phroogal is going to connect common folks that want to know about money, with recommended industry experts that know about all things money. They’ll also have technology in the background that will help users find information they need based on the user’s lifestyle, milestones and goals.

The startup, which hasn’t even launched yet, already has over 3,000 people signed up and waiting for the platform to open its doors. While we are waiting, we got some time to talk with Vitug. Check out our interview below.

What is your startup called?

Phroogal

What does your company do?

Phroogal is crowd-sourced financial information enabling social collaboration to share knowledge, discover new tools and connect with money savvy peers and financial experts.We are building the central repository for all things money. You can think of us as Google, Quora and Yelp melded into one cohesive idea around money.

Why is Phroogal special?

There are so much information and tools out there that can help people get a better handle on money but there is one resource that allows people to discover them. It’s a simple idea that can have profound impact on helping people manage money.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

Jason Vitug, founder and CEO, worked in the financial services industry for 10 years most recently as VP of Business Development for a credit union based in Silicon Valley. Holds a BS in Finance and an MBA. Retired from “corporate America” to backpack around the world in 2012. I had an “aha” moment on what I wanted to do when I came back after backpacking through 20 countries in 12 months. I came back in 2013 to build Phroogal.

There is so much talk about failed startups because of a single founder. The challenges are stacked against me but my passion and work ethic has led to many small successes.

Where are you based?

Currently based in New Jersey. I lived in Palo Alto but moved to NJ to focus all my resources on Phroogal. I’ve been couchsurfing building Phroogal moving from one couch to another.

What problem do you solve?

We all thrive to learn more about money but money is a taboo subject we do not openly talk about. I’ve found that 7/10 people use search engines to find answers to their financial questions. It results in sifting through countless links, advertisements and confusing forums and vague blog posts.

Our platform will allow people to ask questions and get answers, search for topics, discover resources and connect with savvy peers.

Why now?

Advances in technology around money are outpacing adoption by those who can benefit from them. It’s the perfect time to introduce Phroogal to the masses as the place for all things money. Recently, I was discussing the benefits of budgeting and using Mint.com as an introductory tool to segue into other tools that are much more robust. The majority of people never heard of Mint.com.

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

We launched in March 2013 with a landing page and received over 3000+ signups. Our blog postings have been featured in a few trade publications. We’ve been successful in obtaining an Alexa rank of 600k worldwide and 58k in the US in 4 months.

What are your next milestones?

Launch of our MVP in September. Achieve 5k signups before launch.

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

People can visit www.Phroogal.com

This former Groupon employee moved his startup from Silicon Valley to Chicago!

Detroit Venture Partners & CincyTech Aren’t Afraid Of The ChoreMonster

ChoreMonster, DVP, CincyTech, Cincinnati Startup

Original ChoreMonster artwork like this fills the 3rd floor at the Brandery where ChoreMonster works. It’s referred to as the “Alumni Penthouse” (photo: nibletz LLC)

I love writing about ChoreMonster. It’s a Cincinnati startup and Brandery alum who helped me get my daughter engaged in doing chores when she was four years old (during beta). Now my daughter is about to turn six and loves doing chores thanks to the ChoreMonster.

This fun startup uses great illustrations to help parents develop incentives to get their kids to do chores. It’s all handled through an interactive app. My daughter can access her chores on her iPod touch or iPad mini, and we can keep up with them on our iOS devices as well. As she completes chores she earns credit towards prizes that we’ve selected. My daughter’s room is filled with My Little Ponies, Beanie Babies, and a telescope set that were all incentives for chores over the last 14 months.

ChoreMonster continues to grow in my home and on the national front as well .

The company just announced a $1.5 million dollar “early stage round” led by Dan Gilbert, the chairman of Cincinnati casino operator Rock Ventures LLC and founding partner at Detroit Venture Partners. Cincinnati’s CincyTech also participated

ChoreMonster plans to use the money to increase its staff to 14 and continue to grow. They also took the time this week to announce a major partnership with Proctor & Gamble’s Crest Oral-B.

Cincinnati.com reports that this investment is also notable because it marks Gilbert’s entry into the Cincinnati entrepreneurial ecosystem, one that continues to thrive.

ChoreMonster has steadily been raising capital since their graduation from the Brandery in the 2011 class. In January 2012 the company raised $350,000 in seed funding. A year later they launched ChoreMonster out of private beta and took a $775,000 investment round.

This latest round doesn’t just bring capital to the table. DVP will also provide some expertise in the parental space. DVP partner Ted Sebrinski was the co-founder of ParentsClick, which was acquired by Lifetime Television.

“DVP is a firm led by experienced and successful entrepreneurs with a hands-on, deterministic approach to early stage investing that is aligned with our approach,” said Mike Venerable, CincyTech’s managing director for digital, software, and health technology companies.

With Gilbert already having business dealings in Cincinnati and now also involved in the startup ecosystem, Venerable is confident that DVP will participate in more Cincinnati deals, telling Cincinnati.com: “DVP is one of several new Midwest funds that are bringing new energy and capital to work in cities like ours, and DVP is active and engaged in Cincinnati. We fully expect to work with them on other opportunities in the future.”

Check out our video interview with Choremonster below:

And speaking of Cincinnati:

Memphis Woman Led Startup MentorMe Headed West for A NewMe

Last year, just before Christmas we got a chance to help with the Upstart 48 Hour Launch event in Memphis, Tennessee. This event, like Startup Weekend events, was a weekend-long startup building hackathon with a twist. The twist? It was for women-led startup projects only.

We saw several great startups. Some are still going strong, and we even met our employee #1 at that event. Danielle Inez’ Pink Robin Avenue ended up winning the weekend competition and a free booth at Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference. Another great startup we saw was Mentor.Me, or just MentorMe now.

While the startup, led by Memphis woman Brittany Fitzpatrick, didn’t win the competition, Fitzpatrick immediately turned on her entrepreneurial prowess and before the end of the evening she had crowdfunded, in person, her own booth for the conference. That showed what kind of passionate, hardworking entrepreneur Fitzpatrick really is.

MentorMe is a matching service for mentors and mentee’s, kind of like “match.com for mentors.” Fitzpatrick has a strong background in mentorship and quickly discovered that mentor/mentee mismatch was a huge problem nationwide.

Fitzpatrick ended up quitting her job at Ronald McDonald House Children’s Charities and going all in with her startup. She went through the spring session at the Memphis-based Seed Hatchery accelerator and continued to grind.

Last month Fitzpatrick participated in the NewMe Pop-Up accelerator in Memphis, where her startup MentorMe came in 3rd place. That win also got her a spot in the NewMe accelerator program in Silicon Valley, which starts next week.

NewMe is an invite-only 12-week accelerator for technology startups led by underrepresented minorities. Private investment firm CB Insights reported in 2010 that African Americans represented just 1 percent of Internet company founders nationally. Furthermore, although women represent more than 50% of the U.S. population, they represent only 35 percent of those launching their own ventures.

“As an African-American woman and a tech startup founder, I am always happy to align myself with efforts to change the ratio so that we can create a startup community that is more reflective of the diversity we see in the community-at-large,” Fitzpatrick said in a statement.

“From upstart 48 hour launch last winter, through Seed Hatchery I’ve had the privilege of seeing both Mentor.me and Brittany grow from idea to full fledged startup. Brittany quit her day job, dug in, and made this opportunity happen for her. We’ll miss her for the few months while she’s out west for the NewMe Accelerator, but we’re looking forward to her coming back home to Memphis and being another success story for the Memphis startup ecosystem,” Seed Hatchery Managing Director Eric Mathews told Nibletz.

Find out more about MentorMe here at getmentorme.com

Where to Find a Startup Job (Infographic)

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

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

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

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

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

Madison Entrepreneurs & Civic Leaders Team Up To Create Starting Block

Madison, Wisconsin has a budding entrepreneurial and startup community. Last year, on our sneaker-strapped startup road trip, we had an impromptu trip to Madison, and they assembled about 40 startup founders in less than 3 hours to meet with us. The following day we toured their startup ecosystem, and we were quite impressed.

While the startup ecosystem in Madison continued to grow, they lacked an epicenter like Chicago’s 1871 or DC’s 1776.

Well, a few weeks ago, Madison Alderman, entrepreneur, and founder Scott Resnick told us they were working on something big and now that has become a reality.

A group of Madison entrepreneurs and civic leaders announce the formation of StartingBlock Madison and the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the property owner to explore development of the Kleuter Building (former Mautz Paint building) into an entrepreneur center. StartingBlock Madison has solicited requests for proposal for development from leading development companies and anticipates selecting a development partner later this summer.

StartingBlock Madison’s goal is to create a centralized location for the Madison region’s entrepreneurial activities. The facility will provide Madison-based startups with affordable, flexible office and co-work space, accelerator support, peer and mentoring resources, education and training, and community building activities.

StartingBlock Madison’s facility will provide:
• a permanent home for Sector67, Madison’s successful makerspace/prototyping center for next-generation manufacturing technologies
• a location for gener8tor, a startup accelerator that provides expertise, mentorship, and capital through a 12-week intensive curriculum
• subsidized office space with short-term leases and flexibility for young startups
• quality at-market office space for high growth companies
• a healthcare IT incubator to support the growing number of healthcare IT startups
• space for other entrepreneurial resources, such as funders, investors, law firms, and other professional service providers
• community and auditorium space for Capital Entrepreneurs and other entrepreneurial activities and events.

“gener8tor is thrilled about the possibility of harnessing the cumulative brainpower, innovation, and array of resources from across the Madison entrepreneurial ecosystem into one unified, community hub. We anticipate the synergies and random connections that will be created by StartingBlock will lead to exponential benefits for Madison and the surrounding region,” gener8tor co-founder Troy Vosseller told Nibletz via email.

Resnick says that they hope to open the doors on the new Starting Block next fall.

Image: Kleuter Building

DC Company Social Tables Announces $1.6 Million Round

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stay put.

Find great talent.

Tackle a big problem.

The money will follow.

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

Startups In The Fastlane: NMotion Startup Cinnamon Social

The Cinnamon Social team, accelerating at the NMotion startup accelerator in Lincoln, Nebraska, has discovered that having a social media strategy isn’t enough. Beyond that, they’ve even found that just pure aggregation isn’t enough either. Companies need to find what people are having conversations about, and then have a way to engage those conversationalists.

Cinnamon Social is doing that with their product called Cinnamon Post, which is built on technology they call voice intelligence or VI.

Cinnamon Post and the VI technology are able to analyze and identify the content that creates conversations. It can then assist users by adding the company or brand’s voice into that social conversation, closing the gap from pure aggregation.

We got a chance to talk with Cinnamon Post co-founder Holly Petersen in our latest Startups In The Fastlane interview. In this series we talk with startups that are currently going through a startup accelerator, giving our readers and community a true feel for acceleration. Check out our interview below.

What is the name of your startup?

The name of our company is Cinnamon Social, and our product is called Cinnamon Post.

What problem are you solving:

Over the last several years we’ve discovered that it’s not enough to help businesses strategize their social media efforts. You can have a GREAT strategy and not know how to use it or what content to post each day. Companies of all sizes struggle with this. Cinnamon Post is a software designed to solve this problem. We not only zero in on a companies industry-specific content, but we also analyze the content that creates the conversations with their followers so that we can produce more of the content that matters and that generates relationships and loyalties. From there, the software takes an additional step in that we put a companies posts/tweets etc. into their brand/company voice. We like to call it, voice intelligence (VI). VI is an additional and important step that our algorithm incorporates into the intelligent content that’s produced for our customers.

Why now?

Content is king, right? Content is awesome, but that’s only if you’re posting the right content – the kind of content that generates discussion. This translates into followers, shares and so forth and ultimately visibility for businesses. Social media is all about relationships and only extremely soft sells are welcome in social media, so businesses need to take a calculated approach and maintain consistency and the integrity of their brand when they venture out into social media. Companies are starting to realize finally that social media isn’t going anywhere and if they want to continue to compete, they need to get on the social media train and take is seriously.

Who is your competition?

Tools are starting to emerge now for content. Adobe has an enterprise level content tool and an accompanying analytic suite and so does RallyVerse, but this really isn’t what Cinnamon Social is interested in doing. We really want to focus on quality content and how it’s delivered (VI), keeping it simple and straight forward to use. Companies like BuzzSpice, which is in beta right now and a company called Content Gems more closely match what we’re trying to do.

What’s your secret sauce?

Our secret spice, as we like to call it is our voice intelligence. Coupled with our precision content, our algorithm can weigh what’s important to customers and what they find attractive, in essence. Based on this, the content suggestions get more intelligent and when you further dial that down to delivery in their branded voice – you’ve got some seriously tasty content!

Where are you/were you based before NMotion?

We are and have been based in Lincoln, NE.

Why NMotion?

We’ve been marinating on this tool for a while, the timing and how best to deliver it. Businesses need this tool now and the NMotion program is providing the rigorous accountability and tools that our team needs to deliver our solution in the leanest, quickest and most flexible approach possible.

What’s one lesson you’ve learned since the NMotion session has started?

Keep moving! Every day matters, especially in the in the world of technology.

Where can people find out more?

You can visit our website at cinnamonsocial.com and our various social media feeds at facebook.com/cinnamonsocial and @cinnamonsocial.

Co-Ed Supply Launches Just In Time For Back To School

Summer is winding down for college students across the country. Many are returning for their 2nd, 3rd, and 4th years of life away from home, but for college freshmen 9and their parents) this is an entirely new experience. Undoubtedly, millions of parents of incoming college freshmen are scouring the aisles of their local Target store buying everything on their son or daughter’s dorm room list, and probably some extra stuff too.

As move-in day approaches, parents everywhere are going to start thinking about what to send to their new college student. I didn’t go to college, but I got my first out-of-state radio gig around the same time in my life. I was 18 years old and about 500 miles from home. My mom would send me these enormous boxes every week or two. Blank cassette tapes (for airchecking, yes I’m old), clippings from the local paper, Twinkies (even though there were plenty on the shelves at the local grocery store), clothes and whatever my mom could find. The same goes for most college freshmen these days.

Until Now…

We featured Brandery startup Co-Ed Supply in our Startups in the Fastlane series yesterday, an interview with a startup going through an accelerator. We learned a lot about what two Philadelphia natives had cooked up with Co-Ed Supply.

Basically it’s a college student care package wrapped up in a monthly subscription package. Co-Ed supply takes all the work out of putting together care packages. Now instead of silly trinkets, Co-Ed supply makes sure you get college essentials.

“The contents of each box is a surprise but all contain healthy snacks, personal care items, and entertainment. For students and their parents, basically we’re offering a cheaper, healthier, and more entertaining alternative to traditional care package options,” Forston told us in an interview.

Co-Ed Supply launched this morning, just as most college students are thinking about heading back to school. The cost of the subscription is just $20 per month and right now if you help five friends sign up, you’ll get a month free.

Check out Co-Ed Supply here.

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

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

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

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

Amazon could easily take over the world.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pearson Supports Startup Land, Partners With DC’s 1776

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

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

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

In a statement, 1776’s Evan Burfield said:

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

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

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

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

1776 hosted the National Accelerator Demo Day earlier this month.

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 In The Fast Lane: Brandery Startup CoEd Supply A Subscription Box For College Students

Subscription boxes are nothing new. There are subscription boxes for shoes, women’s clothes, men’s clothes, gadgets, toys, and even dogs. Now two co-founders originally from Philadelphia find themselves in Cincinnati going through The Brandery with their startup Co-Ed Supply.

Marissa Hu and Andy Forston’s startup takes the subscription box model and solve a problem for parents and loved ones of college students, the care package. While some may think by subscription-izing the care package you’re taking the “care” out of it, we all know that college students are hard to shop for and sometimes it’s just not that cool to get hearts, candies, and box scores sent from mom and dad every week.

Of course the Co-Ed Supply box is also perfect for working and busy parents, and with parents staying on the job, working the same long hours later and later in life, Co-Ed Supply makes sense.

While Co-Ed supply will have a revenue stream with their subscription customers, their other customers–their bigger customers–are manufacturers and vendors of products that want to make it into the dorm rooms of college students. By partnering with Co-Ed Supply, these brands get exposure and engagement at a whole new level. One of the best parts for the brand is that it’s of course, opt-in.

Coed Supply is currently in beta and getting ready to launch soon. You can get signed up on their website now. Check out our full interview with Forston below.

What is the name of your startup?

Co-Ed Supply (http://www.coedsupply.com)

Where is your startup originally from?

Philadelphia, PA

Tell us about your current team?

Marissa Hu, CEO – has spent the last four years in business development and sales. Most recently, she was one of the early members of the business team driving partnership development for the Shanghai Disney Resort. She’s also a recovering investment banker from Goldman Sachs, a UC Berkeley alum who’s now halfway through her MBA at Wharton, and on the investment team at First Round Capital’s Dorm Room Fund.

Andy Fortson, CMO – has been a digital and social media marketer for consumer, entertainment, and technology companies for the past seven years. Most recently he led marketing at mobile couponing app SnipSnap, and previous clients have included Gilt Groupe, Red Bull, Paramount, Fox, Microsoft, and Sony.

What does your startup do?

Co-Ed Supply delivers a curated box of college essentials to students every month starting at $20. The contents of each box is a surprise but all contain healthy snacks, personal care items, and entertainment. For students and their parents, basically we’re offering a cheaper, healthier, and more entertaining alternative to traditional care package options.

On the flip side, we work with brands who are trying to market to college students. Right now they hand out samples on campus, and when that sample walks away they don’t know who the student was, if they enjoyed it, purchased more, or shared with their friends. With Co-Ed Supply these brands can measure these types of results because we deliver data back to them on how well their campaign did.

What are your goals for the accelerator program?

Our goal was literally to accelerate our progress headed into the new school year and to establish relationships with large consumer brands. The Brandery has been super helpful for us in reaching our goals so far.

What’s one thing you’ve learned in the accelerator?

It’s taken some time but we feel like we’ve really gotten to understand how to work with mentors. The most helpful part is how to ask the right questions so that we can identify issues we weren’t aware about and how to get answers to questions we didn’t even know we had in the first place.

What’s the hardest piece of advice you’ve had to stomach so far?

We haven’t gotten any hard-to-stomach advice necessarily, but we’ve received a lot contradictory advice. The hardest part is identifying the right path or to not waste too much time going down the wrong path.

What is your goal for the day after demo day?

Just to continue on building more relationships with brands, expanding our reach into more college campuses, and growing our subscriber base.

Why did you choose this accelerator?

We chose The Brandery because of its focus on building a strong brand and it’s relationships with a lot of consumer goods companies. These have been super valuable to building our business.

If you relocated for the accelerator are you staying in your new city?

What our presence in Cincinnati is after The Brandery is still to be decided. There are definitely a number of really good reasons to continue some sort of physical presence here.

What’s one thing you learned about an accelerator that you didn’t know when you applied?

We didn’t really expect all the companies to be as supportive of each other as everyone’s been. All the teams have very diverse backgrounds and have been super helpful for everybody with connections, technical help, and marketing knowledge.

Where can people find out more?