NTEN Honors Memphis Startup Founder Tal Frankfurt

NTEN, the Nonprofit Technology Network, closed out their 2013 Nonprofit Technology Conference in Minneapolis Minnesota Saturday evening. The event brings together NTEN members from across the country who’s companies use technology for the benefit of non profit organizations across the United States and globally.

Memphis based Cloud For Good, is one of those technology companies. The startup, led by Israeli native tech entrepreneur and SalesForce pro Tal Frankfurt, designs enterprise class data systems operating on the SalesForce platform specifically for non profit clients.

Some of the largest non profit organizations, churches and synagogues across the country rely on Cloud For Good to give them the same class of service that a Fortune 100 company would come to expect.

Each year NTEN recognizes entrepreneurs who go above and beyond over the course of the year to be “true NTENnies”.

This year’s honors were bestowed upon members in the format of “senior superlatives” or “most likely to’s”

Frankfurt was said to be Most likely to: “Live In The Cloud And Help You Get There”.

Tal Frankfurt, Founder and CEO of Cloud for Good, was chosen in 2010 to be one of the first Salesforce MVP Program members, an exclusive club representing the top 1% of the Salesforce community, and have maintained that status to date.

Prior to his involvement with Salesforce.com, Tal was the Director of Resource Development for an Israeli nonprofit organization that worked with at-risk immigrant youth. He was looking for tools to better manage his donors, participants, and volunteers. It was through this experience that Tal learned about Salesforce. The adoption of Salesforce into his everyday work was what sparked the inception of Cloud for Good, a Salesforce implementation partner working primarily with nonprofit and educational institutions to create and implement strategic solutions based on cloud technology.

Tal has been involved with Salesforce.com and The Salesforce.com Foundation for almost 8 years. He was the founder and leader of the Salesforce Nonprofit User Group in Israel and recently founded the first Salesforce Nonprofit User Group in Tennessee. Frankfurt is a Certified Salesforce.com Administrator and a Certified Salesforce.com Consultant.

NTEN wrote in the web version of their conference program.

We’ve got more south east startup coverage here.

The Never Ending Marker Finalist: In St.Louis’ go!-celerator

goBRANDgo! Partners Brandon Dempsey and Derek Weber

(photo: St. Louis Business Journal)

St. Louis may be known for it’s world famous beer, but lately their startup community has been growing and thriving. They have an awesome angel network in place, St. Louis Arch Angels. They also have an accelerator that’s producing real results (and not pre-lining up follow on deals from accelerator partners), Cap Innovators. They have an awesome community focal point in the co-working space T-Rex, and when one of their startups or entrepreneurs faces tough times they rally around them, rather than distancing themselves.

So far the St. Louis startup community is operating by the handbook, Brad Feld’s “Startup Communities”.

Now one of St. Louis’ startup community supporters has launched a new incubator. goBRANDgo! a local marketing firm has decided to open up a new incubator.

Their new incubator, dubbed; go!-celerator is designed for early stage startups. Three finalists are competing for a year’s free office space, networking opportunities, and mentoring to the tune of $50,000 in agency resources.

Saint Louis University student Gregory Keogh and his startup, Remarkable, are finalists for the first spot in the go!-celerator. Keogh is developing a refillable white board marker station that will keep the dry erase marker full at all times.

While this seems like a great idea for any business, startups, who are known for endless “whiteboarding” would certainly take advantage of the value proposition posed by an endlessly refillable,never ending dry erase marker.

According to the St. Louis Business Journal, goBRANDgo! founders Brandon Dempsey and Derek Weber have a thing for going through lots of dry erase markers.

Remarkable is a finalist pitted against Bazaar Boy a tech startup creating a market place for local small businesses and HCP United “an integrated E-Dispensary platform designed for member-based purchasing groups that allows health care providers to deliver more affordable care. “

You can find out more about goBRANDgo! here.

This startup in Louisville teaches 5 year olds how to code!

Fueled By Cardboard: Kidpreneurs Kid President & Caine’s Arcade Spark Happiness & Entrepreneurship

Truth be told I’ve been waiting for the exact right moment where I could sneak in a story about an awe inspiring 9 year old from Memphis Tennessee. If you’re not familiar with Kid President, Robbie Novak, you have to be living under the proverbial rock.

Novak’s this awesome little 9 year old boy who has a brittle bone disease. He’s had over 70 breaks in his short nine years. He’s also adopted (like me) and loves to dance. Aside from the casts he’s often stuck in, you would never know that he had the disease. You wouldn’t know anything sad about him, he makes people laugh and have fun.

Just for fun Novak and his adult brother in law Bradley Montague stared making videos. They cam up with a character, Kid President, and built a set out of cardboard, and used furniture you could find at any good yard sale to create an Oval Office. Novak sits behind a desk (and sometimes on it), and offers his words of wisdom, great interviews, hilarity and sometimes just dancing.

When Novak has a guest in his videos he talks to them through a can and a string and typically gets them to dance as well. Josh Groban, MC Hammer and most recently President Barack Obama have appeared alongside Novak.

But way before the celebrities started catching wind of the 9 year old President, Rainn Wilson from NBC’s “The Office” and the creator of the YouTube channel Soul Pancake found Novak and recruited the boy wonder to release his videos on the Soul Pancake channel.

While no one knows the terms of any revenue split or profit sharing, Novak had one requirement before joining the Soul Pancake channel, and that was of course to eat pancakes. Which he did.

Kid President’s videos have been seen tens of millions of times and he’s been featured on just about every decent sized media outlet known to man. In fact the Obama administration had Kid President be their April Fool’s Day prank this year. With that every major tv network picked up Novak from behind the podium in the White House briefing room.

Montague and Novak never set out for fame or money, they just wanted people to be happy, to get along better and to dance (so far the only celebrity that Novak hasn’t asked to dance has been Obama).

Being in the content business we are sure there is some money being made, and it’s most likely all being saved up for Novak and his sister’s college funds. They offer some Kid President merchandise and since Kid President’s White House appearance for April Fool’s Day and as a grand marshall of sorts for this year’s easter egg roll, his popularity has again increased ten fold.

And it all started with a cardboard set that he and his brother in law made for fun.

Coincidentally today is the year anniversary of Caine’s arcade video going viral on the web.

Caine Monroy was also nine years old (last year) when some cardboard made him famous. For him he wasn’t looking for fame either, he was just having fun putting his entrepreneurial mind to work in his father’s used auto part store.

Over the previous summer Monroy had created an “arcade” out of used cardboard boxes from his dad’s shop. At one point a filmmaker named Nirvan Mullick walked into the shop looking for a door handle for his 96 Toyota Corolla. Curious about the boxes shaped like games, Mullick asked Monroy what he was doing and he said he made an arcade.

Some of the boxes turned into games required more imagination than skill, but some games actually had mechanical function.

It’s amazing what a lot of heart, a big imagination and a smart smiling 9 year old can do.

Monroy told the filmmaker he could pay $1 for two turns or $2 for an all day fun pass and 500 turns. Intrigued by what the 9 year old had built Mullick paid for the all day fun pass.

Caine’s Arcade from Nirvan Mullick on Vimeo.

A short while later Nirvan had returned to the auto parts store because he wanted to make a short film about the innovative cardboard arcade. He found out that day that Nirvan was Monroy’s first and only paying customer. To Monroy’s surprise Nirvan recruited a flash mob of paying customers which made Caine’s day.

The short film went viral and with that a campaign to create a college fund for Caine was born. That college fund raised $228,000 and then it was matched dollar for dollar to support the Imagination Foundation.

Find out more about Kid President here

Find out more about Caine’s Arcade here

Are VC’s Bypassing Early Stage Health Deals?

Healthcare startups,Venture Capital,startups,funding,seed round,series a

(image: policymed.com)

Success stories, like the one of Memphis’ medical device accelerator Zeroto510, where 80% of their first class received follow on funding, seem to be growing scarce on a national scale. In their first class of six startups at the ZeroTo510 program 5 of the startups received follow on funding, with one, Restore Medical Solutions, going straight to a $2.5 million dollar series A round.

Well national medical startup publication MedCity News, released two graphs this morning that may be alarming to early stage medical startups, who often need a lot more seed money than your social, mobile, webtech startups.

The data, published by CB Insights, shows a significant number of VCs are skipping over earlier stage “seed round” deals for healthcare startups. Conversely, the same data set shows that the “series A crunch” may not be as prevalent in healthcare startups.

As you can see clearly from the data set Series A and Series B seem to be the preferred stage for a VC firm to get into a startup business, at least over the last five quarters.

According to MedCity News VC Funding in healtcare was up over the last year, in fact reaching a “multi year high”. Also worthy to note is that the medical device category is eating up the most VC funds. That should be good for the next round of ZeroTo510, Rock Health and Health Box.

Restore Medical talks to us about their $2.5 million dollar Series A round.

Indian Startup 500 Hours, Giving Away 500 Development Hours To Worthy Startups [interview]

Vishesh Duggar and Shreya Tiwara are both Indian natives and both attended college at Northeastern University in Boston. After finishing college both Duggar and Tiwara returned to Pune India where they immediately got their hands dirty in the budding startup community out there.

Now, Duggar who graduated with an MS in Computer Science, and Tiwari, who graduated with an MS in Electrical Engineering, are anxiously looking forward to giving away their services. Duggar was also a CTO with a MassChallenge company.

Both founders of 500 Hours have experience in startups dating back over the last 4 years. Now they are looking for 3 startups that are worthy of getting their services for free.

In a program they are calling an “accelerator”. 500 hours will take applications and then they will determine the top three startups. The top startup will receive 400 hours in services, the second place startup will receive 90 hours of development time and the third startup will receive 10 hours of development time.

While many believe that access to capital is the number one thing holding startups back, Druggar and Tiwari feel that without capital or good technical resources startups can’t build out their products.

“We’ve been working with startups for the last 4 years and the biggest problem that We’ve come across is the lack of funding to build something that they can use to get funded or attract customers. We will reduce the cost of building the MVP to close to zero and provide tech mentorship to startups, giving them a better shot at succeeding.” Druggar said in an interview with nibletz.com. He continued, “After 2 years of reaching out to more than 160 startups and talking to close to 50 of them the biggest challenge we’ve come across has been a startup’s ability to fund developing their minimum viable product and this accelerator program is the answer to that.”

When we followed up with 500 Hours Druggar explained that they aren’t looking for an equity position in the three startups and are doing this just to help launch good startups. They also hope that it’s successful and they can hold the program annually.

Check out the rest of our interview with 500 Hours below.

What is your startup, what does it do?

500Hrs is a new development accelerator we launched at CauseCode Technologies. We give upto 500Hrs of development time to top three startups who apply to our program. 400, 90 and 10 respectively. We recover some of our cost of evaluating the applications and development time from the application fee and sponsors.

But the larger goal is to accelerate high impact startups that have a strong web/mobile component. And this program will catalyze a startup competing at other seed fund based accelerators.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Vishesh Duggar, MS Computer Science from Northeastern University, Boston. Has been involved with the startup community for the last 4.5 years. Currenlty the acting CTO of AltruHelp and CEO CauseCode Technologies. He has a strong technical background but also has a lot of experience with business development, marketing, hiring and more.

Shreya Tiwari, MS Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University, Boston. Experienced engineer with an inkling towards marketing and strategy. Currently, Senior Product & Marketing Manager at CauseCode Technologies.

Where are you based?

We are based out of Pune, India, but the program will be open to startups all over the world

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

There is small startup community here with punetech.com and punestartups.org. There is definitely significant growth being seen across India in the startup community for the past 3 years. We are hoping to add some fuel to it through this program as well.

What problem does your startup solve?

We’ve been working with startups for the last 4 years and the biggest problem that We’ve come across is the lack of funding to build something that they can use to get funded or attract customers. We will reduce the cost of building the MVP to close to zero and provide tech mentorship to startups, giving them a better shot at succeeding.

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

After 2 years of reaching out to more than 160 startups and talking to close to 50 of them the biggest challenge we’ve come across has been a startup’s ability to fund developing their minimum viable product and this accelerator program is the answer to that.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

We have helped AltruHelp, ClothesCritics, CheersMeUp and CalBill with building their MVP and beyond
Designed and chalked out the 500Hrs program
We have a landing page with a CRM integration to capture interest by other startups
Marketing plan to reach out to various startup community entities across the globe to validate the program

What are your next milestones

Getting the word out there by starting a conversation with Nibletz, NextBigWhat, TheNextWeb, TechCrunch, Forbes, YourStory.in, StartupDigest and friends in PR
Getting intent to apply from 50 startups
Reaching out to other accelerators for mentorship
Seeking a few community volunteers to judge and mentor startups
Developing feature set to accept application fee and application
Starting to accept application
Closing applications
Judging
Starting development on the startups

Who are your mentors and role models?

Our role model is Steve Jobs and we constantly try to make things as simple and beautiful as we can. We are very inspired by MassChallenge, StartupWeekend, 500Startups, TechStars and AngelList

During my(Vishesh) work with MassChallenge I was fortunate to make a lot of connections within the startup community in and around Boston. Some of my friends that I seek advice from are Mark Shiffer, Ex CTO MassChallenge, Stefan Baytarian, Founder ClothesCritics, my father Vijay Duggar who has been a successful entrepreneur for the last 25 years.

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

“Everything is possible, nothings is easy. Lots of ‘Frictions’. – World Startup Report India

It is definitely harder to bootstrap from here in India. Poor infrastructure, raw startup community, hard to find entrepreneurial hires and not enough startup oriented events are a few challenges.

But it also results into a lot less competition and tons of opportunities.

What’s next for your startup?

Getting our story out there and attracting startups, judges, mentors and sponsors.

Where can people find out more?

500Hrs.com, @causecode, @500Hrs, 500Hrs@causecode.com

That was 500 Hours, looking for 500startups, check out these stories?

Dallas Startup Dormitup To Save College Bound Students Trips To Target

As the college school year starts to wind down next month, dumpsters will start filling to the brim with all the colorful stuff students purchased headed into the school year from Target. A lot of the housewares and dorm room goods will still be in new packaging. Why? Because gearing up for dorm life can be confusing. Often times it involves lots of trips to the store for things students are told they need but actually don’t.

Well two cousins, Sagar Hemani (Missouri University alumn) and Shanil Wazirali (Texas A&M alumn) have set out to make moving into the dorm much simpler.

Their new startup Dormitup just opened its doors and offers a great new way for students and parents to get everything they need for the dorm in one click (or two). Dormitup provides predetermined packages that are filled with the things students actually need for dorm life.

Inbound college students and their parents can go to Dormitup’s website and order everything in one package. They can also customize their dorm room packages by color. Then everything is delivered to their home (or dorm room) ready to go. Students and parents can spend their last few weeks preparing for college, saying their good byes and having fun.

We got a chance to talk with Wazirali. Check out the interview below:

What is your startup, what does it do?

Dormitup.com offers a convenient, affordable, and exciting way for incoming college students to purchase their campus essentials! We focus on providing everything that an incoming college student needs and wants, while maintaining an affordable price and providing high quality products!

Our Story:

Entering college was an exciting moment for us! We were both convinced that the next four years were going to be the best years of our lives!

After receiving our room assignments, we started our research on what to bring to college. This was a tough process. We both felt the need to buy everything on the 3-4 checklists we could get our hands on. We didn’t know any better. All we kept hearing was to make sure to purchase Twin XL bedding. We didn’t even know what Twin XL meant. We dragged our parents from store-to-store trying to find the bare essentials. It wasn’t easy. We both spent nearly a week trying to find these essentials because everything was sold out in stores. Our parents were overwhelmed and extremely frustrated by this process. We don’t blame them; entering college was supposed to be an exciting moment, not a burden.

Just as we thought we purchased everything, we entered our rooms and noticed that they were completely empty. Our parents had to make 3-4 more trips to local retail stores just to make sure we were fully prepared and weren’t missing anything. Both of our parents spent nearly $700, countless amount of gas money, and valuable time through this process.

We knew there had to be a better solution to all this madness?

All throughout college we remembered this horrifying process and came together, wanting to save the lives of all students entering college. We didn’t want other incoming college students to experience what we went through. Upon graduating from college, we knew it was time to launch Dormitup.com to provide incoming college students and their families a way to get all of their dorm room essentials, without having to waste time, money, and their sanities.

Where are you based?

Dallas, TX

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

More and more businesses are growing, especially by young entrepreneurs. It seems as if entrepreneurship is starting to be well accepted by people, and more and more people want to own their own businesses.

What problem does your startup solve?

We provide an enjoyable, hassle free, and affordable college shopping experience for parents and students. We do this by offering incoming college students the ability to choose between our four dorm room essentials packages, the opportunity to customize their essentials by the colors and styles of their choice, and the convenience to receive their customized dorm essentials package at their door steps.

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

We’ve faced many challenges throughout our startup process. We’ve struggled anywhere from developing the products, to bootstrapping how we market our company to the public, to developing partnerships. The only answer to how we’ve overcome these challenges is being diligent. We’ve conducted years of extensive research and spent many late nights working and scratching our heads to develop the right products and business structure. Our investors and mentors have instilled in us to start small, but dream big, and that’s what we’ve been following. It’s diligence and perseverance that has brought us to launch our website today.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

We have our own Dorm It Up brand of products, which students will love! We also have a partnership with a major University!

What are your next milestones?

To aim to create a word of mouth business and a well established brand. Our objective is to have people talking about Dorm It Up when they think of college shopping. We aim to develop more and more University partnerships throughout the years, provide the best customer service to our Dorm It Up members, and get our packages in the hands of as many incoming college students as possible!

Who are your mentors and role models?

Our fathers and their third brother are our mentors and role models. They came from nothing and made themselves into successful businessmen. They have taught us the importance of working extremely hard with passion. Our mentors have also emphasized on being the start of something new and leading by example. They mentor us on a daily basis on what business decisions to make, how to be patient with business, how to make quick, yet intelligent decisions, and much more

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

We’ve had the pleasure of having our family and friends, as well as our mentors to guide and support us on a daily basis here in Dallas, TX. We have all the resources we need here for our business.

What’s next for your startup?

We are marketing our eGift cards at this time, which allow parents to purchase eGift card packages, and let their graduate customize their package the way they want it. We are continuously working to develop new partnerships and find opportunities to market to parents and graduating high school seniors.

Where can people find out more?

Visit dormitup.com for any information. Our Facebook link is facebook.com/dormitup. Find us on Twitter @dormitup

Now check out Austin startup Burpy

Startup Act 3.0 Aims to Open Borders for Entrepreneurs

Some pieces of legislation refuse to die. For a third time, lawmakers introduced a bill that would create visas for foreign entrepreneurs looking to start a business in the United States. The Startup Act 3.0 is a bipartisan bill that would grant entrepreneurs who employ at least two full-time employees or raise investments up to $100,000 an additional three years to grow, with the possibility for permanent status, according to Mashable.com

Democrats and Republicans don’t agree on much at the moment, but the Startup Act 3.0 has support on both sides of the aisle. Even President Obama has voiced his support for these “entrepreneurial visas.” Obama noticed that bright foreign students are studying at American Universities, but don’t have the opportunity to continue toward the American Dream. “Once they earn that diploma, there’s a good chance they’ll have to leave our country,” Obama said.

Not every bill gets three strikes. But the Startup Act 3.0 could be the next step toward economic recovery and social reform.

Potential Impact

The beauty of new businesses isn’t just the jobs or innovation. It’s also the secondary consequences. Foreign entrepreneurs, B2B businesses and consumers all stand to gain from the Startup Act 3.0. Obviously, foreign born entrepreneurs gain access to launch business in the United States. While many will argue that the U.S. is becoming a less and less fertile place to start a business, it still boasts the largest economy in the world, according to Economywatch.com. As startups launch, they strengthen B2B businesses through partnerships. A startup usually can’t facilitate credit card transactions on its own, but a company like Capital Processing Network offers expertise and support. The result? Both businesses become stronger. From the consumer’s perspective, there’s no downside to new startups. Competition means lower prices, higher quality and increased innovation. Considering the vast positives and potential for more job opportunities, it’s no wonder the Startup Act has come back to life.

Visas and Immigration

Part of the reason the Startup Act has needed three renditions is because it dives into a currently unsettled territory: immigration. According to Huffingtonpost.com, previous renditions of the bill failed to pass because of their controversial nature. Immigration is no less controversial, but once again, entrepreneurial visas are on the table. During his recent State of the Union address, President Obama called for a comprehensive immigration reform bill in “the next few months.” It remains to be seen whether this comprehensive reform will interfere with the Startup Act 3.0.

Inside the Bill

According to a press release from Virginia Senator Mark Warner, one of the bill’s sponsors, the Startup Act 3.0 includes provisions beyond creating new visas. Additional provisions include:

A mandate that grants U.S.-educated foreign students who graduate with a master’s or Ph.D. in science, technology, engineering or mathematics a green card and allows them to stay in the United States
Research and development credits for startups less than five years old
Elimination of per-country caps for employment-based visas
A mandate that makes permanent the extension of capital gains taxes on the sale of startup stock held for at least five years

These provisions reveal that the Startup Act 3.0 packs a punch. Perceived by some as a small piece of immigration reform, lawmakers hope 3.0 will jumpstart the economy.

Did you see these 48 startup stories from SXSW?

Bob La Loggia Founder Of Appointment-Plus Reveals 5 Things That Set Real Entrepreneurs Apart

Last month Free Lunch Fridays kicked off their monthly seminar series with Bob La Loggia the founder and CEO of Appointment-Plus. His startup is exactly what you would think it is by the name, an appointment scheduling software, however during his keynote he didn’t talk about appointment scheduling as much as what makes entrepreneurs different, what sets them apart.

Free Lunch Friday is also exactly what it says, an organization that supports startups by providing great content and education and of course nourishment (the lunch part). We first met the Free Lunch Friday team at SXSW where of course they fed us lunch on a Friday.

Free Lunch Friday is holding monthly seminars with experienced founders and entrepreneurs on a variety of topics.

Here are the 5 things that set entrepreneurs apart:

1. Marketing. It’s essential to define and narrow your target market, correctly position the product or service in front of the customer, and differentiate your business from the competition.

2. Sales. Characteristics of a successful sales focus include: influence factors, which build credibility; authority, such as blogging about a select industry or speaking at a conference; and social proof, such as customer testimonials and referrals. Having a basic sales flow in place is also essential.

3. Support. While the main objective of support departments is to assist customers, support reps also play a role in retention, up-selling/cross-selling and gaining referrals.

4. Finance. Entrepreneurs must have an understanding of financial statements, balance sheets, accounting basics, taxes and cash flow for their businesses to operate profitably.

5. Technology. Given the role technology plays in all businesses, entrepreneurs should have a knowledge of basic database concepts, system language and development lifestyles.

To ensure that none of the above components are ignored, La Loggia suggested his “Geek In A Week” program. This involves dedicating one week to each component and four hours each day during that week focused on that aspect of your business.

Check out the video of Loggia’s talk below:

Source

Check out Appointment-Plus here.

Check out some more startup tips here.

Mark Cuban Backed Apptopia Tops $1 Million In Sales

Boston startup Apptopia is another startup we’ve been tracking for quite some time. We first brought you the story about this company that helps app developers actually sell their apps and app businesses, back in March of 2012.

While app markets seem to be a dime a dozen these days, Apptopia is not an app market at all. Apptopia allows developers to take their developed app projects and sell them for whatever reason they want. Perhaps they just got a thrill out of creating something and they’re ready to move onto the next idea. Or maybe developers are just creating apps to sell in a marketplace like Apptopia.

The vision for Apptopia caught the eye of ABC Shark Tank shark, and investor Mark Cuban, who likes to invest in original ideas that can cause a disruption. Cuban led the startup’s $1 million dollar seed round.

Last October we reported that Apptopia had cleared $25,000 in sales. Last week the company reported that they had participated in over 275 app acquisitions which amounted to over $1 million dollars in sales.

With growth like this in an entirely new market, Apptopia was named one of the “World’s top 10 most innovative companies in mobile” by Fast Company.

Apptopia isn’t just like “ebay for apps” they have a sophisticated algorithm built into the background that is able to take an apps current downloads, ratings and other metrics and triangulate it’s current valuation, to project future earnings.

“Take the popular app Temple Run, for example. Apptopia’s unique algorithm uses public data about Temple Run (245.7 million downloads, 4.7 million ratings) to triangulate its current valuation ($41.2 million) and project future revenues ($11.2 million over the next six months). Apptopia can perform this analysis on any app, making it an extremely useful tool for developers and investors alike.” an Apptopia spokesperson told us by email.

To find out more about Apptopia or sell your own app check them out at apptopia.com

Here’s a way not to get an investment from Mark Cuban.

Huge Crowdfunding Festival: One Spark Kicks Off In Jacksonville Next Week

The first OneSpark festival will kick off next Wednesday night in Jacksonville Florida, and it’s going to be huge. The festivities kick off at 6pm at Hemming Plaza with an opening ceremony.

The kickoff event will feature party band The Sunbears, free food, drinks and plenty of opportunity to network with creators from all over the world.

Once the event kicks off Jacksonville will turn into one huge in person crowdfunding festival from Wednesday (April 17th) through Sunday (April 21st).

What is a “crowdfunding festival”,

Well think SXSW music and SXSW interactive meet in Jacksonville Florida, where the weather looks to be perfect. Then add creators who’ve created something in either the arts, music, science or technology. Now think Kickstarter and taking those project creators and bringing them into the real world.

This is the first festival of it’s kind. Creators will be staged in venues throughout downtown Jacksonville where attendees will be able to see their creations, ask questions, hear pitches and then decide if they want to crowdfund the creator in person. Talk about eliminating the risks of online crowdfunding.

Event organizer Elton Rivas and the OneSpark committee have wrapped the crowdfunding concept up into a huge event that has three main focus areas:

The creator zone: This is where you can go from venue to venue and see all of the creators and their creations, think gallery hop with some ultra cool new ideas and creativity overflowing like a volcano.

Pitch Decks And Stages: You’ll be able to hear live pitches and keynote speakers throughout the five day festival in these areas.

Entertainment District: here OneSpark will showcase all of what Jacksonville has to offer in the entertainment realm. Party with creators, VIPs, A-listers and jam out to some of the best musical offerings in Jacksonville.

Learn more about OneSpark at beonespark.com

Stay up to date with our OneSpark coverage here.

DC Startup Seva Call Is A Virtual Concierge In Real Time & By Phone

If you’re looking for a professional service provider the highly acclaimed DC startup Seva Call may be just the right thing for you. Seva Call is a virtual concierge service that links customers by phone to the professional services that they need.

Whether you’re looking for computer repair techs, heating and cooling pros, locksmiths, maid service professionals, plumbers, roofers, or any other kind of service provider, Seva Call can handle that for you.

The company, providing services in Washington DC, Philadelphia, Boston and New York right serves up the best professionals in the users area.

So in this day and age of text messages, native apps,and web based platforms, why a “phone call” service?

“Even for simple inquiries, only 7% of consumers polled prefer text over other means of communication. As the service need gets more complex, customers want even more personal attention, a majority preferring direct conversation with businesses#. Perhaps that’s why 76% consumers polled prefer small businesses, with their reliance on old fashioned personal attention rather than ridiculous hold times, automated messages, bureaucracy and now the highly impersonal use of text messaging to bypass all of that.” co-founder Manpreet Singh told nibletz.com in an interview.

Even though we’re at a time where we think everyone is online, Singh tells us that 61% of service providers still have no web website or don’t know how to market themselves or make themselves available online.

SevaCall combines the best of both worlds to consumers and service providers. Customers needing services go to the SevaCall website and from there they decide the service that they need. They enter their location, contact info, availability and service need and within minutes they’ll get a call from 3 service providers.

“In minutes, Seva Call’s algorithm selects the best companies based on the details provided plus quality assurance indicators like consumer reviews and social media interactions. In about 90 secs customers can talk to an area professional who knows about their needs and have determined that they are ready to help.Plus, contact details remain confidential.” Singh said.

They plan on releasing mobile apps on iOS and Android in the near future which will allow users to enter the services they need on their smartphone and still get a call back with potential service providers.

Check out SevaCall here at sevacall.com

This pitch from DC startup Speek resulted in a monkey tattoo on the cofounders ass.

Chicago Startup Birdfeud Is Building Debates (Feuds) Around Brands [interview]

It’s no secret that debates that fill up a comment section on any blog, tech site, journal or review site, provide a very high level engagement. Not only are the debaters engaging but more and more viewers hone in on the best debates and watch them grow.

A Chicago startup, called Birdfeud is taking advantage of that instinctive behavior, and turning it in such a way that brands and agency’s benefit from the engagement. The company is targeting any brand that wants to target users with high engagement topics. In essence they are marketing brands in a very deliberate way that appears absolutely non deliberate.

It seems to be a method that’s creating success for the Chicago startup based at 1871.

All of the founders previously worked together at Spartz Media, a social media agency that served over 160 million pageviews per month. It was there that they observed first hand how arguments, debates and feuds sparked engagement that was off the richter scale.

Now, through their own startup, users can join into hot button discussions and debate while simultaneously being exposed and engaging with brands. While the concept may seem unorthodox in the social media space, when you take a look back at what they’re doing it’s actually genius.

We got a chance to interview Andrew Parnell, co-founder and CEO of Birdfeud. Check out the interview below.

What is BirdFeud?

Birdfeud is a social marketing company with a B2B focus. Our products help brands and agencies connect with and engage end users.

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

A lot of people use social networks like Facebook and Twitter. They discuss, argue with each other, and have passionate conversations about all sorts of different topics, including brands and companies. We let those brands and companies gain value from these conversations by bringing the conversation to their web site while still maintaining the social element.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

The founders previously worked at Spartz Media, where we cut our teeth on social media and the internet startup climate. We helped grow the business to 25 employees serving 160 million pageviews per month to an engaged audience of millions.

Andrew Parnell (CEO) has a background in business administration, consulting, and project management. Working at the Acquity Group he advised companies like General Motors and the New York Philharmonic.

Andrew Weber (Director of Technology) has a deep development and technical architecture background, heading up the development team at his previous business as well as running the Midwest Sports Car Club.

Vladimir Jornitski (Director of Information) has an educational background in economics and an operational background in project management at Thomson Reuters, data analysis, and research management.

Henry Vasquez (Director of Marketing) has a background in operations and political science, and is the Vice President of Operations at Spartz Media.

Where are you based?

We’re based out of the startup coworking space 1871 in Chicago, IL.

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

Through enthusiastic public and private development Chicago is advancing itself substantially as a startup center. Working at 1871 allows us to be in the locus of activity for this development, meeting a lot of people working in adjacent or similar problem spaces that we can learn from and help out in turn.

How did you come up with the idea for BirdFeud?

We’ve been working in both the social space and with companies and brands for some time. Initially, we began by looking at the current limitations of social networks like Twitter from a user perspective- difficulty seeing the best content, lack of managing ongoing conversations- and then unified it with our understanding of the limitations of social media from a brand management perspective, following on from conversations that we had with companies having difficulty getting social to work for them.

How did you come up with the name?

Birdfeud’s name was settled on fairly quickly as a catchy conflation of the ideas of debating and group participation that are core to the use of the tool.

What problem does BirdFeud solve?

Companies and brands, even those with a strong social focus, have trouble actually making social media generate value for their business. Follower counts grow but most of the audience that brands reach never come back, and certainly don’t engage with the brand on a consistent basis. Birdfeud solves this problem by engaging end users in topics relevant to both their interests and the brand that gets the ball rolling on the conversation.

What’s your secret sauce?

Birdfeud leverages the open access Twitter and Facebook APIs to embed social content (Twitter tweets and Facebook posts) into an embeddable iframe. This allows for a business or brand to embed that social content, algorithmically sort it, and manage it, right on their website. The conversation will continue in social channels- with links pointing back to the website, Facebook page, or other promotional vehicle for the brand.

Are you bootstrapped or funded?

Birdfeud is currently on bootstrapped funding, although we’re currently looking to raise about $200,000 for a round of funding. We’d be more than happy to talk to any potential investors for part or all of our funding request; let us know at parnell@birdfeud.com .

What are some milestones you’ve achieved?

August 2012: We had a fully functional beta of Birdfeud live on our website, http://www.birdfeud.com/ .

September 2012: We started onboarding ‘case study’ clients to prove out the ability to engage users.

February 2013: We ‘go to market’ to start finding paying clients.

Present Day: We have 4 signed contracts for paying clients and are beginning conversations with enterprise level customers for larger campaigns.

What’s your next milestone?

We’re looking to have 10 paying clients launched by the end of March and are currently on pace to do so. Past that, we’re looking to be a profitable company by EOY 2013 with 50+ paying clients on-boarded.

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

We initially began with a more B2C focus: “let’s fix what we don’t like about social media.” Pivoting to our current B2B focus was a choice that took us out of the realm of areas that we were, with our business experience, fully familiar with. In the end we had to make an analysis of what the best opportunity for our product was and what the correct alignment was between our solution and the actual problems out there in the market. A rational examination and the willingness to potentially venture into a business own paid off, with our business now much more clearly milestoned.

Who are some of your mentors and business role models?

We’ve been able to draw upon a fantastic support and advice network while building our business out in Chicago. David Culver at VentureSHOT has given us invaluable advice for getting the business sustainable and taking it to market. We’ve also been able to draw upon the experience of other mentors like Robert Jordan of InterimCEO, Corey Angst at Notre Dame University, Mike Moyer, Jay Lindgren, and Kevin Willer.

What’s next for BirdFeud?

As stated above, we’re currently in the sales phase for Birdfeud, really proving the model out with clients across our target range (from bloggers to small businesses to larger enterprise clients). We’ll continue to garner data and feedback from clients as we look to develop the tool further. We’re also looking towards our current funding round to really be able to scale the model out and reach more agencies and enterprise clients at the top end.

Where can people find out more?

There’s a lot of information about Birdfeud available at our website, http://www.birdfeud.com . Those interested in contacting us as potential clients can also look at http://www.birdfeud.com/partners or email our CEO at parnell@birdfeud.com . Finally, Birdfeud can (of course) be found on Twitter: @birdfeud .

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Chicago Reviews Startup G2Crowd Taking On Gartner Not Yelp

The Chicago based team behind Big Machines, a company that specializes in cloud based product configuration, and sold to Vista Equity Partners and JMI Equity at a valuation of more than $100 million dollars is back. This time they’ve attacked a problem that IT professionals and companies around the world are having every day; finding great reviews on software.

Their video explains it best, you’re not going to ask a car dealer for his “honest opinion” on the vehicle you’re looking at. If you do, you’re going to get whatever it takes to sell the product. You’re not going to look to tech review magazines and online sites because they’re riddled with “product placement” and paid for reviews.

So G2Crowd decided to create a community of crowdsourced reviews from actual users. Today they have over 2500 members and 10,000 ratings on various software packages, mostly aimed at enterprise companies.

A company with 500-10,000 employees is looking at a pretty big capital expenditure when it comes to CRM software, or other productivity software. Licenses can run in the tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.

G2Crowd offers users, or readers, a much more rounded picture of the products they may end up purchasing.

You would think that a startup like this was coming directly at Yelp, however TechCrunch reports that’s not the case at all. While serving the needs of software purchasers with reviews, they’ll also provide a paid for research service, much like Gartner and other companies like it. With their broad range of reviews, and user base they plan on offering these research reports at a much lower cost, like $99.

After their first successful exit with BigMachines, when CEO and co-founder Godard Abel launched G2Crowd they naturally decided to remain in Chicago. We talk with the G2Crowd team about Chicago’s startup scene and what they’re doing differently in the reviews space with G2Crowd. Check out the interview below:

What is your startup, what does it do?

G2 Crowd is a site for trusted reviews of business software. We are changing the game by creating a motivated community of real users sharing real reviews in real time so companies can select software in much the same way that we use reviews on Yelp or Amazon to pick a restaurant or hotel. New insights based on authentic reviews encourage informed decisions and collective learning; companies can use G2 Crowd to compare software and find the one that’s right for them based on the experiences of actual users.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Godard Abel, cofounder/CEO

Matt Gorniak, cofounder/COO

Tim Handorf, cofounder/Products

Mark Myers, cofounder/Design

Mike Wheeler, cofounder/Engineering

The cofounders all worked together at another company, BigMachines, which was founded by Godard. After the successful sale of BigMachines, they were looking for a new project and started G2 Crowd. More info on the team can be found here.

What is the startup culture like in Chicago?

Overall, it’s enthusiastic and supportive. We know we’re not Silicon Valley or New York, but the startups here embrace the underdog role and make the best of it. There are lots of events and resources for entrepreneurs to connect with each other.

What problem does your startup solve?

The current approach to buying business technology is broken. Buyers spend too much time sifting through spin, reading outdated analyst reports, and sitting through endless meetings. After all this, buyers still lack the confidence in their choice of technology, and most projects fail to meet their expectations. Because most companies choose new systems only every few years, they lack the expertise to efficiently select the best software, and most have nowhere to turn for input from peers implementing similar systems for similar companies. Also, traditional technology analysts such as Gartner rely on a legacy model of highly paid experts publishing their opinions only every two years or so, with a focus on products from large vendors that are typically also clients of the same analysts. This process delays the emergence of more innovative solutions, and buyers might miss newer technologies that could be a better fit.

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

The initial process of getting our site live. Putting together a site that we were ready to show off was a ton of work, but we also had to balance that with just getting something out there. It’s very tempting to wait until the site is as close to perfect as possible before standing it up, but it was important to us to approach this from the lean startup perspective and get something out there. Since the first version of our site went live, we’re continuously getting feedback and making changes and improvements based on what our users tell us.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

We now have nearly 2,500 users and more than 10,000 ratings and reviews of business software.

We decided on, pursued and launched our first product that would bring in revenue.

We’ve grown the team to 9 full-time employees.

What are your next milestones?

Our next milestones revolve around our premium research. We also always have goals with regard to the size of our user base and the number of reviews we have. We’re constantly focused on growing the community and gathering a critical mass of data.

Who are your mentors and role models?

We look to entrepreneurs like Richard Branson and Marc Benioff for inspiration on innovation and developing and sustaining a successful company. All of us have read Peak by Chip Conley and The Lean Startup by Eric Ries; in fact, those two are required reading for anyone who joins our team. The concepts in those books help shape our company.

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

The startup environment here is so much more supportive than Silicon Valley. Instead of intense competition and scrutiny, startups here tend to work together and root for each other, which is encouraging. The Chicago area provides a large pool, and we also like being in the midst of thousands of companies that use business software and represent prospective customers and users of our site. There aren’t too many disadvantages, but one would be that most of the major tech events happen out there, so we have to travel to get to them.

What’s next for your startup?

We’ll be broadening our focus into other categories in addition to CRM. We’re also going to be rolling out more tools to help companies with the software selection process, and we’ll be exploring ways for our users to connect with each other and more directly share their expertise.

Where can people find out more?

People can head to www.g2crowd.com to find out more. Follow them on Twitter @G2Crowd.

Sir Richard Branson offers these 4 tips on avoiding startup mistakes.

DC Startup SnapDash Can Help You Make Funny Photos, Even If You’re Not Funny

If you’re one of those people that combs the meme sites for the funniest memes, or recycles people’s old Facebook status’ on Twitter and vice versa to project a humor you don’t naturally have, no worries. There’s a photo app that will help you strike those funny poses even if you’re flat and boring.

SnapDash gamifies picture taking by suggesting poses and funny things to do . The new Washington DC startup has an idea generator which helps people come up with awesome photos. Now, if you are funny, SnapDash still offers great suggestions that will make your humor stand out.

“Our theory is that the entire world likes looking at funny photos, so we want to make them easier to create and provide an addictive experience for doing so.” Daniel Hanks, co-founder of SnapDash told us in an interview.

Check out the rest of our quick startup interview below.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Daniel Hanks

Prior to leaving the illustrious world of full-time employment to become a fledgling entrepreneur, Daniel served three years as the head of Corporate Strategy for The Teaching Company / The Great Courses in Chantilly, VA. Previously, he spent a number of years in investment banking and software/tech-focused private equity.

Meredith Balenske

Meredith is currently the Director of Communications for Bloomberg L.P. in Washington, D.C. responsible for the external positioning and communication strategy for the Bloomberg properties and personalities in Washington.

Where are you based?

Washington, DC

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

It’s probably not the most helpful answer, but I don’t really feel like I’ve earned a right to an opinion on this yet. Here’s what I do know already, though: a tight, energetic group of individuals (i.e. 1776, Foster.ly, DC Tech Meetup, a handful of specific people, and so forth) sensed a vacuum and the opportunity it provided, and a yeoman’s effort has been expended so far to continue and grow this groundswell of excitement. We have been heads down for the most part, but we feel confident that we are based in a city in which a lot of smart, hard-working people are determined to make great things happen. We clearly do not have the density that one would find in the Valley, but that’s life. You manage.

What problem does your startup solve?

We like to think we are putting a unique spin on something that has been around since the inception of cameras – the urging to “do something funny.” SnapDash randomly provides a little boost of creativity and adds a short timer, therefore capturing pure instinct. The result is a visual, full-body version of a word association game. And, on a macro level, we are using a combination of unpredictability and humor to try and combat the overwhelming sense of “success theater” that now permeates social media.

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

As with all companies that are not yet fully walking and upright, every decision has carried with it some weight; yet, for us, a relatively major inflection point came when I left my previous job and dove into SnapDash full-time. This fact alone won’t make anyone’s socks go up and down, as people are making this same leap all the time, but it really served to crystallize my desire and purpose. I also learned that you can, in fact, eat too much French bread pizza.

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

Don’t have an opinion on this yet, other than my answers above.

What’s next for your startup?

We are going to be focused for the near term almost entirely on user acquisition and building out a strong base. However, we have a number of plans for various product extensions, in addition to working alongside brands that aiming to engage with their fans and customers in a fun, unique way.

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

Our website is www.snapdash.net, and people can follow us at @snapdashapp.

DC Mayor Vince Gray Is High On DC Startups, Check out our video from SXSW