Boston Startup: CareerApp Gives Jobseekers The Building Blocks For Success

While there are hundreds of startups in the jobs space, Boston startup CareerApp has a totally different approach. They aim to give job seekers the building blocks to success. Building blocks are the foundation to the app itself.

CareerApp is divided into 15 building blocks that are easy to understand, navigate and use to build a user’s CareerApp profile. The 15 blocks are:
Basic Info
Web Presence
Resume
Education
Work Experience
Technical Skills
Personal Skills
Passions & Hobbies
Goals
Awards & Certifications
Interview Questions
Office Preferences
References
Skill Tests
Portfolio

These 15 building blocks give a round picture of the overall candidate. The blocks are also extremely thorough. This allows the user, or jobseeker, to complete a detailed profile and then through one click, send that complete picture to jobs they want to apply for.

Phoebe Farber, the founder of CareerApp told nibletz.com in an interview that the next piece they are working on is a tool for career fairs. By working with the producers of job/career fairs, CareerApp can allow on-site candidates to quickly apply to each job or career they are interested in, while they are at the career fair.

This is going to save both job seekers, and recruiters a ton of time. It’s also green-er.

We got a chance to interview Farber, who was named “Ms. Future Business Leader” in 2009. She says she’s still trying to live up to that name.

Check out the interview, below.

What is CareerApp?

CareerApp is the “Common App for jobs” – candidates create a single, strong job application and can apply to multiple positions with one click.

Our focus is to allow new grads to showcase their past achievements and positive traits, in and out of formal work experience, and express their potential. Employers then receive a robust application and also have the opportunity to search the candidate pool to find candidates. We don’t believe that a resume is enough and we’re addressing pain points for candidates and employers.

We’re also just starting to build a Career Fair tool that’s centered around CareerApp and helps students and employers connect before, during, and after the event. So we’re excited about all that’s ahead!

In layman’s terms, how does it work?

You can visit our site, CareerApp.me, register, and complete our well-rounded application. We bet that it’s not like any other job application you’ve filled out! From there you can share the profile that’s generated and/or go apply for jobs at participating companies. We’re also building out a mobile app that should launch in the fall with our Career Fair product.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Phoebe Farber is the Founder & CEO. She grew up in scenic town in “upstate” New York – as true New Yorkers would call it – although the sleepy town of Carmel is about an hour north of NYC. As a child and young adult she was heavily involved in Tae Kwon Do where she earned my 3rd degree black belt and over the course of 8 years learned discipline, respect, and a passion for sales and business.

She was active in the Future Business Leaders of America all through out high school and had the honor of serving as a NY State Officer for two years. She met the most amazing people there and stay involved with the state organization to continue working with officers and helping out in any way she can. FBLA helped set the foundation of her business skills and her crowning achievement was winning Ms. Future Business Leader in 2009- an award she is still trying to live up to.

In late 2011, she got the idea that if there could be a Common App for college that there could be a parallel for entry level jobs, and she started Prospective Plus and the CareerApp. She is currently working on her venture full time as a senior at Northeastern University and will graduate in December 2013.

Jake Wood is the Co-Founder & CTO, Jake has been writing code since he was six, back in the days when Visual Basic was somewhat popular. Nowadays, most of his work has been in enterprise web development, creating solutions for the finance, insurance, and airline data industries. He is a junior at Northeastern University, and has over 2 years of technical internship experience under his belt, in addition to the first-hand experience of starting a non-profit radio station at his high school, as well as other local business endeavors. When not trying to start something crazy successful, Jake likes rock climbing, hiking, and camping in his home land of Colorado.

Where are you based?

Phoebe and Jake are students at Northeastern University, so the company is based in Boston, MA.

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

Boston has an amazing start-up culture. There are over 100 start-up’s coming out of Northeastern alone with a great venture accelerator and the #6 best Entrepreneur’s Club in the country. Boston is a hub for investors, successful start-up’s, networking and learning events, and much more. It’s definitely one of the top places in the country to be when starting a country.

How did you come up with the idea for CareerApp?

I was applying for my second co-op and just spreading my resume around. Even with what I considered a polished resume and the experience I had – I was still getting passed over for interviews for amazing positions.

I had an immensely frustrating week where I had 6 interviews in 4 days with no offers, so I started applying to jobs on career portals and searching through job boards. After a couple hours I was left with a headache and was confused about why we needed to fill out different applications for each job. This issue was solved for college applications when the Common App came about I wanted to see if the same could be done for entry level jobs.

What problem does CareerApp solve?

We are offering a gateway for new graduates and employers to meet for potential employment. Employers today are not getting enough information from a resume and have no way to access that necessary information. We make it easier for qualified candidates to offer more information about themselves and get to that initial interview.

Also, a lot of start-up’s and SMB’s are currently accepting applications via email and CareerApp allows them to organize their available jobs through our platform. Our technology can also multiple applications – like accepting applications for temp agencies and staffing firms, a portal for VC portfolio companies, and a Career Fair tool.

What’s your secret sauce, what makes you different?

We’re a very passionate, persistent, and curious team. We’re always learning, meeting new people in the industry, and looking to see how we can go to market. We’ve also had it drilled into our heads for the past several years what employers are looking for and how we can express our potential to compensate for our lack of formal work experience – so we’re interested in solving this problem.

Why now?

There is also a lot of innovation in this space as the archaric and intensely new solutions compete fiercely. Professional networking, the resumes, interviewing, and more are all growing and changing and now seems like a feasible time to change things up.

Have you faced any challenges specific to being a woman founder?

This is a tough question. Since I’m still in college, I’m not married with kids so I haven’t faced any of those work/life balance issues. I think that I’m still figuring out how to be in certain situations and how to be likable and confident while pursuing my professional goals, which I consider a female founder challenge. We’re also fundraising and I see that few investors are women and as a non-technical female founder I might face an uphill battle. Overall, I haven’t faced any true discrimination and think that my journey is like any other entrepreneurs’ – I’m working on myself as a young professional and my product and learning as I go.

What are some milestones you’ve achieved?

I was offered a scholarship to go on co-op for myself, so that gave me 2 wonderful assets- time and money. I’ve also brought on a great co-founder, so after working on this venture solo for awhile, I now have a great team.

We also launched and got our first students and companies involved in the site – so that’s been great. Seeing that people are interested in what we’re doing is very encouraging.

What’s your next milestone?

Right now we’re looking to be accepted to a summer accelerator – the mentorship, capital, and incubation would be amazing at this point. We’re also fundraising and looking to build our team and advisory board as we focus on biz dev.

Who are some of your mentors and business role models?

I really respect successful entrepreneurs – people who started amazing companies and either exited them, stayed on to grow them, or left to continue on as a serial entrepreneur. People such as Reid Hoffman (Co-Founder of LinkedIn), Jeff Taylor (Founder of Monster), Jeff Bussgang (Co-Founder of UPromise, General Partner at Flybridge Capital Partners), Dave Balter (Founder of BzzAgent, Co-Founder of Smarterer, Co-Founder of Intelligent.ly), Seth Godin, Dharmesh Shah (Founder of Hubspot), Art Papas (Founder of Bullhorn), and more.

I also have several female business role models such as Ivanka Trump (EVP of Dev. and Acquitions at Trump Org.), Sheryl Sandberg (COO of Facebook), and Barbara Corcoran (Founder of The Corcoran Group).

I’ve enjoyed reading these people’s books and blogs, article about and by them, and, in some cases, got to meet them. They’re all so creative, knowledgeable, insightful, intelligent, and innovative and I look up to them as I begin my professional life.

Where can people find out more?

Be sure to visit us at CareerApp.me, follow us @CareerApp,

Check out these great startup interviews at nibletz.com the voice of startups everywhere else.

Nashville: It Takes A Village, Or A Startup Community To Build An Entrepreneur Center

The Entrepreneur Center in Nashville Tennessee is a pretty awesome space as it is right now. It sits directly across the legendary Broadway street in Nashville, from the Hard Rock Cafe. The entire second floor serves Nashville’s startups and entrepreneurs.

The current Entrepreneur Center has always been a temporary location after opening in May 2010. The center, led by Michael Burcham, immediately began a search for a permanent home and found it in Nashville’s creatively rich SoBro neighborhood in Trolley Barn #1 at Rolling Mill.

The space is adjacent to where one of Nashville’s biggest startups, Emma, operates. There is also an entire barn filled with smaller early stage startup companies, while the last barn will become a recreational restaurant space. “Entrepreneurs and founders working at the new Entrepreneur Center will be able to grab a beer or bowl, overlooking the river, and then get back to work” Burcham told us on Friday.

Friday afternoon we got an exclusive sneak peak and complete tour of the new space. Burcham had assembled a group of center supporters to tour the progress of the center that has just over 50 days until completion.

“We’ll make our deadline for a soft opening in June” Burcham told us during the walk through.

No entrepreneurial stone was left unturned in the design and build out of the new facility. Over $5 million dollars was raised from private and public donors, including Burcham himself who has had several exits in the medical realm.

Anyone who knows Burcham knows that he’s typically beaming and grinning when talking about Nashville’s entrepreneurial scene. During this walk through he was radiating.

The tour started at the center’s new side entrance. The first thing Burcham pointed out was manhole sized indentions in the floor. This is going to be a walk of fame for entrepreneurs who’ve committed $50,000 or more to the Entrepreneur Center. The 22,000 square foot space was covered with these indentions that will be filled out by opening day.

Burcham almost choked up when he told the group how the entire community had come together across Nasvhille and across Tennessee to get this beacon of entrepreneurship built. For example, Knoxville politician and entrepreneur Jim Haslam, father of Governor Bill Haslam, underwrote the first conference room we saw. Both Haslam’s are expected to attend the grand opening in June.

The “crow’s nest” will overlook the new cafe/coffeeshop which is an accelerator in itself (photo: NMI 2013)

The next thing Burcham talked about was the crow’s nest (pictured above). Entrepreneurs will be able to pitch investors, get mentoring, or coaching high atop where other entrepreneurs will be grabbing a cup of coffee or eating at the center’s cafe.

The cafe isn’t just a source of nourishment but it will be it’s own separate 3 month restaurant accelerator. “We’re going to take entrepreneurs with restaurant startups and let them try them out here for three months before they open their doors” Burcham said. He also showed us the kitchen which will include restaurant industrial refrigeration, heating and warming. Everything a restaurant startup would need to cook and prepare.

While Broadway is just two blocks away from the new location, having an on-site restaurant will help feed over 400 people that will work, take in a class, mentor, or coach at the Entrepreneur Center on any given day. The fact that the restaurant concept will change every 90 days will make for great variety.

These bays will house startups and accelerators including Jumpstart Foundry and Vanderbilt’s Tech Transfer (photo: NMI 2013)

Toward the back of the building are several bays. One will be an area for Vanderbilt’s tech transfer program. Jump Start Foundry’s summer 2013 session will switch over to the new space when it opens as well. There are several other announcements forthcoming at the grand opening event. Burcham filled us in on all of them, and that back space will be buzzing.

The entire center will be filled with wall to wall glass. From the front of the learning space to the back of the startup space, people will be able to see all the way through.

Speaking of the learning space, at the current EC it’s called the “Fish bowl” at the new EC it may as well be called the “aquarium”. oer 200 will be able to sit comfortably and work in comfortable chairs with pop up desks fit for laptops or iPads. “We’ll have plenty of power, AV and wifi as well”. Burcham is making sure that every corner of the turn of the century building is fit for wifi.

The new space has several big LED monitors that will be mounted on the wall. They will show what’s going on in the education space, startup space, or that’s produced in their own inhouse AV studio.

The education side of the building will have mentor offices. These spaces can be completely closed off with a sliding glass door for privacy with openness. Some of the Entrepreneur Center’s corporate mentor partners will have permanent spots and others will be able to use shared spaces.

As for Burcham, despite spearheading this entire operation, he is taking another modest office off in the corner of the building.

The Entrepreneur Center opens June 19th and 20th and will feature several startup celebrities and Governor Bill Haslam. For more info click here.

No one covers startup news in the south like nibletz the voice of startups everywhere else.

This Uber Case Should Be A Wake Up Call For Arrington Haters

Back in December we were one of the earliest startup focused sites reporting on these allegations of rape against an Uber driver in Washington DC.

The unthinkable, that some opponents of private car hiring app Uber had been anticipating, had finally happened. According to our good friends at In The Capital, a DC Uber driver had been accused of raping a customer.

The accusation came by way of the Cleveland Park Email listserv. Cleveland Park is a neighborhood in Washington DC. The Cleveland Park list serv post says the crime was caught on tape.

In The Capital reported that Metropolitan Police Department spokesperson Hugh Carew, had confirmed they investigated forcible sexual abuse case in Cleveland Park that occurred on December 8th. There are conflicting reports between the actual police report which suggests the attack happened on a Friday while the police report says it happened on a Sunday.

This email on the Cleveland Park listserv started it all:

A woman’s teen-age daughter used Uber car serve to return to her home
last night after a late evening. The car drove up the family’s driveway
around 3:30 AM. The girl walked to the door but the driver called her
back. When she went back, the driver struck her on the head and raped
her.The family has a security camera in the driveway. The camera showed the
driver carrying the girl’s limp body back to the house. She is now at
home, trying to rest. The entire family is of course very shaken.

Because of the cameras, they know who did it. As of this morning, he had
not yet been arrested, but many officers are involved and he will be.

On Friday, our good friends at InTheCapital were again on the case, this time reporting that the charges were dropped on Thursday.

InTheCapital reports:

As of now, the Washington Post has just come out with a report that the statements given by the woman and the driver regarding the sexual contact were in fact contradictory, and that the physical evidence as well as the testimonies given by both the driver and the woman seemed to indicate different stories. According to the driver, the woman was the one who initiated sexual contact as they were parked in her family’s driveway and they engaged in consensual oral sex. He also denied having intercourse with her, and after their encounter he carried her to the driveway where she then got up and walked inside. DNA evidence from the report does contradict the driver’s testimony to no intercourse, but security video of the woman’s driveway does show the woman walking to her side door and apparently waving to the driver as she walked in to her home. She also told authorities that she had no memory of having done this.

While both nibletz and InTheCapital both reported that these were just allegations, this should say something about all of those folks on the Mike Arrington witch hunt. In fact there are still no “charges” in that case…

Move on now and if you need a lift go download Uber.

5 Tips For Entrepreneurial MBAs From TroopID’s Blake Hall

For entrepreneurs, business school presents a unique set of choices and opportunities that can drastically alter a founder’s chance of success — for better or worse.

I founded Troop ID while I was an MBA candidate at Harvard Business School in February of 2010. And while today we employ 17 people and sign up nearly 1,000 new members daily, our path to success would have been much swifter had I leveraged the resources at my fingertips while in business school.

Here are 5 of my top lessons — many of them learned the hard way — for other MBAs considering entrepreneurship:

1. Research vesting carefully.

If you have a co-founder, then you will inevitably face a choice about how to split ownership of the company. Initially, this will seem simple: 50/50. But what happens when your co-founder – comparing his ramen noodle diet to the average starting salary of your MBA graduating class — decides to take a high-paying corporate job several months later and wants to remain an equal owner?

That happened to me, and I felt physically ill for almost two months until we sorted it out. Fortunately, smart investors won’t invest in companies until non-full time founders sell back their shares, and, ultimately, that reality allowed me to resolve the situation. But the confrontation cost me precious time and it ruined my personal relationship with a classmate I had once trusted. Looking back, I could have gone down the hall to see Noam Wasserman, a professor at Harvard who literally wrote the book on optimal ownership structures for Founding Teams. I still kick myself over that missed opportunity.

2. Find a mentor.

MBAs are uniquely positioned to find a mentor who is invested in their success. While I would steer clear of pure academic types, there are usually plenty of successful entrepreneurs on faculty. If you develop a personal relationship with a successful entrepreneur who trusts you and is passionate about your venture, then you will have gained the most valuable asset of all: someone who can open doors for you within their trusted network. Since most MBAs are first-time CEOs or founders, sophisticated angel investors will often require that a person they trust sit on the board of the company.

My mentor, Kelly Perdew, helped me navigate multiple pitfalls that could have killed our business; he kept our chins up when the breaks went the wrong way; and he kept our eye on the ball when they started to go right. Kelly provided introductions to most of our current angels and he walked me through the financing process. He’s the single best thing to happen to me and my company.

3. Understand the commitment.

An MBA provides a safety valve that many other entrepreneurs don’t enjoy — a terrible thing for entrepreneurs, because it means that you can waltz out of your company at any point in time and land in a safe, high-paying job. I had a full-time offer from a top management consulting firm that paralyzed me the first few months after I finished business school.

Until I declined that opportunity, I couldn’t make the tough decisions about the best geographic location for the company, I wasn’t fully bought into my own vision and, most importantly, I couldn’t hire talented people or ask them to leave their jobs because that would be unethical. Only when I fully committed to making my company successful did I feel free.

I waited far too long to make this decision and I allowed my Facebook feed – filled with my classmates’ vacations and ski trips – to influence my thinking. After declining the job offer, the next year was even worse. I was lonely. My credit cards maxed out. But I never quit because I was passionate about the problem that I was solving.

4. Focus on your product, relentlessly.

Before we even had a product, I had built a sharp-looking Excel business model that projected a meteoric rise to success. I cringe now when I write about it because, while I understood financial modeling, I understood virtually nothing about building a company. Because I had business training, I thought that my job was to go out and build a sales and marketing plan and to develop relationships with other businesses. I pursued these activities at the expense of the product — the core of the business.

After a few months and a harsh (but much-needed) conversation with one of our seed investors, I stopped doing everything else until we nailed our product and validated our assumptions with small cohorts of customers.

Today, focusing on product first is a personal mantra. It’s also incredibly rewarding because it allows for a level of creativity and self-actualization absent in most other functions. MBAs are well-suited to leverage their business training to provide analytical rigor to validate customer assumptions based upon customer behavior with product features.

In the meantime, I’ve learned not to waste money selling and marketing a product that doesn’t solve a real problem.

5. Pitch everyone.

The biggest advantage of being an MBA is that you have access to virtually everyone you need to poke holes in your idea: faculty, lawyers, angel investors, VCs, corporate executives, classmates, and potential customers. Pitch everyone you meet while you are in business school, and soak in the feedback. After a few weeks, you’ll notice that the critiques you receive are clustered around perceived weak points in your business model or flaws with your product idea.

If you can gather the data to answer each one of those critiques, then people will start writing checks to you — and they will leave their jobs to come work for you.

America needs more talented leaders to choose entrepreneurship. Our best and brightest have the most impact when they build new products that solve meaningful problems and give people jobs. We don’t need more bankers and consultants. If you decide to go this route, I wish you the best of luck!

Blake Hall is the Founder and CEO of Troop ID, a digital authentication engine capable of verifying military affiliation online. An Airborne-Ranger qualified officer, Blake led a battalion reconnaissance platoon in Iraq for fifteen months during 2006 – 2007. He has written for The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, The Huffington Post and Vanderbilt Magazine. Thanks to The Economist, he is also the first Google result for the phrase “muscly entrepreneur.”

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

Check out more on TroopID at nibletz.com The Voice Of Startups Everywhere Else.

Warner Music Exec Ping Ho Gives Important Tips For Music Startups

Music startups academy, Nashville, music startup,startup,startup tips,startups

Larry Miller, Medianet (L), Ping Ho, Warner Music Group (R) (photo: NMI 2013)

Warner Music Group’s Director of the Digital Strategy Team, Ping Ho, was in Nashville today for the Music Startup Academy. The event is meant to merge musicians, labels, lawyers, publishers and entrepreneurs working on startups that are touching the music business.

In my startup experience I’ve get to talk to a lot of startups. I’ve also sat on a few committees that have vetted startups for accelerator programs. So often I’ve met music based startups who have no idea how big the can of worms is when they want to do something with commercial music.

Ho, has been with Warner Music Group over the last 8 years, and always with the digital department. She’s been through just about the entire boom of the digital music age.

We’re going to continue to dive more into music focused startups in the future here at nibletz.com but in the mean time, at the event today Ho gave some very good advice to music startups.

First things first, in my experience, I’ve met quite a few founders who want to offer some kind of “radio” or “streaming” service and are adamant about doing their own thing and not using an API from someone like Spotify or Rdio. That may be the biggest mistake you’ll ever make.

Licensing music directly from a major label and can be very costly. Legitimizing your startup among independent artists can be a very long tail process. If you don’t have millions (and I’m not exaggerating) you may want to reconsider those Spotify API’s until you can build up traction.

Stubborn? Headstrong, oh ok you have the greatest idea in the world and want to go directly to the label then read on…

For starters Ho did say that it’s a lot easier to score a meeting or at least a chance to get your startup in front of her team than it would be for an artist to get in front of a traditional A&R. But pay attention here or you’ll blow it.

The Boy Scout Rule: Be Prepared.

Sure this is common knowledge but for Ho, and her counterparts at other labels this means.

– knowing your pitch
– knowing your market
– knowing your competition
– knowing what you need from the label
– having a white paper or deck, but they want to see both business plan and product, and in depth.

On this, here is the absolute biggest thing Ho said that will get your meeting shut down…

Have a ProtoType, DO NOT BE IN A CLOSED WORKING BETA.

Ho said that many times startups have pitched her. They get to a meeting and have set up a wonderful login for her to use to access their startup. They are happy, headstrong and proudly say, “We’re in a closed beta with 5000 users, and they love it”, “They’re using our service four hours a day each”. Then she, or an executive in her position, goes to the actual product and they’re using Warner’s music in the “beta”. Well guess what, your great idea and great startup are now stealing WMG’s product, and with 5,000 users using the service four hours a day, you’re stealing a lot of that.

The music business is going through it’s biggest fundamental change ever. An executive with Sony earlier in the program said “The album is dead, we need to find more high margin product businesses”, digital licensing is now the catalog vault.

“I’m going to rely on the artist to help build my customer base” makes Ho cringe the way that “we’re going to grow socially and organically over the first two years” makes me cringe.

Artists aren’t going to get involved until they see how your startup is impacting their bottom line. This can be a double edged sword as well because remember, the death of the album is affecting artists just as much as it is labels. They’re getting into more and more businesses, and a lot of them are digital.

So now that you’ve got all that, check out digitalmusic.org they’ll help you get to that next step.

Here are more great startup stories from Nashville.

Startup Grind Announced For Philly!

Startup Grind, the global startup community designed to educate, inspire and connect entrepreneurs through monthly top tier fireside chats is sweeping the nation. Philadelphia is the latest city to add a chapter for the organization.

Startup Grind Philadelphia is being headed by Mike Maher the founder and CEO of Benjamin’s Desk, Philadelphia’s premiere shared office and coworking space for professionals.

“The Philadelphia Chapter of Startup Grind is seeking to fill the gap in programming that currently exists in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. There are workshops, panels, and demos, but entrepreneurs are craving to hear the stories from the horses mouth and are looking for those little keys to add to their startup toolbox.” Benjamin’s Desk community manager Katie Cohen said in an emailed statement.

The first Startup Grind event in Philadelphia will feature Venture Capitalist Wayne Kimmel, the founding partner of Artists & Instigators who’s firm has invested in Dwolla, Seamless, Indiegogo, Reverbnation, Zaarly and Nutrisystem, just to name a few.

The event is Wednesday May 1 from 6-9pm following Philly Tech Week. Interested in attending, get tickets here.

Philly startups your chance to get on Shark Tank is May 11th, details here.

Memphis Native Kimberly Bryant Named To 25 Most Influential African Americans In Technology List

Kimberly Bryant, Black Girls Code,BlackGirlsCode,startup,entrepreneur,Memphis

(photo: influencercon.com)

Business Insider published a great list this morning of the 25 most influential African American’s in technology.

We were very pleased to find that native Memphian Kimberly Bryant, the founder and creator of Black Girls Code, was ranked number 19 on such an important list.

Kimberly Bryant is an award winning social entrepreneur, technology junkie, an engineer by trade and a native Memphian. She relocated to Silicon Valley and now she’s launched a program that’s rolling out across the country. That program, Black Girls Code, promotes teaching coding and development to young African American Girls.

Bryant describes the mission for Black Girls Code on her website as:

“to introduce programming and technology to a new generation of coders, coders who will become builders of technological innovation and of their own futures.”

Like many others, Bryant believes there’s a “dearth” of African American women in science, technology, engineering and math professions. While some may say it’s because there’s a lack of interest, Bryant knows that it’s more like a lack of access and exposure to STEM topics. The Black Girls Code program is about making STEM topics accessible to African American girls and exposing them at a young age. It’s also done in such a way that it’s fun and positive.

Bryant has held programs through Black Girls Code in cities all over the country and some around the world. Black Girls Code has had events in San Francisco, Chicago, Oakland, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York and even in Johannesburg. Her most recent event was this past Saturday in Atlanta where they taught kids how to develop their own apps using Google’s App Inventor.

Black Girls Code in Memphis debuted back in January at an Open House, they also had booth space at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference. The weekend following that huge startup event Black Girls Code Memphis held their inaugural event which was met with great success.

Here is the complete list:

1. John Thompson, CEO Virtual Instruments
2. Shellye Archambeau, CEO MetricStream
3. David Drummond, SVP, Chief Legal Officer, Google
4. Ken Coleman, Chairman MIPS Technologies Inc
5. Kirk McDonald, President PubMatic
6. Lisa Lambert, VP and Managing Director of Software & Service, Intel Capital
7. Malik Ducard, Director of Content Partnerships, YouTube
8. Ime Archibong, Manager of Strategic Partnerships, Facebook
9. Ty Ahmad-Taylor, Head of Smart TV, Samsung
10. Erik Moore, Founder and Managing Partner, Base Ventures
11. Tristan Walker, Entrepreneur In Residence, Andreessen Horowitz
12. Kanyi Maqubela, Partner, Collaborative Fund
13. Charles Hudson, Partner at SoftTech VC
14. Michael Siebel, Justin.tv & SocialCam
15. Brian Weston, Analyst, Union Square Ventures
16. Angela Benton, Founder & CEO NewMe Accelerator
17. Tony Guada, CEO and co-founder Bitcasa
18. Jon Gosier, Founder & CEO Metalayer
19. Kimberly Bryant, Founder, BlackGirlsCode
20. Wayne Sutton, Founder & CEO, PitchTo
21. Majora Carter, Founder, Sustainable South Bronx, Startup Box
22. Don Charlton, CEO, Resumator
23. Hamet Watt, Co-Founder MoviePass
24. Stacy Spikes, Co-Founder, MoviePass
25. Will Lucas, Founder & CEO Creadio

Now see 3 things every new startup should do.

Dreamit Health Announces Inaugural Class

You may think that today is all about accelerators and healthcare, well we didn’t intend it to be that way but there’s major startup news on the accelerator and healthcare front.

DreamIt Ventures, the multi-city startup accelerator brand, announced late last year that they would be teaming up with Independence Blue Shield and Penn Medicine to hold their first medical focused startup cohort. They announced that cohort on Wednesday.

For the first DreamIt Health accelerator they put out an application call for startups seeking to develop tools for healthcare providers to speed up diagnoses and improve outcomes.

“At IBC, we believe that innovation is the key to bringing fresh ideas into health care, and are working to transform the Philadelphia region into a national magnet for health care innovation, investment, and employment,” said IBC CEO Daniel Hilferty in a company statement.

The first cohort includes big data startups, mobile startups, devices, and even fitness startups aimed at curbing childhood obesity. Each team will receive what MedCityNews called a “stipend” of $50,000 and of course access to the DreamIt, IBC and Penn Medicine entrepreneur and mentor network. The program will end with an investor demo day showing the progress these early stage teams made in the program.

The 10 companies selected are:

AirCare: A mobile startup to help hospitals prevent readmissions and improve patient outcomes using telenursing and patient-specific analytics.

Biomeme: A mobile molecular diagnostics device to help point-of-care clinicians and epidemiologists diagnose and track infectious diseases in realtime with smartphones.

Fitly: The company wants tohelp health plans deal with the childhood obesity epidemic by engaging and motivating at-risk families with gaming and convenient delivery of healthcare.

Grand Round Table: Its application helps clinicians rapidly diagnose complex cases by matching the patient’s electronic record against millions of other cases drawn from around the world.

Medlio: The mobile app aims to help physicians get paid faster and get rid of paper-based registering forms with a virtual health insurance ID card to sync the right information among patients, providers and payers at the point-of-care.

OnShift: Helping hospitals improve patient outcomes through instant communications between clinicians caring for the same patient is the goal of this healthcare communications system. It also wants to remove obstacles to effective care delivery and care transitions.

Osmosis: The learning management system helps medical institutions develop clinicians who better retain and apply knowledge through a Web and mobile platform that uses cutting-edge cognitive techniques.

MemberRx: A solution intended to improve the way pharmaceutical costs are controlled by enabling selection of the best generic or on-formulary branded drug for a specific patient through an electronic medical record system.

SpeSo Health: The online analytics platform identifies and accesses medical expertise in rare and complex diseases.

Stat: The Web and mobile app helps providers and payers make patient transport more efficient and lower costs by matching and dispatching idle transportation resources.

The application deadline for Memphis’ highly successful ZeroTo510 medical device accelerator is tomorrow.

DC Startup SlyReply Makes Sign Up Sheets As Easy As They Should Be

Remember the good ole days? They weren’t so long ago,but you could put a sign up sheet on your dorm room door, classroom door, office refrigerator, home refrigerator etc. You’d write what the sign up sheet was for, draw a bunch of lines and voila, done and done.

Well DC entrepreneur Tom Hessen realized how complicated people were making signups, and decided to do something about it.

With his DC startup, SlyReply, the sign up sheet is again just as easy as it was when you created it on the back of a piece of scrap paper.

Set up a sign up sheet, dictate how many people can sign up, and when it’s full it’s done. Sign up for a class, sign up for tutoring, sign up for burgers and beers, whatever you need a sign up sheet for SlyReply makes it as easy as a couple clickity clicks.

We got a chance to interview Hessen. Check out the interview below.

What is your startup, what does it do?

Our startup is SlyReply.com, an online web application that allows users to create sign up sheets for any scenario or occasion and then share with a group. Sign up sheets can be shared by email, posted to Facebook, or linked to from any website, blog, or social media site. People view the sign up sheet and then sign up for one or more items such as a date, time, or an item the author created (ex. hamburgers for the upcoming tailgate). When an item reaches its maximum number of sign ups as defined by the author, the item can no longer be signed up for.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds

Tom Hessen founded SlyReply and now leads the company as CEO. Tom Hessen launched SlyReply.com while enrolled as a full time MBA student at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. Tom previously developed 2 other web applications prior to SlyReply that provided many lessons learned.

Tom has worked at 2 venture backed software companies, interned with a VC firm, and worked at Accenture doing IT implementations.

Where are you based?

Washington D.C.

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

Washington D.C. has a vibrant start up culture that has really grown in the past few years. Historically the Federal Government and government contractors have dominated this town but there is now a huge tech presence here. Large tech companies like AOL have lead the way but now there is a tremendous amount of start up activity. There are people working with tech companies and entrepreneurs at every stage and a growing number of seed and angel investors to go along with the VC firms.

What problem does your startup solve?

If you need to meet with 10 people individually, how would you get them scheduled into 10 different meeting times? A teacher needing to meet with parents for parent/teacher conferences is a perfect real world example of this scenario. Or how would you get your volunteer team to sign up for various tasks that need to be completed for an upcoming event?

Historically the paper sign up sheet has handled this job. However the paper sign up sheet rarely applies today in our digitally connected world. Instead email, spreadsheets, Google Docs, and other tools have been shoehorned into solving the problem of the digital sign up sheet. These tools are inefficient, cumbersome, and not designed for this problem. SlyReply directly tackles the problem of group sign ups in our online world.

What has been surprising is just how many situations need a sign up sheet. Here are a few of our favorite sign up sheets that have been created.

Schedule staff member interviews for President Obama’s reelection campaign

Schedule employees that want to sign up for Ann Inc.’s (parent company of Ann Taylor and The Loft) corporate training

Coordinate the volunteer shifts of riding the bicycle powered generator at the Occupy Wall Street camp in New York City

Schedule employees to receive free massages.

Schedule college students to conduct new food testing at Wendy’s restaurants

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

Tom developed the initial MVP with just enough development skills to complete the project. After SlyReply started to grow despite not being easy to use or much to look at Tom realized the app needed to be designed and developed by professionals. Finding talented people that fit his bootstrapped budget was very difficult. Weeding through the countless number of designers and developers took a lot of time. Tom finally found a tremendous design talent in Jonathan Patterson and development team in Bolster Labs. This team designed and developed the current version of SlyReply.com, which is fun, inviting, and capable of scaling to address the large need.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

Some of the milestones that we have achieved include:

Successfully vetted concept and business model with MVP

Rebuilt app from the ground up with modern design and software platform

Implemented premium (paid) accounts

Had paying customers in the first month premium accounts were offered

All 5,000 users have learned about SlyReply via word of mouth

What are your next milestones?

The next milestones are all growth related. We are working to accelerate the growth of new user registrations and sign up sheets that are created. Another milestone includes being featured in 2-3 tech publications!

Who are your mentors and role models?

One role model that has had an impact on the company is Edwin Miller, CEO of 9Lenses. Tom worked for Edwin while he was the CEO of Everest Software. Edwin has been a successful CEO of both public and private tech companies and has demonstrated what it takes to build a great team that wants to excel every day.

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

One disadvantage of growing a startup outside of Silicon Valley is that raising money is more challenging and conservative. We haven’t tried raising money yet but know the environment is more difficult. One advantage is that it is easier to stand out because there aren’t thousands of startups competing for money, talent, press, etc.

What’s next for your startup?

We are continuing to execute and improve our software to get it in the hands of more people. Each person that creates a sign up sheet shares it with a group of people, which then become aware of SlyReply. We are improving the user experience and continuing to drive awareness through various channels.

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

People can learn more at www.slyreply.com or follow us on twitter @SlyReplyApp

Now’s your chance to get your startup on Shark Tank, click here.

Out of 1700 Applications Here Are The 11 Startups In The Spring NY Techstars Session

Eugene Chung took to the official Techstars blog to announce that this spring’s session at NY Techstars was by far the biggest applicant pool they had seen. Techstars NY received over 1700 applications from 420 cities, 66 countries.

“We had applicants from countries as diverse as Nepal and Tanzania. More than ever, our applicant pool reflects the global reach of TechStars and the infusion of technology in the cultural zeitgeist of societies around the world. The movie The Social Network has become the Wall Street of our generation. This is true not just for America but for the world at large. Some of the brightest minds of our era are choosing to become entrepreneurs.” Chung said on the Techstars blog.

The 1700 applications came from a wide range of technology verticals. This year they even have a startup in the class called FaithStreet, in the religious space. “For the first time ever, we have a company tackling the religion space, an underserved yet massive market with incredible opportunities for disruption.” Chung said.

FaithStreet helps users find churches in their neighborhood. Their website boasts 11,359 churches in 3473 cities across America, and seems to be growing already.

The Techstars New York spring 2013 session runs through June 28th when they will hold investor day.

Here are the 11 startups selected this year:

Ad Yapper – “Talk back to any ad in the world, influence brands, and make a real difference.”
Dash Labs – “America’s story is written on the road. Connect to Dash and chronicle your journey.
FaithStreet – “Find a church near you.”
Jukely – “Concert concierge. The shows you’ve been missing, tailored and delivered.”
Klooff – “iPhone app for pet lovers.”
Placemeter – “Connecting smart customers with smart businesses. One place at a time.”
Plated – Ingredients in pre-measured portions delivered to you for quick, home-cooked meals.
Sketchfab – “Publish and embed interactive 3D models.”
TriggerMail – “Personalized retention emails for Ecommerce.”
Validation Board – “Test your startup idea without wasting time or money.”
weeSpring – “Find essential baby products with advice from your friends.”

Check out these startup accelerator stories from “everywhere else”.

Memphis’ Biggest Entrepreneurial Success Story Turns 40

FedEx,Fred Smith,Entrepreneur,Memphis,Memphis startup

(photo: FedEx Facebook)

In 1970 Frederick Wallace Smith embarked on a journey that would change the way that people do business. Smith purchased controlling interest in an aircraft maintenance company called Ark Aviation Sales. In 1971 he started trading used jets and on June 18, 1971 he founded Federal Express. He used a $4 million dollar inheritance (about $25 million today) and raised $91 million dollars in venture capital.

Along the way Smith was criticized because many though his idea about merging ground transportation and aviation to deliver packages overnight was well, crazy. Of course many present day entrepreneurs have been in the same boat.

In 1973 (40 years ago), he began offering overnight delivery services in 25 cities using a fleet of 14 Falcon 20 (DA-20) jets. The foundation for the way FedEx operates today began in 1973 in a model similar to bank clearinghouses. Packages would be brought to Memphis Tennessee and then re-routed out to their destination.

Today, FedEx Express serves 220 countries and territories around the world, and their main hub is still in Memphis Tennessee.

At age 69 Smith is still alive and well and is still at the helm of FedEx which is innovating in several other logistical spaces, while dealing with the disruption in even overnight delivery caused by new ways of communicating (the internet). Sensor products, cloud based services and even taking over the merged FedEx Kinko’s which are now just FedEx Office stores, are helping FedEx continue to deliver on the bottom line.

In his spare time what does Smith do? He serves on boards, like Startup America. Smith is a great friend to entrepreneurs and startup ecosystems at home and across the country.

FedEx is just beginning to celebrate getting “over the hill” and of course they’re doing it with jet power.

Happy Birthday.

Jonesin for more high growth tech news from the South, Click here.

Speek Now Available For Windows Phone

Speek,Windows Phone, DC Startup,startup news

Speek co-founder Danny Boice has lot’s of tattoos, his co-founder John Bracken has just one (photo: NMI 2013)

While I don’t know many Windows Phone users just yet, for those that I know, conference calling just got easier. Our good friends at Washington DC conference calling startup Speek just announced the availability of their Windows Phone 8 app, and no one had to get a tattoo on their ass in the process.

Speek was founded by John Bracken, one of the co-founders of e-vite, and Danny Boice, a startup renaissance man, who coerced Bracken into getting a Speek monkey tattooed on his butt at SXSW, during a startup pitch contest.

Aside from the fact that the founding team is based in DC and cool as shit, Speek is by far the absolute easiest way to initiate a conference call. You just go to the Speek user’s id like mine for instance, speek.com/kyle and hit the call button. Then the magic happens and it’s like a party line. As many people as you like can join the call, and the facilitator (user) can control just about everything from their iPhone, and now Windows phone app.

So what is so paramountly epic about this, well for starters you don’t need to remember some crazy dial in number and then remember some 11 digit pin. Do you know how hard it is to get back into a dropped conference call while driving 70mph down 95? Well with Speek, you just mosey on back to the interwebs, re-hit that button and your back in, or just get back in through the mobile app.

They also don’t make you wait through a bunch of operator instructions or Musak, but if you ask nicely they may put some Korn or OAR on hold for you.

Seriously, it’s that easy and everyone needs to use Speek, Windows Phone users can go here now. iPhone users look in the iTunes app store, and Android users are up next.

Don’t look now there’s a Speek Monkey on your Ass.

Houston Startup: Mrked Buy A Cell Phone Case, Teach A Girl To Read

I technically got out of the cell phone accessories writing business last year when we sold Thedroidguy, however in Austin at SXSW we met Akil Momin the founder of Mrked.

Mrked offers 5 stylish and protective collections of iPhone cases; Crayon Box, Double Dutch, Honor Roll, Classroom and Jungle Gym. Their protective cases have an element of style that you don’t find in run of the mill cases.

What makes Mrked worthy of the pages at nibletz.com the voice of startups everywhere else, is the social spin they put on their company.

The young Houston based startup set out when they built their accessory company to do something social with it. That’s why they partnered with Room To Read an organization that provides education to girls in Asian and African countries.

“We believe in investing in the future, this is why we are supporting the works of Room to Read to help provide access to quality education to girls in Asian and African countries. Education empowers and enlightens people of all genders, and this brings about positive changes in many areas. Statistics show that educated parents raise educated children and that mothers are especially influential in this process. Educated women are able to live productive and enjoyable lives and raise families that do the same. This means that providing girls with proper education is the single most vital tool in eradicating inequality and poverty in the short and long term.” Momin says on the company’s website.

All three founders of Mrked have parents that migrated from South Asia to provide their sons with a better education. Mrked is their way of giving back.

You can check out the cases at Mrked here.

Check out these other 60 startup stories from SXSW 2013

A Tribute To My Personal Favorite New York CEO, Dan Porter, Wire Style

Dan Porter, the CEO of OMGPOP became Zynga’s New York chief when the popular social games company acquired the New York based company that created “Draw Something”.

Sure one of the main reasons I like Dan Porter so much is that he named every conference and meeting space in OMGPOP’s headquarters after characters from the hit HBO drama “The Wire”. Being from South Baltimore and having extrad a few times during the run of “The Wire” I naturally loved the idea of meeting rooms named after such influential characters as Avon Barksdale, Marlo Stansfield and Proposition Joe.

What came apparent though, as Zynga set sail with OMGPOP on board was that Porter was like the Stansfield character. Porter told it like it was, probably causing a major level of discomfort for Zynga CEO Mark Pincus.

Porter drew fire when Quartz, a business news website quoted him as saying that Zynga copies other publishers games.

Porter is leaving his post as vice president and general manager of Zynga’s New York operations. It’s unclear whether or not he is staying with the company. He is leaving his post as Draw Something 2 is preparing for release.

The original Draw Something caught on like wild fire. The game, which allows two players to play in a head to head win lose or draw style competition, was the game of the month right up until the sale to Zynga. It’s popularity faded as hits like SongPop started picking up steam.

The exact amount that Zynga paid for OMGPOP was never reported. What was reported, was the fact that Zynga had to write down $95 million dollars on the OMGPOP deal.

Even with all that in mind, Porter is credited with helping to move Zynga from the Facebook dependent social gaming space to the mobile screen. Reports surfaced on Monday morning that Zynga was about to unveil online gambling games in the UK as well.

While Zynga’s focus isn’t clear to anyone at the moment, we are confident that Porter’s is. So Dan closes your eyes, and breathe easy, your next big thing is right around the corner.

See why Dan Porter earned that bump like a mother fucker, here.