Impulcity Flips The Switch Just Ahead Of Everywhereelse Conference

Impulcity, a Kentucky startup that relocated to Cincinnati for The Brandery last summer, has just launched to the public.

We’ve been tracking Impulcity since last June when co-founders, Hunter Hammonds and Austin Cameron were still working out the details of the concept. Over the course of The Brandery accelerator, and since their graduation last October, Hammonds and Cameron have iterated and iterated again to make sure they offer the best possible hybrid event discovery experience.

Sure their are event discovery startups popping up everywhere but Impulcity has paid close attention to all the details. The app provides a robust back end and access to events across the country, covered up with an eye popping UI that’s extremely easy to navigate.

Impulcity signed up to present at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference early on and showed up alongside other Brandery graduates Crowd Hall, Brandery GM Mike Bott, and the companies former hustler, now Nibletz CEO and co-founder Nick Tippmann.

Just days before the conference Hammonds reached out to us to tell us that we would get a special treat as the app finally met his strict guidelines and was released in the iTunes App Store.

Over 2,000 people were on Impulcity’s email list and at launch Hammonds to the KyPost.com that they were seeing a new user every minute.

Cameron and Hammonds had to leave the conference early to insure their launch went smoothly back from their headquarters currently located at The Brandery. The startup has raised $400,000 to date and is looking to relocate into their own 1500 square foot space the KyPost reported.

EE 2013: The only way to network is to get out there

By Laura Fenton

Brittany Fitzpatrick had to take a deep breath and make the first move.

“I’m an introvert,” said Fitzpatrick, founder and CEO of Mentor.Me. “I do have to
make a concerted effort to go out of my comfort zone.”

But by taking the initiative, Fitzpatrick has created and formed a team for her
startup, which will help match mentees with the right mentor.

Attending the Everywhere Else conference was not the first
event for Fitzpatrick and her Memphis-based team. She is a member of the the Memphis Seed
Hatchery Program, attends other LaunchMemphis events like LaunchLounge, and
started “working networking events” following the LaunchMemphis Upstart Memphis 48
Hour Launch weekend..

At networking events for startups, “you get access to people with complementary
assets,” such as web developers to balance Fitzpatrick’s communication and public
relation skills. Plus, “you get to see the innovations that are out there,” and get greater visibility,
which is essential for getting the ball rolling, she said.

What advice would Fitzpatrick give up and coming entrepreneurs? “Go for it. Put
yourself out there. You never know who you’ll meet.”

Learn more about Mentor.Me at http://mentordot.me or email
Mentordotme@gmail.com.

EE 2013: The only way to network is to get out there

By Laura Fenton

Brittany Fitzpatrick had to take a deep breath and make the first move.

“I’m an introvert,” said Fitzpatrick, founder and CEO of Mentor.Me. “I do have to
make a concerted effort to go out of my comfort zone.”

But by taking the initiative, Fitzpatrick has created and formed a team for her
startup, which will help match mentees with the right mentor.

What advice would Fitzpatrick give up and coming entrepreneurs? “Go for it. Put
yourself out there. You never know who you’ll meet.”

Learn more about Mentor.Me at http://mentordot.me or email
Mentordotme@gmail.com.

EE 2013: Get “in” with the InCrowd Capital

By Laura Fenton

There’s a funding gap, and Phillip Shmerling has the solution.

“Entrepreneurs all have one thing in common — they all need capital,” said
Shmerling, CEO of InCrowd Capital.

The gap between those who need money for startups and those who want to give to
startups is closing, thanks to the connections forged from the online crowdfunding
startup.

InCrowd makes it easier for startups to raise money from friends and family, as well as
angels. It simplifies the process and makes it easier
for founders to communicate with their investors with less anxiety.

So why choose InCrowd Capital for your startup funding needs? “Because great
businesses start here,” Shmerling said.

For more information about InCrowd Capital, visit http://www.incrowdcapital.com.

Launch Your City Graduates Out Of Memphis Incubator

The umbrella organization that oversees Launch Memphis, Wolf River Angels, Seed Hatchery, UpStart and Memphis Venture Mentors, Launch Your City, has graduated out of the Emerge Memphis accelerator. Launch Your City was situated in Emerge Memphis where they grew the Launch Pad co-working space and successfully put on the first two sessions of Seed Hatchery.

Launch Your City has hosted several 48 Hour Launch events in the Emerge facility, with it’s most recent event focusing on women entrepreneurship.

With all the positive growth and Launch Your City serving as the catalyst for entrepreneurial growth at Emerge, the incubator’s Board of Director’s, asked Launch Your City’s Co-President, Eric Matthews to serve as interim executive director over the last year.

That one year stint ends today and Mathews will transition back into his full time role as Co-President of Launch Your City along with Andre Fowlkes. While the organization had one of it’s best years to date, Mathews and Fowlkes weren’t able to work as closely as they had in years past, with Mathews at the helm of Emerge.

“Eric and I haven’t been able to work as closely together for a year” Fowlkes to nibletz.com Both Co-Presidents have a laundry list of things they want to tackle in 2013 to help enrich the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Mathews will vacate the Executive Director’s office at the end of the day today, roll up his sleeves and return to co-working in the launch pad.

There’s no time to rest in between job transitions. Fowlkes and Mathews, along with the Launch Your City team and community supporters, are launching the next class of Seed Hatchery later on this evening. In addition they will be helping out with everywherelse.co The Startup Conference through the weekend. As Winter turns to spring the Launch Your City team has a full plate at home and on the road. The organization is planning a working tour of Silicon Valley with some of the startups that have gone through their ecosystem. They are also planning a trip to Washington DC and New York while simultaneously planning events around Memphis In May, including Investor Day for Seed Hatchery.

“We felt like if we fumble the ball regarding the opportunities in front of us, it would not only be a detriment to us but to partners like EmergeMemphis. We’re an important client and feeder to Emerge, and we’re poised to grow our capacity 50 percent to 100 percent in the next year.” Mathews told Andy Meek of the Memphis Daily News

As for Emerge Memphis, Mathews, speaking to us from the Executive Directors office in front of a 14 foot back drop of Memphis Grizzlies ‘ All Star Zac Randolph, says that Emerge has filled to capacity, bringing on over 20 new high growth potential client companies to occupy the space that also includes mentorship opportunities, and other startup resources.

The Emerge Memphis Board has hired local aviation entrepreneur and former CEO of Pinnacle Airlines Phil Trenary, to consult while they find a permanent Executive Director.

As an incubator, by design Emerge Memphis is supposed to house startups and growing small businesses for a short time until they’re ready to graduate to the next phase. With that in mind, Mathews and Fowlkes will relocate Launch Your City into their own space.

“Really, this is a testament to incubation. It’s a good story for incubation and entrepreneurship,” Mathews said of the impending move to the Memphis Daily News. “This has been personal to me. I’ve dedicated a lot of time to it. And it’s been a spectacular year if you look at the past 12 months.”

Startups everywhereelse can see what Memphis is really made of, at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference.

Evento Helps Online Ticket Sales Become More Social

Millions of people are turning to online channels to purchase tickets to sporting events, concerts, plays and other ticketed events. As this trend continues to grow, ticket promoters have been looking for ways t make the process more social.

Sure some ticket sites let you tweet, or update your Facebook startus to say you purchased a ticket or you’re attending an event. To make the experience more engaging and more social Israeli startup Evento has released a “socially smart’ consumer facing Facebook ticketing app. The team behind Evento claims that their platform has almost unlimited customizable promotion capabilities.

Co-founders Ophir Zardok and Harel Shemer are hoping to increase a ticket promoters bottom line by using the same customers that purchased tickets to socially share their events.

We got a chance to talk to the team behind Evento. Check out the interview about their startup and the Israeli startup community, below.

The Minimum Working Thing GUEST POST

WorkForPie, Lean Startup,MVP, Brad Montgomery,startup

WorkForPie co-founders Cliff McKinney & Brad Montgomery (left) (photo: nibletz llc)

By Brad Montgomery, co-founder WorkForPie

I’ve been pondering this post for a long time. Any student of startups is probably familiar with the phrase Minimum Viable Product. It’s really a simple idea, and I think it embodies an important philosophy for anyone starting a company. The idea is that your product (whatever it is; e.g. a service, a physical thing, or some software) should be as small as possible, but still be a working, viable product that customers will buy.

The concept is fairly easy to understand, and I don’t really think anyone misudnerstands the idea. However, the execution of that idea is incredibly difficult. Who knows why this is the case, but I’m going to postulate that the terminology is getting in the way.

Let’s get some definitions out of the way.

Minimum. The least or smallest amount possible.
Viable. Capable of working successfully.
Product. An article or substance that is created or refined for sale.

I don’t really think anyone has a problem with these terms individually, but put them together, and I think many people have wildly varying interpretations of their definitions. One reason, I think, is that people unknowingly emphasize the wrong words. Let’s break it down even further.

Minimum

This may be the most important word. Yet, I think it often gets the least amount of emphasis. Honestly, if I were to change the phrase (and I am!), I’d keep this word. It’s perfect. We want to do the smallest amount of work possible, but we need to strongly emphasize that.

This is hard to do. People like to make things more complex than they need to be.

Viable

Here’s where things start to get confusing. The problem is, that many entrepreneurs (especially first-timers–myself, included!) very rarely agree on what will work. It’s also very tempting to try to build a solution without fully understanding the problem.

I say it’s OK to not fully understand what you’re doing (that’s what startups are all about!), so it’s even more important to adjust your definiton of viable. And, you know what? It’s much smaller than you realize.

Product

This is where things really get confusing. When you say the word product, many people start thinking features! Seriously, go to a business guy, an engineer, or anyone that calls themselves an entrepreneur; sit down and brainstorm a new “product”. Start making a bulleted list of all the features that you’d like to see, and then tell me how many pages you have after an hour.

That’s the problem. People envision a product as a fully-featured, complete, does-it-all-with-bells-and-whistles… thing. As soon as you speak the word product, you’ve already started having feature-creep, and you’ve already forgotten that all-important adjective: minimum.

Build a Minimum Working Thing

I’ve complained long enough, so now I’m going to propose a solution. In the tech-startup world, I suggest that we ditch the phrase Minimum Viable Product, and adopt the phrase Minimum Working Thing.

Again, let’s break it down:

Minimum. Do the least amount of work possible. This is important! You know why, right? If you’re in a startup, you’re going to have to go back to the drawing board. You’re going to have to re-work some things. Build less up front in order to save yourself some time later on.
Working. Deploy something that works. Remember, you’re just as interested in failure as you are in success. Your first few iterations don’t have to launch your company into success. They have to teach you the direction in which you need to travel. If people can use it to do something, then it’s working. It doesn’t have to be successful.
Thing. Don’t build a product. Don’t build features. Just build a thing Yes, I’m being intentionally vague, because your thing may be very different from someone else’s thing. In fact, take that long list of features that you think your product needs, and circle the first item on the list. That’s your thing.

So there you have it. Ultimately, forget what you think you need to build. Instead, build something really small that works, and let your customers start using it. Then, pay close attention to what they do and how they use your minimum working thing. They’ll guide you the rest of the way.

About the author: Brad Montgomery is a developer and the co-founder of WorkForPie. Cliff McKinney, WorkForPie’s other cofounder penned these guest posts here and here.

WorkForPie is hosting a huge party at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

When You Say Jump Vert Says How High VIDEO INTERVIEW

One of the coolest startups we found at Eureka Park as part of CES 2013 last month was a startup called MayFonk Athletic and their app called Vert. It’s kind of a fitness app combining a piece of Bluetooth enabled hardware with a smart device app. However, Vert is specific to one thing, and that is jumping.

Vert uses a sensor that easily attaches to a person’s body (as seen in the video below), and is able to measure how high someone jumps. Whether they are jumping in basketball, doing jumping jacks, gymnastics or a workout infused with jumping Vert keeps up.

On the app side it’s able to measure, track and analyze all of the data provided from the device. With the right exposure it’s something that many basketball teams will want to take advantage of.

The Fort Lauderdale based startup is creating their own market, separate from the other fitness based measurement devices and apps.

Check out the video interview below. For more info visit

Florida investors hosting Pitch House party at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

Footmarks Is Using A Software & Hardware Based Platform For Location Based Engagement

Seattle startup Footmarks is looking to change the way location based engagement is done for businesses both big and small. They consider themselves a social engagement platform that is based on two patent pending technologies.

The first technology is a piece of hardware called the “Smart Connect Device” this device is a low powered Bluetooth device that works within 400 feet of a smartphone and the battery lasts for two years.

Using this device in your car will enable the end user to receive a stream of localized, real time deals as they approach a business on the road. By combining the device’s technology along with the users social profile, they can receive offers from businesses that are relevant to them. For instance if you were say a golfer and you were passing by Mike’s Super Golf Warehouse, the store could alert you of a deal as you approach.

Another use for the device is through digital billboards. Footmarks hopes to have their technology work in tandem with digital billboards so that the billboard can show an add relevant to a mass of users within 1500 feet. If the demographic profiles of those users approaching the billboard suggested that they were between 35-54 the billboard could show an advertisement for an Elton John concert. Or if the bulk of users passing were 21-35 year old mom’s, you may see an ad on the billboard for Chuckie Cheese.

So of course we had to ask why this technology would trump existing geo-fencing technologies that are currently available on smartphones. According to Footmarks, their technology is scalable up and down whereas geo-fencing technology out there today is to a rather large area.

The company insists that they could set the radius for Footmarks to say 200 feet. That way a department store could have multiple Footmarks set up by department. When the user passes the shoe department they could get one offer, and then turn around and get an entirely different offer in the juniors department.

According to a report on NPR just yesterday, more and more retailers are looking to embrace in-store mobile technologies a growing fad in today’s evolving retail landscape.

Check out the video below to hear about the other things Footmarks has in store for their late Spring 2013 launch.

The biggest startup conference in the US is this weekend, find out more here.

Uber’s Biggest Competitor Hailo Raises $30 Million For Eastern Expansion

We’ve been covering Uber’s biggest competitor Hailo since last March. The European startup aggressively expanded throughout Europe in major cities like Dublin and London before coming over the the U.S. Now, according to report from TechCrunch and AllthingsD they’re ready to expand eastward to Asia.

They just announced a $30 million dollar raise led by Union Square Ventures, Japanese telco KDDI, Richard Branson and others. The company is expected to use these funds to expand to Asia. Back in March they announced a $17 million dollar raise with funds used from that round to expand into the U.S.

Hailo reportedly has 10,000 drivers using their service across the globe and have had over a million passengers since launch. Hailo is operating in Dublin, London, Chicago, Toronto, Boston and Chicago. They plan to add New York, Madrid, Barcelona and Tokyo in the immediate future.

Like Uber, Hailo allows customers to use a mobile app to hail a ride. Hailo works with Taxi cabs which can be a lot cheaper than the black sedan service that Uber users are accustomed to hailing. However, Uber has gotten into the taxi game, testing a taxi hailing platform in Washington DC during the inauguration. Also, regulators in California along with other states, seem to be backing off regulations when it comes to hailing and ride sharing apps, which should help smooth things along for Uber, and of course Hailo.

The space is getting crowded with startups from Flywheel, to Taxi Magic and even Atlanta startup CanCents, which we interviewed earlier today.

You can see ride sharing startup RidePost and more great startups from “everywhere else” at everywhereelse.co the Startup Conference next week.

Record Industry Veteran Heather McBee Joins Nashville Startup Populr

Nashville startup Populr has been in the news a lot lately. Back in November, the company led by founder Nicholas Holland, raised $425,000 before launching into beta. Back in January Populr officially launched after just two months in beta.

Populr.me, one of a handful of technology providers entering the micropublishing space, already has an edge in that it allows users and groups the ability to collaborate on POP’s as a team. This functionality, allows organizations the ability to create, co-manage and share their interactive one-pager’s both publicly and privately. POP’s can be delivered instantly to both individuals and groups by use of it’s sharing function, which includes connectivity to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, email and instant messaging. POP’s are accessible by a Populr.me sub-domain, or through use of a designated URL.

Many business people have the need to quickly share impactful media, but lack the resources in which to do it. Creating an entire website is too time-intensive. Creating a blog is too public. Populr.me allows everyone to create high-impact one page presentations in a matter of minutes, and then share them instantly either internally, or through their favorite social media platforms, according to Holland.

Today it was announced that record industry veteran Heather McBee has joined Populr.me as Senior Communications Strategist. McBee spent several years on Nashville’s Music Row, most recently she spent many years with Sony Music Nashville.

“HEATHER was looking for a new perspective and we were looking for someone who had organic connections to the business community in NASHVILLE and abroad. We needed a broad business thinker with a technical mind and she presents the perfect blend of both,” Holland told radio and record authority, allaccess.com.

This isn’t the first time Populr has reached out to Nashville’s music industry. Music and technology entrepreneur Mark Montgomery is an investor as well, telling the Tennessean last year that Populr could be “a game changing venture that could boost Nashville’s position on the digital map”

Check out Populr and nearly 100 other startups from across the country and around the world at this huge startup conference.

CabCents Brings The Priceline Model To Ground Transportation

Atlanta startup CabCents is bringing the name your price, Priceline model to ground transportation. Whether you need a sedan service, van service, ride to the airport or ride around town, using CabCents you name the service you need, and the price you want to pay and BOOM you’ve got a driver.

Not only that, but CabCents has a thorough screening process to insure that you’re getting a quality driver and you should have nothing to be afraid of.

There are several customer and driver protections built into the entire web based CabCents experience. A customer goes to the website CabCents.com and fills out an easy to understand driver request form.

Once they’ve completed the form, the request is broadcast to CabCents’ network of thoroughly screened drivers. The drivers can decide if they want to “bid” on the job by responding positively to the request. From there the customer can see pictures of the drivers and their vehicles, that responded positively to the request.

Once the customer picks a driver the entire payment is collected in full from the customer. The payment is essentially held in escrow until 24 hours after the job is completed, giving the customer ample time to notify CabCents of any problems. Provided the customer doesn’t report any problems the driver is paid.

We got a chance to talk to the CabCents team. Check out the interview below.

Crowdfunding Insurance Coming By Way Of Baltimore Startup Asurvest

Clarence Wooten, a Baltimore native,who was the co-founder of ImageCafe, a startup sold during the dot com boom to Network Solutions/Verisign for $23 million, has backed a new startup called Asurvest in Baltimore. While Wooten has moved out west to Silicon Valley, he’s betting on a hometown company that plans on offering insurance to people investing via crowdfunding sites.

Crowdfunding legislation was passed last year, however it’s not expected to fully roll out nationally until early 2014, while the SEC establishes guidelines for the vehicle that will allow anyone to help back startups through their first million.

Asurvest was founded last month. They will provide insurance for private and professional investors using sites like Kickstarter, Fundable and Gofunding, according to bmoremedia

“These groups are highly visible. They attract investors. They have strong business models,” Asurvest CEO Luke Cooper told bmore . “We are in an incremental improvement mode,”.

Asurvest is looking to provide assurance for those investing even $1500 – $2000.

Crowdfunding for startups works much like it does for supporting artists and products on the popular Kickstarter platform which saw $319 million dollars pledged last year.

Federal regulators are still sorting out how crowdfunding will work. After that, it will be turned over to state governments. Cooper is currently working with the state of Maine to draft legislation. After that they will move on to Maryland and expand where they see the most need.

Source: bmoremedia

Be sure to check out the crowdfunding panel at the largest startup conference in the US, everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

Despite Layoffs New York Times Announces Incubator Program

The New York Times is going through a rough time right now. They are in the middle of staffing cutbacks that are coming in the form of layoffs and voluntary buyouts. New York Times editor Jill Abramson has said there were far few layoffs than they had anticipated, primarily because of voluntary buyouts.

Although the times proper is reducing staff, they have announced a new initiative to spearhead innovation at one of America’s most widely known newspapers.

The new program called timeSpace is somewhere between in incubator and an accelerator. “You may call it an accelerator or an incubator; right now we are calling it an experiment” they wrote on their blog.

The Times is not seeking equity on the companies that apply and are accepted into the program. They hope that when a company that goes through the program, raises institutional financing, that they will be invited to participate. They are leaving that decision to the startup.

timeSpace is seeking media focused startups with a product launched. The startups will either already be based in New York City or willing to relocate to work in the space that’s in their headquarters at Times Square (620 8th Ave). Startups in the mobile, social, video, advertising technology, analytics, or e-commerce spaces are invited to apply for the four month program.

Over the four month period selected startups will be invited to work and grow alongside entrepreneurs and employees who make their livings in digital media, technology and journalism.

We are based in New York City, with six bureaus in the region, fourteen national news bureaus and twenty-four foreign news bureaus. We have more than 1.5 million print and digital subscribers and had 49.4 million unique visitors to NYTimes.com in December 2012. More importantly, we are journalists, developers, designers, product managers and more who are proud to work at the news organization that has won 108 Pulitzer Prizes and Citations. The paper said.

Applications are being accepted through 5pm EST February 19th here. There is no seed capital involved.

Acceleration and Incubation is a major theme at this huge startup conference