Mexican Entrepreneuer Working On Hospitality Retention With His Startup Guest Retain

With all the online platforms out there for hotels, spas, and other hospitality oriented services, the first and most influential exposure is typically based on price. I know when I started using the hotel site we use today, back in 2002, it was strictly price driven. Now, we typically book 100s of nights a year, and we look for amenities and hotels that will still let us use our brand rewards even though we book through a third party.

Once a user gets over the initial cost benefit, retaining customers to any one brand and becoming loyal is a tough sell. Most of the time when we hear about loyalty and rewards, which are the centerpieces around customer retention, we are typically talking about retail and restaurants.

Geordie Wardman, a Mexican entrepreneur, is hoping to change the way companies in the hotel, salon, and spa industries retain quality customers and solve customer issues as fast as they can.

We keep hearing stories about consumer giants like Best Buy, Dell, and American Airlines, who have devoted huge teams of employees to monitor review sites and social media. But what about the small business, or even the startup?

That’s where Guest Retain comes in. Wardman’s company monitors the biggest review sites and social media to find the buzz words and other indicators of a negative review, alerting a business owner within minutes so that they can try their best to turn a negative into a positive.

A customer who has been turned around from a bad experience is far more likely to be loyal than just a regular customer. Guest Retain hones in on that idea, getting the most important information back to the companies so they can act on it.

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

What is your startup called?

GuestRetain – We handle online reputation marketing for Hotels, Spas and Salons. Our solution basically automates positives reviews by capturing testimonials and when the customers responses are positive guiding the customers to leave positive reviews on the social review sites like Google Reviews, Yahoo, TripAdvisor, Yelp, City Search and any others that are beneficial to promote the business reputation of our clients. When a customer experience is bad, we warn the owner and give them the opportunity to correct the situation directly with that client before they go on to the social review site.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

Founder is Geordie Wardman

Where are you based?

I am based in Sayulita, Mexico where I live on the beach with my family and surf 3 to 4 days a week (when there are waves!)

What’s the startup scene like where you are based?

There is none, and I have to form my own mastermind groups and accountability groups because I live in a very rural area of Mexico.

What problem do you solve?

The problem that I solve is only angry customers leave reviews, not good loyal customers because Good Service is expected. When a problem does arise, the owner is given notice of it BEFORE the customer complains on it on the social review sites. Previously, the owners only found out about customers problems AFTER the customers had left a scathing critique of an experience online, where it stays forever to detract future business prospects from checking their business. We are an alert system for business owners to stay in closer contact with their customers, so they can be proactive about their customer retention and relationships, and augment their online reputations.

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

Funded development by pre-sales. Collected from 3 customers 12 months in advance revenues. Already achieved $4,000 per month in recurring revenues after 2 months of being live, with 40 customers and a 20-30% growth rate per month in new clients.

What are your next milestones?

100 clients and $10,000 in monthly recurring revenues by Jan 1, 2014.

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

http://www.guestretain.com,

JuiceTank — Innovation Lab, Accelerator and Coworking Space — Takes Shape in Somerset

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8 Simple Split-Testing Tools For Your Startup To Try

Question: What’s your favorite split-testing tool and why?

Visual Website Optimizer

“I’ve used Visual Website Optimizer for many clients and it works really well. They have a fantastic and easy-to-use interface and it does the job. It’s not the cheapest solution, but it’s worth it when a small increase in conversion equals a significant amount of revenue for your company.”

– AJ Kumar | Co-Founder, Single Grain

Google Analytics Content Experiments

“The new Google Analytics comes with Content Experiments built in, and this feature allows you to split test different pages on your site. You can split test headlines and bits of code, and it shows you the clear winner over time. It’s free, and integrated with Google Analytics — what’s not to love?”

– Nathalie Lussier | Creator, The Website Checkup Tool

On to Optimizely

“Optimizely is one of the most intuitive and easy-to-use tools on the market, allowing even non-technical folks in your company to easily create and run experiments using a WYSIWYG interface. Best of all, you can test-drive the tool free of charge from their website without even creating an account.”

– Matt Mickiewicz | Co-Founder, Flippa and 99designs

Settle Into Unbounce

“I love Unbounce because it makes it dead simple to create quality landing pages and to easily test variations. Unbounce’s drag-and-drop setup makes it to where I can create a quality landing page in under an hour. It also provides solid analytics about which version of my page converts the best. One of the best things is they have an awesome blog and support center that answers my questions.”

– Lawrence Watkins | Founder & CEO, Great Black Speakers

Test Out Convert

“Convert has really enhanced its product offering recently. I’m enjoying their new user experience very much. Their reporting is very easy-to-use as well. As someone that has tried out many split-testing tools, I suggest everyone gives Convert a test drive to see what they think of it.”

– Logan Lenz | Founder / President, Endagon

KISSmetrics All the Way!

“KISSmetrics doesn’t just provide simple A/B testing. They also provide you with insights on which you can take action. Everything is real time, so you can do an A/B test in short-order without having to wait for a massive report.”

– Aaron Schwartz | Founder and CEO, Modify Watches

Install Hello Bar

“This isn’t a fancy tool and it can really only be used to split test on a small scale and works for specific applications but I’ve loved using Hello Bar to split test two offers on our website to see which gets the most clicks and conversions. For us, it’s a simple way to tell if people like one eBook over another or one webinar over another. They have a free account option as well!”

– Erin Blaskie | CEO, Erin Blaskie, Digital Strategist

HiConversion Works

“HiConversion is dead simple to use and offers real-time ROI, which makes it stand out from the other offerings we researched.”

– Josh Weiss | Founder and President, Bluegala

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.

Permission Not Required for Assemble Detroit, Michigan’s Own SXSW Event

Kevin Krease and Garrett Koehler recently lost the ESPN X Games bid for Detroit, but turned this failure into Michigan’s own and very first SXSW-like event. The event called Assemble will be hosted in Detroit during the Summer of 2014, and will combine tech, music, art and extreme sports.

The duo who attracted national media attention for the ESPN bid shared with us at last night’s Fifty Founders event how they got started and what they aim to do with Assemble Detroit. It was a great turnout at Bamboo Detroit where the community gathered to network and hear this young startup speak.

When Kevin Krease and Garret Koehler started the X Games bid in Detroit, it was because they wanted to make a positive impact in the city that had always fascinated them. Krease worked in publishing and Kohler had experience teaching art, traveling through Palestine, and eventually working at Groupon in Chicago. Koehler left to join Krease in Detroit this past year.

During the bid, their team raised national awareness, launched a viral video, and created a social media movement around the event. Along the way they setup strategic partnerships. The loss of the bid helped them garner enough support for Assemble Detroit.

Here’s what the duo says they learned along the way:

No Permission Required. This is the internal motto for the Assemble Detroit team. Why? Because they learned that to make something like a large scale event happen you need to take your own initiative. The duo said the resources are always there, and that there are plenty of startup resources in Detroit. You just need the idea to get started and inspire others to believe. For events, they said it’s about the idea and the brand. Then, you hire local talent to help make it happen.

Build relationships and trust. To get excitement for the ESPN bid going the team had to create a video. They had little budget to work with, and partnered with another startup to create their video that eventually went viral. The startup trusted them and covered the costs until the group received funding. What did they learn? It’s about building relationships and trust with others to get an idea off the ground. The video was a huge success in building momentum for the team. They were able to pay the other business back when funding came in.

Always add value. The team used this piece of advice to help maneuver how they would build up momentum for their extreme sports event. Every time they went to make a decision that may have seemed like a leap, they asked themselves if it added value to their goal. If the answer was yes, they found a way to make it happen.

It’s about perception, not risk. The duo said that they did hear some negative feedback on their journey. Others called hosting a large event with extreme sports in the city risky. They pointed out that risk is all about your perception on the place and the people. Risk to extreme sports is falling down during a dangerous jump. Risk in Detroit isn’t that risky as others might see it. The duo said:

“Detroit isn’t a liability. Its grit and resources are a bonus. Risky is believing that Detroit won’t turn around. It’s thinking you can move and make it in New York City.”

Failure can be fun. When the bid was lost, they realized how fun it could be to build their own large scale event that included sports. The idea for Assemble was to create a similar event to SXSW, but one that included extreme sports too. They’re aiming to bring 100,000 people to Detroit for the event next summer.

Remember the community. Both Krease and Koehler remarked that Detroit has a a strong sense of place. The name “Assemble” reminds us of coming together as an assembly line, to work, and to innovate in the city. It also brings together a larger community into the current narrative of a city that’s often described as rebuilding. They are aware of the sense of community, bringing up the X Games bid through grassroots marketing strategies. They expressed the importance for including the community, but also doing great work that isn’t tied to only Detroit.

Next Fifty Founders Event: The next Fifty Founder’s event which will feature Ryan Blair in September. Fifty Founder’s is a fireside chat series hosted in Detroit, bringing successful entrepreneurs in Michigan and around the country to Detroit. The series goes in-depth to share details about startup lessons learned. Sign up now here: https://ryanblair.eventbrite.com/

This event was sponsored by Start Garden and TechTown Detroit. Learn more about Fifty Founders and stay tuned for the next event.

From our content partner michipreneur.com! Written by: Amanda Lewan. Blogger. Marketer. Cupcake baker. I like helping startups with marketing. I also blog on digital storytelling Amandalewan.com. Follow Amanda at @Amanda_Jenn

2 Memphis Startups, Mobilizer And Boosterville Get Attention From Major Press

While nibletz has a pretty large following and people love us because we’re the voice of startups everywhere else, getting attention from the major tech and startup players is a big deal for all startups. This week two Memphis startups were fortunate enough to catch the eyes of TechCrunch and GigaOm.

Mobilizer, a recent graduate of the Memphis based ZeroTo510 accelerator, and recently named to the Tennessee TENN, was featured in TechCrunch on Saturday evening.The company has found a way to make ambulatory patients in hospitals more mobile.

As company co-founder and CEO James Bell told me a few months ago, after major surgery getting up and walking around is a very important part of recovery. That’s why as soon as you are able, doctors like for patients to walk to other parts of the hospital for testing and therapy. The problem in the past was that all of the equipment tied to a patient recovering from surgery often requires more than one technician to accompany the patients on these walks. Often taking technicians away from other duties.

With the Mobilizer product, one technician can accompany the patient as the walk through the hospital allowing the other technicians to tend to other patients and even saving hospitals money on over-staffing.

Boosterville, a spring 2013 graduate of the Memphis based Seed Hatchery accelerator was featured in GigaOM earlier this week. The company, founded by Pam Cooper and her husband, and founding CTO of Cha-Cha, Tom Cooper, has a better way of school fundraising. Pam Cooper had previously built up a large cleaning business in Indiana. When she met her husband Tom six years ago they knew they would eventually collaborate on a startup.

Boosterville is that startup. The company offers a mobile wallet app that is tied in to local merchants that are automagically kicking back money for fundraising. The user selects the participating merchant that they want to patronize and checkout using Boosterville. The merchant is paid and a portion of the payment is forwarded onto the school or charity.

GigaOm featured Boosterville as part of a story about startups that are changing the way schools can do fundraising, trading in wrapping paper, pizza kits and World’s Finest Chocolate bars, for an easy to use mobile app.

Find out more about Boosterville here Mobilizer is on the web here.

Krossover, Because Everyone Loves A Great High School Sports Comeback

So, I may have shed a little tear when watching Undefeated earlier this year. It’s one of those tug-at-your-heart-strings comeback stories. Team does horribly, needs more direction, gets it in adversity, and wins. In the case of Undefeated, the team almost went all the way. While Undefeated was more about culture and upbringing, and we may have a little bias being based in Memphis and all, it’s still a great high school comeback story.

High school comeback stories are good for morale, good for building strong minds, and in a lot of cases great for the community.

New York-based startup Krossover is giving high school coaches everywhere a better chance at making that comeback. They provide access to tools that used to only be available to college and professional coaches.

Coaches subscribed to the Krossover service upload their raw game video footage to the Krossover servers. Then a network of over 1300 crowdsourced employees in the US, India, and Europe watch the films and document everything. What’s delivered back to the coach in 24 hours looks like a college or professional sports analytics.

According to Business Insider, Krossover indexes the video and data, and a coach can instantly call up shots by a particular player, bad running plays, missed free throws, and just about every piece of the game.

“We are sitting on mounds of data, about 20 terabytes of video, data, and analytics,” James Piette, Krossover founder told Business Insider. “Our service is cataloging exactly what’s happening in every single play like who took a shot where, who rebounded the shot, who inbounded the ball, everything.”

Krossover has thousands of coaches as customers and provides their services for football, basketball, and lacrosse. One of their customers Sean McInnis, the basketball coach at King Philip Regional High Scool in Massachusetts. Before he took over the team and signed up for Krossover, the team had gone winless in three seasons, with over 60 losses. The year he tried Krossover they improved their record to 14-8.

Check out Krossover here.

Boston Startup HelmetHub Has The Helmets To Go With The Bike Share

Bike sharing is becoming the in thing when it comes to green transportation in most major cities. Boston, New York, Chicago, Washington DC, Atlanta, and several West Coast cities all have significant bike share programs in place. Bike sharing allows users to “rent” a bike using an automated kiosk. In most cases you can rent the bike for the day at one location and return it at a different location, kind of like Red Box.

Bike sharing is perfect for when it’s pouring down rain in the morning but brightens up by lunch time or after work. You wouldn’t schlep your bike to work in the rain, but having a bike share kiosk near by means that you can get some exercise in the afternoon if the weather permits.

One of the hurdles that bike share programs have encountered is safety, and more specifically helmets. Whether it’s a matter of law or just people conscious about protecting their noggin, helmets are a significant barrier to people bike sharing. Sure you could go buy a helmet and carry it in a backpack, but at that point you might as well buy your own bike, get a lock, and forget the bike sharing concept all together.

Two Boston entrepreneurs, Breanna Berry and Chris Mills, are hoping to solve the helmet problem by making helmets as easy to rent as bikes.

The two have developed a kiosk called HelmetHub that allows users to swipe a credit card and rent a helmet for $2 per day to go along with the bike they just rented. To test out the service, HelmetHub is being installed in four locations alongside bike sharing kiosks. When a rider rents a bike they can pick up the helmet and be on their way. According to the Boston Herald, users rent their helmets from one side of the machine and return them to another. This keeps the used helmets separate from the sterilized helmets. Each helmet is cleaned and sterilized between uses.

“It’ll be the first real automated bike helmet vending machine in the world,” said Nicole Freedman, Boston’s so-called bike czar who heads the city’s Boston Bikes program. “What we want to do with HelmetHub is make helmets as convenient as renting the bikes.”

Berry told the Herald that she hopes that HelmetHub goes well in Boston so that they can branch out to the other cities offering bike share services.

Find out more about HelmetHub at helmet-hub.com

It’s Day One For These 5 Startups From Gener8tor’s Summer Session

Wisconsin’s dual city accelerator, Gener8tor, is one of the most successful startup accelerators in the midwest. Just last week we reported that two graduates from the Winter 2013 session held in Madison Wisconsin raised $610,000 in seed rounds.

WeMontage, a company that has new ways for users to have their mobile phone pics printed as wallpaper, and Quietyme, a company that monitors the environmental conditions in normally quiet places like hospitals, hotels and nursing homes, raised $310,000 and $300,000 respectively.

A third startup, Abodo, also raised $325,000, they too were a member of that winter class at Gener8tor. Not bad for a general tech accelerator that typically runs cohorts of 5.

Today is Launch Day for the summer cohort at Gener8tor. The Gener8tor founders alternate between Madison and Milwaukee. The summer 2013 cohort was based in Milwaukee.

While many accelerators call the day at the end of the session demo day, or investor day, and we call it graduation, Troy Vosseller, one of the Gener8tor cofounders tells us that they call it launch day. With the teams working all session long and building their companies, demo day doesn’t signify an ending but more importantly a beginning.

Gener8tor’s summer session yielded five great startups:

Maillift

Take your marketing efforts to a whole new level with hand written letters.

MailLift integrates with your Customer Relationship Management, helpdesk and other tools allowing handwritten letters to be automated. MailLift sends handwritten letters to old-school mailboxes on your behalf, freeing you and your staff’s time. With MailLift you have the ability to send thousands of personalized handwritten letters with just a few mouse clicks. Improve your customer acquisition and retention by sending these letters from your browser, email client, mobile device or CRM.

In this world of electronic everything, a hand written letter helps you reach your prospects in a whole new, old fashioned way.

Optyn

Optyn makes marketing simple for small businesses by providing easy, automated tools to acquire and engage their customers. Optyn’s marketing platform helps business owners decide what message to communicate and then enables them to create, schedule and send an email campaign in less than 2 minutes. Optyn also ensures consumers only get emails from merchants they have chosen.

Catalyze.io

catalyze.io provides health cloud solutions for application developers, enabling rapid application development, enhanced data integration and industry-standard security. Our vision is to offer the hosted core infrastructure required to build modern apps for health and wellness. catalyze.io takes care of the plumbing for app owners and empowers developers inside and outside of enterprises to quickly build, test and deploy health and wellness applications−all without worrying about data sources and models, interoperability or HIPAA technology security.

OpenHomes

OpenHomes provides modern, professional tools for the “for sale by owner” market. With OpenHomes, it is easy, affordable, and secure for people to buy or sell their homes themselves. Openhomes’ simple, elegant technology connects buyers and sellers directly online, enabling everything from scheduling a showing, giving feedback, or asking questions, to making an offer from your tablet or smartphone. OpenHomes’ services enable home owners to sell their homes themselves with confidence – for only 1% commission.

Docalytics

Docalytics is an easy to implement, cross-platform technology that enhances how businesses use their marketing and sales documents to interact with and capture actionable data from their prospective customers. Docalytics enables users to efficiently:

– CAPTURE more leads from their content.
– CONVERT more sales from these leads.
– CREATE better, more engaging content.

You can find out more about Gener8tor here at gener8tor.com

3 Reasons to Work for a Startup

Tech giants like Facebook and Microsoft continue to offer endless perks (like free dry cleaning and an organic spa, respectively) in an attempt to attract top talent. But, I believe new startups’ innate “perks” — like culture, ownership, and visibility — provide the biggest benefits to prospective hires. Instead of competing with giants on material perks (actual companies have emerged to capitalize on this trend — we were solicited by three of them after announcing our Series A), young startups hungry for talent should emphasize their unique benefits instead.

I believe the newest, smallest startups really do offer the best benefits of all. Here are three reasons why:

1. Culture

Though Yahoo is most definitely not a startup, Marissa Mayer’s now-infamous decision to end telecommuting was, in my opinion, implemented in an effort to bring back some of that much-loved startup culture and weed out any apathetic employees. While my organization wholeheartedly embraces the idea of “working from anywhere” (our entire company is built around Google Apps) there is something to be said for what employees can accomplish when they’re physically in the same room.

Enforcing a ban on telecommuting doesn’t make Mayer a tyrant. Instead, it shows a desire to rebuild Yahoo’s corporate culture and highlights Mayer’s startup roots. After all, one of the main benefits of working at a startup is the tight-knit workforce and the sheer amount of collaboration that occurs on a regular basis (sharing a 300-square-foot room with five other people also helps).

While Yahoo will never again feel like a true startup, we should give Mayer credit for trying to rebuild a culture that thrives on working together and supports collaboration.

2. Ownership

People are drawn to startups because of their lack of bureaucracy. At most big companies, you deal with endless approvals, red tape and PR departments looking over your shoulder. Ultimately, new ideas are held up for months and even years.

While every company has some sort of hierarchy, startups have a relatively flat organizational structure, which allows members of the team to accomplish much more in a shorter timeframe.

3. Visibility

Visibility is a crucial element to building a great working environment — and it helps an organization establish trust with its customers, investors and most importantly, employees. While some of the biggest names in tech make transparency a priority, true startups are able to provide visibility in every area of the business. And it’s the lack of bureaucracy and strong culture that make visibility possible.

I even know one new company whose CEO tells his employees how much money is in the company bank account on a monthly basis. This kind of transparency inspires employees to do their very best because they know that they’re truly affecting the overall success of the company. It also makes it impossible for anyone to piggyback on someone else’s hard work. In a small organization, everyone is accountable — which means the team as a whole works harder.

* * *

In the end, trying to compete in the endless perks game is simply unsustainable for young companies. It also hurts our ecosystem by placing an emphasis on the materialistic benefits while detracting from the true values that make the tech startup world so great. So don’t worry about keeping up with the big guys. Instead, focus on making the most of your company culture and promoting visibility and ownership throughout the recruiting process and once employees join your organization.

Let talented people share in your dream, offer to help them grow, and they will come and join you.

David Politis is the founder and CEO of BetterCloud, the maker of FlashPanel, the number one cloud management tool for Google Apps, and the Google Apps resource site, AsktheGooru.com. Follow BetterCloud on Google+ at bettercloud.com/plus.

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.

It’s Demo Day In Indiana At Velocity

Southern Indiana’s startup accelerator, Velocity, is graduating their summer session today (August 29). The accelerator, a stone’s throw from Louisville, Kentucky, has managed to attract top startups not just from the region but as far away as California.

Each of the five teams in the Velocity accelerator received $20,000 in seed money in exchange for a small amount of equity. They also received free workspace and access to mentors from across Kentucky, Indiana, and the region.

These are the five teams launching from Velocity:

Collabra- Collabra allows musicians and fans to create, collaborate, and share music in a new and innovative way. Combining a novel song arrangement platform with an easy-to-use recording suite, Collabra enables musicians around the world to connect and create music while engaging fans in the creative process for the first time ever. Due to its low-barrier-to-entry approach, for musicians and fans, as well as a robust feature set, Collabra has the potential to change the music creation process forever.

Large Insights- Large is laser-focused on generating insights from data to increase client revenues, and we do that by establishing digital and social business goals, tracking activity and measuring success.

Change My School- Change My School is a platform for students, teachers, and parents to upload and watch videos. It is available to users of all ages and provides a video contest platform. The winning videos each month receive $1,000 for items such as supplies, projects, or technology. It also provides students and teachers opportunities to incorporate creativity, video technology and project based learning into their classrooms.

Steel Fashion- Steel Fashion provides a free styling software service that allows men to style clothes they have, want, or are looking to purchase. They can discover and purchase new brands easily by identifying brands they already like. Confidence and creativity are easily harnessed when visiting Steel Fashion.

Greek Pull- Greek Pull enables a Fraternity or Sorority chapter to reach their target markets in an efficient way. Those target markets are potential new members, their alumni and the Greek Community. Because of this, GreekPull differs from other social media solutions because GreekPull is focused on bringing those target markets to chapter houses. The network is exclusive to Greek Life and helps chapters with efficient marketing. We bring Fraternity and Sorority target markets to Greek Chapters so they can be easily contacted, creating an efficient communication tool.

Nominate Your Favorite Female Speaker for Everywhere Else Cincinnati

Everywhere Else Cincinnati is fast approaching, and the Nibletz team is working like crazy to make it the best event everywhere else. We’ve already announced tons of speakers, and we have even more waiting for unveiling.

But, we want YOU to be involved, too! We need to know who you want to hear speak at Everywhere Else Cincinnati. Fill out our quick survey, and we’ll send personal invitations to the fan favorites.

Here at Nibletz, we love to celebrate women starting up. We have our Bad-Ass Startup Chick series that highlights awesome women starting awesome companies. At our Memphis event, the Kick Ass Female Founders panel was one of the most popular. In fact, women swept the pitch contests at the Everywhere Else Memphis conference.

Female founders face unique challenges, and the best ones do it with so much grace, you’d never know starting up was hard. They have amazing stories that entrepreneurs–male and female–can learn from. And we want to make sure our Everywhere Else Cincinnati attendees are getting the best in-the-trenches stories possible.

That’s why your input is so important to us. The survey is super-quick (2 questions!), and you can make sure the best women get a prime spot in our lineup.

So, let us know: which women should we invite to Everywhere Else Cincinnati?

By the way, after you nominate your favorite women speakers, make sure to get your early bird ticket. We’re selling out fast!

Event management for Everywhere Else Cincinnati – “Start Where U Are” powered by Eventbrite

Luke Beatty Exits Position As Managing Director Of Techstars Boulder

Techstars flagship Boulder program had some news on Monday that may have been troubling to some at first. Luke Beatty, the program’s Managing Director, has stepped down.

Beatty began his career at Techstars as an Entrepreneur-In-Residence before he moved up to his current role as Managing Director. He took on that role as predecessor Nicole Glarros segued to a similar position at Techstars New York program. That was to fill the void from Techstars NY’s Dave Tisch stepping down to start Box Group.

Beatty is being tight lipped about why he is stepping down but did tell the Boulder County Business Report that “I have a once-in-a-lifetime chance (to be announced later), that I just can’t pass up – one that wouldn’t allow me to live up to the TechStars promise if I were to try to juggle.”

“Luke is staying very close to the Boulder program, and Nicole is taking it back over,” TechStars co-founder and chief executive David Cohen said in an email Monday,

Beatty is an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur, one of those guys that preaches the startup and entrepreneur lifestyle. He also takes pride in being annoying and hyperactive. “I will remain annoyingly (hyper) active and will forever be engaged with the 11 companies that were in this summer’s cohort in Boulder.” he said on his blog.

Beatty was the founder of Associated Content which was acquired by Yahoo in the pre-Mayer era. After the acquisition he stayed on at Yahoo as a Vice President before leaving for Techstars.

Glaros will move back to Boulder and take over as Managing Director.

Beatty oversaw the most recent graduating class at Techstars Boulder which included GoodApril, a tax planning startup that was actually acquired before completing the program.

Of course you can find out more at techstars.com

You gotta see the startup accelerator panels at this huge startup conference.

YEC Founder Scott Gerber To Keynote Everywhere Else Cincinnati On October 1st

Over the past few months, we’ve been part of an amazing partnership with the Young Entrepreneur Council. The YEC provides some great content, including many of our startup tip stories. The best part is that many of their members are founders of startups we’ve covered here at Nibletz.

Founders like Danny Boice (speek), Neil Thanedar (LabDoor), Derek Flanzraich (Greatist), and many more are members of the invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs.

Now, we’re proud to announce Scott Gerber, the founder of that organization, will be one of our lead keynotes on Tuesday October 1st during Everywhere Else Cincinnati. Scott is a huge advocate for young entrepreneurs and ending youth unemployment through entrepreneurship.

In addition to founding the YEC, he is the author of the book Never Get a “Real” Job. He is also a serial entrepreneur, internationally syndicated columnist, and the host of Founders Forum on Inc.com. Scott has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Bloomberg, Fortune, TIME, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Reuters, Mashable, BBC, NPR, Forbes, The Daily Beast, CBS News, US News & World Report, Fox News, Inc, and Entrepreneur. He has been honored by NASDAQ and the White House.

As entrepreneurs get younger and younger, it’s a real privilege to have Scott participate in the conference.

Scott joins this already amazing list of speakers:

James Dickerson (former LightBank Associate)
Rob Woodbridge (founder untether.tv,Canadian mobile expert)
Blair Garrou, Managing Director Mercury Fund
Joe Medved, Partner SoftBank Capital
Naithan Jones, Founder AgLocal
Derek Flanzraich, Founder Greatist
Andrew Warner, Founder Mixergy
Andy Sparks, Co-Founder MatterMark
Wil Schroter, Founder Fundable
Jake Stutzman, Founder Elevate.co
Jonathon Perrelli, Managing Director, Fortify Ventures
Justin Gutwein, Filmmaker and Entrepreneur Startupland.tv
Mark Hasebroock, Founder Dundee Venture Capital
Jason Healy, Founder Blu
John Bracken, Founder Evite and Speek
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15 Ways to End a Business Partnership Gracefully

Question: What’s one tip for ending a business partnership gracefully (or at least, without lawsuits!)?

Go Back to the Contract

“If you had the foresight to create one, consult the partnership agreement or other business documents that detail the structure of the business and how disagreements or severance is handled. While these contracts typically do not cover ever conceivable scenario they can serve as an impartial reference for negotiations.”

– Kelly Azevedo | Founder, She’s Got Systems

Be Kind and Generous

“Recognize that if a business partnership does not end amicably, it can cause tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills and years of your time and energy to resolve through litigation. Therefore, when in doubt, error on the side of being generous and kind rather than risk litigation by being greedy or spiteful when ending a business relationship.”

– Doug Bend | Founder/Small Business & Startup Attorney, Bend Law Group, PC

Be as Reasonable as Possible

“Be reasonable, and don’t let pride get in the way. Don’t let the past cloud the way you handle the situation. Think about the best way to end it to benefit your company in the future.”

– John Hall | CEO, Influence & Co.

Get a Prenup!

“Though nobody likes to think about, much less plan for, a dissolution, agreeing on an exit plan should be part of the earliest partnership discussions. That way, no matter how heated things get, both you and your partner are protected and forced to abide by terms upon which you agreed when cooler heads prevailed.”

– Michael Tolkin | CEO, Merchant Exchange

Define Mutual Desired Outcomes

“Generally, when a business partnership is coming to an end, both parties have their reasons. If you can define a set of mutual desired outcomes and then operate from a place of mutual fairness, you can generally find an amicable resolution to any business partnership that has come to an end.”

– Warren Jolly | Co-founder, Affiliate Marketing

Factor in an Exit Clause

“Start every partnership with a solid contract outlining exit plans in advance. Write up a simple understanding with an exit clause built in for each partner. That way, the procedures and expectations are in place if one partner wants to leave to pursue other opportunities. If you are high and dry without one, go back to the contract.”

– Nick Reese | CEO, Elite Health Blends

Split the Last Check

“It costs money to dissolve a company. The legal fees should be divided by the same ownership percentage. Although an exit strategy should have been in writing upon starting the business, some entrepreneurs might not have it. By splitting the costs of dissolving a company, you at least have documentation to show that both parties agreed to end the partnership.”

– Nancy T. Nguyen | Founder/Sweet Sylist, Sweet T Salon

Make Sure to Prepare

“Having the right contract in place at the start of the relationship is key. That guards terms of termination (i.e., days notice) and makes clear what happens to the business, the work etc. Those are the things that cause problems in the first place.”

– Susan Strayer LaMotte | Founder, exaqueo

Always Be Honest

“Breaking up is always hard, but it’s infinitely more difficult when there’s money on the line. Sit your partner down and be transparent. Talk about what’s wrong and why you can’t move forward. Offer a plan to make the split work for both of you.”

– Brent Beshore | Owner/CEO, adventur.es

Think Before You Act

“You never want to end a partnership in the heat of the moment. Rather, think things through carefully and plan your approach/case. Saying too little or too much can have negative consequences in the future. ”

– Nicolas Gremion | CEO, Free-eBooks.net

Hire an Attorney

“Dissolving a partnership can be an emotional roller coaster, so my advice is to remove all emotions from the process. If you have the resources, both parties should hire an attorney the minute it’s decided that it’s needed to dissolve a partnership. This allows both parties to negotiate at arms length, without being slowed down by partner emotions.”

– Derek Johnson | CEO/Founder, Tatango

Find Mutual Advisers to Help

“Anytime a relationship is ending, there is a natural tension caused by a lack of trust. As much as possible, bring together mutual advisers to help you work through differences. Friends or mentors whom both parties trust will create a safer environment for discourse, which will help lead to a graceful resolution.”

– Aaron Schwartz | Founder and CEO, Modify Watches

Communicate Everything

“Communicate a lot. It’s important to clearly communicate your goals and rationale with your partner throughout your entire partnership, much like a marriage. When you have a lot of transparency, you and your partner will know where the other stands, and the end will likely not be a surprise.”

– Bhavin Parikh | CEO, Magoosh Test Prep

Set Legally Binding Expectations

“Set expectations and make them legally binding upfront. As a startup founder, your equity should vest. Your equity should be based on milestones you’ve reached. This way, if someone doesn’t live up to expectations, there’s no legal or personal claim that can be made. ”

– Patrick Ambron | CEO, BrandYourself.com

Have an Exit Strategy

“Know what consequences ending the partnership will have on the other parties and be prepared with proposed solutions for those affected. Have strategies and alternatives to share with your business partner, so both sides can handle the transition as seamlessly as possible. For example, how you will handle your existing customers? Be prepared with concrete answers.”

– Christian Springub | CEO and co-founder, Jimdo