Is The Gender Gap In Women Funded Startups Closing?

We talk about women entrepreneurs and startup founders a lot here at nibletz.com The Voice Of Startups Everywhere Else. Last month at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013, Sequoia’s Aaref Hilaly said that the number one reason for such a big gender gap is that their aren’t enough women engineers.

Dave Tisch on the other hand said that women aren’t treated seriously in VC meetings, saying that this was the biggest bullshit.

Pemo Theodore the founder of Ezebis prepared the infographic below highlighting where women stand in the startup space.. Some of it is still very disturbing.

For instance, their infographic below says that 41.1% of women founders relied on outsider debt to start a business. The data also says that 21% of women entrepreneurs sought angel capital in 2009 and of those only 9.4% were successful. Also in 2009 only 11% of companies that received venture backing, had a female CEO or founder. Perhaps one of the most disturbing thing AlleyWatch found was that only 3% of all people accepted (total) in all of the Y Combinator classes, have been women.

The good news is that since he 1997 census women owned businesses have gone up 50%. In 2011 8.1 million businesses led by women have generated nearly $13 trillion dollars in revenue.

Check out the infographic below:

This accelerator in Memphis Tennessee, specifically for women founders, extends application deadline through June.

New Zealand Startup Accelerator, Lightning Lab, Attracts $3 Million In Follow On Funding

Lightning Lab, the only New Zealand based startup accelerator that is part of the Global Accelerator Network, held their demo day early this month in Wellington. Now in it’s third year, Lightning Lab is a partnership between a group of private professional investors, the science and innovation arm of New Zealand’s Ministry of Business and Creative HQ a coworking and incubation hub in New Zealand.

The nine startups that participated in the 12 week program were:

Publons: a platform for crowd-sourced peer-review of academic articles, where academics build reputation for their contributions. It provides an alternative to the extremely slow, expensive, and closed status quo that hasn’t changed in 300 years.

WIP: a beautifully simple video workflow platform that lets you watch, share and comment on your work-in-progress videos, so you get better feedback faster.

KidsGoMobile: a startup developing a software service to help parents teach their children to become responsible users of their first smartphone. This tool will notify parents if their child engages in potentially risky activity on their phone and gives them tips on how to resolve it.

Teamisto: a startup changing the way sports clubs raise money by generating new streams of sponsorship revenue.

Expander: A cloud-based tracking and analytics platform that gives manufacturers a weapon to fight back against counterfeits, while connecting them to consumers and procuring valuable data in emerging markets.

Adeez: a startup that provides a specialist mobile marketing solution which enables brands and marketing agencies to improve their ROI with mobile campaigns.

LearnKO delivers online learning programs to English language organisations in Asia. We do this by harnessing the talent of Australasian tutors and delivering this via an online classroom to English language organisations.

Promoki a social media gaming platform for photo and video contests

Questo: a startup using game mechanics in real world activities to increase family engagement for organizations.

Their demo day drew 140 investors from across the country and while they haven’t said which of the nine startups received follow on funding stuff.co.nz reports that $3 million dollars in follow on funding has been committed and details will be released shortly.

“Watching Lightning Lab in action was incredible. These results are what makes it worthwhile for the companies which grow out of weeks of hard work, for the investors and mentors who support them, and for the other entrepreneurs who see it and are inspired into action, turning their own ideas into great startup companies going global from downunder.” Tui Te Hau the CEO of Creative HQ said.

You can find out more about Lightning Lab at lightninglab.co.nz

Now check out Startup America joins forces with Startup Weekend for UpGlobal

Startup Weekend & Startup America Join Forces, Launch UpGlobal & Up.co

With an official announcement forthcoming on Thursday morning at 7am, Startup America and Startup Weekend are joining forces for a new initiative called UpGlobal.

The Startup America partnership, started two years ago by AOL co-founder Steve Case and the Case Foundation, isn’t winding down, but rather “Winding Up” according to Scott Case (no relation), the current CEO of Startup America. The new global partnership will connect entrepreneurs with their communities and the resources they need most.

While Startup America is based in Washington DC and received the blessing of President Barrack Obama at their launch, the new organization will be based at Startup Weekend’s headquarters in Seattle. The collective new organization promises that “startup communities everywhere can expect stronger support and resources to better empower local leadership. The root of Startup America, Startup Weekend and now Up Global is to enable and support entrepreneurs and startups to grow in their hometowns as companies and entrepreneurial communities.

UpGlobal is funded by the Case Foundation, Google Inc, Microsoft, Coca Cola, The Kauffman Foundation and more, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Startup America Regional Champions, myself included, were informed that this partnership was on the horizon at both the last Startup America Summit in Phoenix Arizona last month and in a regions conference call last week. Others not familiar with the plans have been wondering why with Startup America, still a startup itself, are they already merging. Startup America founder and Chairman Steve Case told the Wall Street Journal:

“We designed Startup America from the get-go as a three-year sprint,” says Mr. Case. “The idea was to see what could be accomplished in three years and go from there.”

“After evaluating the situation, Plan A was to stick to our knitting and wrap things up (as initially communicated and planned) and option B was to find a ‘go forward’ strategy.” Scott Case said.

That go forward strategy is Up Global. Over the past several months Startup America and Startup Weekend began growing closer and closer in their relationship to serve entrepreneurial communities. Late last year Startup Weekend Next, with Steve Blank was launched in partnership with Startup America. This curriculum is provided to entrepreneurs looking to grow and dive deeper into starting up and entrepreneurship. Startup Weekend and Startup America held an abbreviated form of the curriculum during SXSW this year in Austin.

Startup America laid the foundation for their work in their first year. In their second year they focused on growing regions, over 30 of them to date, through launch events, networking opportunities, educational opportunities and other resources.

At nibletz we attended, participated in and reported on several Startup America events including the launch of Startup Georgia, Startup Arkansas, CES’ Eureka Park, SXSW and several others. Most events helped forge new relationships between like minded entrepreneurs that could be across the street or across the country.

Each Startup America region participated in the nationwide organization in the way that fit them best. Some regions were extremely successful as Tech Cocktail founder Frank Gruber pointed out in this article, Startup Tennessee launched a major network of accelerators and brought together entrepreneurs from Tennessees larger cities like Memphis, Chattanooga and Nashville. Washington DC’s Startup America Champion Evan Burfield, and former Startup America Director Donna Harris formed 1776 the new hub of entrepreneurship in the nation’s capital. Other regions like Startup Maryland, Startup Arizona, Startup Florida and Startup Indiana have been very active throughout their time in the organization.

This looks like a natural, and great move for the Startup America Partnership.

As someone who’s been deeply involved with Startup America and a big participant in Startup Weekend I hope that going forward the organization grows as the directors of the new organization have laid out. My biggest concern comes from the “event nature of Startup Weekend.

In several cities that have had multiple Startup Weekend events the entrepreneurs who participate have continued to meet up, network and support each other. This is usually dependent on the frequency of events and the resources already on the ground, or forming in those cities. In other cities, like Memphis by experience, after the Startup Weekend event in July resources were somewhat limited.

With the intellectual, and social capital from the collective new organization it looks like UpGlobal will be able to provide ongoing support to the regions that Startup America has built to date.

You can find out more at their new site up.co

Check out more of our Startup America coverage here.

Cancer: Bad Ass Startup Chick Denver Hutt Reminds Us We’re Entrepreneurs, Not Super Heroes

Denver Hutt, Speak Easy Indy, Indianapolis startup,startup,startup news, Cancer

Denver Hutt (center) surrounded by entrepreneurs. (photo: Facebook)

Back in March, Executive Director of the Speak Easy co-working and startup event space in Indianapolis, Denver Hutt, was our Bad Ass Startup Chick here at Nibletz. We chose Hutt because she’s an Indy lover by choice, deciding to stick around Indianapolis after college. She’s a native of Santa Monica, and who gives up the gorgeous weather, sandy beaches and west coast lifestyle for the middle of the country?

A woman who is uber passionate about startups, entrepreneurs and community, that’s who.

Well like many of us Hutt lives the entrepreneur lifestyle. We originally met her last year on the sneaker strapped road trip when we stopped at a Verge Indy event held at the SpeakEasy. She then came and visited us in Memphis in February for everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, and a month later we spent most of the week with her at SXSW.

Hutt’s been shoulder deep in running Indy’s awesome coworking space, finding mentors to help the Indy startup scene and working on the next big thing for Indianapolis startups. With a plate that full she lives the round the clock pace that we’re all accustomed to. She’s the kind of person you can ping at 3am on a random Tuesday to fact check a story or 8am on a Saturday morning to confirm details of events. She, like many entrepreneurs, goes round the clock.

That’s why when she came down with a cough over a month and a half ago, she just kept going. The cough became pneumonia. The pneumonia became double pneumonia and she ended up with two fractured ribs from coughing so much.

“I have had a cough for quite some time. More than simply being annoying, after weeks of coughing I developed pneumonia, and because I don’t like to give things just 50%, my pneumonia turned into double pneumonia. And two fractured ribs. (How’s that for commitment?!) As my cough continued despite multiple antibiotics, my doctor and I decided to begin more serious testing to determine the underlying cause.” Hutt said in an email to her community members at the Speak Easy which she shared with Nibletz today.

It was determined that the 26 year old bad ass startup chick was staring down the barrel of cancer.

On May 17th Denver began treatment at the IU Simon Cancer Center. She says she’s in good hands at her alma mater. She seemed in very good spirits when we talked with her today, and she is determined to continue to grow the Speak Easy while undergoing treatment.

There’s no exact prognosis just yet. Treatment has just started and her doctors are still determining exactly what kind of cancer it is. Denver is obviously a fighter and she will attack this cancer with the same vigor she’s been leading the Indianapolis startup community with.

When we spoke with her this morning we didn’t want to tell the, “oh my god Denver Hutt has cancer story,” instead her and I decided the story that should be told is that no matter how fast you’re moving, what you’re working on or how close you are to closing that round, you need to take care of your health and your body. That $1 million dollar series A round isn’t going to do you a bit of good if you’re not around to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Denver had previously committed to being on the “Bad Ass Startup Chicks” panel at the next everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference. She assured me today that she will still make that appearance next February.

STOP When’s the last time you took care of you?

Find the SpeakEasy here
Denver’s message to friends and family here
Information on health insurance for entrepreneurs available through Startup America here

Memphis Seed Hatchery Investor Day Draws Global Audience

On Thursday in a swank movie theater in Memphis’ revitalized midtown district, six startups presented their companies to a theater that was literally, standing room only by the beginning of the pitches.

BetterFed (farm to consumer), MentorMe (e-harmony for mentors), Soundstache (a fan engagement platform for bands), Boosterville (a huge disruption in fundraising), Musistic (Github for musicians) and ScrewPulp (a better way to self publish), took the stage for 12 minute investor pitches after concluding the three month Seed Hatchery accelerator program.

Investors and spectators from Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee and as far away as Singapore and Silicon Valley were in attendance to take in the pitches.

Mara Lewis, a San Francisco based entrepreneur and founder of stopped.at, was in attendance for the Seed Hatchery festivities which included an after party at the world famous Memphis BBQ competition. Lewis, who’s pitched in front of plenty of crowds said that this group at Seed Hatchery was one of the best groups she’s seen. Lewis is currently working with Start Co’s co-President’s Andre Fowlkes and Eric Mathews on their upcoming Upstart women’s startup accelerator.

After playing host to a group of Memphis entrepreneurs (including myself) in Silicon Valley in March, Kuji Chahal of Fisher Investments made the cross country trek to hear the pitches from the Seed Hatchery cohort. Chahal stuck around throughout the festivities to talk with all of the new entrepreneurs.

Andre Mouton, an investor from Singapore has been ecstatic about Memphis’ entrepreneurship. He made a trip to Memphis in February which included visits to Launch Memphis, Bioworks and everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference. Mouton took meetings with entrepreneurs all weekend long at the BBQ Festival and over at the Peabody Hotel. Mouton told us that he was impressed at how hard everyone was working in Memphis, that my friend is the Grit N Grind.

Vic Gatto, a Managing Partner at Solidus, the investment firm that seeds the Seed Hatchery class along with Jump Start Foundry in Nashville, made it a point to call out investors in the room with a call to action to talk with the entrepreneurs, and see that all six businesses have a good chance of survival. Gatto’s partner Townes Duncan, along with his son Walker Duncan, co-founder and Editor in Chief at southernalpha also made it down from Nashville. The younger Duncan was returning from an event in Atlanta. Obviously the Grit N Grind of Memphis is expanding state wide.

Both Fowlkes and Mathews were quick to point out that Investor Day isn’t the conclusion of the Seed Hatchery program but rather the beginning. They recently added Rhodes graduate, Hillary Quirk, to the Start Co team as Community Manager. In her new role Quirk is forming an alumni association for Memphis’ accelerators which include the two cohorts at ZeroTo510.

You can find out more at neverstop.co and at their old site launchyourcity.com

See all the pitch videos from Seed Hatchery’s investor day here at nibletz.com The Voice Of Startups Everywhere Else.

New York Gets Billion Dollar Exit With Tumblr

Tumblr, Yahoo, David Karp, Marissa Mayer, Acquisition, Exit

Tumblr founder David Karp onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2011 (photo: K. Sandler for Thedroidguy.com)

This was the big startup news all weekend. At the end of last week, rumors started bubbling up via AllthingsD suggesting that Yahoo, and it’s new powerhouse CEO Marissa Mayer was looking for their biggest startup acquisition to date. That startup was Tumblr.

Last week we started hearing that Yahoo was prepared to buy Tumblr for $1 billion dollars. Many tech and startup pundits suggested that Facebook may try and jump in and swallow up Tumblr before the Yahoo board could get together Sunday and vote on the acquisition. Facebook reportedly, never made an offer.

In case you’ve been living out in the wilderness without internet access, Tumblr is a microblogging platform. They have over 100 million monthly visitors and see over 90 million posts made per day. Unlike the 140 character restriction on Twitter, people posting to Tumblr can write longer formatted posts and include pictures, videos etc.

Coincidentally Tumblr, and it’s founder David Karp, were the subjects of my most widely read story ever in my career is a “blogger”. Tumblr is just that popular.

Karp has been swatting off offers to buy Tumblr almost since it’s inception. Celebrities like Lady Gaga and others, flocked to Tumblr to add to their social media strategies. In fact GaGa actually posts on her own Tumblr, whereas her Facebook page is updated by a social media team.

The Wall Street Journal, and several other credible sources, have said that Yahoo’s board approved a $1.1 billion dollar acquisition of Tumblr. Many sources speculate that Mayer, a 13 year veteran of Google, hopes that Tumblr will be Yahoo’s YouTube. It’s also been reported that, for now, Tumblr will operate as it’s own business unit, and continue to be based in New York.

There are no solid revenue numbers for Tumblr reported online. What has been reported is that the startup, that was founded in Karp’s mom’s small New York apartment in 2007, has raised $125 million in venture capital and at one point Karp sold 25% of the company for$750,000. It’s unclear how much Karp still owns today.

Karp, along with girlfriend Rachel Eakley, a grad student and chef, lived in a modest west village apartment until last year when they moved into a $1.6 million dollar loft in West Brooklyn. Karp dropped out of high school, finishing up his education on his own and then moved to Japan where he coded for a living.

There’s no official word of how long Karp will remain with the company.

New York even has a ping pong startup!

Startup Life: Andy Smith of DailyBurn

Andy Smith, Founder and CEO of DailyBurn

As a relative newcomer to the tech startup scene, one thing that fascinates me is the daily life of founders. The early stages of a company are so intense, and the pressure only grows with the companies. How do founders do it?

So, I’m on a quest. I want to talk to as many founders as possible and figure out how they make this startup life work.

I hear a lot about how easy it is for founders’ health to deteriorate. Late nights, skipped meals, and the midnight beer to relax. They all add up–with a big dose of stress mixed in–and it’s not hard to see why.

That made my first interview especially interesting. Andy Smith co-founded DailyBurn (then called Gyminee) in 2007. The company was part of TechStars Boulder in 2008, and in 2010 IAC acquired the majority share. Because of the reputation startup life has for bad health, I was interested to see what a health and fitness founder did to stay healthy in the process.

Q. What does your typical day look like?

AS: I’m normally in the office by about 9AM. Most people here at DailyBurn work “New York Tech” company hours (10-7), but I like to get home by 6:30 so I can spend time with my 3 kids. These days I’m in more meetings than I used to be, as I’m trying to build out my core executive team. We are at the stage in our company growth now where we can’t keep it flat – so I’m spending more time with my direct reports and getting that setup.

One thing that is scheduled in to my day each day is TRAINING. It’s important to be in good shape if you are the leader of any company, but even more so if you lead a fitness company. I either join our company workouts at 5pm (eat your own dog food) or train at the nearby gym. A couple of us are getting ready for another Toughmudder race so I’m pretty strict with food and training right now.

Q. How is it different than in the early days of DailyBurn?

AS: Well, in the EARLY early days of DailyBurn there were two of us, and we both were coding full-time. That stopped on our second round of funding, when I became full-time business side of things. I do miss the coding sometimes, but running a business has other interesting problems to solve.

I’m also learning how to navigate running a small growing business in a larger parent company – and that is bringing a lot of new challenges. One of the biggest changes is not making all the decisions and learning to let others make decisions even when you don’t always agree with them. It’s a necessary step in our growth because if I don’t give away some control, I become a huge bottleneck in the growth of the business. Loosening that control is emotionally hard, because I have a pride/control idol that always shows its ugly head. However, I’m seeing the benefits already and I’m excited of how it will free me up to focus on the area of business that needs the most attention – all while other parts of the business are continuing to grow and move without my direct focus.

Q. Obviously, DailyBurn is all about health and fitness. What tips do you have for founders to keep themselves healthy during the hectic days of starting a company?

AS: When you are super busy with startup life – it is easy to eat poorly and skip exercises. It can move to the back burner. However, it is in those times when eating right and working out give you the most benefit. If you eat clean 90% of the time, and train 3-5 times a week you are going to perform better at your job.

My second tip would be to try to set a culture of fitness in your startup. Working out together can be a great bonding experience. We also try to do athletic events together (Toughmudder is a great example).

Q. I love the DailyBurn videos, but they are HARD! Do you ever use them yourself?

AS: Of course! And, I’m the one to blame if they are too hard! My favorite workouts on DailyBurn are in the Tactical Bodyweight Training (TBT) series and the INFERNO series. I’m particularly fond of INFERNO because I was in the test group to make sure the workouts are hard enough!

But – the great thing about DailyBurn is that there are workouts for everyone. If you like to dance, we have MOVE. If yoga is your thing we have world-class yoga videos. We have kettle bells, abs, MMA, short workouts, long workouts – you name it. That’s the beauty of our platform – there is something for everyone and you know it’s going to be great quality.

Q. Any other general advice for early-stage founders?

AS: I’m a big fan of startup accelerators like TechStars. They really do work to accelerate your business (advice, connections, fundraising, strategy), and I encourage most first-time entrepreneurs to try to get into a program like TechStars.

A lot of the advice I give to young companies is depending on what they are going through, but one of my biggest things is to share your idea with a lot of people. Many early entrepreneurs think that their idea is so valuable that they keep it close hold. In reality, execution is key and the advice you get will outweigh the value of being in stealth mode (most of the time! – I say this even as I have a small project in stealth!).

I couldn’t convince Andy to share that stealth project, but if it’s as great as DailyBurn, it will be great to watch.

Monica Selby is a writer and editor living in Memphis, TN. When she’s not chasing her three boys, she writes about women, work, and startups.

Memphis’ Bad Ass Startup Chick Brittany Fitzpatrick Pitches MentorMe

The day of reckoning is upon us and it appears that Bad Ass Startup Chick Brittany Fitzpatrick’s nerves have calmed a bit. After working tirelessly on a startup she originally pitched at the women’s 48 hour launch in Decemeber, Fitzpatrick is ready to show the world her answer to many of mentoring’s problems.

Community service and helping people have been what Brittany Fitzpatrick’s life’s work have been about. But what makes this Memphian even more amazing is that she left a position with one of the most prestigious, well known brands in the non-profit space, Ronald McDonald House Charities, to start something of her own, again in community service.

As the communications coordinator for Ronald McDonald House Charities of Memphis, Brittany took the passion and drive she’s had since high school and through college at Howard University and Memphis University, and combined it with the tools available in recent day to double the groups social media reach. Ronald McDonald House Charities of Memphis works with the most well known children’s research facility in the world, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Over the last six years, Brittany has been a mentor and helped other mentor’s in a variety of programs. Through her work with Ronald McDonald House Charities and other stops along the way, she found that mentorship was a great thing, but flawed in many ways.

When she first pitched the idea for her startup “Mentor Me” back in December at a women focused 48 Hour Launch, she revealed that most mentor orgranizations spend more money re-placing mentors and mentees than they do setting up original pairs. Brittanny quickly realized if someone could fix the initial matching proces than these programs could focus on their original goals and save a lot of money.

That’s where her startup Mentor Me comes in. Mentor Me is a mentor and mentee online matching service that uses a variety of information given from both parties and an algorithm to make more successful matches. While Brittany is hesitant about using the verbage “e-harmony for mentor”, at the core that’s what it is and that’s why it’s going to be so successful.

But the biggest factor in the success of Mentor Me is going to be a combination of the technology and the founder. Brittany is a dynamic young woman. Back in December, the prize for the 48 Hour Launch competition was a startup village booth at everywherelse.co. When Brittany came in second place she decided to crowdfund the people in the audience so that she too could have a booth for her startup. Within minutes her mission was successful.

After working for three months in the Seed Hatchery startup accelerator, Fitzpatrick unveiled MentorMe to the public at large Thursday in Memphis. Check out her pitch below:

Find out more about Mentor me here at getmentorme.com

Indiana Couple Pitches Their Startup, Boosterville, At Seed Hatchery Demo Day

Attracting great talent to an accelerator that doesn’t have the name Techstars or YCombinator in it can be a difficult task. Attracting great talent that’s already had success in the startup space can be even more daunting. That’s what happened in the case of Indiana startup Boosterville.

I actually met Pam Cooper the CEO and co-founder of Boosterville, while it was still called Sodbuster, on Brad Feld’s Hacker News alternative site, the startup hub. Pam and I quickly became friends. It was then I learned that she was a little more “seasoned” than other founders, having started a very successful small business in Indiana. Her quick wit and thought provoking questions made it easy to interact with her on an online platform.

Pam decided that despite a failed attempt at Indianapolis startup conference “Powder Keg” her and her co-founder/CTO husband, Tom Cooper, would make the trek to Memphis for everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference. At the same time we were accepting applications for Seed Hatchery and I quickly introduced her to the organizations leader, Eric Mathews, and they got in.

We learned through the vetting process that Tom was actually the founding CTO of question and answer site Cha-Cha. He also has a long resume of engineering work at several successful startups and companies. The Cooper’s have done well. They’ve got kids in college, a rather large home in Indiana, oh and Tom has his own plane as well. So why come all the way to Memphis for an accelerator?Great question, the answer: For the accelerator.

From day one both Pam and Tom dove head first into the curriculum, learning, sharing and development that is offered through the Seed Hatchery program. They took criticism like the best of them, often times from leaders and mentors that didn’t have even a fraction of the startup experience that Tom had. Both Cooper’s have said over and over again how much they’ve learned here in Memphis.

“I really didn’t know what to expect, so we went for it and Seed Hatchery was the best thing we’ve done for our company” Tom told us in an interview.

During the accelerator the coopers went through a name change, a huge pivot and even worked hand in hand with MBA students for discovery, and to help refine their product.

Boosterville combines digital wallet with loyalty and rewards and all for the benefit of schools and non profits. Using Dwolla, another midwest startup, as their mobile wallet conduit, users sign up for a school they want to donate to. From there they can see a list of merchants in their community that use the Boosterville platform. When they make a purchase at one of the establishments in the program, they check out using their phone, the merchant gets paid, the school gets a donation and Boosterville takes a small cut.

“Putting children who are now grown, through school I’ve seen my share of wrapping paper and World’s Finest Chocolate Bars”, Pam loves to tell anyone who will listen. Of course we all agree.

The company is a great mesh of Pam’s community minded nature and business savvy, with Tom’s over three decades of programming experience.

What’s next for Boosterville, well while Tom has an open invitation to return full time to his engineering job in Indiana, they are going to continue to raise money and bring Boosterville to live.

Check out their investor day pitch video below:

Find out more about Boosterville here at boosterville.com

We’ve got more Seed Hatchery coverage here.

Is Google Play Music All Access The Spotify Killer?

Google just announced a new streaming music service that will allow Google Play users immediate access to millions of tracks streaming. Google is positioning Google Play Music All Access as a music service first, powered by Google technology.

This of course means that Google will use their algorithms and your preferences to deliver recommendations. The user can take suggestions, build suggestions based on what they are listening to, randomize or search. Once Google Play Music All Access finds the tracks the user wants they can immediately start streaming it.

Next, Google Play Music All Access will allow users to turn any track they’re listening to into a radio station that streams the artist’s other music or like artists.

Users can also discover and add tracks to their own list.

A service called Listen Now brings the power of Google to serve up music that you want to listen to now with minimum effort. It will show radio stations that All Access has created automatically based on a users preferences.

These features are all on the mobile device but of course Google Play Music All Access is available with the same feature sets on mobile, tablet and laptop. “Radio without rules” is how they describe the service and it can be as automated or manual as the user would like.

Pricing: $9.99 per month in the U.S. and everyone gets a free trial. It’s launching today in the U.S. and rolling out to other countries soon. If you start a trial by June 30th you’re locked into a $7.99 rate.

Move over Spotify?

Top 5 Reasons Startup Founders Blow Through Money

There’s a lot of reasons why companies don’t make it, and sometimes it’s not that the idea or product isn’t good — it’s just that you run out of money. Even though we know that blowing through money is a “bad” thing, I’ve been talking a lot with founders and investors about what “bad” means. What have they noticed as common themes when they sit down with founders that exhausted their money too quickly at the seed stage? So here are the top 5 reasons startup founders blow through money.

Let me know your thoughts and if this aligns with what you’ve personally seen. What have you regretted spending money on, or what do you roll your eyes at as an investor?

1. “I have a business meeting in Thailand!”

We all know these founders. They travel somewhere new every week. Their meetings take them around the world–frequently. They are always tired and busy from travelling, and they make sure to check-in at every luxurious hotel they stay at.

Why this fails: The desire to pre-maturely live a life of luxury through funding raised for business development extends to other poor choices. It goes — fast.

Understanding this entrepreneur: Typically extroverted and commands control of the room. Works efficiently on little sleep and cares a lot about appearances.

Can benefit by: Making sure that meetings are efficiently scheduled. One entrepreneur told me they combat this by making a “day trip” rule. If the meeting is important enough to fly for the day and return, it’s a go. It helped this entrepreneur cut down on meetings that could be conducted via phone without sacrificing quality.

2. “That’s way too expensive!”

This is another extreme–founders that don’t want to spend anything and opt for cheap solutions…cheap everything. This sends bad signals to clients and investors and often costs the entrepreneur more in the form of lost opportunities.

Why this fails: Some founders are very conservative. They need money in the bank–a cushion. They are risk takers with anxiety and they want to ensure that they get the results that they need for the next raise.

Understanding this entrepreneur: Typically introverted and mathematical. Usually overly conservative in their predictions.

Can benefit by: Giving up some control and working with investors and advisors to create healthy budgets.

3. “It’s a marketing spend!”

We all enjoy celebrating successes of startups for special launches or funding announcements. Sometimes startups plan evenings with open bars and chalk it up to a good use of marketing dollars. Chances are this isn’t the best use. Same can be said for overly-spending on trade shows, fancy promotional videos, or sponsoring an event before the time is right.

Why this fails: Marketing is extremely important, but many startups will exhaust their “marketing spend” without focusing on basic things first — like establishing a healthy blog presence, or discovering ways to become “experts” in a topic by speaking at conferences. If you’re spending money on marketing and you don’t have a blog, you’re doing it backwards.

Understanding this entrepreneur: Typically extroverted and creative and full of ideas. Too focused on big picture instead of steps to get there.

Can benefit by: Forcing themselves to write plans about their spends. Marketing is about ROI, so if you are planning on spending money you need to know what a worthwhile conversion will be for you. Are you looking for customers, users, app downloads? What result will make you happy?

4. “We’re going to hire salespeople!”

A great mentor told me that you only need one salesperson. She didn’t mean literally one – but she meant that you, as a founder, need to be able to sell your product yourself before trying to hire others to sell it for with/for you. Managing a sales team without getting your hands dirty in the sales process only makes you disconnected from your product, and will frustrate future early sales employees.

Why this fails: As a founder you are the product, don’t expect to hire and watch the numbers soar. Your product won’t sell itself unless you sell it first. It doesn’t matter how many sales people you hire if you don’t have the sales process down in the first place.

Understanding this entrepreneur: Typically they don’t have a background in sales and think that hiring sales employees will magically make numbers appear on a sales board. Typically technical, sometimes egotistical.

Can benefit by: Selling the product. That’s all there is here. If the founder is technical and won’t be doing sales, someone on the founding team must be a hustler. Founders are either selling or building. Choose one and do it well.

5. “I’ll never work for anyone, ever!”

This entrepreneur is right out of college. They don’t want to get a job, or can’t last at a job for more than a few months. They have great ideas and plans and want to change the world, but need some reality first. These founders just spend money in all the wrong places for all the wrong reasons, which could be anything from 1-4 mentioned above. Great mentors seem to make or break these types of entrepreneurs.

Why this fails: If you haven’t had a job before you may lack judgement of certain realities and what it really requires to start a business.

Understanding this entrepreneur: Typically driven, these founders need to get broken in a bit before reaching the point of being able to successfully manage others.

Can benefit by: Getting a job and showing that you can work well with others and under the management of others. The goal is to show that you are able to learn and adapt.

Sarah Ware is the co-founder and CEO of Markerly, next generation publisher tools. Markerly is a recent graduate of 500 Startups. Nibletz has used Markerly’s publisher tools since their launch last year. Right click on anything on the site and see the magic happen.

Last year Sarah appeared on Bad Ass Female Founders From Everywhere Else and the “I Survived An Accelerator Panel” hosted by GAN’s Pat Riley,at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference! Find out more about the next everywhereelse.co here.

Mark Cuban Crowdsources Next Maverick’s Uniform

Ever since our co-founder and CEO Nick Tippmann got Mark Cuban to come to his Shark Tank Season 3 Premiere party in Indianapolis, we’ve covered Cuban and his investments in startups. Cuban’s personal blog, blogmaverick, describes the billionaire investor, Shark Tank Shark and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, to a “T’. Not because he’s the owner of the NBA team with the same name, but because he’s a maverick himself.

Cuban isn’t one to do things the “normal” way. After a dismal season this year, Cuban has decided that maybe the Mavs need a change in uniform. He wants to implement the change in the 2015-2016 season.

On his blog, Cuban announces to the world and the Maverick’s fan base that this change is coming. More importantly though, Cuban isn’t hiring some big shot consultant or spending millions of dollars to come up with 10 mediocre designs. He’s crowdsourcing. He wants fans of his beloved Maverick’s to design the teams next uniform.

Now he wants the uniforms to fit the NBA uniform format. He also wants to keep the logo intact and try not to stray far away from the current color scheme. Of course he’s looking for creativity stemming from the great people that love his team.

He’s quick to point out that any design submitted immediately becomes the property of the Dallas Mavericks and if you don’t want to adhere to that you need not submit.

“Who will own your design ? The minute you post it, the Mavs will. If you think its horrible that the Mavs own your design. Do not post. If you think its cool that the Mavs could possibly use your design and you will have eternal bragging rights , then post away.” Cuban writes.

If Cuban feels up to it he may throw in some tickets for the designer. There’s no promise of anything except bragging rights, and he may not select any fan design at all. “That is life in the big city. Move on.” Cuban adds.

The contest is open until the end of May, click on over to Blogmaverick for more.

Check out more of our Mark Cuban coverage here at nibletz.com

What Is Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, EE2014

For the inaugural everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, over 2000 entrepreneurs, founders, investors and media registered for the first ever conference dedicated to startups outside Silicon Valley “everywhere else”. Although there was a huge winter storm event over the northeast part of the country over 1280 attendees filled the halls of the Memphis Cook Convention Center to enjoy three days of networking, keynotes, panels, fireside chats and some unbelievable night life.

Speakers at the Inaugural everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference included Bill Harris, the first “parental supervision” CEO of Paypal, Scott Case, founding CTO of Priceline.com and the CEO of Startup America, Mo Bridges, Danny Boice of 500 startups backed Speek.com, Gabe Lozano, Sarah Ware, Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits, and countless others.

All attendees at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference received a free ticket to the Memphis Grizzlies vs Minnesota Timberwolves

Panels included topics like “raising money everywhere else”, “kick ass female founders from everywhere else”, a workshop with Cooper and Vlaskovits, Branding with the Brandery and so much more. All of the programming was geared towards early stage to series A startups that face the common problems of not growing up in Silicon Valley, and to some degree New York. These startups have a different subset of obstacles and we navigate them together.

The overall goal of Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference and Nibletz, the voice of startups everywhere else, is to help startups stay home and grow their own communities.

EE2014, everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference 2014, is already generating a lot of buzz. Over 200 folks have purchased tickets and startup booths. To that end, with “everywhere else” in mind we make it very easy for bootstrapping startups to afford to attend the three day event. Tickets are currently on sale for $59 (last years price) but will increase by the end of the month.

hundreds of attendees poured into the clubs on Beale Street for the “Grasshopper Bar Hop” after the Grizzlies game.

Startups can exhibit in our Startup Village which includes the booth, table, chairs, and pitching on the main stage. It also includes a total of three attendee tickets so your team can attend. The early bird discount is $395 and also goes away later this month. The best part is we are a startup ourselves and now that things change so the Startup Village booth is fully refundable less $75 up until December 31, 2013. The Startup Village booth is intended for early stage startups through Series A. Longer tail startups should consider a sponsorship.

EE2014 will be held February 17-19th 2014 in beautiful Memphis Tennessee, a beacon for entrepreneurship “everywhere else”. We are planning shoulder events for the 16th as well as the weekend leading up to the event that are out of this world. Also, developers can count on a hackathon this year.

For those traveling to Memphis (which is most of the attendees and startups) our hotel discount this year is $109 at the Marriott Downtown which is conveniently located across the street from the convention center with a foot bridge.

Also new this year, we’ve partnered with American Airlines for a great discount. If you’re flying into Memphis for Everywhereelse.co, book your travel as early as possible and use the promotion code 3824AA. Make sure you sign up for American Airline’s Busines ExtrAA program while you’re at it to let this trip count!.

This year we’re pleased to announce that all attendees registered by June 30, 2013 will be able to access three summer webinars in our summer learning series absolutely free. We will have a branding webinar with archer>malmo, an accounting webinar with The Marston Group and a sneak preview of Legaleeze, one of the most popular panels at last years conference, with Baker Donelson.

Startups from everywhereelse came including SportsTradex from Florida

You can register for a startup Village booth by using this buy it now button below which includes:

3 conference passes for your team. Exhibitors will have the same access as paid attendees to everything found here
Tickets to all of our after conference events
pitch contests
8×10 exhibit booth space
6 foot table
Description in our professionally printed program
Description on the everywhereelse.co website (startups will be posted starting October 15)
Early access on to set up and late access to take down
Yes you can purchase extra tickets for team members beyond the initial three tickets. Those “exhibitor guest” tickets are only $50
Can we sell stuff at our booth YES
Can we demo our app at our booth YES
Just so we’re clear if your team is 3 people or less, you DO NOT need to buy additional attendee tickets.
We do ask that your booth is manned by at least one human being from your team during all exhibition hours but feel free to rotate that human and enjoy the rest of the event.

If you’re looking to attend everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference 2014, here’s the discount button for that. Both discounts end later this month.

Attendee Ticket Discounted Rate ($59)

Techstars Boulder Announces Summer 2013 Class

While the spring season for startup accelerators is coming to close with a variety of demo days across the country, the summer season is warming up. In fact today we’ll be reporting on three startup accelerators kicking off their summer program. We start the day with Techstars Boulder.

Techstars is one of the most successful startup accelerator programs in the world. They yield thousands of applications every year and only a handful of the best startups get picked to build their products as Techstars branded startups.

Without further ado here are the startups that got into Techstars flagship program, the Summer 2013 session at Techstars Boulder, Colorado:

Hull is like Startup Weekend online. Their website claims that you can build social apps in a weekend rather than in weeks. Hull handles hosting,social mechanics, and services integration so the person creating the social app can focus on the features.

LeChat hails from Oakland California and promises to be the next revolutionary messaging app. Their website says they are “messaging for modern organizations” and support a host of features including search history, multiple chats on screen, integration with dev tools, native mobile apps and a price poing of $1 per user per month.

According to the Techstars website Augur is a platform that makes mobile and web personal by intelligently tailoring the experience of each user.

Given Goods blends social entrepreneurship with e-commerce in a beautiful website that only sells products that give back. Sometimes here at nibletz we call this “slacktivism”, think Toms and other products that make a difference in the community.

Local startup Elihuu has a funny name with a serious mission. Their platform allows product people to design beautiful products and they help take care of the manufacturing. Their website says: Democratizing the process of design, invention, and manufacturing. We believe new technologies change the thinking around the production of consumer products.

Brandfolder gives users the tools to build a brand book that would typically cost thousands of dollars from an agency, easily and from a web based platform. While they plan to offer a premium paid product later on, their website says their branding tools will always offer a free option.

According to the Techstars website Prediculous is building social sports games for all fans. It looks like this Boulder based startup is pivoting from a social prediction game to something worthy of a much larger audience. Find them online here.

This bay area startup offers tax monitoring tools that users can use all year long in hopes to help them have a “good April” Mitchell Fox, co-founder of GoodApril has penned guest posts on several startup focused sites about preparing for and being proactive about tax season. Check them out here

Ads native is an ad server for native content based advertising. Their website says that you can monetize without compromising user-experience. You can find them online here.

We met the guys from Snowshoe last year on the sneaker strapped road trip when we stopped in Madison Wisconsin. They seem to have pivoted a little bit since then, now using their original technology as an authentication layer for the internet of things.

Are you working on your pitch? Check out The Anatomy of a winning pitch deck.