California Startup Communly Is Building Communities Of Like Minded People [video]

Alaxic Smith and Neil Parikh met each other a little over two years ago when they embarked on their first startup remotely. At the time Alaxic (Alex) was only 15 and Neil was 18. They had started a social network of sorts and built up that community to over 15,000. They knew they were onto something.

The problem was that Neil was based in San Francisco and Alaxic was based in Texas. Alaxic had this little thing called school that made it impossible for him to uproot himself and move to the valley to continue building that startup.

Well two years later, and Alaxic made a brave move. He left high school to focus on he and Neil’s latest startup Communly.

So what is Communly? Alaxic tells us: “Communly is all about communities. Communities are essentially groups of people who have a shared interests. Communities act as a blank canvas for people to create relevant content for the community. On the flip side of things, community managers can feature content that they find to represent the community as well. We believe that we’re providing users with tools that allow them to define the social web they want to see and we also provide a more relevant experience for users.”

Neil told us in an interview it’s about putting like minds together. They seem to be picking up a lot of traction around musicians and artists that are still building loyal followings. They also have communities about hiking, outdoors, art, and even startups.

They aren’t in an accelerator class, nor are they incubating anywhere accept Neil’s apartment at the moment but they are attacking communly with the vigor found in most thriving startups.

Check out our quick video interview with Neil as he tells us all about Communly. For more info visit communly.com

Apparently money doesn’t grow on trees in Silicon Valley

Gangnam (style) SpringBoard Startup Flitto Is THE Translation App

Flitto, a SpringBoard London graduate has the Gangnam style for sure, that’s because they are based in Gangnam South Korea. They are truly rockstars for graduating from SpringBoard London which has become TechStars.

When you think about Flitto don’t think translation app. Simon Lee, Flitto’s founder describes the app as: “a social translation platform that lets you access all kinds of content in your own native language. Any user can add translation and earn points and ‘karma’ from other fans for your translation work.”

Flitto serves up translation from the crowd, making it easy to get quick, real life translations on content rather than mechanical translations which can sometimes leave the user just as lost as before the translation.

“The language barrier can be broken down by hiring professional translators. But we’ve tried to be smarter than that. We can get rid of the language barrier without hiring one single translator just by using the greatest tool humans have ever made – the Internet.” Lee said on the SpringBoard/TechStars London Blog.

We got a chance to catch up with Lee at the SXSW Interactive Tradeshow in the Gangam Style startups showcase.

Check out these other stories from SXSW

We’ve got more TechStars coverage here.

California Startup Uptoke Raising A Series A To Bring Weed To The Board Room [video]

UpToke, California startup,startups,Jason Levin,Cannabis

Jason Levin, founder of UpToke. (photo: fortune.com)

California entrepreneur Jason Levin is a formally trained engineer on a mission. He’s not a hippie, a dope man, or a pot head, but he does see the opportunity in Cannabis.

His company, called Uptoke, has produced an upscale vaporizer used to inhale marijuana. The cigar like vaporizer, brings a more “professional” appeal to smoking marijuana. Even in prototype form it’s a well designed, high class looking device.

The technology, Levin says, doesn’t actually ignite the plant, but rather heats it up, incredibly fast.

The Uptoke vaporizer can get to 375 degrees, in a sealed packages so users don’t burn themselves, in under 6 seconds. The battery life lasts all day and Levin says you just charge it up like a cell phone at the end of the day.

Levin doesn’t look like a guy who would fit in a “stereotype”. He sees the opportunity in the Cannabis industry. He’s also very careful not to step on the toes of those who aren’t supportive of the industry.

He will not market his device in markets where there are no laws governing cannabis use. He has a legal team in place and has an industrial designer coming on board to help design the final product.

Levin is currently raising a Series A round for Uptoke and was just recently in Seattle pitching a group of investors at the Washington Athletic Club.

Check out this video of Levin below.

Check out these startup stories from nibletz.com

Stripe CEO Patrick Collison On The Paypal Mafia [video][Ignition Mobile]

This morning at Business Insider’s Ignition Mobile, Deputy Editor Nicholas Carlson interviewed 24 year old Irish rock star entrepreneur, Patrick Collison the CEO of payment startup Stripe.

While there was much debate as to whether Collison became a millionaire at ate 19, one thing that’s been turning heads about this mobile payment startup is that their investors include Peter Thiel, Max Levchin and Elon Musk, the original founders of Paypal who are widely known as the “Paypal Mafia”.

One might find it odd that these three men who helped shape the web payment and now mobile payment space, may not want to invest in a company that competes with the one they founded.

Collison said that he believes that Thiel, Musk and Levchin, are still determined to solve the problems that they set out to solve with Paypal and the new problems that have cropped up in the mobile age.

All three founders are now removed from Paypal after selling the company for $1.5 billion back in 2002 to eBay,Paypal’s largest user.

While Paypal has been busy pushing an offline product to retail and working towards a more prominent position in the mobile space, Collison said he felt that innovation at Paypal stopped when Levchin, Musk and Thiel exited.

Check out the video below:

500 Startups Company Waygo Talks To Nibletz [video][500 startups]

Earlier this morning we brought you the interview with Spinnakr founder Michael Michael Mayernick who talked with us about laying their foundation in Washington DC which helped them prepare for and then graduate from 500 Startups in Silicon Valley.

Ryan Rogowski, the cofounder of translation startup WayGo, also talked with us about their experience in Rhode Island before being chosen for 500 Startups.

In the video below Rogowski talks to us about the much lower cost of overhead in Rhode Island, and how it allowed them to speed up their development process. Waygo was able to catch the eye of 500 Startups founder Dave McClure, who is a very frequent traveler, the kind that Waygo was designed for.

As for what they do?

Waygo is a mobile app that allows you to hover your smartphone camera over text or images and get a translation. For instance, if you want to order Chinese Food from a Chinese menu written in their native tongue, Waygo would allow you to scan the menu and get real time translations. The best part? Everything is done locally on the device side which makes the translations come extremely fast.

Waygo is designed with the tourist in mind. You can use Waygo to translate Chinese food menus, and signs on the road, bars and restaurants.

The idea came about over two years ago when Rogowski was living in China and realized how hard it was to translate things in real time.

Check out our video interview with:

Check out more 500 Startups coverage from nibletz!

500 Startups Alum: Spinnakr On The Importance Of Laying A Foundation At Home

This week nibletz, the voice of startups everywhere else, is participating in the first annual LaunchYourCity, mission trip to Silicon Valley. The trip, sponsored by American Airlines and Uber, is a chance for startups, and ecosystem influencers from Memphis to experience the high paced startup life in the Valley.

Through Memphis native and 500 statups alum Frank Langston, and our good friend Sarah Ware at Markerly, we got to spend a good portion of the day at 500 startups.

Internally at nibletz we actually debated taking this trip up until the last minute. So while we’re the voice of startups everywhere else, there is a lot to be learned from founders out here in Silicon Valley. First things first about 90% of them aren’t actually natives, most have moved from somewhere else.

To that end, we got a chance to talk with two startups, Spinnakr and WayGo, about the role laying foundations in their hometowns played in building their startups prior to heading out west.

500 Startups has no requirement on where a startup has to reside after the completion of their 4 month program. We gathered that about half of the founders in each cohort choose to stay in Silicon Valley while the others either move back home or to cities that strategically work better for their companies.

Spinnakr is one of the startups that stayed in the valley. They actually graduated out of the 500 startups accelerator in 2012 (the 2013 class just graduated last month). Michael Mayernick, co-founder at Spinnakr, talks to us in the video below about the importance laying roots and a foundation at home played in Spinnakr’s growth and success.

Maryernick is still intune with what’s going on in Washington DC, itself a city where innovation is progressing at a very fast pace. Mayernick was named a Tech Titan by Washingtonian Magazine in 2011. He curates the DC Startup Digetst and co-organizes the DC Tech Meetup.

Check out the video below and for more info visit: Spinnakr.com

Check out more of our 500 Startups coverage at nibletz.com

Say It With A Song Using Utah Startup Gigg [sxsw]

Are you one of those people that likes to quote song lyrics when talking to people? Perhaps you were a child of the 90’s and made “mix tapes” for everyone and everything? Well there’s a startup in Utah called Gigg that puts that nostalgia back into your life.

The best part?

You don’t even need to know the whole lyric.

With Gigg you can use their app and find the song lyrics you want by artist, title or even a couple of words you think are in the song. From there the app finds the song that you’re looking for, lets you send a message with the lyric and links the recipient to where they can purchase the song.

It was great running into the Gigg team at the SXSW trade show, right smack in the middle of SXSWi and SXSW music.

For our demonstration of the app the lyric was “I Like Big Butts” and it quickly found Sir Mix A lot and a bunch of other great lyrics that would make great messages.

The app is fun and for those who like to send sappy love songs, it could be just what you’re looking for.

Check out the interview below and for more info visit gigg.com

Check out more SXSW 2013 Startup Coverage here.

Silicon Slopes Startup Speakerfy Is Turning Devices Into Speakers Everywhere [sxsw]

Have you caught onto the latest phenom in night clubs and parties? Yes I’m talking about the silent disco or the headphone party. These are parties where everyone is listening to the same music, typically being spun by a dj, but using headphones. We’ve been to headphone parties in Memphis, New York, Baltimore and of course on 6th street at SXSW.

The great thing about headphone parties is there is no outer noise and no need for someone to call the cops and complain. The bad part is the upkeep of the wireless headphone equipment.

Well… Utah startup Speakerfy has the solution. Now keep in mind that Speakerfy isn’t just about the headphone party we’ll go over a bunch of uses later. For the example of the headphone party though, Speakerfy allows any wifi connected smartphone to turn into a speaker. It supports up to 250 devices.

So now, if you’re holding a “silent disco” you can use Speakerfy and send the audio through everyone’s personal phone and they can use their own headphones or earbuds to join in the party. (if someone wrote a text communication app on top that would solve the anti-social part of the silent disco).

So all of the devices on the same Speakerfy hear the exact same audio at the exact same time.

Here are some other great uses for Speakerfy:

– Presentations at conferences
– Walking tours
– Museum tours
– your own personal radio station
– sharing music on the bus

the uses are really endless.

For more of how Speakerfy works check out the video interview from SXSW below:

LegalCrunch Is The Legal Zoom For Everything Else [interview]

Legal Zoom is by far the 800 pound gorilla when it comes to online legal services. Of course RocketLawyer is skyrocketing to fame as well. But, both of those online legal services target businesses. What about all the other legal work out there?

Well that’s where New Jersey startup LegalCrunch comes in. The company founded by Nikhil Jhunjhnuwala and Keval Amin, provides “…super affordable do-it-yourself kits for common legal issues, such as divorce and expungements. There are some simple legal situations where you just don’t need a lawyer, but you don’t want to make a mistake. We are a reliable alternative. We provide completed paperwork, intuitive instructions that use diagrams and graphics, and helpful phone support. All products are backed by a 100% money-back guarantee because we are that sure they will work.” Junjhunuwala told nibletz.com in an interview.

Jhunjhnuwala is the legal eagle behind the operation. He attended the University of Southern California’s Law School before turning his focus to his previous law related startup called MyRight. During his studies he found that not many people were well versed in their legal rights and wanted to change that.

Amin on the other hand is an artist by trade and the designer by choice.

Jhunjhnuwala and Amin realized that in addition to people not knowing their rights they didn’t have access to legal services. There are a lot of legal services out there that can be researched and started without employing the services of a lawyer and that’s what LegalCrunch hopes to do with their kits.

Check out the rest of our interview with Jhunjhnuwala below:

Where are you based?

Currently based in Princeton, NJ.

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

It’s small but growing. There are great co-working spaces in the area such as Tigerlabs, JuiceTank, and Innovation Garden, all of them focused on nurturing startups. I have noticed there is a preference towards energy and health startups, and more traditional business models., which too me is refreshing compared to the culture of bigger cities.

Our first startup, myRight, had a grand vision, but ultimately failed due to a poor business model and worse execution. On the other hand, LegalCrunch is in it’s 6th week and already making a profit.

What problem does your startup solve?

While in law school, I noticed that many people could not afford a lawyer. At the same time, they felt intimidated taking on the law on their own. These people usually end up taking no action, which hurts all of us. (In addition to promoting moral welfare, laws are meant to increase economic efficiently). When people don’t take advantage of the law, productivity, money, and efficiency is hurt.

From this, we were motivated to create an affordable solution. Legal self-help has existed for some time now, pioneered by Nolo, and more recently LegalZoom. However, these companies have consistently focused on business issues (as they are more profitable). There is a slow shift to personal issues as companies begin to recognize the enormous potential.

We plan on making our kits more accessible by appealing to visual learners. No one yet has tried to create visual representations of complex legal processes. Yet, this common in the sciences and other field. Khan Academy is doing a great job in showing that otherwise mundane topics, can be made interesting and understandable. Another example would be the ease of building IKEA furniture. Our kits are designed to be just as intuitive and easy for law.

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

We don’t have a programmer. To overcome this challenge, we have utilized the amazing number of startup tools available out there for non-developer founders. We currently run on squarespace, wufoo, and determination. These tool let us launch our website in 2 weeks. Since then, it’s been constant iteration and improvement. Rapid prototyping and testing are very important for us.

During the process, we have been learning basic css and html. Though it’s only been 6 weeks, we feel that we’ve outgrown squarespace. We might start fresh, and begin building using twitter bootstrap. Though it’d be better if we could raise money and hire a programmer instead ;D

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

Since we’ve only been up for 6 weeks, we find it important to appreciate small victories. Our greatest milestone thus far has been achieving profitability via ppc. Although the sample size is small and our ppc campaign has only been running for 3 weeks, we currently have strong margins. If anything, we feel that our product has been validated.

What are your next milestones?

Our model works and is profitable, even just using ppc. As our SEO improves (we are a content machine as well), and brand awareness increases, we expect even stronger numbers. As a result, we plan on raising money so that we can expand into order states more rapidly, thereby increasing our volume and impact.

Who are your mentors and role models?

We have many mentors that come from all walks of life and we love watching Charlie Rose. For example, one of our mentors is Oprah, who has taught us to always trust our intuition. Another mentor is Will Smith, who has distilled the secret of success down to two actions “reading and running.”

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

There are less opportunities in New Jersey, broadly speaking. Our last startup was located in LA, which isn’t nearly as popular as Silicon Valley or New York. However, even there we were constantly meeting new people and attending events. There were many business and partnership opportunities and overall “startup glamour.” New Jersey is a lot slower-paced.

On the flip side, the greatest advantage of being in a small scene is that it allows you to focus on your product. In a big startup city, you have a million people, with a million opinions. Since startup people always think they’re right, it’s easy to get swayed or distracted by these varying opinions or lose yourself in the scene. But in New Jersey, there is no noise. You can focus 100% on your product and customers.

What’s next for your startup?

Our next milestone is to raise money. We have validated our product in New Jersey and want to expand.

Where can people find out more?

legalcrunch.com Facebook: facebook.com/legalcrunch twitter: @legalcrunchinfo

Birmingham Startup NotIt Labs Shows Off iPhone App At SXSW [video][sxsw]

Birmingham Alabama’s startup ecosystem continues to grow. Joshua Gilmer knows that first hand. He’s a serial entrepreneur that already has a successful web agency and is now putting the finishing touches on his mobile startup NotIt Labs.

NotIt is a mobile app that will debut on the iPhone in the next couple of months. The app makes delegating tasks fun, and a bit more fair.

Say you’re at the office and someone needs to go on a coffee run. Well, using NotIt everyone in the office can basically call “not it” and the last person to respond of course gets stuck with the task of running to the coffee shop.

It’s just as effective with house hold chores, mowing the lawn, picking up the kids, or even an old fashioned game of tag.

“We all know how to play Not It: give out some task arbitrarily to an open forum and all the kids would say ‘not it.’ We are taking that social contract to social media,” Joshua Gilmer,told Mashable in an interview as SXSW.

While the idea behind the mobile app is simple enough, it hasn’t been done before and the UI looks fantastic for an idea so simple.

In the interview below Gilmer talks about how he came up with the idea after reading the book “Reality is Broken”. He wanted to create something that blended the online world with real life.

The iPhone app should release in the coming months. The team plans to resort to KickStarter to raise money to build an Android version as well.

Check out the video below and for more info visit notitlabs.co

Here are more startup stories from SXSW 2013

Planning On Crowdfunding Your Startup? DC Startup CrowdCheck Has You Covered [video][sxsw]

Crowdfunding is about to take the world by storm. With the passage of the JOBSact last year, companies will soon be able to crowdfund early stage investment rounds up to $1 million dollars, from anyone with a pulse and an internet connection.

This will make it really easy for early stage investors to get into some great startups, as well as the person down the street who wants to try out investing in startups.

Crowdfunding will also create a huge market for fraud . Last month we reported on Baltimore startup Asurvest, which will provide insurance to those looking to crowdfund startups.

At SXSW we discovered Washington DC startup CrowdCheck. This company plans to do the due diligence for startups that want to be transparent and offer as much information as possible to potential investors. Startups that utilize CrowdCheck’s services will look more appealing to investors because all of the leg work will have been done already.

CrowdCheck will offer a “badge” or “seal” for startups that use their service. This seal will show that the startup has been through the CrowdCheck process and then link to their CrowdCheck portfolio which will have the information that investors want to know, and that most angel investors look for in traditional angel and seed rounds.

Crowdfunding investors will have a better piece of mind about the startups that use CrowdCheck and they will know they aren’t taking part in a fraudulent transaction.

The team behind CrowdCheck has both legal, and securities backgrounds that make them well versed in all kinds of investment deals. Startups that use CrowdCheck will not only have an advantage while crowdfunding, but should they decide to go for a more traditional angel or seed round, most of the paperwork will have already been done.

Check out our interview video below and for more information visit crowdcheck.com

Looking for more on Crowdfunding click here

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DC Startup Homesnap Was Back At SXSW After Nailing Investment At SXSW 12 [video][sxsw]

Washington DC startup HomeSnap has got to be the best tool for those shopping for a new home.

The company’s proprietary technology allows anyone to snap a picture of any home and get all the pertinent information about that home. You can see the MLS data, how much the home sold for, what the neighborhood schools are, what other homes in the neighborhood sold for and more.

Their technology allows users to pre-shop for homes without the need of a realtor. However when the user is ready to actually purchase, HomeSnap can easily connect them to a realtor to finish out a deal.

Back in August the company closed a $3.5 million dollar round of funding led by Revolution Ventures. Steve Barnes, Homesnap’s President and co-founder told us that they met Steve Case, head of Revolution, at TechCocktail’s 2012 startup event at South By Southwest.

This year they were back at TechCocktail’s event to show off the newest version of HomeSnap, talk to other entrepreneurs and investors and pitch during TechCocktail’s Pitch Jam event, for which I was a judge. HomeSnap was declared the “Most Disruptive Startup” at the event.

In addition to the app that allows users to snap a photo and get home data, they also have a robust iPad app. The iPad experience allows users to browse entire neighborhoods virtually with an aerial map. Users can then drill down by looking at homes by address.

HomeSnap now also offers HomeSnap for agents. This part of the app allows agents to connect to their customers with a mini profile. Users can then flag properties for their agents to review with them, and use a one click method to ask an agent a question.

Guy Wolcott, co-founder and CEO of HomeSnap told TechCrunch that they have over 300 agents around the country registered for the app and have driven over 10,000 qualified leads.

“However, what we are launching here is a bit different,” Wolcott explains. “The idea is that agents can sign up to have their existing clients use HomeSnap. When the agent signs up, we put them (and only them) in the app for their clients – they won’t see any of our other partner agents, just their own agent,” he told TechCrunch.

We got a chance to talk with Barnes and VP of Product Development Lou Mintzer at this year’s TechCocktail event. The video interview is below:

We’ve got even more SXSW 2013 startup coverage here.

Want To Get Into Investing? Start With $1 And KC Startup TreeSwing [video][sxsw]

If you’ve always wanted to start an investment portfolio, but getting thousands of dollars together was out of reach, than you’re in luck. A new Kansas City startup, TreeSwing, is releasing a mobile app that will allow investors to start investing in mutual funds with as little as $1.

If the company takes off, TreeSwing will open up a new world of investing to people across the country, with no brokerage fees, no minimum balances, and no required monthly investment, investors can contribute any amount they’re comfortable with.

TreeSwing will allow investors to select from a marketplace of professionally managed mutual funds offered by some of the top names in the industry. By keeping the marketplace purposefully small, using plain language, and providing independent data from Morningstar, TreeSwing aims to give investors an easy way to make informed choices.

According to Brian Smith , Design and Product Manager for the TreeSwing application, the app was created specifically to serve the millions of Americans who aren’t currently investing.

“I believe we’ve built something that will lower the financial, behavioral, and emotional barriers to the investment process,” said Smith.

We ran into TreeSwing a bunch of times while in Austin for South By Southwest. Their entire team was at the TechCocktail celebration of startups event at The Stage on Sixth, talking to people about their new way of investing.

We finally caught up with Smith at the SXSW trade show who took a little time to explain TreeSwing in the video below.

While crowfunding is gaining world wide popularity, TreeSwing offers an option for people who want to get their feet with with investing, at a much lower risk and barrier to entry.

Check out the video below and for more info visit TreeSwing.com

Check out all these other great startup stories we found at SXSW 2013

KillSwitch, The Ultimate Broken Heart App With A Touch Of Slacktivism [video][sxsw]

We bumped into Clara DeSoto and Erica Mannherz, of Clearhart digital, in the Startup America Live lounge at SXSW 2013. Clearhart digital is a digital agency and app creation studio out of New York, that just happens to be founded by women.

They told us all about their first app, KillSwitch. This app is for the broken hearted, and does exactly what the name suggests.

After you break up with someone you use KillSwitch in conjunction with your Facebook account. It quickly purges your entire Facebook and gets rid of any references, photos, status updates, etc, of your X. Useful, huh?

Now both ladies are well aware that there are different degrees of breaking up, and KillSwitch allows for those degrees. If it’s a soft break up, you can easily get your photos and statuses back. If it’s a hard break up, and it’s totally over, you can neturalize your account from any reference of your X.

The idea for KillSwitch came about when Mannherz and DeSoto were talking to a third mutual friend. The girlfriend of theirs had just gone through a break up and was doing what most people do when they break up with someone, she was deactivating her Facebook account.

That can really suck for all your other friends though, they can’t tag you in photos, invite you to events or send words of wisdom over the break up on your Facebook wall.

KillSwitch makes it seamless. Now the broken hearted can just move on. And, of course it makes playing the field the next time around, much easier.

As for the slacktivism piece, a portion of the proceeds from the KillSwitch app are going to the American Heart Association so you can help fix broken hearts when you’re broken hearted, pretty neat huh?

Check out the video below. Geeks are going to love DeSoto and Mannherz, who’s agency Clearhart Digital, they liken to a double edged light sabre, you can find out more about that here. For those looking to make break ups suck less, check out KillSwitch here at killswitchapp.com

See more of our Startup Coverage at SXSW 2013, here