Interviews Archives - Page 29 of 57

California Startup: SportsBoard Brings The Coaches Clipboard Mobile & To The Cloud

About 8 years ago software entrepreneur Gregg Jacobs was watching his youngest son try out for club lacrosse and soccer teams in California. What he noticed back then was that coaches for both sports were feverishly keeping notes on clip boards, turning pages, and scribbling things down wherever they could. Jacobs knew from his software background that there had to be a better way, however smartphones were just on the cusp and tablets hadn’t even been invented.

FastForward to 2011. With smartphones growing increasingly fast and iPads taking a firm place in the home and in enterprise, Jacobs decided to revisit that idea, and started California startup SportsBoard.

SportsBoard, in it’s simplest form is a player relationship management system for coaches. Think SalesForce or ACT for coaches to manage players. The platform has a cloud based component and a mobile component which allows coaches to quickly make entries for later analysis from their iPhones or iPads. When they get home, back to the office, or the gym they can quickly sync to the cloud and manage their teams on a desktop or laptop computer.

SportsBoard is now optimized for ten different sports; Soccer, Basketball, Baseball, Lacrosse, Football, Ice Hockey, Field Hockey, Tennis, Volleyball and Rugby. Jacobs tells us that Softball is in the pipeline as well.

Over the last eight months over 100 Division I through Division 3 colleges have adopted SportsBoard as their player management system.

We got a chance to interview Jacobs about SportsBoard and growing his startup just far enough outside the valley, to be considered “everywhere else”

New York Startup: Treydit Kiss & Trade Clothes

Most women know not to kiss and tell, but what about kissing and trading clothes? That’s what New York startup, Treydit is trying to do.

Treydit, founded by firecracker female founder Nicole Green, is an online clothes swapping platform that allows women to trade clothes using and accumulating virtual currency called “kisses”. Treydit opens up a virtual limitless closet or wardrobe for women to trade clothes between one and other.

An Australian startup called 99 Dresses, completed last years YCombinator program with a similar concept. In that case the then 20 year old Nikki Durkin knew that women had a ton of clothes in their closets that they would never wear, but if their closet was limitless they could find something that sparked their interest.

In the cases of both startups, rather than swapping for actual cash you use virtual money. Naturally some items will cost more virtual currency than others, which is how you make the money to buy more outfits.

Green on the other hand is targeting college students specifically, highlighting the fact that it’s impossible to keep a dorm room closet full of great clothes.

We got a chance to talk with Green, check out the interview below.

Orlando Startup: ASPIREDU Is Helping College Students Stay In School

A group of educators based in Florida has teamed together to help prevent attrition and improve the dropout rate of college students. It’s a pretty big goal for Orlando startup ASPIREDU.

They’re not offering incentives, rewards or a cute little app to manage the school day better. The team behind ASPIREDU is taking their decades of experience in education and using an analytics tool to help identify at risk students enrolled in online courses so that they can help these schools better manage student retention.

While they’ve been working on ASPIREDU for quite some time they just launched their public facing product after months of testing, yesterday.

The combine a simple overview of at risk students with easy access to details about each student, which helps colleges and universities have a better overall picture of students that could drop out.

ASPIREDU was formed after one of the cofounders, who had been in higher education for ten years, found that she was spending over half her day working on student retention. When she went searching for a software tool to help identify and manage at risk students there wasn’t one.

The bootstrapped startup received a little seed money in the form of a grant from Startup Weekend EDU.

We got a chance to talk with one of the founders Kevin Kopas, about ASPIREDU, because the other two cofounders are still working on ASPIREDU while employed full time they’ve withheld their names for this interview. Check out the interview below.

Charlotte Startup: Womadz Is A Crowdsourced Video Advertising Platform

Have you ever watched tv and thought that you could create a better commercial for something than the one you just watched? Well that’s exactly what Diek Minkhorst and Sam Reitman were thinking one night while they were just chilling in college. Most advertising is boring and while advertisers want to attract buyers with hot models, and beautiful pictures, these ads don’t resonate well because they aren’t the actual users.

That’s why Minkhorst and Reitman created Charlotte startup Womadz (they have a presence in New York as well).

Womadz hosts online video contests for their brand partners encouraging film makers and those people that just make silly videos for fun, to make videos about products and advertisers. The video makers have an opportunity to win prizes and the advertisers have the option to have great content provided to them by a variety of people. That’s where the crowdsourced part comes in.

Once the video contest is initiated Womadz encourages the general public to check out the videos and vote on the ones they like the best. That’s where the winning and the prizes come in.

We got a chance to talk with Minkhorst about Womadz. Check out our interview below.

How Are People, Places & Things Connected? Portland Startup Wikisway Shows You

Most people believe that everyone is connected somehow and some way. Like six degrees of separation, when you start looking at who yo know and how you know them you typically find connections. Portland startup Wikisway believes that people are connected to more than just other people. That’s why Wikisway is the ultimate way to find out how people, places and things are connected.

Did you meet a new friend at the mall? Then the two of you are connected to the mall. Did you meet your wife at a restaurant? That’s your place now. What things are you connected to? What things are your friends connected to? All of that is intertwined in this very different spin on a social/event discovery app hybrid.

With Wikisway they hope to show you how everything is connected. You could even use Wikisway to find out what startups are connected to what investors and vice versa. Wikisway promises to be a very robust platform, specifically for showing connections.

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

Interview With LA Startup Mobile Roadie, Powering Thousands Of Apps

Los Angeles startup Mobile Roadie is packed with talent and it shows. This mobile app development startup allows anyone to create a mobile app presence in just minutes. They already power over 5,000 apps and mobile websites across 40 countries. Huge brands like Harvard University, Red Bull, Cirque du Sleil, Wynn Las Vegas and even the Staples Center rely on Mobile Roadie to take them to the mobile screen, the hottest screen available in 2012.

Last May the company launched a native iPad creation platform and also a self service mobile website product. Their platform allows creators to integrate Youtube, Brightcove, Flickr, Ustream,Google News, Facebook, Twitter, RSS and more sources to bring content into apps.

The company has a presence in the US, UK, France, Spain, Australia, Italy, Germany, Brazil, Turkey, China and Japan.

We got a chance to interview Mobile Roadie, check out the interview below:

Helsinki Startup: Playmysong The Social, Mobile & Physical Jukebox

Last May we brought you the story about Austin startup BeDj that brings turntable.fm into real life. When bars and restaurants use the platform you can control the audio in the establishment with your smartphone, in essence bringing being the dj from turntable.fm into a brick and mortar establishment.

We love innovative startups that bridge clicks and mortar. A Helskink startup is doing something similar. The startup, called Playmysong. Playmysong is the mobile, social jukebox. Basically in restaurants equipped with a Playmysong enabled jukebox, give up control of the jukebox from the traditional person with quarters to fill it up all night, to those with smartphones.

Playmysong has two main functionality partners in Spotify and Winamp. A user can create their own social jukebox for their own party, powered by Spotify. The in venue mechanism is powered by Winamp.

We got a chance to talk with the team behind Playmysong. Check out the interview below.

Portland Startup: Househappy, Pinterest For Real Estate?

Real estate entrepreneur Kevin McCloskey thinks that shopping for houses online is still very clunky. The current online destinations for house hunters are still very agent driven and confusing for the general consumer who could find themselves on either end of the real estate transaction spectrum, the buyer or the seller.

That’s why he created his Portland Oregon based startup Househappy.org. Rather than looking at sites filled with numbers, charts and graphs, pictures, pictures and more pictures, along with social features and information presented in a much more consumer friendly way should drive people to Househappy.org.

McCloskey plans on rolling Househappy.org out to 60 major markets across the U.S. immediately after launch, with a goal in mind of making real estate on the web friendlier. His mission is “to simplify property search and make information accessible to everyone.”

“We believe Househappy represents the future of real estate search,” said Kevin McCloskey, CEO and founder. “While other real estate sites restrict the user’s experience and are loaded with charts and graphs, our design makes it easy for users to find what they’re looking for.”

While McCloskey never actually said he expects to be the Pinterest for Real Estate, it’s this kind of graphic and photo intensive site that shot Pinterest into popularity.

We got a chance to talk with McCloskey about Househappy. Check out the interview below:

Boise Startup: Klowd Lets Attendees See The Presentation On Their Smartphone

Imagine if you could see all the presentations at the largest startup conference in the US “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference“, not just on the screen but on your smartphone too. No more squinting at presentations thanks to a new app from Boise startup Klowd. Every seat in the house is great when you can see the slides on your phone (and with over 1500 tickets already sold keynote presentations will be packed)

SlideKlowd is the first product from the startup founded by Ken Holsinger, Justin Foster and Casey McMullen. Together this Boise Idaho based team has solved three major problems for presentations.

First off, when audience members can’t see the actual presentation they become distracted and bored. Some even fall asleep. Secondly, they wanted to develop a way to get more data back from the audience to the presenter. Finally, they spark engagement between the audience and the presenter through their smartphone based solution.

The team is also admittedly trying to help curb the “death by PowerPoint” backlash. As more and more presenters become aware of SlideKlowd they will realize that the presentation and the value will change based on the fact that they will have a more captive audience.

We got a chance to interview the SlideKlowd team, check out the interview below.

Swiss Startup Nearbors, Let Your Neighbors Pick Up Your Shopping List

In reading the pitch from Swiss startup Nearbors I immediately started thinking about Zaarly. The pitch talks about being too busy to go out shopping for groceries or food and having someone else do it for you. Zaarly has done well in some big city markets and is deploying across other medium markets in the United States, so why not have a similar startup in Switzerland?

Well after watching the video below, I quickly realized that Nearbors has taken part of the Zaarly concept a lot further and they’ve combined mobile payments.

Here’s how it works:

Say you’re on deadline either working from home or the office. It’s lunch time and you need some groceries or a decent salad and sandwich. With Zaarly you put the request out there and hope that someone responds.

With Nearbors, there is a community of folks out there waiting for your Nearbor requests. Nearbors, neighbor couriers sign up for the service, have GPS enabled on their phone and receive “jobs” while they are enroute.

So now say Sally is passing by Panera and they are networked into the Nearbors program. I can order a half sandwich and macaroni and cheese and have Sally bring it to me on her way back to her office.

The best part is that through Nearbors they already have my payment information. When Sally gets to checkout she shares a QR code unique to my payment information order and voila it’s paid for. I can see where Sally is enroute to my home or office in the app and then when she arrives I can click the app one more time to pay her a “commission”.

This idea is very well thought out and according to co-founder Ryan Vannin they hope for global expansion. We got a chance to talk with Vannin who’s native tongue is Italian, so please look past his English and onto this great idea.

Twin Cities Startup: Peerparazzi Tagging Photos At A Whole New Level

Photo apps are now just about a dime a dozen. Many startups think they’re innovating in the photo space, but come to find that another six startups have had the same idea. Tagging photos for social reasons isn’t a new idea. In fact we just reported on Brooklyn startup Kapture that allows you to take pictures, on assignment, tag them and become a “brand ambassador” for rewards.

A new startup in St.Paul Minnesota is looking to maximize tagging in a social photo app. The startup is called Peerparazzi.

Peerparazzi says they provide an exciting new picture taking and social experience. Everything in the photo can be tagged, the people, places and things. Tagging photos within Peerparazzi allows you to automatically send the photos to the people that are in them.

On the business side, businesses can claim themselves in photos so that tags become interactive. A tag for a Wendy’s or McDonald’s could send a user to an interactive promotion. A tag for a shopping mall could send out a daily deal. A tag for a museum could send a user to a website.

Peerparazzi founder Damen Johnson believes that people are more likely to interact with product photos shot by their friends and family rather than just regular advertising.

We got a chance to talk with Johnson about Peerparazzi. Check out the interview below:

UK Startup Swogo Launches The “Best Way To Find Products” Starting With Laptops

According to various consumer electronic trade publications the average consumer takes three weeks to make a decision on a laptop. A new UK startup called Swogo is looking to take that decision making time down to seconds.

Swogo says the main hurdle in making a purchasing decision is the way people search for items. Either they have an idea in their mind at what they want to purchase and then go to a consumer electronics retailer for comparison shopping.

Other consumers take to gigantic search engines like Google and Bing. The problem with traditional search engines is that they lead to information and not answers. Sifting through that information and then vetting it against paid ad campaigns can often lead consumers down the wrong path. In this case they either make the wrong purchasing decision or they prolong the decision making process further.

Swogo plans on becoming a recommendation connection engine for many types of products but they are starting with laptops. The site launched on Monday afternoon in the UK with laptops only and plans on expanding their product line and their global reach this year. By the end of 2013 they plan on adding tablets, smartphones, cameras and TVs.

Sure there are plenty of other electronic and gadget sites out there but Swogo says they have an algorithm that aides customers in making their important purchasing decisions,reducing the time down to seconds.

Check out these links:

Swogo is on the web here

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We Talk With 500 Startups, Madrid Startup, Traity: Recruitment With Trust & Personality

We’ve reported on countless startups that are striving to re-invent the interview and recruitment process. It seems that recruitment may be one of the hottest startup spaces in 2012. How can you separate the good and the bad? Well one way is by knowing that Dave McClure’s 500 startups is backing this Madrid startup, Traity.

Traity is attacking the recruitment space with analytics, data, and endorsement. When you look up a book or something that may be a bit new to you on Amazon.com, you’re a lot more comfortable knowing that the book has 100+ positive reviews right? If you’re like me and willing to take a chance on a book, having 100 reviews either positive or negative is typically an indicator that it’s at least worth a look.

Well that’s where Traity starts. Their recruitment platform reports are made up of endorsements from several people.

The other place where Traity is making a difference is in personality. Traity positions themselves as a personality based engine, personality test or as it suggests on their website, personality game. Traity is measuring the personality strengths in people like perseverance or how proactive they will be. A candidate could look perfect on paper but they could be a bump on a log in real life. These are all factors you need to know when hiring a candidate, that you may not get to see until the interview.

Speaking of interviews, here’s an interview with Juan Cartagena, co-founder of 500 startups, startup Traity

Chicago Startup: Barandwaitstaff.com A Jobs Network For The Service Industry

While some consider waiting tables stepping stone jobs, there are plenty of career minded people in the field. Perhaps you want a job that doesn’t require a lot of thinking so that you can pay the bills and work on a side startup. Perhaps you actually make really good money waiting tables and so no reason for change. Possibly, you like working with people and feel most comfortable helping customers.

For whatever reason there are thousands of people who are perfectly fine, if not extremely happy, in the service industry. A new Chicago startup, barandwaitstaff.com is going to make it easier for professional service industry folks to find the best service industry jobs. In fact, even though there are thousands of restaurants in every state, the service industry has gone rather unnoticed in the recruitment space.

Barandwaitstaff.com promises to make it easy for anyone looking for work in the service industry to find it, and vice versa.

The startup is led by two brothers Len and Jim Kazmierczak. Both brothers hold history degrees. At one point they had bought a small live music bar in the area. However with the economic downturn it became harder and harder to keep the doors open and eventually closed it down. After closing the business down they decided they reflected on what they could have done differently in their business. Staffing was one of those things. With that Barandwaistaff.com was born.

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