Interviews Archives - Page 3 of 57

Manalto Wants to Solve Social for Enterprises

What’s your startup called?

Manalto Social Media ERP

What’s your big idea?

Manalto is changing the way social media is managed inside enterprise.

We’re enabling organizations to manage social media content with greater efficiency and alignment to their operations, with seamless integration with marketing and communications processes and activity.

Manalto is an end-to-end social media management platform, powered by an innovative backend technology which has been engineered for enterprise. Our cloud-based social media management solution allows SMB’s and multi-site or multi-brand organizations greater control to create and efficiently manage fully customized Facebook pages, regulate user permissions, and monitor and engage with local communities on Facebook and Twitter from a centralized dashboard.

Manalto enables

o Improved brand management across organizations of different sizes and structures, from a single business to a multi-site, or multi-product enterprise

o Greater agility for an organization to manage operational and reputational risks, through built in system controls expected of an enterprise system

o Increased delivery of operational efficiencies

What’s the story behind your idea?

Manalto formed from the need to address a significant challenge and barrier-to-entry facing multi-site, multi-brand organizations wanting to adopt social media into their existing traditional-digital suite of sales and marketing activity, but not able to find the right solution that delivered the same level of rigor, brand control and granular-level user management controls. Manalto is positioning itself as a mid-tier to top tier social media management software provider, architecting enterprise-grade solutions for single and multi-site organizations – such as a franchise group, wanting to sustainably and efficiently integrate social media management into their core operations and marketing activity.

Manalto also offers a robust SMB solution. SMBs are a critical market for Manalto given SMBs make up a large percentage of the business sector. The Manalto SMB solution which enables a business to manage a single social account using Manalto, offers the same management features as the Enterprise solution.

While the DIY SMB solution and DIY Enterprise solutions are available directly through the Manalto website our primary approach to the SMB market is through the ISP and Hosting company channel. Where an SMB is going to be able to purchase and use the Manalto software using their hosting account.

Who are the founders?

Anthony Owen

Where are you located?

Currently in Melbourne, Australia; and Santa Monica, CA

What’s the startup scene like there?

The start up scene in Australia is alive and active. There are a lot of innovative companies, talent and technologies in Australia that have both a local and global focus.

Australian-founded technology companies that make their foray into the USA are generally highly-regarded. However, unfortunately not everyone takes the leap into the USA market and choose to remain with a local focus.

I think one of the challenges facing start ups in Australia is the lack of Seed capital and Series A investors available locally. Typically, early stage companies in Australia are expected to be generating substantial revenue to attract investment interest and hence tend to source lead investors, in particular, outside Australia.

What milestones have you reached?

Manalto has achieved significant traction and successes in its short life to date.

Since it build and launch in Australia 12 months ago, the team has released two substantial upgrades to our software and is at now at version 3 and soon V3.1. The solution has come leaps and bounds and we work closely with organizations to shape our solution to solve problems.

We relocated the business to the USA in December and have been rapidly building momentum, ramping up our sales and marketing activity, expanding our team and creating a footprint for Manalto in the USA.

What are your next milestones?

Manalto plans to continue to drive our growth in the USA and cast the net wide – extending the solution to as many organizations and developing our distribution channels. We will close a Series A Round, and look to expand inside European and Asian markets, while accelerating our growth in the USA.

We have a comprehensive and innovative technical development pipeline that will see the Manalto solution integrated with more social media platforms, CMS tools, advertising management tools and e-commerce solutions.

Where can people find out more?

People can follow us on Twitter (www.twitter.com/ManaltoInc) and/or FB (www.facebook.com/ManaltoInc), and go to our website (www.manalto.com).

Greek Startup Mageca Builds the First App Store for Interactive Apps

What’s your startup called and what’s your big idea?

Mageca is the first app-store for interactive applications using 3D Sensors that recognize gesture, voice & vision. Our main goal is to create a web space where applications for a variety of uses can be found from the end-user. The latter can vary from a parent playing with its kids at their living room or a healthcare institute that needs a touchless solution for the sterilized environment of an operating room.

Mageca’s mission is to bring HCI technologies into people’s everyday life. We aim to become the reference point for Human Computer Interaction. We strongly feel that touchless technologies, gesture control & motion recognition enabled devices will become the next big thing regarding the way people interact with machines.

What’s the story behind your idea?

The marketplace aims to incentivize developers through offering them a space to promote their work while creating a community between sensors manufacturers, users and creators for the first time.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

We are a team of 3 enthusiastic entrepreneurs that came together 2 years ago. Antonis, is the founder of the company along with his 3 brothers that for the last 14 years have been working together for the last 14 years, building their company from scratch. It all started when they started the process of developing an application (using kinect) for their store- a virtual fitting room.Through this process we realized not only the great capabilities of the new technologies but the pain of users and developers that dont have a specific marketplace.

Galateia joined the team after she came back from London, having graduated from UCL with an Msc at TE Entrepreneurship, given her genuine interest in gesture- recognition technologies and experience working with startups at UK. Mariana, with an experience of 7 years in the retail industry and working as a costumer for the past 5 she is giving her valuable inputs regarding sales.

Our 2 great advisors: Savvas Georgiou, CTO at Daily Secret and Suneil Mishra, working with Primesense the past years are continuously helping with their contacts and deep knowledge of the industry we are operating in.

Where are you located, and what is the ecosystem like there?

Mageca is located in Greece, Athens. The start-ups scene has really exploded here over the last couple of years, and it’s been a real pleasure to watch. In 2013, Greek startups raised more than 55 million dollars in capital.

The country’s economy has been spiraling downwards for the last four years. That, has forced businesses and innovators to aim globally and think big.

Why now?

For Mageca, we believe that this is the ideal time & place to pursue our vision and embrace the opportunity arising around touchless technologies and be first movers in the industry.

What milestones have you reached?

Since we have been running the company since May 2013 we are proud to say that we have already reached significant milestones.

We have already established a network of 750 developers nationwide along with a base of registered users. Another major achievement is the support we have these 2 years from major companies operating in the industry. Microsoft, Intel, Tobii & Softkinetic are the companies providing us with developer’s kits for their new products, to review and use before their official launch.

Furthermore, we have managed to participate in worldwide events presenting our work, such is “TEDxAcademy”, “TEDxAUEB”, “Startup Turkey”, “Startup Berlin”, “Rising Ideas” and we were also sponsoring HackaNUI”. The past 3 months we were one of the winning startup companies participating in the biggest accelerator in Greece: “Cosmote Startup”.

What are your next milestones?

The goals we are aiming to achieve within the next 6 months is to secure a funding round that will enable us maintain the quality of application uploaded on site and further enhance the marketplace with new tools and services responding to the needs of our network of developers and sensors’ manufacturers. We are aiming to have 35 brand new applications uploaded on site within this period and extended customer base, including business clients such is hospitals and schools.

Our new redesigned website and appstore is about to be launched within May, with new apps and our blog with all the news and hot picks to keep an eye on around gesture recognition.

Where can people find out more?

We are always happy to get to know you!

You can reach us via

• Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mageca/566846519998879

• Twitter: @MagecaLabs

• E-mail: info@mageca.com

and of course through the website: http://www.mageca.com/

Flashnotes Helps Students Study–And Make Money

If you’re the smart kid in class, it’s time to stop doing everyone’s studying for free.

Flashnotes.com is a peer-to-peer marketplace for college notes and study guides. Students post their guides on the platform, and each sells for around $10.

Started by Mike Matousek during his senior year at Kent State, the company has grown quickly in the last few years.

In February they closed a $3.6 million Series A led by Stage 1 Ventures.

And, yes, you really can make money selling your notes online. According to the leaderboard on the Flashnotes homepage, Tony2050 from Florida State has pulled in almost &12,000 so far. That’s better than your average part time job!

Check out our Q&A with Mike below:

1) What’s your startup called?

Flashnotes.com is a Boston-based startup that is becoming an influential leader in the higher ed tech space.

2) What’s your big idea and how does it work?

Flashnotes.com is the student-to-student study materials marketplace. The online platform allows college students to buy and sell course specific study materials — study guides,notes, flashcards, video tutorials, and live video help. My company is on a mission to provide college students with the two things they need most – more money & better grades. Our Pays2Study™ approach empowers smart college students to make money from their own study material, while helping other students study smarter to get better grades.

At Flashnotes.com, we want to create an environment that allows college students to have access to the information they need to be successful in their courses. Currently, 42% of college students drop out and it’s often because they are falling behind. Flashnotes.com is on a mission to provide these students with the materials they need to get over that hump by serving content in a variety of forms.

3) What’s the story behind your idea?

I founded Flashnotes.com in 2010, when I was a senior at Kent State University. My idea for the company came when I was taking a statistics class that many of my classmates struggled with. The course came naturally to me, and it wasn’t long before students were hunting me down for my study guides and notes. Soon after, Flashnotes.com was born, and is now used by college students at universities and colleges across the country.

4) Who are the founders?

As mentioned previously, I founded Flashnotes.com while I was a senior at Kent State University.

5) Where are you located?

Flashnotes.com is located in Boston’s Faneuil Hall marketplace.

6) What’s the startup scene like there?

Boston’s innovation economy is thriving, and it really is a hub for technology startups and young entrepreneurs. In recent years, an entire Innovation District has emerged along the South Boston Waterfront, and with so many local colleges and universities, there’s no shortage of talent for the city’s burgeoning community of web and technology startups.

7) What milestones have you reached?

In the last year, Flashnotes.com has seen rapid adoption at colleges and universities across the country with a 175% growth in users. In the last two months we also raised $3.6 million in Series A venture funding and acquired Moolaguides, an online study materials marketplace with a strong user base in Florida.

8) What are your next milestones?

This year, Flashnotes.com is focused on expansion to additional colleges and universities across the U.S. We’re also looking to empower students with registered disabilities with our online marketplace and are actively looking to work with universities’ disability offices to offset program costs, increase note-taker retention throughout the semester, and enable these students to have access to critical course material.

9) Where can people find out more?

To find out more information about Flashnotes.com, readers can visit our website at www.flashnotes.com, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter, @Flashnotes.

Chef’s Roll Makes Chefs’ Online Presence As Fancy As Their Cuisine

There are a lot of startups catering to the social media needs of a niche population. Skills that many take for granted in the tech world often don’t easily fit into the lives of other professionals. But, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have a sufficient online presence.

San Diego-based Chef’s Roll is looking to help chefs create a stellar web presence, helping them network and possibly gain the attention of shows like Top Chef.

Check out our Q&A with Chef’s Roll below:

What is your startup called?

Chef’s Roll

What’s the story behind your idea?

The founders of San Diego-based Chef’s Roll have always been passionate about the culinary industry, but it was only recently that they made a rather surprising discovery: the quality of a chef’s online presence almost never matches the quality of their cuisine.

That’s where Chef’s Roll comes in: to help these time-oppressed culinary artists look as brilliant as their food tastes. The culinary world is “hungry” for this tool.

With this kind of need, the sky’s the limit for this company!

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

The founders are:

Thomas Keslinke: A 13-year hospitality industry veteran, Thomas is co-founder of Chef’s Roll, an online platform for chefs across the globe to showcase their talents, career achievements and unique style through professional profiles. It’s a visually-stunning Linkedin for chefs. He was formerly CEO and executive chef at the gourmet catering and private dining company Eat Prive. Earlier in his career, Keslinke was a conference and event manager for Deloitte and also a consultant for award-winning restaurants, including top dining establishments in the Cayman Islands and the Virgin Islands and was restaurant manager of the famed Willard Intercontinental Hotel in Washington, D.C. Keslinke earned his degree in Hospitality and Tourism from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.

Frans van der Lee: Frans van der Lee has 15 years of experience in web development, databases and UX design, including stints at start-ups, large technology companies and the US Army. He is the technical co-founder of Chef’s Roll. He has lived and traveled all over the world and being a home chef and BBQ champion, he is as passionate about the subject matter as the mechanics.

Where are you based?

We are based in San Diego.

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

San Diego is a very different startup scene than most cities. There’s a unique camaraderie among startups, with incubators emerging as people want to see San Diego get a more active investor community. In fact, Forbes Magazine just ranked San Diego one of the best places for startups.

There are resources and money to be invested — and a friendly atmosphere for new business. The vast

majority of startup companies in the San Diego area are chipmakers and Biotech, which makes Chef’s Roll a unique find. People get excited about Chef’s Roll because everyone loves food and wine.

What problem do you solve?

Working chefs often don’t have the time or budget to create a customized web portfolio, and existing job sites don’t have the tools to bring a chef’s unique skillsets and experience to life. To solve this widespread challenge, Chef’s Roll was born.

“Presentation is everything” is true for all chefs, and Chef’s Roll’s mission is to advance the culinary profession by helping to promote the chefs that are making it happen. From executive chefs to culinary students, Chef’s Roll welcomes you to the table.

Why now?

The social media revolution has created a very real opportunity for Chef’s Roll to become THE worldwide network for professional chefs. With social media channels starting to also move into niche trade areas for professionals, it’s time for chefs to have a resource like this one.

Meanwhile, with the rapidly changing evolution of the job market in the culinary industry, “I’m too busy” is no longer a good enough excuse for a chef not to have a clean, cutting-edge professional profile. With the easy tools available now, chefs can finally get a profile page up both quickly and with knowledge that “presentation is everything.”

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

We were very proud to have the smash hit reality show Top Chef contact one of the chefs listed on our site for one of their upcoming programs. We have already added hundreds of new profiles and received overwhelmingly positive response about the site’s clean look and design. From Michelin-starred toques and celebrity chefs to emerging chefs and culinary students, the culinary community is very excited about this new platform.

What are your next milestones?

The next step is literally to break out on a global scale, and become THE worldwide network for professional chefs. We want our job board to be the industry leader because that’s where the top talent will be. It’s important for us to bridge the gap between true talent and open positions. As a tech company, we also want to foster a passionate and influential social media following, inclusive of top toques, internationally.

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

Any interested readers should look us up right away at: ChefsRoll.com.

Chimpmint Takes on Buffer, Feedly, and All Those Other Guys

monk1

Those of us in the tech world know all about social media marketing and finding and sharing content online. We know that it’s good for our brands and reputations, and a lot of us think carefully about how we want to handle social media.

Your average small business? Maybe, but maybe not. And without some level of social media savvy, they can get lost in the crowd.

That’s where Chimpmint comes in. They’re looking to curate and share content for small businesses who don’t necessarily have the time or motivation to learn social media marketing. There are plenty of tools that do what they do, but Chimpmint is honing in on the customers who will be overwhelmed by the more popular tools.

They face a few challenges, though. Most significantly, marketing to small businesses–and convincing them they need this–could prove difficult. The companies they’re talking about can often be averse to the Internet in general, much less social media.

Also, you know, Buffer, Feedly…

Check out Chimpmint’s Q&A below. Then hop over and let them know what you think.

What is the name of your startup?

Chimpmint Content Curating & Sharing

What’s your big idea?

If traditional marketing is land and social media is the ocean, then many startups, small businesses, and personal brands are lost at sea.
Every brand, at one point or another, has the same two core problems when it comes to social media marketing:

I don’t know what to post on social media to build my follower base and to engage with them.
I don’t have the time to post.

So how does Chimpmint help? To solve the first problem, we search, find, and present related content to that brand. Doesn’t matter what you sell, if you have a brand, then we have quality articles, images, and videos that relates to what your brand. To solve the second problem, Chimpmint helps you share efficiently. Already in our first release, we’ve gotten great feedback on the simplicity of our scheduling feature. And like an infomercial, it gets better! Our next upgrade is coming soon and it’ll will be a game changer. We plan to make social media management as relevant to a business owner as checking an email.

What’s the story behind your idea?

Once upon a time, about 11 months ago, my partner Maurice Prosper and I were working in the web development. One of our early clients, Stacy, owned a small furniture store. To our surprise, just a month after finishing Stacy’s new website, she left us a message stating her dissatisfaction.

What was wrong? The website worked like a well oiled machine.

So we asked Stacy. She told us she feels the site isn’t worth the cost since the traffic to the site stayed the same. So we started our search on Google for a product that can drive traffic to Stacy’s website with social media. Right away, we knew it had to be simple, because Stacy didn’t want to learn social media marketing, and preferably a ‘Smart Software’ that educated users while getting the job done. Unfortunately, we never found this magical software. That’s when we had our “aha moment”.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Maurice Prosper and Michael Tibebu. We met in Mr. Thomas’s history class in high school. Good ‘ole times.

Where are you based?

Chimpmint is based out of Austin, Texas but we service any and all businesses since we provide our services via the internet.

How are you different from the competition? Buffer comes to mind…

We simplified our software while being able to improve efficiency. Our competitors see the demand but see only one layer of the problem. As stated in Question[1], just a scheduling feature isn’t going to cut it for Stacy the store owner. Neither is a bare content aggregate. Chimpmint is the only web application that solves both those problems, while keeping simplicity of the product for our user’s learning curve and user experience.

What milestones have you reached so far?

We just celebrated our 3 month anniversary. That being said, since then we’ve gotten users on Chimpmint giving us great feedback and advice. We’ve legitimatized our online brand @Chimpmint with well over 400 followers. All of which we’ve attained by using our own product. Our blog (blog.chimpmint.com) returning readers. We also showcased at South by South West in Austin, Texas in front of thousands of tech lovers and investors.

What are your next milestones?

Chimpmint next milestone is to reach our goal of signing up our first 1000 businesses. We still have spots open. Sign up at www.chimpmint.com we wont disappoint.

Where can people find out more?

People can find out more about Chimpmint by emailing hello@chimpmint.com.

They can also reach us via our feedback button located on the bottom right corner on www.chimpmint.com

Our first 1000 businesses get a year long free subscription to Chimpmint. Don’t miss out guys, it’s a good time to register at www.chimpmint.com.

Lumiary Gives Indie Retailers a Shot at Competing With the Big Guys

Indie retail (think Etsy and Shopify) is becoming a big deal these days. With these revolutionary platforms, every day entrepreneurs and makers can sell products direct to consumers. By cutting out big retailers, these individuals and small companies have higher profit margins and better chance at success.

But, they still lack one thing.

Marketing.

Lumiary, founded by several tech veterans including Etsy’s former head of analytics, solves that problem for them. Their system creates a marketing dashboard that can compete with big companies.

Check out our Q&A with Lumiary below:

1) What’s your startup called?

Lumiary

2) What’s your big idea?

Independent retail has lost half its market share over the past 30 years. At Lumiary, we believe independent makers and brands are now producing some of the best products out there. And because of the internet, they can reach just as many shoppers as large retailers. When it comes to marketing themselves, however, they are wildly outgunned when it comes to budget, data, and expertise. So even with a superior product, independent retailers are being left behind.

Our mission is to help makers and independent brands compete with big brands by leveraging their more personal relationships with their customers, fans, and followers. Lumiary is an integrated marketing platform for indie ecommerce brands that works just like the big data dashboards that all the big guys have, but is tailored for their unique strengths. Currently, the only analytics, marketing, CRM options for these small businesses are point solutions, forcing busy entrepreneurs to pull data from multiple platforms on their own and then attempt to make sense of it.

3) What’s the story behind your idea?

Each of the Lumiary founders approaches indie brand marketing from a different perspective. Carrington comes from Etsy, Charles consulted for American made indie brands, and Matt built multichannel merchandising technology for small retailers. We came together when we collectively realized the widening gap in product quality, originality and authenticity between the big brands and independent ones. We felt more shoppers should be buying products from independent retailers, and our mission is help them take back market share.

4) Who are the founders?

Carrington Williams, formerly head of analytics and business development at Etsy, and Product Manager at AOL

Matthew Knight, formerly from Reconstrukt, EMC and Computer Associates

Charles Valentine, formerly a vice president at Discovery Communications and advisor to Northern Grade and Pierrepont Hicks

5) Where are you located?

Richmond, Va.

6) What’s the startup scene like there?

The startup scene in Richmond is quickly growing and changing. New incubators have popped up in the past 2-3 years, we are a part of one called 80amps, backed by the nationally recognized Martin Agency. And there is a huge creative/maker culture coming out of VCU Design and Brand schools.

7) What milestones have you reached?

We have just now come out of our beta, and now have our first paying customers. We’ve also gone through the painstaking work of establishing critical integrations with the leading ecommerce platforms, social networks and analytics tools, including Shopify, Big Commerce, Magento, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and Google Analytics.

8) What are your next milestones?

Up next we’re going integrate with Etsy stores, so we can offer our easy to use marketing platform to the millions of amazing stores on Etsy. We’re also launching soon our customer micro-segmenting tool to allow brands be more personal in customer communications and thus increase sales from email campaigns.

9) Where can people find out more?

www.lumiary.com

Healthcare MarketMaker Is Building the Zillow for Healthcare Practices

healthcaremarketmaker

Nashville is a city built on healthcare, so it’s not surprising we see a lot of healthcare startups come out of it.

Healthcare MarketMaker is trying to become the “Zillow for healthcare transactions.” Essentially, they are building a marketplace for doctors and dentists looking to sell their practices.

This is one of those solutions you just won’t find in Silicon Valley. Read more about Healthcare MarketMaker in our Q&A below:

What’s your startup called?

Healthcare MarketMaker is empowering healthcare buyers and sellers. Think Zillow for the healthcare transaction space.

What’s your big idea?

Healthcare MarketMaker provides online comprehensive marketplace technologies to healthcare buyers and sellers. Healthcare MarketMaker is the solution for originating and closing medical and dental practice transactions. Healthcare MarketMaker also offers specific transaction and marketing services for physicians, practice brokers, equipment brokers and other transaction vendors to ensure the best service and efficiency. Healthcare MarketMaker is an early stage company founded in 2013 and is currently in residence at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center.

What’s the story behind your idea?

After spending 20 years in the healthcare transaction space, working for companies like HCA, Ernst & Young and others, I realized that deals were still being originated and completed without technology enablement. There did not exist a robust healthcare transaction platform. Healthcare MarketMaker is that agnostic, cloud based SaaS platform.

The key to our marketing is the depth and positioning of our strategic partnerships. We believe in creating exclusive partnerships with specific subspecialty associations in each market. For example, partnering with chiropractic associations in each state will enable us to create more value for the association members while offering a means to increase membership levels for the associations. We also enrich associations’ value by providing content about the marketplace in their annual meetings, newsletters, and other communications.

Our practice broker partnerships also enjoy early and qualified lead origination as our platform identifies active physician buyers and sellers vis-a-vis the association relationship. When a physician may be looking to buy or sell a practice, he may look for guidance from his state association.

Currently, the healthcare market is being disrupted by two very large macro drivers. We have an aging physician population in the US. Over 33% of physicians, or approximately 400,000 physicians, are aged 55 or older. These physicians will be looking to retire and exit their practices in the next ten years. Also, the Affordable Care Act has increased vertical and horizontal integration in the provider space. Sole proprietors are selling to hospitals and large multispecialty groups in an effort to create scale to combat downward pricing pressures and compliance requirements. Therefore, the number of healthcare transactions is continuing to accelerate. The size of the US market is approximately $29 billion annually.

Who are the founders?

As I mentioned, I founded HCMM after in 2013 after continuing to hear physicians and dentists in the marketplace indicate a need for help in sourcing a good partner to help them buy or sell their practice. We’ve built strong Executive and Advisory Boards to help us in this crucial developmental stage.

Where are you located?

We are currently based out of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, not only a great resource for the regional start-up community but for the larger business and creative communities.

What’s the startup scene like there?

The startup scene has really exploded in Nashville in the last 5 years. The resources available to entrepreneurs are more easily found and the local community with regard to vendors who understand the needs of startups has grown more sophisticated. HCMM tries to use local vendors specializing in startup services. For example, we’ve use CentreSource to develop a product demo that we use daily as our electronic business card. Also, we’ve used Ethos3 for pitch deck development.

What milestones have you reached?

We recently signed an LOI with Alliant Capital Advisors, the largest business broker in the Southeast. Also, we raised our initial seed capital and have begun our beta platform development with Objectstream.

What are your next milestones?

To continue to develop more relationships with practice brokers and medical and dental associations. We are also raising additional capital to hire the right tech co founder and stand up the market ready product.

Where can people find out more?

Please follow Healthcare MarketMaker on LinkedIn or our landing page at marketmakerinc.com.

New App Widdle Wants to Become Your Social Media Assistant

We all love our social media. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest–social media has taken over most of our lives.

But, they each have their own language, and when you want to check those statuses, you have to bounce from app to app.

Widdle wants to change that by putting all of your feeds in one place, making them easier to manage.

The question is, do users really care that much? Does it matter that you have to switch apps or that each app uses different symbols? After all, some say the networks are becoming more and more like each other as time goes on.

What do you think? Widdle is now available in the App Store for you to see for yourself.

What is your startup called?

Widdle

What’s the story behind your idea?

Widdle was thought up over spring break 2012 by Matt Strayer and myself, Aj Mihalic, during a nice bike ride through the metroparks here in Ohio. While riding, we spoke about life, our future aspirations, and anything else that came to mind. One of those things was social media. After talking for a bit about it we realized that social networks weren’t as useful and easy to use as they could be.

You see, social networks are all decentralized from one another, fragmented, and most importantly, they make it incredibly difficult to find the things that we all care about. This problem is only made worse as their number of users grow and they gain mainstream popularity because more content is being created whether or not we are interested in it. So, after a few brainstorming sessions trying to solve this problem the idea for Widdle was created. Now we are here, on the brink of Widdle’s launch into the App Store.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

Matt Strayer, Cory Breed, and I, Aj Mihalic, are the original founders. I have a background in design, specifically UI and UX. Matt is a front-end developer with a sound financial and business-oriented process of thought. Cory is a software engineer, with a good deal of experience in larger software companies and a strong focus in iOS development.

Where are you based?

Cleveland, OH. #CleveLandWeLove

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

It is by no means Silicon Valley – the lack of sunshine and frigid winter temperatures being one of many differences. The scene in Cleveland is still in its infancy. However, it has grown a great deal in the past year. The area is really beginning to embrace startups and grasp the mentality that goes along with them. Cleveland is also doing everything in its power and taking every step it can toward making itself a place for startups to thrive.

What problem do you solve?

Simply? Social media overload. This age is one of social sharing. We have all these ways to like and share posts that we appreciate, but no simple and easy way to find them, let alone hide the tidbits that we dislike without unfriending or unfollowing someone. Being able to do this not only makes social media more enjoyable, but gives us the opportunity to find the things that really matter to us quickly and easily. What currently exists is not the best answer, so we’ve created a new way in which to do this.

Why now?

Widdle is really relevant NOW because social media is still growing extremely fast and with it our need to manage and curate it.

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

We were lucky enough to assemble a solid team of talented developers and creative people who full heartedly believe in Widdle and our mission. While, this may not seem like a major milestone to anyone else, it is a pretty important one to us. We have also raised a small round of seed funding and gained an experienced and extremely knowledgeable serial starter as an advisor, Mr. Ed Buchholz from Expense Bot.

What are your next milestones?

Launching to the Apple App Store within the month and hoping that people will love to use Widdle as much as we do. We also have a few great ideas for it in the pipeline that we anticipate will only help people find it even more useful, but first things first.

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

www.widdle.it

Our Blog | Twitter | Facebook

@aj_mihalic | @matt_strayer

iQuantifi Launches to Manage Your Finances Virtually

What is your startup called?

iQuantifi

What’s the story behind your idea?

iQuantifi was founded by Tom and Karen White. Tom is an investment adviser who believes technology can help millions of millennials and young families achieve their goals.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

Tom White – Founder and CEO, investment adviser who has founded and sold two investment advisory firms.

Karen White – Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Client service and product development expert formerly at CAP Partners.

Where are you based?

Nashville, TN

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

Active, but more focused on healthcare.

What problem do you solve?

We provide comprehensive financial advice to young families and millennials that don’t know what to do with their finances and cannot afford or do not qualify to work with an advisor.

Why now?

It’s time. Millennials will be the first generation that will be more comfortable reviewing and planning their finances through technology than with a live person.

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

Won Best of Show at Finovate. Completed alpha stage. Public launch.

What are your next milestones?

Finish raise of $1 million and 10,000 users

Where can people find out more?

iquantifi.com

Any social media links you want to share?

@iquantifi https://www.facebook.com/iquantifi

Tandum Takes On The Live Event Ticketing Market

It’s a common complaint: buying tickets to events is frustrating, expensive, and annoying. UX is out the window for most platforms, and it’s never fun to buy tickets. Nashville and Charlotte-based Tandum wants to change that.

It’s hard to miss music industry startups in Nashville. Basically throw a rock and you’ll hit one of them. Besides that, there are a lot of ticketing startups out there. Tandum will have a battle to prove they’re the best. But, hey, a little competition never hurt anyone.

Check out our Q&A with cofounders Doug Pace and Tyler Griffith below:

What’s your startup called?

Tandum

What’s your big idea?

Our big idea started with two questions:

1) “Why does a ticket fee vary depending on the price of a ticket when the service is the same?” and

2) “Why do online ticketed events sell out so fast?”

As we learned the answers to these questions, we had more questions…and then some ideas. These ideas soon became the basis for our early concept to fundamentally change the live event experience.

Through Tandum, we are committed to better serve all parties involved in the live event – the fans, the artists, the venues, the promoters, and the event staff. We believe there is a better way to manage ticket fees. We believe there is a better way for venues to manage their events. We believe there is a more efficient way for artists to connect with fans. We believe that fans deserve a better live event experience and Tandum aims to facilitate that experience through a fully-integrated, user-friendly platform. Tandum connects all users and drives efficiencies that greatly benefit the entire live event ecosystem.

What’s the story behind your idea?

We go to a lot of concerts. Though we were never strangers to exorbitant ticket fees, there were three particular events that we found especially frustrating. These three events led us to question some of live entertainment’s fundamental principles, and inspired us to create the Tandum concept.

On one occasion, we were trying to buy tickets to see one of our favorite bands, only for that event to sell out within minutes of going on sale. The website through which we were trying to buy the tickets had limited bandwidth and prevented us from obtaining our tickets. We immediately went to a secondary ticketing website to try and buy tickets, only to find that tickets were being sold at 3 or 4 times face value. As big fans of this particular band, we asked ourselves, “why aren’t we able to get tickets or reasonably afford scalped tickets to see one of our favorite bands?”

On a separate occasion, we tried buying tickets to see one of our favorite bands play a two-night event and decided to buy the tickets through the band’s fan club. We were met with extremely unfavorable and restrictive ticket policies that had been put in place to prevent ticket scalping. While we are certainly not fans of scalping, these well-intentioned ticket policies were overly restrictive and burdensome on the ticket buyer.

The final frustrating story involved the purchase of a ticket to see a popular musician. As expected, tickets sold out quickly and I ended up purchasing a scalped ticket. I learned an unfortunate lesson when I showed up at the door and the barcode on my ticket was not accepted– I was denied entrance because someone sold me a duplicate ticket which had already been scanned. At Tandum we are working toward eliminating these problems from the live event setting.

Who are the founders?

Doug Pace and Tyler Griffith.

Where are you located?

We are currently working out of Nashville, TN and Charlotte, NC.

What’s the startup scene like there?

The startup scenes in Nashville and Charlotte are young, but vibrant. We are fortunate to be in these cities which are placing an increased focus on helping startup companies grow and succeed. Nashville and Charlotte don’t necessarily have the capital and resources as Silicon Valley or New York City; however, it is exciting to see people in the community working really hard to develop the startup scene through accelerator programs, shared workspace for entrepreneurs, and easy access to networks of experts in the fields of business strategy, software development, and finance.

What milestones have you reached?

The Tandum concept has been in development for two years. During that time, we have been fortunate to speak with many different people in the live entertainment industry who have provided invaluable insights and guidance as we continue to develop the concept. At the end of 2013, we partnered with Centresource, a leading software agency in Nashville, TN, to develop a clickable iPhone and iPad prototype. In early 2014, we met with live entertainment venues and music festivals to demo the prototype and received extremely positive feedback. We also received a handful of letters of intent from venues that are interested in using our product once it is developed.

What are your next milestones?

Our next milestones are raising funding, hiring additional employees, and launching the fully-developed product. We have already identified our initial venue partners that we will work with to test and launch the product, so our next milestones are dependent on raising sufficient capital for software development. Our goal is to have the first product launch near the end of 2014. To date, we have been very quiet about Tandum, but we are so excited to unveil it when the product is launched.

Where can people find out more?

Please stop by our landing page, www.tandum.us. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter. If you are an investor or a computer programmer and would like to be part of Tandum, please send us an email at info@tandum.us.

CollabMachine Helps Musicians Find Collaborators Online

music startups

Musicians spend a lot of time looking for collaborations in analog (i.e. the newspaper).

But, besides taking too much time, it can be impossible to find just the right people to collaborate with. CollabMachine is trying to solve that problem with a platform that connects musicians and makes it easy to collaborate online.

Check out our Q&A with CollabMachine below:

1) What’s your startup called?

We are CollabMachine – the world’s first social music collaboration platform.

2) What’s your big idea?

CollabMachine provides a way for musicians from around the world to create music online as a community. Our site is the first of its kind and we’re really excited about bringing this innovation to the music scene.

Currently, musicians spend hours looking through classified ads looking for other players with whom to collaborate and create songs. We felt that this process can be taken online where collaborative projects can be found much more quickly and easily. The most innovative aspect of the project is centered on the Musefeed, which delivers projects instantly that pertinent to a musician’s particular abilities and preferences.

So, for example, a jazz guitarist will receive instant updates on jazz collabs that need a guitar part. This means less time spent looking for projects and more time spent actually making music. Additionally, each member can customize the Musefeed and get tailored updates based on date, genre, instruments needed, etc.

As for the actual production of each collab, we felt that the best way for musicians to record their music is on their own computers with their preferred workflow. We did not want to impede on the recording process with our site so we allow for the recording to occur offline before it is uploaded to the collab. This also solves the problem of latency, which could otherwise impede the recording process due to interruptions or slowdowns in internet connectivity.

3) What’s the story behind your idea?

As musicians growing up in the busy city of New York, we thought that finding others to play with would be easy. However, we soon became involved in the long and tedious process of finding other like-minded musicians, scheduling jam sessions, sitting in traffic, and often failing to find that perfect musical chemistry.

We realized that finding musicians for collaboration was a problem faced by thousands of players like us around the world. That’s when we decided to create CollabMachine.

With CollabMachine, songs can be created track-by-track online in a community-based environment where other musicians can provide feedback on individual tracks (such as the drum or guitar track). They can also help the collab creator by voting on the optimal combination of tracks to create a complete song. This is especially useful when, let’s say, two guitarists submit guitar solos for the same part of a song.

Allowing community interaction in this manner is a new way to approach music creation. It’s a really fun way to participate and get more involved in the creative process!

Aside from being a great collaborative tool, CollabMachine is also a great way for artists to get more involved with their fans! Imagine the band Metallica uploading their newest unfinished song and encouraging fans to contribute a ripping guitar solo. Imagine Eminem releasing a beat and calling on rappers from all over the world to add their hottest verses. This would be a completely new way for musicians to connect with their fans. If only this existed while we were aspiring musicians in college!

4) Who are the founders?

The founders of CollabMachine are Alexander Efros and Dan Lipchanskiy. Alex and Dan are successful entrepreneurs with a couple of successful businesses under their belts in the financial industry as well as the rapidly growing electronic cigarette industry.

5) Where are you located?

CollabMachine is based in downtown Los Angeles.

6) What’s the startup scene like there?

Being in the middle of the mecca of entertainment – Los Angeles, we believe that this is a perfect environment to grow CollabMachine. Being close to San Francisco and the Bay Area is also a tremendous help as it provides access to incredible creative minds in the tech industry. It’s also where many of the greatest startup projects thrive.

7) What milestones have you reached?

We’ve already finished all of the necessary design work for the website. This includes the layouts for all of the main pages of the site. We’ve also recruited a few very important sponsors for our project. Earnie Ball, Esoteric Guitars, Rock N Roll Industries Magazine, and there should be a few more coming. Our latest milestone is the launch of our Indiegogo campaign.

We have decided to reward our contributors with exciting perks and a whole lot of music-related gear, apparel, and accessories to raise the capital necessary to fund the programming and production of CollabMachine. Contributors can receive everything from guitar strings and magazine subscriptions to having your name featured in a song recorded by us, Alex and Dan! We really want to get people involved and have fun while we raise the necessary capital to bring the world’s first social music collaboration platform to life.

8) What are your next milestones?

The next milestones include assembling the technical team to assist with the coding and implementation of CollabMachine. All of the technology that we need already exists. Now it’s a matter of combining these technologies in an innovative way to make CollabMachine a reality.

9) Where can people find out more?

Our website, www.collabmachine.com, is a great source for information regarding our project. Our indiegogo campaign just launched and can be found here: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/collabmachine-the-social-music-collaboration-platform/x/6683673.

Everhour Hopes to Make Time Tracking Easy and Fun

We’ve always said the best startup ideas are born from personal needs. The team at Weavora believe that, too, so when they created a time tracking tool for internal use, they figured they should share the love with everyone.

Find out about Everhour below:

1) What’s your startup called?

Our company is called Weavora, founded in 2009. We’ve been specializing in web development and consulting and about half a year ago decided to start a startup within the company, and it turned out to be a second breath for the team.

2) What’s your big idea?

Our cherished startup child is Everhour, a time tracking and reporting web app. It embodies our idea of a tool somewhat geeky and so simple and lightweight that even developers (who usually hate tracking hours and time sheets) love using it.

Everhour helps to track hours and analyze them afterwards via detailed time reports. The app is equally great for tracking personal activities like education, sport, hobbies as well as work. It will be perfect for freelancers who need to provide clients with precise timesheets and company owners who want to track their team’s time. Creating time entries with handy @mentions and #tags is as easy as using social media and virtually takes no time.

Working on the app, we focused on keeping the functionality just to the point with no excessive features or tricky interface. We didn’t want to make a mistake of overloading Everhour with a lot of things that in the end would be redundant. Users value their time too much to waste it on getting their bearing in the app instead of starting using it for its purpose.

Moreover, we wanted to have business software that doesn’t feel fiddly or awkward, because often such kinds of tools lose in design and UX compared to apps for individuals.

3) What’s the story behind your idea?

We are organization junkies to a certain extent, and since the company launch we’ve been searching for ways to keep track of the team’s work and have nice time reports. It was important for us to analyze time spent and provide clients with precise figures and be transparent with them.

We’ve tried out a lot of things and approaches such as non-tracking time (which obviously isn’t the best solution), Excel and Google Drive spreadsheets as well as many popular time management tools and services. But every time we used a new app, something was missing or wasn’t just fitting us. You know what they say – if you want a thing done well, do it yourself, and that’s exactly what we’ve done. We designed a time tracking and reporting app perfect for our team and realized we couldn’t keep it just to ourselves. We thought it would be great to let other people see how easy and pleasant timesheets could be.

4) Who are the founders?

Mike Kulakov (CEO), Sergey Staroverov (COO), and Yury Tolochko (CTO) are the founders of Weavora, fellow students and friends. By the time of starting Weavora, they all had had deep expertise and knowledge of the field which let them avoid lots of stumbling points newly launched startups usually face. Weavora was an opportunity for them to build a dream team and work on challenging projects in line with their vision.

5) Where are you located?

The beautiful city of Minsk, Belarus

6) What’s the startup scene like there?

The startup community has been growing so quickly and actively over the last couple of years that you may call Minsk a second California :) There are a lot of smart, talented and adventurous guys here who are brave enough to bring their dreams to life. IT in general is really booming here with lots of our companies such as Viber, Wargaming, EPAM, MapsWithMe, Viaden, TrackDuck getting to the international level.

7) What milestones have you reached?

Over 1500 users have already joined us at Everhour and we’re extremely excited about it. We stick to the lean startup approach and have never intended to spend tons on advertising, so it has been the word of mouth in action so far. We love our users, are always ready for their feedback and new ideas and suggestions. The team has also recently released an updated version where we polished the interface even more to make projects, organizations, members and clients management maximum simplified.

8) What are your next milestones?

Next on our roadmap is releasing an iPhone version of the app. Lots of our users will be able to take advantage of tracking their time on the go while on meetings or at out-of-office lunches. We are also going to refine the design to provide a highly intuitive user experience. Besides, we’re thinking about adding some helpful integrations and API. And of course, we never stop improving the app performance.

9) Where can people find out more?

You can always get in touch with the team via Twitter at @everhour. Plus we have Everhour blog on time management and productivity. Our company blog is for sharing our insights and experience of working in a small team together with some tech and industry topics covered. And for those having any questions on the functionality, there is a pretty extensive FAQ section.

Caktus Wants to Make Music Discovery Social Again

It seems like everything’s going social these days. Just last week we wrote about Startup Bus company TrustVino, who is trying to put your friends’ favorite wine recommendations on your phone.

The new music app Caktus launched on Sunday at SXSW, and they’re essentially doing the same thing with music.

You sign up through Facebook or Twitter (on your iPhone or iPad). In the app, pins are dropped on a map to show where your friends are listening to music. You can see the song they’re listening to by hovering over the pin, and play a sample or buy the track from iTunes. If you already have the song on your phone, you can listen to it in the app.

The company ran a 6 week beta with 50 users, mostly in the Indianapolis area. In that time, they saw 10,000 plays through the app. That kind of traction got them an invitation to launch and SXSW.

“The app came about because my brother always got to the bands first,” cofounder Dane Regnier told me when we talked at SXSW last weekend. “Once we moved away from each other, it just wasn’t easy to share what music we were listening to anymore. Caktus makes that a lot easier.”

Obviously passionate about what he’s built, Regnier was bouncing and talking fast, quick to explain features and data points from the app.

“We’re social-first,” he said when I asked about Spotify’s stream. “No one else did it that way.”

Most social apps bank on building a huge user base they can then market to. Caktus is going a different way by jumping on the Apple affliate program to bring in revenue.

Despite being “social-first” Caktus will have an uphill fight to battle other discovery methods like Spotify, Pandora, or basic word of mouth. Still, the app is beautifully designed, and like a lot of new music startups, independent artists and bands are a big focus for them. Those little guys can often get lost (or screwed) on the bigger platforms.

Check out Caktus on their website.

Cause Mobile Wallet Helps You Give to Your Favorite Charity

App simulator 1

1. What is your startup called?

Our company is called Cause Mobile Wallet. We are a morally-conscious payment processing platform that re-directs existing dollars to the charity of your choice with each transaction. The donation comes out of the merchant service fee (which companies are already paying) and gets redirected the charity of choice. We have a developed a free, downloadable app that allows consumers to purchase goods and services with their smart phones at participating Cause merchants. A percentage of each transaction will go to the charity or school that the consumer has chosen from our list of pre-vetted organizations. Again, the donations come from the merchant service fees, so it is absolutely free to the consumer, and merchants pay no more than what they are currently paying in transaction fees.

2. What’s your big idea?

Our mission (or big idea) is to create sustainable funding for the charities and schools that need it most. Charities and schools are under-funded. All too often, we see charities asking for donations, children selling products to raise money for their school, and events being thrown to ask for even more money. We’ve developed the solution that redirects existing dollars into the hands of those who need it most. By participating in Cause, charities and schools can have something they’ve never had before, a sustainable flow of income. This will provide the opportunity to focus on what is most important such as, finding a cure, saving a life, educating our children, and making the world a better place. With over $6 trillion transactions processed annually, even a small fraction will make a huge impact. Just imagine…

3. Who are the founders?

The company was officially founded in January 2013 by two neighbors, Brad Barton and Brian Kelly, but the idea has been cultivating for a few years. Barton is the former Vice President of Bartco Lighting. Kelly owned a construction company, and before that he worked in software development and web design in San Francisco.

4. What’s the story behind the idea?

Both founders had separate experiences that seeded this big idea. Brian spent five months in 1984 living in a remote village in the north of the Ivory Coast in Africa as his father, a surgeon, worked in a small hospital on a medical mission. Brian was struck not only by the severe poverty of the people but how little money it actually took to provide healthcare and basic nutrition for people in the area.

Similarly, while Brad was participating in a study abroad program, Semester at Sea, he visited Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (formerly known as Saigon) and came across a group of doctors working for a charity called “Smile Train.” He was stunned when they told him that it only costs $15 to positively change a child’s life forever – which drove home the same lesson that Brian had learned.

Flash forward to recent years. Brad and Brian, now neighbors, both realized how much money was running through the “corporate system” and how little of that money ever helps those in need. It’s a constant battle for non-profits to raise the necessary funding needed to achieve their goals and positively impact the world. In addition, consumers become fatigued by constant donation requests. Along with their usual living expenses, people are also expected to give money to childrens’ fundraisers (buy cookies, wrapping paper, magazines, etc.), donate to charity, and attend events to raise money. It’s a seemingly, never-ending cycle.

This is where the idea for Cause came about. It’s a way to give back without paying any additional money, merely redirecting existing dollars.

5. Where are you located?

We just opened our corporate office in Newport Beach, CA. Newport is considered the “hub of charitable giving” in Orange County, and therefore the perfect area for Cause to take root and flourish.

6. What’s the startup scene like there?

There are not very many tech startups in Orange County, but there are definitely a lot of charities. In addition to being Orange County locals, the large amount of charitable giving is why we’ve chosen to set up our headquarters here, rather than being lost in the clutter of LA.

7. What milestones have you reached?

To date, we’ve set up our main office, signed a strategic partnership with Merchant e-Solutions to provide merchant processing, developed the app, and recently, our app was approved by Apple to be available in the App Store.

8. What are your next milestones?

Our next milestones are the release of the Android version of the app, which should be by the end of the month, and to build a strong network of Cause merchants and customers who care about funding their favorite charities.

9. Where can we find out more?

You can visit our website, http://www.causemobilewallet.com, for more information or email us with any questions: info@causepayments.com. Also, be sure to look for Cause Mobile Wallet in the app store!