Chicago Startup Personify Merges Human Interaction With Digital Content to Make Presentations More Personal

We’re still far away from teleporting technology. In the meantime a Chicago startup called Personify has found a way to make remote presentations more personal.

Using depth sensing camera’s like the one found in the Microsoft Kinect, the company’s product called Personify Life, puts someone giving a presentation as close to being in the room as possible.

“Most remote presentations, including webinars and PowerPoint slideshows, lack the personal component that make in-person communication successful and keep audiences engaged. Personify Live brings those critical elements back by seamlessly merging human interaction with digital content,” a company spokesperson told Nibletz in an interview.

Personify boasts an incredibly well educated team of founders who are working on something that will make boring old meetings much more engaging. It’s almost like a hologram of the presentation giver is in the room.

We got a chance to interview the team from Personify. Check out the interview below.

What is your startup called?

Personify Inc.

What does your company do?

Personify is an immersive video communication company that bridges the gap between communicating remotely and talking face-to-face. Personify products create a deeper sense of presence while remote by seamlessly merging human interaction with digital content.

Personify Live, the flagship product from Illinois-based Personify, uses a virtual-green screen technology called User Extraction to visually immerse the individual in the content they are presenting, enabling the presenters’ body language, passion, enthusiasm and visual persona to dramatically enliven the experience.

With Personify Live, an individual can lead a virtual presentation from anywhere, in a one-to-one or one-to-many setting, and all presentations can be recorded and stored in the cloud. Users simply connect a depth-sensing camera, such as a Microsoft Kinect or ASUS Xtion Pro Live, to his or her PC. Personify Live’s technology was developed for sales and marketing professionals, however, its clients operate in industries ranging from online education to medicine. Personify Live has been adopted by hallmark enterprises and institutions such as SAP, Oracle, LinkedIn, Marketo and the University of Illinois.

The product’s technology is beneficial to a variety of industries, backgrounds and use cases.

Clients across all industries are reporting shorter sales cycles and more engaged audiences. One study found a 60 percent improvement in sales closing rates when online demos were used. In another case, a Personify Live client noted that 90 percent of webinar attendees reported being “more engaged” than with a traditional webinar. Furthermore, studies show a 400 percent increase in perceived learning using Personify Live vs. traditional online education tools.

By using Personify Live, organizations see a substantial increase in its business metrics, including close rates and ROI. Additionally, Personify Live works with WebEx, GoToMeeting, Skype and other traditional Web conferencing solutions for ease of use.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

Personify might have the most well-educated group of co-founders of any startup on the planet. Of the five co-founders, four have Ph.D.s and one has a Master’s degree. Three are professors of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois.

Although academics do not have a history of correlating with entrepreneurs and startups, the University of Illinois, and its engineering department, is bucking that trend. The U of I is well known for startup and entrepreneurial successes including Netscape and YouTube. Personify is one of its most recent.

Sanjay Patel, Personify’s CEO, began his career as a chip designer in the 1990s, later becoming the CTO of Ageia Technologies, a company that developed chips to improve the graphics in video games. In addition to his CEO duties, Sanjay is also a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the U of I. Two other cofounders, Minh Do, Personify’s co-founder and chief scientist, and Wen-mei Hwu, one of the world’s foremost experts in parallel computing, are both professors at the U of I as well.

The depth-based rendering of video utilized for Personify’s two products, Personify Live and zChat, slated to be released this fall, was constructed based on Minh and co-founder Quang Nguyen’s research.

Personify’s fifth co-founder, Dennis Lin, holds a Ph.D. from UIUC, specializes in computer vision and is a leader on Personify’s development team.

Where are you based?

Personify, which is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, also has offices in Champaign and Ho-Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

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

Personify benefits from the location in Chicago thanks to the city’s burgeoning tech scene. Chicago is home to 1871 and TechNexus, some of the most active and innovative startup incubators in the United States.

Why now?

Personify was founded in 2009 after the technologies needed, including depth-sensing, had developed enough to utilize in-product. Personify Live uses various types of cutting-edge technology to connect people instead of distancing them. The field of perceptual computing, thanks to a movement lead by Intel, has developed significantly and will continue to do so in the coming years. Personify, in fact, is a proud participant in Intel’s perceptual computing movement and was showcased on stage with Intel at the 2013 International CES in Las Vegas, Nevada back in January. Personify Live also utilizes gesture recognition technology which allows a presenter to advance a slide on his or her PowerPoint with just the swipe of a hand.

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

Personify was named a finalist for the Illinois Technology Association (ITA) CityLIGHTS Trailblazing Award, which recognizes companies that have developed or introduced an ingenious, non-traditional and innovative way of doing business or creating a culture that produces significant value and growth for the company.

Personify Live has been adopted by a number of Fortune 500 companies that range in industries from healthcare to education.

Additionally, within six months of launching, Personify Live earned a position as an emerging market leader in the Web conferencing Industry by G2 Grid, a service of G2 Crowd. G2 Grid rates products and services algorithmically in real-time based on user reviews and analysis. Personify Live is currently considered an innovator in the Web conferencing segment, a category that includes Cisco’s WebEx, Citrix GoToMeeting and Skype – all products that integrate with Personify Live.

What are your next milestones?

Personify recently opened their new headquarters in the River North neighborhood of Chicago and announced plans to increase full-time staff by 50 percent in the next six months.

Personify’s consumer-facing immersive video chat tool, zChat, is slated for release this fall, which will bring perceptual computing to consumers and allow users to stay connected like never before.

Finally, in the near future, Personify hopes to be adopted by more companies, both large and small, across the world. Personify Live will hopefully be used to improve communication for these corporations, both internally and externally.

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

More information about Personify can be found at personifyinc.com

Startups In The Fastlane: Velocity Startup Pass It

Velocity Indiana, a startup accelerator just outside of Louisville, Kentucky, just graduated their first class last week. They brought startups from across the country to learn, grow, and accelerate in a beautiful area in the middle of the country. Velocity is the epitome of “everywhere else”.

Pass It, came from Seattle, Washington to work on a next generation photo sharing app. Nowadays, regular photo sharing apps are getting boring and there’s a filter for everything. Startups are looking to find ways to make photo sharing apps more engaging.

Pass It wants users to send their photos “around the world”. They’ve also added an element of competition to the mix.

Pass It is in our Fastlane, our interview feature that profile’s startups that are going through, or just completed an accelerator program.

What is the name of your startup?

Pass it

What accelerator are you in?

Velocity Accelerator. http://velocityindiana.org

Where is your startup originally from?

Seattle

Tell us about your current team?

Bryce Anderson – Moving the business forward.

Robert Eickmann – Mobile developer with superpowers.

Cameron Chinn – Marketing and user acquisition specialist.

Jon Matar – Primary Advisor

What does your startup do?

Pass it is a photo sharing app that allows users to connect, compete, and send their photos around the world.

What are your goals for the accelerator program?

To substantially improve our business model and create as many new relationships as possible.

What’s one thing you’ve learned in the accelerator?

Failure is a part of the process. Every week we tested several hypotheses and we had to constantly adapt our thinking based on our customer feedback.

What’s the hardest piece of advice you’ve had to stomach so far?

To pivot. We came in to Velocity with an EdTech company and we completely changed our business due to the Lean Startup methodology.

What is your goal for the day after demo day?

To create meetings with potential investors and business leaders in the Indiana and Kentucky entrepreneurial community.

Why did you choose this accelerator?

We chose Velocity because of its central location and outstanding business mentors. I would like to give a shout out to Tony Schy, Dave Durand, Terry Goertz, Michael Browning and Greg Langdon.

What’s one thing you learned about an accelerator that you didn’t know when you applied?

How much I would learn from the other startups participating in the program. Even though we all had substantially different businesses, we all faced the same day-to-day startup challenges and I learned valuable information from their experiences with the lean startup program.

Where can people find out more?

www.passitapp.co

What’s your twitter handle?

@PassPics

Could This Waterloo Startup Change Digital Advertising The Way Blackberry Originally Changed The Smartphone

People in Waterloo come up with some amazing ideas. Although we often joke about RIM/Blackberry these days, back when they first came out they created an entirely new industry, one that still has renewing legacy customers. By putting customers’ messaging abilities, calendars, and digital lives in the palm of their hands and making it all sync wirelessly with the office, things were easy and efficient.

Although RIM has stopped innovating, Waterloo has not.

Enter WestonExpressions, a Waterloo-based startup behind a new wireless digital, interactive advertising platform called Linkett. Now I’m definitely not a fan of big buzz words, but Linkett is really all of those things. It may be what the world has been looking for in the form of new advertising.

Linkett allows you to let your phone interact with many different types of digital advertising platforms. It can be an ad on your computer screen, a bus stop sign or even at the mall. You can use Linkett to walk through an exhibit and download the music playing. Users can use Linkett to download an author’s book while at the bookstore. You can even use Linkett to get a mall directory by just swiping your phone in front of a display. Really, the possibilities for this new advertising platform are limitless.

“The attention span of the average consumer in today’s world is at an all-time low due to “media clutter.” People can’t remember things that were advertised to them on a TV or a billboard like they once could and therefore traditional digital signage ads are less efficient. We solve this problem by making all content interactive and easily accessible for consumers while providing key analytics to promoters. Online ads provide analytics to advertisers so they can boost ad effectiveness, so we want to provide the same type of data and service but in the real world,” the team told us in an interview.

To get an idea of this new level of interaction check out the video.

What is your startup called?

WestonExpressions

What does your company do?

WestonExpressions is a technology corporation providing hardware and software innovations for the out-of-home advertisement industry.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

Douglas Lusted is the CEO and co-Founder of WestonExpressions. Douglas founded the company in 2012 after winning the University of Waterloo’s Innovation Showcase and Velocity Venture Fund in his second year of business studies; leading to the development of Linkett Technology.

Ashok Patel is the COO and co-Founder of WestonExpressions. Ashok is a computer scientist that graduated from the University of Waterloo and currently handles hardware engineering and operations. Ashok is a serial entrepreneur who previously co-founded Softart MicroSystems which was acquired by BlackBerry, where he was team lead for the GSM/GPRS radio protocol stack implementation team.

Vlad Pisanov is the CTO and co-founder of WestonExpressions. Vlad finished Hon.B.Sc in Physics from the University of Toronto and obtained his Master’s Degree in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo. Vlad’s previous work experience includes outdoor advertisement agencies and developed the core backend system of Linkett.

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

Kitchener is very tech intensive, and has a common theme of new mobile technologies especially at the Communitech Hub and Velocity Garage which serves as our incubator. There are a lot of software companies, and great engineers from the University of Waterloo. There is a much more “west-coast” vibe around a lot of the companies compared to New York or Toronto for example. After BufferBox was acquired, Vidyard and Thalmic raised high series A rounds of funding, it really attracted some talent and investors in the area.

Why now?

Digital marketing is the fastest growing channel of marketing and the technology in mobile devices is rapidly innovating. There is a critical shift in how consumers shop, obtain information and are entertained and it is being reflected in how they engage with brands, and with digital screens. We think it is the perfect time to improve digital screen technology so it can keep up with consumers and their mobile devices.

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

In our first week we have reached many milestones. We closed our first round of funding from VC Firms and angel investors and also reached over 50,000 hits on YouTube. We have two international protected Patent applications and sold units internationally in the United States, Canada, Peru, New Zealand and Ireland.

What are your next milestones?

Our next milestones to reach include continuing to drive sales in North America and penetrating the retail market. We will finish product development and ship Linketts to those who have pre-ordered as well as launch our next generation Linkett that offers payment not only through mobile devices, but also through loyalty and credit cards.

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

linkett.com

Even Canadian startups are welcome at this huge startup conference “everywhere else”

SLIC Games Is Another Great Louisville EduGames Startup

When you think great educational game startups, the first place that comes to mind probably isn’t Kentucky. But here at Nibletz, we make sure you know about the great startups everywhere.

SLIC Games (pronounced slick), the creator of Gadzookery, is the second great Louisville startup focused on creating amazing educational games. The first we told you about was Kodable. We first reported on Kodable back in November. Now, thanks to that Louisville startup my six year old is learning how to code.

While Kodable focuses on teaching children to code through a fun interactive game, the folks at SLIC (also based in Louisville) believe that games are for everyone, even adults. That’s why Gadzookery is fun for all ages. In fact, SLIC games co-founder Simon Brooks prides himself on the fact that Gadzookery is teaching without the learner even knowing.

We got a chance to talk to Brooks about SLIC, Gadzookery and Louisville. Check out the interview below.

What is your startup called?

SLIC games LLC (pronounced Slick) is named after the original founder Simon, and his three pets Lexy, Izzy, and Chelsea. Lexy & Chelsea are two big old mutt dogs, and Izzy was his cat. Unfortunately Izzy died during the development of Gadzookery, but he lives on in our games in both our company logo and virtual currency.

What does your company do?

Primarily we’re a gaming company with the focus on making them both social and educational. There are five original scalable games we plan to develop over the coming 18 months, although we do have other ideas that are little bit outside the box of gaming while remaining scalable.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

Simon Brooks hails from London, England. He’s lived in Louisville, KY for approaching ten years. His background is mostly sales & marketing, and small business ownership. He’s creative with ideas, be it for new products, or improving systems within an office environment such as marketing tactics, client retention, and other general office procedures. Currently he has nine original app ideas including Gadzookery that he wants developed.

Within the last few months Greg Gorman joined SLIC games LLC as tech lead. In his career, Greg has worked on projects ranging from the Artificial Heart program, to automated analysis of CAT scans for non-destructive evaluation of space shuttle engine blades.

Greg currently has aimed his focus on mobile app and mobile web development.

Greg evolved from the initial web developer at TechRepublic, to Director of Application Development, building the team that built the site. TechRepublic went from whiteboard concept to a website with 16 million page views per month in less than two years.

Greg grew up in Louisville, KY and received Bachelor of Science and Master of Engineering degrees in Engineering Math and Computer Science from the University of Louisville.

What problem do you solve?

Gadzookery is a very educational game aimed at all age groups, even adults. The problem with educational games is they’re either aimed solely at kids, or just plain old boring. Gadzookery educates without the user even realizing as it’s fun. It’s vocabulary building, and boosts creative writing skills.

Why now?

Simon started this project well over one year ago by himself. His dream was to get the game launched in a timely fashion and be the sole owner laying back on a beach somewhere exotic. All the work was outsourced. The problem was with designers and developers. They were either very slow, or in the developers’ case, crooked. We’ve gone through four different developers in getting the game launched. Simon has an absolute nightmare outsourcing story that he plans to share with would be non-techie tech entrepreneurs at some point. He’s learned a lot along the way, and realized in this industry often less is more. This is the reason a founding tech lead was brought in, to drive the business and make the right technical decisions.

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

After around 18 months trying to get launched, just getting the game launched feels like a massive milestone!

However along the way there have been some bright spots:

Last year due to delays and spiraling costs Gadzookery was listed on Appbackr (a crowdfunding for profit portal). It actually did very well there. Most companies struggle to raise $500 but Gadzookery raised a little over $10,000 It was going head to head with an app called ‘Old School’ which was officially licensed by Paramount Pictures. More of the appbackrs liked Gadzookery over Old School. That felt really good.

There was another small feel good moment. Simon’s biggest inspiration in the gaming business are the Bettner brothers who co-founded Words With Friends. Much to Simon’s delight at the time one of the brothers gave him a small endorsement. To most people that’s just a small moment, but to Simon, with all the stress of outsourcing he was going through that was a huge moment. Gadzookery is unofficially already also getting known as Sentences With Friends as that’s the style of game play so the connection is quite apparent.

What are your next milestones?

We do need to submit some upgrades to Gadzookery first, but after that the first milestone is 1 million downloads of Gadzookery Free. That’s just the start as future goals include a daily user base of 10 million plus, and having the game played in classrooms. Another goal is to have the game played on a national T.V show, such as a satire talk show, where the host and guest play against each other using for the target word a topic that is currently trending.

Short time milestones or goals, include building a very strong in house team so that outsourcing is never even an option, and the full vision of SLIC games LLC materializes.

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

https://www.facebook.com/Gadzookery

https://twitter.com/Gadzookery

Chicago Startup WeDeliver Puts A Winning Spin On Deliveries

At first glance WeDeliver, a Chicago startup, looks like a hybrid between your typical delivery service and a courier service. That’s probably because it is, with a twist.

WeDeliver connects local businesses to their customers by providing same day delivery of products and goods. Sure delivery and courier services aren’t new, but crowdsourcing the service is.

WeDeliver takes on and vets delivery drivers who are looking for a little extra money delivering anything from clothing, flowers, and knick knacks, to small appliances, bicycles and other goods. The drivers use their own vehicles and are properly vetted by the company. Because they have a fleet of drivers with their own vehicles, WeDeliver is able to offer a wide range of delivery services from people who need something that will fit in a truck or a passenger seat, to something that needs a small van or small truck, and everything in between.

What sets them apart and positions WeDeliver for success is the hands on approach their founders and staff are taking. Where there are some apps that are trying to automate the process, they know that some human interaction needs to be involved for vetting, dispatching, and matching up deliveries, customers, and drivers.

Earlier this summer when we were at Chicago TechWeek, the crowd was buzzing for WeDeliver. They had about ten people with them and you could spot a WeDeliver shirt anywhere. They all talked up the service very well, to the point where it won the startup contest!

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

What is your startup called?

WeDeliver

What does your company do?

WeDeliver connects local businesses (small and medium sized) to their customers by providing same-day delivery of products and goods.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

Kirk Lashley, Co-Founder, CTO

Kirk, a native of Trinidad and Tobago and tech entrepreneur determined to solve real world problems, was a grad and Dev Engineer at University-West Indies. Kirk has more than 15 years of professional software development experience and was the owner/operator of a Web design company in Trinidad. Currently, he’s an organizer for Startup Weekend Trinidad and Tobago and Startup Weekend Chicago. Kirk’s passionate about sharing his technology and entrepreneurship in these startup ecosystems.

Jimmy Odom, Founder, CEO
Jimmy is founder/CEO of WeDeliver and is responsible for the vision and business development of the company. He gained experience working for five years at an Apple store, as owner/operator of a gourmet pizza delivery service and at The Starter League. Jimmy is a serial entrepreneur at heart, and his mission is to build a brand whose primary focus is to create more transformational experiences rather than transactional ones.

Daniela Bolzmann, Co-Founder, CMO

Daniela, an entrepreneur with expertise in community development, was most recently Director of Product Marketing at SymbalooEDU. She grew it from a startup to a successful 200k community of engaged educators worldwide. Daniela is a graduate of the Miyahlo School of Business at CSUF and founder of SocialSkoop, a digital marketing agency. As co-founder/CMO at WeDeliver, she uses her powers to help businesses of Chicago connect with the local community.

Where are you based?

Chicago

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

Chicago is truly an amazing city with the unique ability to have both the intimacy of a small town and the “hustle and bustle” and power players of a large metro area. The Chicago tech and startup scene is underrated and can sometimes be overlooked in favor of the traditional startup cities. This has been an advantage to us though it is rapidly changing due to organizations like 1871, TechStars Chicago, The Starter League and people like Mayor Rahm Emanuel, JB Pritzker and Troy Henikoff, to name a few.

What problem do you solve?

We believe that our same-day on demand delivery technology will help local retailers gain a competitive edge against big box E-retailers, like Amazon, while also creating jobs and spurring local economic growth.

Why now?

Why not? The time is now for same-day delivery. The technology we are using for same-day delivery was not available previously. We are simply applying newer technology to an outdated courier industry that still runs off nextels and bad service.

What are some milestones your startup has already reached?

We won 1st place at Startup Weekend, November 2012
IBM Global Entrepreneur Mentor Day Winner, June 2013
We won Techweek Chicago LAUNCH, June 2013

What are your next milestones?

We are on track to have more than 250 merchants and more than 100 drivers by year’s end.

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

Website: https://www.wedeliver.us/

Startups In The Fastlane: Velocity Startup Collabra Music

A number of statups in accelerators have attacked the music collaboration space. It seems artists and musicians everywhere are looking for the best way to hop online and collaborate with each other. Back in May we saw the demo day presentation from Memphis Seed Hachery startup Musistic, promising to be the Github for musicians.

Collabra Music, a startup currently accelerating at Velocity in Indiana (outside of Louisville), is taking that idea a step further by adding friends, family, and fans into the mix. Collabra Music is about collaboration as much as it is about sharing, performing and discovery.

“We have a big vision for Collabra that connects amateur and independent musicians across the world, creating a collaborative space that inspires new innovation in musical creation and integrates listeners like never before. In developing Collabra and working with many musicians, we came across a common problem, especially for amateur musicians and music students. Many musicians felt that Collabra could help them overcome their struggles in learning, enhancing their experience, and engaging them with their musical practice in more rewarding ways,” co-founder Ryan Michaels told us in the Fastlane interview.

Check out the rest of their Startups In The Fastlane interview below.

Where is your startup originally from?

Louisville, Kentucky

Tell us about your current team?

Our CEO Ron Karroll is a self-starting non-conformist with a penchant for coding that has been the driving force behind the development of our core product. Ron left his full time job with Humana to lead the charge for Collabra Music and help launch what he hopes will be the next evolution in musical creative collaboration.

Ron determination and drive is buffered by his cautious and calculating musical co-founder Ariel Caplan. Ari is an actuary and master of data and analytics. He and Ron developed the vision together, outlining a new methodology that speaks to today’s participatory listener audience. While Ron mans the software development Ari manages the financial and organizational development for Collabra Music.

As musicians they were both passionate about creating a product that bridged the physical gap between musicians as well as fans connecting to create and collaborate on musical projects online.

Ryan Michaels loves music, he simply loves to listen and he’s always learning guitar. Ryan is well-versed in lean methodologies, grassroots organizing and fundraising. He has diverse experience in customer service, education, and community outreach. He joined Collabra to help develop and execute our marketing strategy and solidify our core team and organizational structure. His energy is pretty much limitless.

What does your startup do?

Collabra Music is an online platform that allows members to connect to create music, collaborate on musical projects, and share their projects online with friends, family, and fans.

We have a big vision for Collabra that connects amateur and independent musicians across the world, creating a collaborative space that inspires new innovation in musical creation and integrates listeners like never before. In developing Collabra and working with many musicians, we came across a common problem, especially for amateur musicians and music students. Many musicians felt that Collabra could help them overcome their struggles in learning, enhancing their experience, and engaging them with their musical practice in more rewarding ways.

Collabra is a solid platform for creative collaboration and now we are releasing the alpha phase of our educational layer for instructors and students to connect and engage through the often painful process of learning an instrument. Collabra connects musicians together to help and hold one another up through the creative and experiential challenges they may face, keeping them committed to their passion for music.

What are your goals for the accelerator program?

Our goals for the accelerator have been somewhat informal as we truly didn’t know what to expect of this experience. We have spent significant time outlining our customer segments, engaging in discovery, validating hypotheses, and formatting our business model. In addition Velocity has been helpful in outlining a number of mistakes and failures we most likely would have made without a cautionary example in education. The knowledge, training, and experience this has provided our team is invaluable and we are incredibly grateful for the relationships we have built this summer.

What’s one thing you’ve learned in the accelerator?

The one thing lesson we learned the most frequently is to appreciate the values in our failures and to embrace our failures along the way for what we could learn from them and apply to future successes. The accelerator encourages you to act on the information you have and hope to succeed but prepare to fail, from every failure a lesson can be carried forward and applied to increase the chances of your next attempt at success.

We also learned to be honest and aware of our team’s strengths as a team as well as the strengths and weaknesses of our individual members. Embracing this awareness has allowed us to act to balance one another strengths and weaknesses.

What’s the hardest piece of advice you’ve had to stomach so far?

The most difficult advice has not been a specific fact or direction, but rather the fact that nearly every piece of advice we’ve received has in some way contradicted the advice of another mentor. What started as a carefree balancing act of pursuing a few courses of action has snowballed into a high speed cross-fire environment in which you are forced to take rapidly growing banks of conflicting advice and make determinations of action with a predetermined acceptance for failure and the satisfaction in knowing that at least in failing fast you do so at the least cost of time and resources.

What is your goal for the day after demo day?

After demo day we are finalizing our runway for the final months of 2013. Our draft plan has been consistently evolving over the course of this summer as we have worked through a number of growing periods of development and discovery. We have a reasonable runway but long term survival and success in securing revenue in our market will require an infusion of cash to adequately cover our overhead costs and operating expenses for 2014. We have been developing relationships with potential Angel investors and hope to have outlined soft pledges and follow up for equity terms and financing in the months following our demo day presentation.

Why did you choose this accelerator?

We are proud to be a part of Velocity Indiana’s inaugural class, we applied to a number of tech accelerator programs across the country but had our hearts set on Velocity because it kept us close to home, to our roots. The entrepreneurial community has been a blessing in resources and we are fortunate to have been able to establish so many close-knit relationships with the local business leadership here.

If you relocated for the accelerator are you staying in your new city?

Our two founders are from Louisville; our third core partner packed his bags to join us for Velocity all the way from Southern California and will be staying on with us here in Kentucky as we move forward from Velocity.

What’s one thing you learned about an accelerator that you didn’t know when you applied?

We didn’t realize how many opportunities were present to learn from and experience. To truly make use of all the resources of an accelerator program you need a committed team, willing and able to engage and participate reliably when and where they are needed. It can be difficult and there will likely be missed opportunities, but having the resources in time to follow-up and lead the people helping you build your project is essential in appreciating the value in an accelerator program.

The physical and financial resources are a blessing, but the pool of talent, knowledge and experience that is available to offer guidance and leadership in overcoming challenges and obstacles is incredible.

Where can people find out more?

Check out our product at www.collabramusic.com and follow us at any or all of our social networks. You can also sign up for our newsletter and following our blog.

Go IdeaCat Is Giving The Idea Marketplace Another Go

Some out there believe an idea is only as good as its execution. We’ve profiled a number of startups that have tried to put some kind of spin on the idea marketplace, where you can go and sell an idea to someone else. We’ve even talked about how startup leaders like David Cohen of Techstars believes that the idea marketplace will never work, and for good reason.

Now, two bright entrepreneurs from a little town outside of New York City have decided to try that idea marketplace again. Jordyn Rikard and Kyle Jergensen have a startup called Go IdeaCat.

So why does this startup have a better chance to succeed?

First off it’s in the pricing. “Investors then place a starting bid of $5 and bids can rise up to $100! Once the bidding is over, the full idea is released to the investor and the idea creator gets their cash,” Rickard explains.

Previous iterations of this same idea have had the ideas on the marketplace for tens of thousands of dollars. In order to get that kind of money you need to be a proven, multimillionaire founder.

Rickard and Jergensen are targeting people who think they may have stumbled onto the next big idea but don’t have the time or know how to execute.

Will it work? Time will tell. In the meantime check out our interview with Rickard below.

What is your startup called?

Go IdeaCat

What does your company do?

Go IdeaCat is an idea sharing network that connects investors with individuals who have great ideas but not the time, resources, knowledge or money to make them a reality. A great idea should never go to waste. Users start by signing up and listing ideas for free. Ideas are kept a secret except for the category the idea falls under and then three specifics chosen by the user as a teaser to the main show. Investors then place a starting bid of $5 and bids can rise up to $100! Once the bidding is over, the full idea is released to the investor and the idea creator gets their cash.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

Kyle Jergensen and Jordyn Rickard are the founders of Go IdeaCat. Jordyn Rickard is a freelance writer and marketing guru that currently works full time for Kea Advertising, a full service marketing agency. She’s got the creative brains and the determination to take Go IdeaCat to the next level.

Kyle Jergensen is another creative mind with a degree in Economics and a background in business. He keeps the business on the ground and takes care of everything behind the scenes. Not to mention he has ideas flowing a mile a minute!

Where are you based?

We’re based out of Suffern, New York. A small suburb located just 30 minutes from NYC.

What problem do you solve?

We solve the problem of the dreaded dead end. It’s a bummer when someone has a great idea but can’t make it happen. What happens to the idea? It just sits there or gets forgotten about. By connecting motivated business minds direct with creative brains, we solve the problem of stifled creativity.

Why now?

Good ideas don’t wait. The world as a whole is evolving in every way and creative minds are everywhere. There are millions of great ideas that deserve to become a reality. The next great idea could benefit society as a whole. We just need to make it happen!

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

We’ve just launched a teaser site to get the word out about Go IdeaCat while we work feverishly behind the scenes to get the real site up and running.

What are your next milestones?

Our next milestone will be the official launch of the site! Expected within the month.

Where can people find out more?

To find out more about GoIdeaCat head to www.goideacat.com

Detroit Startup Rapt.FM: From Startup Weekend To Giving Away Major Record Deals

Last week when we wrote about Detroit startup Grand Circus, we talked a bit about Detroit’s entrepreneurial past and that it was fueled by the automotive industry (see what I did there) and music. Startups are crucial to rebuilding the city that was once a beacon of industry in the US. It’s startups and entrepreneurs that are going to help drive Detroit out of bankruptcy and back onto the national stage.

We knew it wouldn’t be too long before we heard about a great music startup in Detroit. Sure, in the 1950’s the music startup that fueled Detroit was Motown, and it was driven by R&B music. Today though, Hip Hop and Rap have taken the place of upbeat party R&B music, the kind that gave Motown its name.

Rapt.FM isn’t a new hip hop record label. Those are a dime a dozen. They’re an entirely new platform for aspiring rap artists. Rapt.fm allows people to rap and collaborate with anyone in the world and have a live audience to watch, chat, and vote. Its also a discovery platform for up and coming artists. Rapt.fm has already given some lucky rappers the chance to open for Mos Def and Royce Da 5’9. Now they’re giving away a recording contract with Tommy Boy Records (think Digital Underground, Naughty By Nature, House of Pain).

We got a chance to talk with CEO and co-founder Erik Torenberg who started Rapt at a Startup Weekend in 2012. Check out our interview below.

What is your startup called?

Rapt.fm

What does your company do?

Rapt.fm is a platform where people can rap with anyone in the world and have a live audience watch, chat, vote for who they like best. It’s also an artist discovery platform — contest winners won the chance to open for Mos Def, Royce Da 5’9, and next month one winner will get a record contract with Tommy Boy Entertainment.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

Erik Torenberg started the company at Start Up Weekend January 2012 (along with Co-founder Jamie Pitts) because he wanted to learn how to rap. They then won the competition, and a couple other competitions, and realized there were a lot of people like Erik who wanted to rap, and even more who found watching rap entertaining.

Where are you based?

Madis@n Building, Detroit

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

From Grand Circus piece: “Detroit startup scene is booming – SA Today names Detroit one of the “10 Great Places to be Inspire by Innovation” Fast Company’s piece “How A Young Community of Entrepreneurs is Rebuilding Detroit” called the city a “refuge for techies looking to tackle real problems.” The New York Times also spotlighted Detroit’s tech scene, nothing that hiring in the city’s tech sector is pulling developers from the coasts. Detroit has seen a 10 percent year-over-year increase in tech job listings, which makes the city the fourth in the nation for total employment in the tech industry”

What problem do you solve?

We provide place for users to find others people to rap with, to build their fan bases, and to launch their rap career — from rapping in their basement to opening on stage for a platinum rap artist or winning a record contract. Rapt.fm is going to expand to other music genres in the future.

Why now?

Most other music sites focus on hosting, but not on live interaction between artists and between fans and artists.

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

— In only 6 hours a week, during the month of July we had 7 K users, returning users of which spent an avg of 25 minutes on the site, and 60% of all users were returning

— Launched Partnerships with heavy hitters in music industry.

What are your next milestones?

Launching the full-website September 5th (open 24/7)

Where can people find out more?

rapt.fm Facebook

Knoxville Based bounceit Launches Social Decision Making Platform

A group of Knoxville entrepreneurs has launched a new and exciting social decision making app called bounceit. Now social decision making isn’t anything new, we’ve seen several startups try and succeed in this space.

Startups like Brooklyn based JustDecide come to mind when we think about social decision making platforms. Where others have fallen short in the past though, the crew at bounceit has figured out ways to make social decision making more fluid, easy to take in and easier to decide and vote on. Their highly visual platform makes the entire process more intuitive.

Users begin by uploading a question or statement, accompanied by a photo: “Should I buy this outfit?” “Is this car cool?” “Want to go out after the game?” Other users vote your question up or down for yes/no, or like/dislike. A realtime line graph shows you all theirresponses over time to aid in your decision making!

Until bounceit, many people relied on Facebook and their own social networks to help make decisions; “With bounceit!™, a user can post an opinion, decision, idea or just a cool photo, and thanks to our unique line graph they’ll actually see instantly if people agree or not. It’s crowd-sourced decision making at its best! With our graphing capabilities, a user immediately sees if something is a like or a dislike. You can see whether there is overwhelming agreement or any struggle it has gone through among users. That tells a much more powerful story than a bar graph or percentages.” co-founder Gary Hardin told nibletz in an interview.

Hardin explained, “People today research and bounce ideas off friends before they do something or buy an item. bounceit!™ streamlines that process for them. Crowdsourced sharing and decision making is everywhere now. We just make it more fun and in one centralized location!”

Bounceit is now available in the iTunes app store, download it here. For more information visit bounceit.com. Check out Bounceit in person at Everywhere Else Cincinnati.

New York Startup Is Paving A ClearPath For Legal Immigrants

Immigration is a hot topic for startups. But typically when we are talking about immigration and startups we’re talking about the laws that need to be changed to allow startup founders and technologists an easier path to create their companies here in the United States. We don’t typically come across startups that are looking to make the immigration process easier for people trying to legally come to the United States.

Many of the people that are crossing the border illegally are doing it because they want to get over here as quickly as possible, or they have something holding them back and preventing them from legally crossing the border. There are some people, though, who are coming over to the United States illegally because the legal process is quite cumbersome. There are a lot of forms that need to be filled out, kept organized, and turned in. Like with most bureaucratic processes, if one form is not completed correctly or signed properly, the whole process comes to a screeching halt.

Michael Petrucelli, who once led the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Alan Samuels, a UK immigrant, and entrepreneur have founded ClearPath. Think of it as TurboTax for immigration.

Their platform keeps all of the important paperwork for the immigration process straight and organized.

“Clearpath allows immigrants to securely and confidentially fill out a variety of immigration forms online (including a new version of the site in Spanish and new forms in Spanish, like the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals application or the popular N-400 naturalization form) while the site checks data in real time for potential errors and compliance and then prepares the forms for submission to the USCIS. It’s the only online service of its kind that offers a patented, affordable online option for immigrants, costing a fraction of the fees typically charged by legitimate immigration lawyers or shady notarios,” Samuels told us in an interview.

Clearpath will make it easier for those looking to start their new lives legally in the United States. As the company grows it will also deter some of those trying to cross our borders illegally and get them to come into the U.S. the right way.

Check out the rest of our interview with Samuels below.

What is your startup called?

Clearpath

What does your company do?

Clearpath has developed a greatly simplified digital filing process for immigrants applying for visas and naturalization in the USA. Think of it as a TurboTax® for immigration.

Clearpath allows immigrants to securely and confidentially fill out a variety of immigration forms online (including a new version of the site in Spanish and new forms in Spanish, like the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals application or the popular N-400 naturalization form) while the site checks data in real time for potential errors and compliance and then prepares the forms for submission to the USCIS. It’s the only online service of its kind that offers a patented, affordable online option for immigrants, costing a fraction of the fees typically charged by legitimate immigration lawyers or shady notarios.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

Founder and Chairman, Michael Petrucelli, led the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and wrote many of its policies and procedures. CEO Alan Samuels, a UK immigrant, previously founded an education finance marketplace, lead the sale of Dotmenu to GrubHub, and managed a $100 million corporate product line for S&P.

Where are you based?

Clearpath’s corporate headquarters is in NY, with offices in Washington D.C. and Miami, Fl.

What problem do you solve?

Immigration law is comparable in complexity to the US tax code. It is no simple task to navigate the USCIS website, identify the appropriate form, or complete it correctly. Lawyers charge between $4,000 and $10,000 to aid this process. (Notarios charge around $3,000 but often provide fraudulent services.) Clearpath Immigration brings the knowledge of US immigration administrators to these consumers with a safe, secure, smarter solution for a fraction of those prices.

Why now?

With all the discussion around comprehensive immigration reform, what is clear is that there will be more people eligible for more statuses and, ultimately, more forms being filed. There may be up to 11 million people who will have a path to citizenship if the Senate version of the bill is passed. This will only add to the 100 million immigration forms that are filed yearly with the United States Citizenship & Immigration Service (USCIS). Hence the opportunity for tech-enabled solutions to streamline the byzantine immigration filing process.

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

Our product is live at www.clearpathimmigration.com and currently covers just under 30 different immigration forms including: citizenship, deferred action for childhood arrivals, bringing over a foreign relative, adjustment of status.

What are your next milestones?

We are in discussions with a number of potential partners to jointly market our services. Look for a pilot with one of the largest Latino organizations later this year.

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

http://www.clearpathimmigration.com

https://www.facebook.com/clearpathimmigration

https://twitter.com/iclearpath

http://www.linkedin.com/company/clearpathimmigration

See why hundreds are flocking to this national startup conference in Cincinnati Sep 29-October 1.

Startups In The Fastlane: Velocity Startup GreekPull

Crowdfunding is everywhere, there’s crowdfunding for your startup, crowdfunding for your movie, crowdfunding for the things you want and even crowdfunding for college money. Now, thanks to a San Diego startup that’s accelerating at Velocity in Indiana, there is crowdfunding for your fraternity or sorority.

Back in the olden days, before computers, internet, and crowdfunding, fraternities and sororities that were working on a project would have fundraisers, cash boxes, collection jars, and a treasurer to collect all the money. Then you had to trust that the treasurer didn’t spend the fraternity’s money on his own stash of brew and other college accoutrements.

GreekPull is working on a crowdfunding platform for fraternities and sororities that eliminates all these problems, makes it super easy for members to raise money for projects, and then securely collects the money so it can’t be squandered on the frivolous. Now when a sorority or a fraternity wants to hold a big clean-up project, restore a building, or buy toys for local needy kids the money is there. They can even use the funds for special events like spring formals and dances.

We got a chance to talk with AJ Agrawal about GreekPull and their team’s experience at Velocity. They’ll be graduating at the end of the month and think making the move from San Diego to Jeffersonville, Indiana was one of the best choices they’ve ever made. Check out the interview below.

What is the name of your startup?

GreekPull

What accelerator are you in?

Velocity Accelerator

When is demo day/investor day/graduation?

August 29th, 2013

Where is your startup originally from?

San Diego, CA

Tell us about your current team?

Eghosa Aihie- The Hustler: In charge of sales and marketing

AJ Agrawal- The Visionary: In charge of product development and investor relations

What does your startup do?

We’re a crowdfunding platform for Fraternities and Sororities

What are your goals for the accelerator program?

To complete our next seed round of $350,000

What’s one thing you’ve learned in the accelerator?

Never edit your product without talking to customers first, you’ll save a lot of time and money.

What’s the hardest piece of advice you’ve had to stomach so far?

Always being ready to pivot. It feels like your starting completely over when you pivot and sometimes it’s hard to stomach that it’s all part of the learning process.

What is your goal for the day after demo day?

To further conversation with potential investors and customers.

Why did you choose this accelerator?

Over half the National Fraternities and Sororities are located in Indianapolis, so we are in an ideal location to get customer feedback.

If you relocated for the accelerator are you staying in your new city?

Yes, however, we will most likely move a little closer to Indianapolis.

What’s one thing you learned about an accelerator that you didn’t know when you applied?

We’ve been amazed how nice the people in Jeffersonville have been to us. Coming from San Diego, we were unsure what to expect heading into Southern Indiana. Overall, the connections we have made has been priceless, and we look forward to staying in touch with all the people we have met.

Where can people find out more?

greekpull.com

Startups In The Fastlane: NMotion Startup SynerScan

While EMR (electronic medical records) are nothing new, and innovation continues to change the doctor’s daily life, there hasn’t been nearly as much innovation centered around the nurses. Specifically, nurses that are making rounds at any hospital or treatment facility.

Nurse rounds are still often documented using a clipboard, pen, and paper. If nurses need to enter something into an EMR, they often do it at the nurse’s station, transcribing it from that pen and paper.

It takes so long that Bryan Health in Lincoln, Nebraska sought the help of a Lincoln startup called SynersScan to help solve that problem. Typically it’s the other way around. The startup comes up with an idea and then tries to sell it to the user. Now there are users built in, in the case of Bryan Health, with more users waiting in the wings.

SynerScan, which is currently accelerating at Lincoln’s NMotion accelerator, is creating a digital platform to manage nurses rounds.

Synerscan is the latest startup in the “Fastlane” interview feature that talks with a startup currently in an accelerator program. Check out our interview below.

What is the name of your startup
SynerScan Technologies, or simply SynerScan.

What problem are you solving
What we’ve done is develop a software solution that enhances the benefits of hourly nursing rounds in hospitals. This process is currently documented on a physical sheet of paper, causing a couple problems. 1) That sheet of paper is typically thrown away, providing little to no feedback to management, and 2) Backlogging and accountability of nursing staff has become an issue as a result. What we’ve done is digitize the entire process, uncovering a number of value adds in the process. For example, we can now provide visual cues for any staff member to know when a round is due, real-time operational insight for management, and revolutionary communication to friends and family.

The best part about our solution is that we began with market validation. We are currently partnered with Bryan Health in Lincoln, who actually came to us to solve this very problem. What most companies do is spend months developing a solution only to find out that nobody actually wants to use it. We had a top 50 cardiovascular hospital come to us and say “here is our problem, who is able to solve it for us?”. That validation out of the gate has had a huge impact on our traction and chances of success moving forward.

The ultimate goal in changing the process of nursing rounds is to increase patient satisfaction in hospitals. Hourly rounding has been proven to increase patient satisfaction, decrease falls, and provide greater quality of care as a result. A hospital’s patient satisfaction score is what determines the amount of reimbursement a hospital receives from Medicare and Medicaid. These scores also determine the salary and benefits of a hospital’s executive staff. For these reasons alone, incentives are very high for a hospital to increase patient satisfaction. Our solution provides just that.

Nmotionad
Why now?
A lot of these incentives have come about as a result of recent healthcare reform. Hospitals will be compared to one another relative to patient satisfaction, infection rates, and many other metrics. Hospitals will be driven by quality, service, and costs in order to compete. Government sanctioned funds will be given or taken dependent on where the hospital ranks in regards to these metrics. For this reason, it will become imperative that hospitals implement tools to maintain a competitive advantage in the industry.

The US healthcare system is at a critical point in increasing quality of care for patients. Hospitals will no longer receive reimbursement based on a “pay-for-reporting” model, where they were simply required to post patient satisfaction scores. Every hospital in the country will now be reimbursed on a “pay-for-performance” model, where the quality of those scores will determine each hospital’s reimbursement rate.

Who are your competition?
There are a number of companies recognizing the potential of increasing patient satisfaction in hospitals. What’s great is that there is no one single way of doing so. What’s frustrating is that there are a lot of unknown and unavoidable factors that affect a patients perspective of their care. First impressions, last impressions, and unforeseen occurrences can drastically alter a patients perception of their care.

Although companies like Scan Am and Walsh Integrated have similar solutions in the healthcare space, we have a few tricks up our sleeve that help differentiate us as serious players in the industry.

What’s your secret sauce?
What really sets us apart from our competition is the communication platform we have engineered to provide friends and family with relative insight on the condition of their loved one. With our solution, we are able to push nursing round information to a family members smartphone, tablet, or PC. If you have to be at work or home with the kids, no longer do you have to wonder about the kind of care your significant other is getting. The feedback we’ve received on this aspect of our solution alone has been outstanding. Since our launch at Bryan Health, we have helped family members from San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City, and everywhere in-between see the quality of care their loved ones were receiving, all in real-time. Imagine you had a child or spouse in the hospital and the importance of a tool like this because quite clear.

Where are you/were you based before NMotion?
Born and raised right here in Lincoln.

Why NMotion?
There are some really cool and innovative things happening in Lincoln right now. Most people are oblivious to this fact. We are still highly referred to as a flyover state and this simply isn’t the case. Our entire founding team is comprised of University of Nebraska – Lincoln alumni, and one of our primary goals is to change the perception people have about Lincoln and the potential that remains untapped here. Jumping on the opportunity to be a part of Lincoln’s first accelerator program was a no brainer.

What’s one lesson you’ve learned since the NMotion session has started.
Before NMotion, our team was progressing at a steady rate. We were making informed decisions, building relationships, and learning everything as we went. What we realized very quickly after starting NMotion is that we weren’t moving fast enough. We were doing too much strategizing and needed to simply begin executing. We are now moving faster, breaking things, learning quickly, and repeating.

Where can people find out more?

Check out our website at SynerScan.com

Email us at info@synerscan.com

Put Congress In Your Pocket With This Nashville Startup

With smartphones in the pockets of tens of millions of people, information is extremely easy to obtain. You don’t even need to wait to get home to check something on the internet. You just reach into your pocket and hit Google or whatever your favorite information source is.

The information age, the internet age ,and now the mobile age has made government more accessible, and with that accessibility becomes accountability. Long gone are the days that any Congressman or other elected official can just sneak something passed the people. When a bill is before Congress, voted on, or signed, you can find all the information about it online. You can look it up on your phone as well.

Now a Nashville Startup called PocketCongress is looking to streamline all that information into an easy-to-use app. SouthernAlpha reports that David Swift was watching the news one night and wanted to look up further information on some legislation that was just reported on. He found the process of finding that information more cumbersome than he thought it should be. To make it easier he created PocketCongress.

We talk with Swift in the interview below.

What is your startup called?

Pocket Congress

What does your company do?

We are an easily accessible research tool for Congressional information. Search various ways in both legislation and legislator fields.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

I, David Swift, am a local business owner in Nashville and am constantly looking to become more involved in the tech world. I concocted this idea in early 2011 and refined it over the next few years. In August of last year, I connected with an old high school classmate, Joey Vadala. Joey is a long-time techie and computer genius, even since the high school days. He’s built a few apps and I was impressed. Looking for someone who would build the app for profit equity AND pull off a simplistic, usable UI/UX, Joey was a great fit. Joey absolutely crushed the fine design details and construction of the app. I handle the business aspect of things, marketing, etc. and Joey is working on 2.0 for Pocket Congress.

Where are you based?

Nashville, TN

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

Fantastic. There’s a lot of old money here, nearly all of it concentrated on the health care industry. That tide is slowly turning with all kinds of tech start ups popping up here and there. The new building of the Entrepreneur Center is magnifying a lot of start ups that wouldn’t get the attention otherwise.

What problem do you solve?

We solve the lack of true government transparency and the inability for the casual news-watcher to gather any real content on what’s being reported on their TV, what’s being voted on in their capital, and ultimately what’s affecting their lives on a daily basis. The entire concept of Pocket Congress is to further true government transparency and to aid in involving the casual political observer. The app is easy enough to navigate for a casual news watcher, but has enough information for a political junkie. The information is out there and is researchable, but not easily and quickly. Pocket Congress allows not only quick research & reference, but also tracking of legislation and social sharing of all information. Real government accountability and transparency must be done by the people, not the government.

Our app searches both Members and Legislation. In Members, one can search via: current location, name, ZIP code, committee, state, or browse. In Legislation, one can search via: HOT bills, number, locally sponsored, keyword, recent actions, and type. You can read actual legislation via .pdf. Anyone can interact with local senators and representatives by easily accessing their Twitter feed, biography, district map, committees, and all their social media outlets. One of my favorite features is the ability to tweet directly to a senator, send them an email, or call their office directly from the app.

Why now?

We need it now more than ever. (How many times have you heard that?) There are now more iPhone users in existence now than ever before. As a country, that’s more ready access than has ever been provided in the past. Never has Congressional members and the legislation they pass been so easy to access and share. Our phones are always with us, so an app is truly the timeliest way to access this type of information and a real vehicle for government transparency.

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

We have been featured in SouthernAlpha’s blog. We are followed on Twitter by a few Washington Post journalists, and have been retweeted by Congressional members, most notably Darrell Issa. After being in the App Store for 5 days, Apple chose us as a New and Noteworthy app in the Reference section. We currently headline the Reference section in the App Store.

What are your next milestones?

A segment on Mike Huckabee on FOX. We have a connection to him particularly, as I worked with him personally on his last book signing tour over a course of three weeks. He’s a large government transparency advocate. We would then like to leverage that appearance to other media outlets, including other politically-charged TV shows.

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

Website: http://pocketcongressapp.com

iTunes short URL: https://itun.es/us/VgmgL.i

Joey’s personal page: joeyvadala.com

Is This Brazilian Startup The YouTube Of Books?

The publishing industry is ripe for a disruption, and many of them. The traditional music industry where we used to buy records, tapes, and CD’s has been all but replaced by digital media. Many predicted that books would always be safe. People love the touch, the feel, and the smell of actual books.

Now Borders is gone, Barnes and Noble has shut down many of their stores, and the mom and pop shops are drying up. It’s unfortunate for readers. But just like in the music industry, it leaves a gaping hole for disruption. Everything from distribution, to consumption, to the publishing of digital books is all open terrain for the right startups.

One Memphis startup, Screwpulp, is well on their way to disrupting the self publishing model with their unique platform that calls for feedback in exchange for free books.

Brazilian startup Widbook is a digital collaborative reading and writing platform where authors can improve their writing, publish books online for free, and solicit feedback and work together with fellow members. It was launched in June 2012 and was instantly described by Mashable as “The Youtube of Books.” The platform recently reached a milestone 30,000 members and has over 1,100 published books with thousands being written.

We got a chance to talk with the team behind Widbook, check out the interview below.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

FLAVIO AGUIAR Co-founder and CEO at Widbook

Early career

• Founded Digitale.XY2 digital agency, a company headquartered in Campinas and São Paulo that has for 10 years worked with the planning of digital marketing, digital presence and consultancy.

• Was head of the merging process with Attitude Global group, one of the biggest commutation groups in the world.

• Has worked in the software development market as system analyst and participated in the official process of implementation and assessment of the CMMi methodology.

• MBA in Strategic & Economic Business Management from Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV) and Ohio University in the U.S.

ANDRÉ CAMPELO

Co-founder and COO at Widbook

Early career

• Founded Digitale.XY2 digital agency, company headquartered in Campinas and São Paulo that has for 10 years worked with the planning of digital marketing, digital presence and consultancy.

• Was ahead of the merging process with Attitude Global group, one of the biggest commutation groups in the world.

• He has been one of the directors of APADi – Associação Paulista das Agências Digitais (São Paulo Association of Digital Agencies) since 2010.

• MBA in Strategic & Economic Business Management from Fundação GetúlioVargas (FGV) and Ohio University in the U.S.

JOSEPH BREGEIRO

Co-founder and CTO at Widbook

Early career

• More than 13 years of experience as web developer and project manager

• Was the chief systems architect of e-Commerce of Fnac Brasil (fnac.com.br) and was responsible for its entire system development and support team.

• He participated in the official process of implementation and assessment of the CMMi methodology and was responsible for the study and implementation of several other technologies in others companies.

What’s the startup scene like in Brazil?

The company is based in Brazil, but plans a move to the U.S. in the future. The platform is virtual and has a presence in over 200 countries worldwide (with 60 percent of its users from the U.S.). The startup scene in Brazil is fairly new compared to the U.S. but it’s growing quickly. The government is starting to offer programs to support startups and lots of well-known events, like TED Global and the MIT Global Startup Workshop, are coming to Brazil.

What problem do you solve?

The publishing industry receives hundreds of thousands of manuscripts/book submissions each year and only a small fraction are reviewed, and even fewer accepted. Widbook offers members the opportunity to bypass the publishing house and publish their work quickly easily (while also getting valuable feedback from other members).

Why now?

The ebook industry is positioned to expand beyond the print book market by 2017 (driving $8.2 billion in sales by then). Widbook wants to offer more than just a platform for self-publishing; it wants to be the place where people go to read and write ebooks for free and collaborate and network with other members.

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

Dec. 2012 – Investments secured by W7 Brazil Capital

Feb. 2013 – Widbook 2.0 released

May 2013 – Widbook team attended NYC’s Book Expo America

June 2013 – Widbook CEO attended START Series event START SF (an invite-only gathering of 150 early stage startups and entrepreneurs)

July 2013 – 30,000 members reached

What are your next milestones?

The iOS app is in the works and set to be released soon (Android app is already available for download), and we hope to be at 50,000 members in the very near future.

Where can people find out more?

Widbook.com

Widbook on Facebook

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