Knoxville Startup Puts Celebrities, Sports Stars, Musicians In The iSpotlight

With all of the information available on the internet, and so many different ways to access it, getting what you really need and want when you really need and want it can be challenging. There are several news and social aggregators out there now. These web based platforms can find a broad range of information or a concentrated range of information by category. Now, a Knoxville startup wants to be the place you go to find everything available online about your favorite stars and athletes.

iSpotlight is a mobile app that’s like Hootsuite, Google Alerts, ESPN, and even Ticketmaster rolled into one. In one sharp, and appealing interface you can tell iSpotlight who your favorite musicians, celebrities, athletes and sports teams are, and it will in turn serve up everything it can find across the web and social. iSpotlight can even tell the user when a team’s next game is or a musicians next concert is, and then point you to the tickets.

The Eastern Tennessee startup has already completed a seed round and is looking forward to launching and then closing their Series A round to bring the ultimate in fandom apps to millions of users worldwide.

We got a chance to talk with Ryan Kelly, the CEO and co-founder of iSpotlight. Check out the interview below.

What is your startup called?

iSpotlight (www.ispotlight.com)

What does your company do?

We are developing a mobile app that consolidates all of the news, social media, event schedules, and merchandise/tickets/music for your favorite athletes, music artists, and entertainers, all in one convenient location.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

Ryan Kelly, CEO, has been a financial advisor with Morgan Stanley Wealth Management in Knoxville, TN. As founding member of the Venable Pruitt & Kelly Group, Ryan has contributed to the merging of 3 additional successful practices all into one of the largest high net worth wealth management teams in the region.

Patrick Kelly, COO, a graduate of the University of Tennessee’s MBA program, and recipient of 1st Place in the program’s Business Plan Presentations for a project including building a Wakeboard Cable Park in East Tennessee. Patrick is currently the Consumer Products Manager for HGTV.

Where are you based?

Based in Knoxville, TN

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

East TN has an emerging startup atmosphere, with many Angel Groups and Startup Incubators promoting the ongoing growth and success of local entrepreneurs.

What problem do you solve?

With the vast amount of information available on so many different platforms, people spend a great deal of time searching the Internet for news and bouncing from social media app to social media app. Looking into the numbers, individuals are sought after in much higher rates than general news. So with the existence of general news aggregators, iSpotlight found an opportunity to give the users what they want, everything they search for regarding their favorite stars and celebrities, all in one convenient location.

Why now?

The marketplace has seen the recent emergence of general news aggregation, and has even begun to see the startup of some category-specific (sports-only, music-only, etc) social media aggregators. So while the last several years has been so instrumental in bringing so many forms of communication to the user, now is the opportunity to consolidate them together. And since news publications and social media like Facebook and Twitter already have such a loyal audience, why compete with them? Rather, bring them all around the table together.

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

We have completed our Seed Round of funding. Also, we have been using the Agile methodology during development, and have received Sprint 3 of 5, and expect to see Sprint 4 released on July 8th.

What are your next milestones?

Our next milestones include our Series A funding round for operational purposes, as well our milestone to complete development on July 29th, and hopefully a smooth and efficient beta testing period and Apple App Store approval, so that we can launch the app to the public very soon. Once this is successful, we plan to begin working on our development of iSpotlight for Android.

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

People can follow our updates at www.ispotlight.com. They can also follow us on Twitter (@iSpotlightApp), “Like” us on Facebook (Facebook.com/iSpotlightApp), and connect with us on LinkedIn (LinkedIn.com/company/ispotlight)

Canadian Startup: YourExtraLife Is The Game Of Real Life

Imagine if you lived in a game. No, not virtual reality or something you could play on Google Glass, but if you had a game to complement your real life? That’s what Canadian entrepreneur Philip Barclay is doing with his latest startup, appropriately called “YourExtraLife.

“YourExtraLife is a game for real life. It’s all about venturing out of your comfort zone and trying new things, inspiring your friends, and discovering inventive people. You complete creative real-life challenges by taking pictures, and you unlock harder and harder ones as the community validates your photos,” Barclay told Nibletz.

YourExtraLife essentially takes a mobile online game and brings it offline, which seems to be a popular trend with startups these days.

We got a chance to talk with Barclay about YourExtraLife. Check out our interview below.

What is your startup called?

YourExtraLife

What does your company do?

YourExtraLife is a game for real life. It’s all about venturing out of your comfort zone and trying new things, inspiring your friends and discovering inventive people. You complete creative real-life challenges by taking pictures, and you unlock harder and harder ones as the community validates your photos. We already released a total of 125 challenges for 5 different themes: romance, culture, nightlife, altruism and gourmet.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

Philip Barclay – CEO – Studied Advertising, had a blog with 200k+ readers. Takes care of the growth and marketing strategies.

Gheorghita Catalin Bordianu – CTO – M.Sc. in Computer science from McGill. 4 years of experience in startups, used to be the Platform Director at Silentale. Takes care of our platform.

Samuel Dion-Girardeau – CCO -Currently doing his M.Sc. in Linguistics. Takes care of the content creation (he is behind all these awesome challenges!)

Samuel Chenard – CFO / Designer – Studied accountancy (yes!) – Takes care of the design and the video production.

Where are you based?

We’re in Quebec City right now.

What problem do you solve?

The routine and the passivity. We realized a lot of people needed more incentives to try new things and get out of their comfort zone.

Why now?

It was the perfect moment: mobile phones are powerful (and intelligent), millennials get bored easily and they are looking to be mind blown, brands are looking for new ways to reach/connect with people on their phone, social medias made a lot of people passive.

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

-We raised seed money.

-We launched a kickass product.

-We made it to the front page of the App Store in several countries, including Canada, U.S.A., UK, etc.

-We reached 10k users in under a week.

-We have a major partnership with one of the biggest music festival in the world: Le Festival d’été de Québec.

-Some major blogs (The Next Web, TechVibes) covered our story.

What are your next milestones?

-Raise Series A

-Hire

-Partner with more major brands

-Release 5 more challenge trees

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

https://yourextralife.com

This Boston startup gamified the asthma inhaler for kids.

We Talk With Chicago Startup SimpleRelevance About Simple, Personal Email

Chicago startup SimpleRelevance has been on the startup radar for quite some time. Back in May the company, founded by Chicago serial entrepreneur and founding team member of iContact Erik Severinhaus, raised $1 million dollars. While there are several companies out there vying for the position as your mass emailer, SimpleRelevance has found a way to make mass emails personal.

Just the other day I received an email pitch from someone that was obviously sent out using a mass emailer without much preparation and about zero relevance. With SimpleRelevance you don’t need to worry about that.

“Using data intelligence, we combine your customers’ demographic, social, and previous purchase data with our data intelligence to create emails that are individually personalized down to the subject line, product recommendations shown, and time of day the email is sent,” Laura Boring, the companies Head of Marketing and Program Management told us.

According to the company, this degree of customization can increase conversion by 51%, while increasing click through’s by as much as 29%. This can lead to an increase in revenue for companies using SimpleRelevance of as much as 400%, reported VentureBeat.

SimpleRelevance is one of many awesome startups currently housed at 1871, the startup and technology epicenter in Chicago. We talked with Boring about that and more. Check out our interview below.

What is your startup, what does it do?

SimpleRelevance make it easy for companies to personalize, target, and automate their email marketing using data intelligence. We combine your customers demographic, social, and previous purchase data with our data intelligence to create emails that are individually personalized down to the subject line, product recommendations shown, and time of day the email is sent.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds

Erik Severinghaus is a Chicago based serial entrepreneur and business leader. He was a founding team member of iContact, a leading email service provider which was sold to Vocus in 2012. He later joined IBM, where he spent six years as a consultant in IBM’s IT Optimization Practice before founding SimpleRelevance.

Where are you based?

Chicago, IL – currently based at 1871, the tech-startup hub in the Merchandise Mart.

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

We couldn’t ask for a better working environment. At 1871, we are surrounded by some of the top startup talent in Chicago. So far, I haven’t seen any direct competitors here at 1871. Everyone is willing to help each other out.

What problem does your startup solve?

Companies now have access to massive amounts of customer data from various sources,

However, few companies know how to combine this data and make it actionable, especially from an email marketing perspective. Email marketing is one of the easiest and cost effective forms of marketing; however it is still significantly behind from a technology perspective. Our goal is to not only give companies the ability to upgrade to customer focused, data driven marketing, but to make it completely seamless on their end. Firms of all sizes using SimpleRelevance now have access to sophisticated technology that was once only available to firms with million dollar data analytics budgets.

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

One key challenge for SimpleRelevance’s startup process was finding a viable product-market fit. We found ourselves with a fantastic piece of technology that basically created an intelligent inbox, highlighting of-interest emails. We weren’t getting sufficient traction operating as a B2C company and found that our tech would be much more relevant as a SaaS for B2C companies – we made a huge pivot from a B2C to a B2B company.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

To date, we are personalizing emails for over 25 million email addresses. Since January, we’ve seen double digit month over month growth in both our small and midsize businesses as well as our enterprise solutions. We’ve set up partnerships with top Email Service Providers and E-commerce platforms. Our recent round of funding and acceptance into TechStars has been great external validation of our concept, however, the biggest form of evidence for us is the internal validation – which is the significant increase in revenue we are creating for our clients.

What are your next milestones

Our next key milestone is to find a scalable customer acquisition model. We’ve found that batch-and-blast email marketing, or sending the same email at one time to a massive group of people, is still a very prevalent marketing strategy. It’s also completely archaic. To find a scalable customer acquisition model, we basically have to 1) educate the market about the benefits of sending an email with personalized product recommendations (think Amazon Recommendations) at the time the customer is most likely to be checking their inbox and 2) let B2C companies know it’s actually possible to have a one-on-one conversation with every customer on their email lists.

Who are your mentors and role models?

As part of the TechStars Chicago program, we have amazing access to brilliant mentors in the Chicago area. There has been a lot of momentum in the Chicago startup community and we are very excited to be in the middle of the action.

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

One of the advantages of growing SimpleRelevance outside of Silicon Valley is that the Chicago startup community holds itself to standards equal to, if not greater than, those of Silicon Valley. After all, it is one of the hot new startup hubs of the Midwest. We’ve found this results in an environment that demands very defined and validated business models.

One of the disadvantages is that Chicago is still some time away from having the support and rapport of Silicon Valley. Being a Chicago startup is cool, but it’s not yet Silicon Valley cool. Undoubtedly, this is changing as companies like Groupon and SurePayroll call Chicago home.

What’s next for your SimpleRelevance?

Next on our agenda is to end the era of batch-and-blast email marketing. We will not rest until every company is sending personalized and relevant email. You can look at it from this perspective; we want every company to send every single email with a personal mailman who will deliver only relevant mail at the most appropriate times.

Where can people find out more, and what is your Twitter username?

www.simplerelevance.com

twitter.com/simplerelevance (@simplerelevance)

facebook.com/simplerelevance

Check out more startup stories from 1871 here at nibletz.com.

Entrepreneur Moves From Palo Alto To New Jersey To Launch Phroogal

“You can think of us as Google, Quora, and Yelp melded into one cohesive idea around money,” New Jersey startup Phroogal founder Jason Vitug says.

“Interesting,” we thought, so we wanted to find out more.

Most people want to know about money, where to invest it, how to invest it, what terms mean, who can you trust, who can’t you trust. All these are questions that many of us turn to Google for. However the results can be overbearing; millions of patches on investing show up no matter how you refine the search. If information on money and finances were indexed, aggregated, and peer reviewed, it would be a whole lot easier to take control of your money. That’s why Vitug built Phroogal.

Google provides great information on so many things, but mixed into those search engine results are advertisements and paid listings. With Google, the person or company with the best SEO wins. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they have the best financial information for you or your best interest at heart. When you’re looking to make decisions about your money and your finances, this is problematic at best.

Phroogal solves this problem by leveraging social networks to form a community and adding peer reviews and suggestions. If hundreds or thousands of real people are suggesting one financial service over another, there should be merit to that, right?

That’s what Phroogal is hoping.

Phroogal is going to connect common folks that want to know about money, with recommended industry experts that know about all things money. They’ll also have technology in the background that will help users find information they need based on the user’s lifestyle, milestones and goals.

The startup, which hasn’t even launched yet, already has over 3,000 people signed up and waiting for the platform to open its doors. While we are waiting, we got some time to talk with Vitug. Check out our interview below.

What is your startup called?

Phroogal

What does your company do?

Phroogal is crowd-sourced financial information enabling social collaboration to share knowledge, discover new tools and connect with money savvy peers and financial experts.We are building the central repository for all things money. You can think of us as Google, Quora and Yelp melded into one cohesive idea around money.

Why is Phroogal special?

There are so much information and tools out there that can help people get a better handle on money but there is one resource that allows people to discover them. It’s a simple idea that can have profound impact on helping people manage money.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

Jason Vitug, founder and CEO, worked in the financial services industry for 10 years most recently as VP of Business Development for a credit union based in Silicon Valley. Holds a BS in Finance and an MBA. Retired from “corporate America” to backpack around the world in 2012. I had an “aha” moment on what I wanted to do when I came back after backpacking through 20 countries in 12 months. I came back in 2013 to build Phroogal.

There is so much talk about failed startups because of a single founder. The challenges are stacked against me but my passion and work ethic has led to many small successes.

Where are you based?

Currently based in New Jersey. I lived in Palo Alto but moved to NJ to focus all my resources on Phroogal. I’ve been couchsurfing building Phroogal moving from one couch to another.

What problem do you solve?

We all thrive to learn more about money but money is a taboo subject we do not openly talk about. I’ve found that 7/10 people use search engines to find answers to their financial questions. It results in sifting through countless links, advertisements and confusing forums and vague blog posts.

Our platform will allow people to ask questions and get answers, search for topics, discover resources and connect with savvy peers.

Why now?

Advances in technology around money are outpacing adoption by those who can benefit from them. It’s the perfect time to introduce Phroogal to the masses as the place for all things money. Recently, I was discussing the benefits of budgeting and using Mint.com as an introductory tool to segue into other tools that are much more robust. The majority of people never heard of Mint.com.

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

We launched in March 2013 with a landing page and received over 3000+ signups. Our blog postings have been featured in a few trade publications. We’ve been successful in obtaining an Alexa rank of 600k worldwide and 58k in the US in 4 months.

What are your next milestones?

Launch of our MVP in September. Achieve 5k signups before launch.

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

People can visit www.Phroogal.com

This former Groupon employee moved his startup from Silicon Valley to Chicago!

Startups In The Fastlane: NMotion Startup Cinnamon Social

The Cinnamon Social team, accelerating at the NMotion startup accelerator in Lincoln, Nebraska, has discovered that having a social media strategy isn’t enough. Beyond that, they’ve even found that just pure aggregation isn’t enough either. Companies need to find what people are having conversations about, and then have a way to engage those conversationalists.

Cinnamon Social is doing that with their product called Cinnamon Post, which is built on technology they call voice intelligence or VI.

Cinnamon Post and the VI technology are able to analyze and identify the content that creates conversations. It can then assist users by adding the company or brand’s voice into that social conversation, closing the gap from pure aggregation.

We got a chance to talk with Cinnamon Post co-founder Holly Petersen in our latest Startups In The Fastlane interview. In this series we talk with startups that are currently going through a startup accelerator, giving our readers and community a true feel for acceleration. Check out our interview below.

What is the name of your startup?

The name of our company is Cinnamon Social, and our product is called Cinnamon Post.

What problem are you solving:

Over the last several years we’ve discovered that it’s not enough to help businesses strategize their social media efforts. You can have a GREAT strategy and not know how to use it or what content to post each day. Companies of all sizes struggle with this. Cinnamon Post is a software designed to solve this problem. We not only zero in on a companies industry-specific content, but we also analyze the content that creates the conversations with their followers so that we can produce more of the content that matters and that generates relationships and loyalties. From there, the software takes an additional step in that we put a companies posts/tweets etc. into their brand/company voice. We like to call it, voice intelligence (VI). VI is an additional and important step that our algorithm incorporates into the intelligent content that’s produced for our customers.

Why now?

Content is king, right? Content is awesome, but that’s only if you’re posting the right content – the kind of content that generates discussion. This translates into followers, shares and so forth and ultimately visibility for businesses. Social media is all about relationships and only extremely soft sells are welcome in social media, so businesses need to take a calculated approach and maintain consistency and the integrity of their brand when they venture out into social media. Companies are starting to realize finally that social media isn’t going anywhere and if they want to continue to compete, they need to get on the social media train and take is seriously.

Who is your competition?

Tools are starting to emerge now for content. Adobe has an enterprise level content tool and an accompanying analytic suite and so does RallyVerse, but this really isn’t what Cinnamon Social is interested in doing. We really want to focus on quality content and how it’s delivered (VI), keeping it simple and straight forward to use. Companies like BuzzSpice, which is in beta right now and a company called Content Gems more closely match what we’re trying to do.

What’s your secret sauce?

Our secret spice, as we like to call it is our voice intelligence. Coupled with our precision content, our algorithm can weigh what’s important to customers and what they find attractive, in essence. Based on this, the content suggestions get more intelligent and when you further dial that down to delivery in their branded voice – you’ve got some seriously tasty content!

Where are you/were you based before NMotion?

We are and have been based in Lincoln, NE.

Why NMotion?

We’ve been marinating on this tool for a while, the timing and how best to deliver it. Businesses need this tool now and the NMotion program is providing the rigorous accountability and tools that our team needs to deliver our solution in the leanest, quickest and most flexible approach possible.

What’s one lesson you’ve learned since the NMotion session has started?

Keep moving! Every day matters, especially in the in the world of technology.

Where can people find out more?

You can visit our website at cinnamonsocial.com and our various social media feeds at facebook.com/cinnamonsocial and @cinnamonsocial.

Startups In The Fast Lane: Brandery Startup CoEd Supply A Subscription Box For College Students

Subscription boxes are nothing new. There are subscription boxes for shoes, women’s clothes, men’s clothes, gadgets, toys, and even dogs. Now two co-founders originally from Philadelphia find themselves in Cincinnati going through The Brandery with their startup Co-Ed Supply.

Marissa Hu and Andy Forston’s startup takes the subscription box model and solve a problem for parents and loved ones of college students, the care package. While some may think by subscription-izing the care package you’re taking the “care” out of it, we all know that college students are hard to shop for and sometimes it’s just not that cool to get hearts, candies, and box scores sent from mom and dad every week.

Of course the Co-Ed Supply box is also perfect for working and busy parents, and with parents staying on the job, working the same long hours later and later in life, Co-Ed Supply makes sense.

While Co-Ed supply will have a revenue stream with their subscription customers, their other customers–their bigger customers–are manufacturers and vendors of products that want to make it into the dorm rooms of college students. By partnering with Co-Ed Supply, these brands get exposure and engagement at a whole new level. One of the best parts for the brand is that it’s of course, opt-in.

Coed Supply is currently in beta and getting ready to launch soon. You can get signed up on their website now. Check out our full interview with Forston below.

What is the name of your startup?

Co-Ed Supply (http://www.coedsupply.com)

Where is your startup originally from?

Philadelphia, PA

Tell us about your current team?

Marissa Hu, CEO – has spent the last four years in business development and sales. Most recently, she was one of the early members of the business team driving partnership development for the Shanghai Disney Resort. She’s also a recovering investment banker from Goldman Sachs, a UC Berkeley alum who’s now halfway through her MBA at Wharton, and on the investment team at First Round Capital’s Dorm Room Fund.

Andy Fortson, CMO – has been a digital and social media marketer for consumer, entertainment, and technology companies for the past seven years. Most recently he led marketing at mobile couponing app SnipSnap, and previous clients have included Gilt Groupe, Red Bull, Paramount, Fox, Microsoft, and Sony.

What does your startup do?

Co-Ed Supply delivers a curated box of college essentials to students every month starting at $20. The contents of each box is a surprise but all contain healthy snacks, personal care items, and entertainment. For students and their parents, basically we’re offering a cheaper, healthier, and more entertaining alternative to traditional care package options.

On the flip side, we work with brands who are trying to market to college students. Right now they hand out samples on campus, and when that sample walks away they don’t know who the student was, if they enjoyed it, purchased more, or shared with their friends. With Co-Ed Supply these brands can measure these types of results because we deliver data back to them on how well their campaign did.

What are your goals for the accelerator program?

Our goal was literally to accelerate our progress headed into the new school year and to establish relationships with large consumer brands. The Brandery has been super helpful for us in reaching our goals so far.

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

It’s taken some time but we feel like we’ve really gotten to understand how to work with mentors. The most helpful part is how to ask the right questions so that we can identify issues we weren’t aware about and how to get answers to questions we didn’t even know we had in the first place.

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

We haven’t gotten any hard-to-stomach advice necessarily, but we’ve received a lot contradictory advice. The hardest part is identifying the right path or to not waste too much time going down the wrong path.

What is your goal for the day after demo day?

Just to continue on building more relationships with brands, expanding our reach into more college campuses, and growing our subscriber base.

Why did you choose this accelerator?

We chose The Brandery because of its focus on building a strong brand and it’s relationships with a lot of consumer goods companies. These have been super valuable to building our business.

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

What our presence in Cincinnati is after The Brandery is still to be decided. There are definitely a number of really good reasons to continue some sort of physical presence here.

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

We didn’t really expect all the companies to be as supportive of each other as everyone’s been. All the teams have very diverse backgrounds and have been super helpful for everybody with connections, technical help, and marketing knowledge.

Where can people find out more?

Xoogler Spotlight: Seattle Startup Yabbly Wants To Help Prevent Buyer’s Remorse

We’ve all been there. We bought something from Amazon or in our local department store or Best Buy, just to find out later that we didn’t really like the item, or worse, it didn’t do what we needed it to do. If you’re like me, you even checked out three or four product reviews before buying. That makes the whole situation more annoying.

The problem with those product reviews is that they either aren’t addressing what we really need out of the item or they were planted by a PR firm or the manufacturer themselves.

Seattle startup Yabbly is looking to change that with their new community of people who are actually out there purchasing items. The site goes deeper than most but in a way that makes it more engaging.

The company was founded by a powerhouse team of founders who know good product. CEO and Co-Founder Tom Leung is a former product manger at Google. Ian Shafer, the engineering lead, actually comes from Amazon. So while Yabbly is going to be filled with user product reviews, the product itself is also going to be easy-to-use and easy-to-understand.

But Yabbly wasn’t created just because it sounded like a good startup. Megh Vakharia who works in the marketing department at Yabbly tells us that the founders created Yabbly because people often have many specific reasons they are looking for a product, and generalized reviews weren’t cutting it.

“For example, someone looking for vacuums specifically to clean up pet hair won’t find many reviews and vacuums that are recommended especially for their pet hair-cleaning abilities. With Yabbly, you can ask a question about how you need a vacuum for pet hair cleanup, and other Yabblers will give you recommendations based on their own experiences,” Vakharia told us in an interview.

You can read the rest of our interview with Yabbly below.

What is your startup called?

Our startup is called Yabbly.

What does your company do?

Yabbly is a platform for thoughtful conversation about product decisions. Members of our community can ask questions about product decisions they’re facing, including information about their specific situation, such as price range, use case, and whatever else is important to them. Our goal is to help people who are facing a product decision find their “product soulmate,” someone who has made a similar product decision in the past. Yabbly is here to help you kill buyer’s remorse by helping you find products you’ll love!

What’s unique about Yabbly is that we guarantee every great question will receive an answer within one day – no other Q&A site matches this.

What problem do you solve?

People relying on Amazon Reviews to help them find the best products face a problem – those reviews could be written by anyone, and the majority of reviews don’t help you figure out if the product will fit your needs. For example, someone looking for vacuums specifically to clean up pet hair won’t find many reviews and vacuums that are recommended especially for their pet hair-cleaning abilities. With Yabbly, you can ask a question about how you need a vacuum for pet hair cleanup, and other Yabblers will give you recommendations based on their own experiences. (this was in fact one of our best threads, with 18 responses)

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

The Yabbly team was founded by Tom Leung, CEO, Ian Shafer, engineering lead, and Steven Neuman, UX designer. The team is especially equipped to solve the problem because they helped create it – Tom is a former Google product manager, Ian is a former Amazon engineer, and Steven worked on shopping apps for Target and REI.Where are you based?

Yabbly is based in Pioneer Square, a neighborhood in Seattle, WA.What’s the startup scene like where you are based?

Seattle’s startup scene is awesome, and it’s a growing hub of entrepreneurial activity – especially with people trying to start the next Microsoft or Amazon. VC activity is also ramping up in the area and groups like TechStars Seattle offer entrepreneurs many opportunities to execute their ideas.

Why now?

Americans spend a trillion dollars on products every year, and this will only grow in the future as ecommerce shopping booms. But product reviews haven’t caught up with this – Amazon reviews suck, and Facebook isn’t focused enough to facilitate great conversation about which products to buy. Beyond that, more people are going mobile when making shopping decisions – Yabbly is positioned perfectly to capture this growing market and provide a platform for great discussion about which products to buy.

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

-Almost 2,000 questions asked and over 10,000 responses

-On average, each question recieves around 5 responses
-Top 3 in SxSW Startup Accelerator in Social category

– $1.5 million in seed funding

-Rated #2 for “product reviews” on iTunes app store, #15 for “reviews”

What are your next milestones?

-Focus on growing our community with engaged users

-Update iPhone app to be iOS7 compatible

-Improve desktop web app experience

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

Join the community to get help finding the best products for you!

www.yabbly.com

Check out these other Xoogler founded startups.

node.js Developers Can Count On Cincinnati Startup, Modulus [VIDEO]

We have an incredible knack for running into Charlie Key ,the co-founder of Cincinnati startup Modulus, everywhere. We spent some time with the Modulus crew in Austin at SXSW, and two weeks ago our CEO Nick Tippmann ran into Key at the Innovation Showcase at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Modulus is a platform for node.js developers. They host node.js applications in the cloud in such a way that it makes it incredibly easy for developers to scale. Key tells Nibletz, “When you want to go from 1,000 users to 100,000 user,s we can do that.” They can actually go far beyond 100,000 users.

The cloud stuff is the easy part, though. Modulus also offers a robust layer of statistics and analytics for all of the node.js developers on their platform. They can give their developer users a snapshot of exactly how many people are accessing their app, what features they are calling, and a whole lot more.

Modulus accelerated last year at The Brandery in Cincinnati and just recently moved into their own office.

Key told Soapbox Cincinnati that Modulus was actually a hodge podge of other projects the team was working on: “The business started slowly out of other projects. The Brandery application process really forced us to consolidate our ideas into a single vision; Modulus officially kicked off when we were accepted into the program.”

Now a year later the company is doing very well. Check out Nick’s interview with Charlie Key in the video below:

Startups In The Fastlane: NMotion Startup FiscalCircles

Whether you have an MBA or a GED, startup accelerators are often the biggest push that startups need to go from idea, or earliest MVP, to actual startup and company. Startup accelerators come in all sizes and shapes from YCombinator, 500 Startups, and Techstars to The Fort, The Brandery, and Seed Hatchery. In our Accelerating in the Fast Lane stories we’ll feature an interview with a startup currently going through an accelerator.

Nebraska is filled with startups and entrepreneurs. Warren Buffet hails from Nebraska, as does the Silicon Prairie News and their Big Series of award-winning conferences. On a recent trip to Nebraska, we got to hang out with Eric Moyer the co-founder and CMO of a startup that went into Lincoln, Nebraksa’s NMotion accelerator as Fiscal Circles and has since taken on the name, HipPocket.

HipPocket helps connect consumers to loan products in a more efficient and transparent way. Find out how in our interview with Moyer below.

What is the name of your start-up?

The name of our start-up has long been a loaded question. I am however happy to report, Fiscal Circles, Inc. is now doing business as HipPocket.

What problem are you solving?

We provide insight into consumer finance which until now has lacked any form of transparency. Consumers hoping to improve their financial situation have been forced to call around or ‘take a chance’ on a loan offer that may not be in their best interest through websites like lowermybills.com, quickenloans, etc.

Why now?

Consumer adoption of online banking and more specifically, personal financial management (PFM) sites like Mint.com is trending up. Further, interest rates are poised to increase markedly in the near term. We predict that timing is right for a vast number of consumers who have been on the fence about optimizing their finances will be motivated by a changing rate environment.

Who are your competitors?

The biggest competitor in the PFM space is mint.com, but we’ve also been diligently researching other providers in the space. We’ve seen some companies doing limited comparisons of budget or FICO score but none appear to be leveraging market and peer comparison data in a significant manner. We also have a secret sauce that we’re hoping you ask us about…

What’s your secret sauce?

Our proprietary process for taking users through the comparison process is our secret sauce. We help them build a complete financial picture and provide the clearest possible explanation of where they stand now and an easy-to-understand path to a better future. This process emphasizes simplicity and fairness. Instead of utilizing persistent reminders, info-graphics and a myriad of other tactics to change consumer behavior, we’ve chosen to concentrate on saving people money on the things they already buy.

By concentrating on making refinancing or finding a new mortgage easy and providing unbiased loan recommendations, we give the consumer a fair shot at getting the best deal.

Where are you/were you based before NMotion?

Prior to NMotion, our team split time among coffee shops, Turbine Flats (a co-working space) and of course, the founder’s homes.

Why NMotion?

We applied to NMotion to gain access to resources and best practices in an effort to improve our chances for success. Plus, NMotion is dedicated to developing the start-up community of Lincoln, Nebraska. We recognize that for our venture to succeed, the area needs to be seen as a viable place for new companies to gain a foothold. Brian Ardinger and his staff at NMotion have given participating teams every opportunity to develop and successfully launch compelling products and services.

What’s one lesson you’ve learned since the NMotion session has started.

One lesson we’ve learned is that the time spent validating assumptions might be worth more than what you’re building.

Where can people find out more?

You can find us on Facebook, Twitter and now, YourHipPocket.com.

Stay tuned for more stories from accelerators everywhere else.

Startups from everywhere else attend the huge everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference.

Indy Startup Adproval Simplifies Direct Advertising For Any Blogger [VIDEO]

Most of our readers know I’m into my 7th year as a full time blogger. Both of the new media startups I’ve founded produced fresh content six days a week. After creating Nibletz in the summer of 2011, I sold Thedroidguy the following spring to concentrate on Nibletz full time.

Like many of the serial entrepreneurs we’ve profiled here at Nibletz, I learned a lot of lessons from my previous startup, and at the same time brought with me habits from my previous startup as well.

With a new media startup (in a lot of cases a fancy schmancy word for blog), or as a full time blogger, and now one with a staff, people often wonder how we do it. There are so many people out there that think they can buy a $1.99 domain name, activate Word Press, and be in business. Well as Indianapolis startup Adproval’s, founder Mathew Anderson talks about in the video below, it’s not that easy. A lot of bloggers either stop blogging altogether or move to part time blogging because they can’t figure out how to monetize.

In 2013 there are so many different things involved in monetization, the least lucrative of those is ad networks. Through both sites we’ve tried just about every available ad network. Now with tech focused sites we’re at an even bigger loss because most of our readers are trained not to click network ads. With advertising though, the trick is to be engaging and to capture the attention of the reader. That’s why our state and local partnerships are the best way to reach an engaged audience of millions across the site and social media.

But attracting those partnerships takes a lot of time.

Even with a permanent Managing Editor on board and a co-founder picking up a lot of the backend work, I spend a lot of time working on direct sales. Anderson is hoping to solve that problem, not just for us but for everyone. Anderson explains his “aha moment” in his conversation with Nick Tippmann in the video below, and he shared a lot about it in our interview with him back in November.

Adproval provides a platform that makes it easy to reach targeted direct advertisers for whatever your niche in blogging is.

Are you blogging recipes, kite flying, paintball, or even tech? Adproval helps you set up their system to reach those advertisers or sponsors that will engage the audience.

At Thedroidguy we used one of the biggest and best ad networks in the world, outside of Google AdSense. Still, an Android-focused blog, we would get huge skyscraper or interstitial ads for macaroni and cheese, cleaning product,s and Brita water filters. As internet sensation Sweet Brown would say, “Ain’t nobody got time for that.”

Here at Nibletz for instance, the best ads would be for startup lawyers, PR firms catering to startups, accelerators, startup conferences, the latest mobile technology, incubators, and coworking spaces. Our readers don’t care about Velveeta Shells & Cheese; they’re still eating Ramen noodles.

Adproval’s knack for connecting bloggers with the sponsors and advertisers that will fill these needs and actually get eyeballs is making the Indianapolis-based company successful.

Check out our video interview with Anderson below and for more info visit adproval.com

Pittsburgh Startup Wants To Help You Monetize Your White Papers

When companies put out white papers they are typically very proud of their work. A lot of research has gone into these papers, but in the end most of them are distributed freely via pdf. Some may view white papers as research tools, and a way to get a company’s name out there. Or perhaps white papers are used to thoroughly explore a new product. Either way, they are one of the most in-depth forms of content marketing, and these days content marketing is huge.

Outside of content marketing though, but still quite related, white papers can serve as an excellent lead referral source. The problem is most companies don’t know how to utilize the white papers for lead generation, thus leaving them undervalued.

“You would be surprised how few companies correctly leverage their whitepapers and research studies for new customer acquisition. These documents are valuable resources and while it’s OK to give them away as free PR, we feel a lot of consumer leads are being left on the table when a company simply links to the PDF for an instant download,” DocumentLeads founder Chris Cagle told us.

Cagle went onto explain, “If the value of the white paper is correctly explained and presented, many people will not even hesitate to give you their name and email in order to download it. This is where DocumentLeads comes in. While there are currently a few services out there that do this as part of a larger offering, DocumentLeads is the only company that focuses solely on allowing you to create a lead form for the sole purpose of capturing and nurturing leads off a digital document in a completely white-labeled environment. We’ve put all of our skill and attention on doing this one thing, and doing it very well. ”

Cagle is a Pittsburgh-based serial entrepreneur who had a string of misses before launching GetSimple CMS. Cagle used a lot of the knowledge he gained from building GetSimple CMS and put it into DocumentLeads.

Check out the rest of our interview with Cagle below.

What is your startup, what does it do?

DocumentLeads is a document management SaaS application. We give online businesses the ability to generate and capture leads directly from the downloads of their whitepapers and other digital documents. We have a built-in CRM management tool that allows customers to view and nurture the leads they capture. Additionally, if a customer of our service uses an outside CRM tool, we have integrations with some of the top online CRMs such as Nutshell, CapsuleCRM and Highrise as well as similar services like MailChimp.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds

DocumentLeads is a product and service created by Chris Cagle. Chris is a tech entrepreneur located in Pittsburgh, PA (USA) and has been creating products on the web for over 10 years. Chris got his start building a lot of online properties that no one used, then moved onto founding & developing one of the most successful lite-CMSs on the market currently – GetSimple CMS. While building GetSimple, Chris learned a lot about application security, great user experience and the downfalls of feature-bloat. All of these skills were used when creating DocumentLeads.

Where are you based?

We are based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh is a budding tech town (because of all of our colleges) and is home to a rabid Black & Gold fan base for the Pirates, Penguins and Steelers.

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

A large challenge we’ve overcome is how to correctly handle any type of document in any online environment. With DocumentLeads, you can now upload a PPT file (or DOC, XLS, PDF, TXT, etc.) and have it be viewed as an HTML file, then downloaded as a PDF. Most solutions out there force you to use JavaScript (only PDF-friendly) or Flash (not mobile-friendly). At Dcoumentleads, we’ve solved this and have a solution that works for any document on any device. Another large challenge we are currently running into is operating in a bootstrapped environment. Because we are 100% bootstrapped, we don’t have the marketing budget that some of the others in our field have (SlideShare & HubSpot). This is a constant weight on our shoulders that forces us be creative to get the publicity and some visibility needed to be successful in our market.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

The first and most important milestone we’ve achieved is our initial launch. Coming up for the idea for the business was easy (all ideas are born out of a need, right?), but executing on it was a multitude of difficulty more. There were some late nights, countless “how do we do this?” moments and plenty of code rewrites. In the end, we produced a service that we are extremely proud of and feel can make a difference for many businesses out there looking to take advantage of their digital documents.

What are your next milestones

Integrations. While we have a good stable of CRM integrations at this moment, we need more to make it as useful as possible. This means integrating with entrenched and enterprise-level products like Salesforce, ZoHo, Campaign Monitor and other big name CRM and email management products.

Who are your mentors and role models?

I, like many other self-started entrepreneurs, grew up reading blogs like RRW and Techcrunch. Lately, I’ve been fascinated by the blog and email newsletter of Patrick McKenzie. This guy is a genius (and extremely transparent!) on how to build, price and run your SaaS business. I have learned a lot from him, and would recommend anyone reading this to sign up for this “Grow your software business” email newsletter… it’s fantastic.

What’s next for your startup?

We need to grow. Period. We are still in our infancy (we officially launched only a few short months ago) and we need to grow in terms of customers and mature feature sets. We are constantly striving to harden and shape our business to be the best it can be, but we also recognize it can be a long process. Aside from the integrations we mentioned above, supporting our current customers and the ongoing marketing that needs to occur, our schedules are stacked full (just the way we like it!).

Where can people find out more, and what is your Twitter username?

You can learn more about DocumentLeads on our website Documentleads.com. Our Twitter handle is @documentleads and you will find us posting our product updates and news on there.

This Pittsburgh startup wants to make sure you never lose your wallet again.

Canadian Startup Thalmic Labs Has Quite Possibly The Coolest Wearable Tech Out There

Myo,Thalmic Labs, Canadian startup, startup interview

Wearable technology and “the internet of things” may be the hottest startup segments out there in 2013. There are sensors, gadgets, bracelets, bands, watches, and other technology that captures just about everything. There’s even wearable, sensor-based technology for dogs.

Most people have seen fitness monitors, sleep monitors, and smart watches, but from what I’ve seen (and I’ve seen a lot), Myo, the flagship product from Canadian startup Thalmic Labs, takes the cake.

Myo is a bracelet that has sensors built into it that allows you to gesture control just about anything using the motion in your hand. With Myo you can easily scroll through a presentation deck, navigate a website, or pinpoint a place on a map.

Then there’s the even cooler stuff. Myo can also help you control video games and even fly smartphone- or computer-based helicopters and airplanes.

When I first watched their demo video below I thought it looked kind of silly, but really it’s one of the awesomest things I’ve ever seen. Myo eliminates the need for so many different remote controls and controllers. It’s also intuitive and the gestures (from watching the video) are natural, the gestures you would be doing on a smartphone or tablet anyway.

Sure the Wii Remote, XBox Kinect, and even Roku’s latest remote control are all about motion, but they are also tied directly to their device. Myo makes your hand the motion controller, I know awesome right.

We got a chance to talk with the team behind Myo. Check out the interview right below their video.

What is your startup called?

Thalmic Labs

What does your company do?

Thalmic Labs is a rapidly growing company that is dedicated to the development of gesture control, wearable technology and human-computer interaction. Our flagship product, MYO, has already received 30,000 pre-orders, and continues to generate a massive amount of excitement about the future of wearable computing.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

Stephen Lake – Founder, CEO

Matthew Bailey – Founder

Aaron Grant – Founder

At the University of Waterloo, Stephen, Matthew and Aaron graduated with degrees in Mechatronics Engineering.

Stephen was named one of Canada’s Top 20 under 20 in 2007 and one of the Next 36 entrepreneurial leaders of Canada in 2011. Stephen graduated with an additional certificate in Entrepreneurship from the University of Toronto, and studied as a visiting scholar at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. He became an entrepreneur from a young age, attaching LED lights to radio-controlled trucks and selling them at age 13.

Matthew studied pattern recognition, which drove the development of the underlying machine learning magic behind Thalmic’s products. He studied as a visiting scholar at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich.

Aaron has an extensive software engineering background, having spent time in Silicon Valley working for Zynga. His passion for software engineering has even led him to create his own embedded microprocessor operating system.

Where are you based?

Waterloo, Ontario

What problem do you solve?

How do we connect the real and the digital worlds as we move towards wearable and ubiquitous computing?

Why does it matter?

MYO provides a way for us to interact with and control computers and other digital devices directly using our hands. Fundamentally, Thalmic is attempting to close the gap between humans and technology. The applications are endless, including gaming and entertainment, industrial, healthcare, education, business, and general user applications.

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

The video that we launched MYO with has millions of views on YouTube and gave us immediate reach when getting our product out there initially. More recently, our company announced the closing of a Series A funding round at $14.5 million – the largest round of funding that any post-Y Combinator company has received to date. This funding will be used to fuel continued growth, further product development of MYO, and develop future products and technologies from Thalmic Labs.

What are your next milestones?

The most important milestone for us is to get our final product into the hands of thousands of waiting customers. This includes taking our time going to production to ensure the quality of our product and finding the best partners to do this with. Another big milestone is to get early units and documentation to developers late this summer and see how they can help rethink human-computer interaction. Beyond that, we’re excited for the future of technology. For us, MYO is a first step down a long path in this direction.

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

The best way to understand Thalmic Labs and MYO is by watching the video on our homepage (https://www.thalmic.com/myo/). As you explore, feel free to “get updates” and pre-order MYO at https://www.thalmic.com/myo/preorder/. You can follow Thalmic Labs on twitter at @Thalmic.

Back in October Kara Swisher said sensors were the big thing for this year, she was right.

BlueBridge Digital Founder Talks About One Year Journey From College To 15 Employees

Last year Santiago Jaramillo was a senior in college. From his dorm room, he created a business building apps for other businesses. What happened over the next year is a story much more common to Silicon Valley and New York than Indiana. Jaramillo took that app-building business and turned it into his startup: BlueBridge Digital, a company that does “apps as a service”.

BlueBridge Digital is an app development company that specializes in three verticals: travel and tourism, higher education, and religious institutions. Their clients include Gatlinburg, Tennessee, University of Arkansas, and several well known large churches.

One of the biggest things that sets BlueBridge Digital apart from other app development houses is their subscription model. They charge their clients a monthly fee rather than making them come out of pocket with one big payment, something that often times prevents companies in their verticals from going forward with their app projects.

By focusing on just three main verticals, making their service accessible to businesses, and offering superior customer service, Jaramillo’s startup is cash flow positive and employs 15 people, just a year out of college.

Jaramillo told Nibletz co-founder Nick Tippmann in an interview that one of the biggest keys to his success was focusing on sales and getting people to actually pay for his services. This made it easier to attract a great team of established co-founders, great employees, and more clients. With all that in mind, Jaramillo was able to bootstrap BlueBridge Digital to revenue.

Check out the video interview below and for more visit bluebridgeapps.com

37 signals founder Jason Fried talks about product design.

When Sh!t Hits The Fan, There’s Indiana Startup Evacua

Bloomington, Indiana startup Evacua is a platform/marketplace for people when sh!t hits the fan. What kind of sh!t? How about evacuations.

Often times when an evacuation is necessary, nobody is prepared. That lack of preparation makes an evacuation take 10x as long as it would if more people were ready. Hurricanes, wildfires, and floods are just a few of the disasters that can displace you and your family. If you had a safety network in your back pocket ,you would breathe easier and know that anything dictating an evacuation would be more manageable.

Evacua is a network of verified travelers, companies, and transportation providers that can quickly pool resources together during an evacuation.

Evacua isn’t just about natural disasters and what you would think of as traditional “evacuations.” It’s an emergency travel safety net. If you were on a business trip and your wife went into labor or you had a death in the family, Evacua members would have access to last minute travel without the huge cost of paying commercially for it.

The startup accelerated at RunUp Labs, the travel industry accelerator based out of Bloomington, Indiana’s SproutBox. The idea is to quickly connect its members to be mobilized and ready travel companies and providers at a moment’s notice. At the same time, they are also working on the rideshare model for aircraft.

“Simultaneously, we are fixing the ride sharing model for aircrafts. By using a low cost to entry, we can appeal to a broader base of travelers. During emergencies, this base of travelers is more flexible with price, destination, and departure times, allowing for more likely matches of flights and passengers,” the company says on it’s AngelList profile.

Nibletz’ Nick Tippmann was in Indiana for the Innovation Showcase last week where he got to spend some time with Mike Beckwith the General Manager and co-founder of Evacua. Check out our video interview below and for more info visit evacua.com