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Startups Get Your Seed Hatchery Application In Before Christmas (Dec 23 Early Application Deadline)

While Santa is making his list and checking it twice, early stage startup founders across the country and around the world are checking off startup accelerators on their list. Seed Hatchery, the startup accelerator in Memphis Tennessee should be one of those accelerators. They’re looking for the type of entrepreneurs that are committed to growing their startup long term and aren’t afraid of hard work.

Seed Hatchery is now taking applications for their third class. The cohort based accelerator will begin in February and run for three consecutive months. At the end of the session you and your company will be ready to pitch real investors for opportunities to invest in your business. In the meantime you’ll be backed by the 3M’s Money, Mentors and a marine style bootcamp, in Memphis.

Although sometimes overlooked, Memphis is one of the most entrepreneurial minded cities in the world. Going back nearly 100 years, Memphis Tennessee was the epicenter for this little thing called “cotton” you may have heard of it. It was cotton and the cotton exchange that spurred one of the largest investment banks in history, Lehman Brothers.

Beyond that, other globally known phenomena like rock music (the blues), Elvis Presley, and R&B radio have their roots firmly planted in the Bluff City.

Is that not enough? Perhaps you’ve heard of this company that delivers packages via planes and trucks, overnight, yes FedEx was born and based in Memphis. Holiday Inn was born in Memphis as was Serv Pro, and Autozone. Even Debbi Fields, Yes Mrs. Fields as in cookies, calls Memphis Tennessee home.

With an entrepreneurial pedigree like that you can be assured that the mentor pool for the 2013 Seed Hatchery CoHort will be stronger than most regional accelerators Seed Hatchery’s size.

Seed Hatchery was the partner for the recent Zeroto510 medical device accelerator in Memphis where 5 of the 6 teams received follow on funding of over $100,000. One of the teams went on to immediately raise over 2 million dollars. While some startup communities are still just getting started, Seed Hatchery is backed by Launch Your City which has been working on strengthening entrepreneurs and their startups for the last six years.

If you’re a Memphis area entrepreneur or in any area and ready to relocate to Memphis it’s a great place to work and a great place to build a business. Not only that, but even though the accelerator is in the thick of the winter, it’s never ver cold in Memphis.

If you’re startup is chosen to participate you’ll receive a seed investment of $15,000, access to a very strong mentor network and a strong investment community. Seed Hatchery is looking for startups that are in the area or willing to relocate for the entire 90 day cohort and stick around Memphis to tap into the investor, entrepreneurial and startup community in the region after that. To kick off your stay in Memphis TN every team and their members selected for Seed Hatchery will receive a free ticket to the three day startup extravaganza known as “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference” where you’ll get to see the great speakers already announced and have a small group session with recent graduates from TechStars, 500Startups, The Brandery and previous graduates of Seed Hatchery.

Applying is free and the application is open now. It’s not for the faint at heart but if you’re passionate about your idea and hard working, if you’re not afraid of rolling up your sleeves this is for you.

Hit the links below.

Linkage:

Here’s the application for the 2013 Seed Hatchery cohort

Seedhatchery.com

No one brings you high growth tech news for the south east like Nibletz the voice of startups “everywhere else”

And the world famous “everywhere else conference”

New Orleans Food Ordering Startup: Couchster, Set To Debut Dec 17th

After a long day at work, school or even at the gym, a lot of people just want to chill on the couch and order in. That’s the idea that’s driving New Orleans entrepreneur Sean O’Neill and his food ordering startup Couchster.

The New Orleans startup is an online food ordering site, optimized for mobile, but O’Neill is hoping to add native mobile apps in the not so distant future. While mobile food ordering isn’t necessarily new, it is new to New Orleans. According to our friends at Silicon Bayou News, O’Neill is aiming to make ordering food easy and more accessible.

Couchster serves up online menu’s so that ordering from your computer, mobile device or tablet can be a cinch. In a city known for it’s delicious food and variety at that, Couchster is a welcomed addition. O’Neill already has over 125 restaurant locations on board. While he’s not officially launching until December 17th, the menus for all of Couchster’s restaurant partners are already posted for users to view.

Couchster is bootstrapped to the hilt. O’Neill believes he shouldn’t try and raise money until he has proven his concept. So after having this idea for over a year, he went out and worked 8-5 everyday and saved every dime he could so that this past June he could quit his day job and work on Couchster full time.

As long as the rollout in New Orleans goes well O’Neill plans to expand to other cities in Louisiana like Shreveport and Baton Rouge, and then after that he wants to take Couchster outside of the state.

Linkage:

Couchster can be found here

Source: Silicon Bayou News

Nobody covers high growth tech news in the southeast like Nibletz, the voice of startups “everywhere else”

Are you coming to “everywhere else” the largest startup conference in the US? Tickets are affordable and the line up is spectacular

Exclusive: Nashville Startup RentStuff Acquired

We’ve been covering the wild, but awesome ride that Nashville startup RentStuff has been on since May. RentStuff is a 2011 graduate of the JumpStart Foundry startup accelerator in music city.

Over the summer the Nashville startup relocated to the 1871 startup incubator in Chicago.

RentStuff started off as a peer to peer rental platform. Got a lawn mower rotting away in the garage. You could use RentStuff to rent it out to someone who needed it for a few days. Items like iPads, DSLR cameras and even powerful leaf blowers could be found at RentStuff.

In August the RentStuff team, led by Chris Jaeger, pivoted away from that model in favor of a more traditional rental search utility. Jaeger told us then that they would continue to support both platforms however the original model, despite rave reviews, wasn’t scaling fast enough. You could find a lawnmower for rent in Nashville and a DSLR camera in Pennsylvania, with the people who actually wanted to rent them hundreds of miles away.

Today we found out that RentStuff has been acquired by RentalCompare, the largest searchable database of things to rent across the country. Terms of the sale were not disclosed by press time.

Jaeger has always been a big proponent of the Nashville startup scene, especially the Entrepreneur Center and JumpStart Foundry. Tennessee venture firm Solidus backs several Tennessee accelerators including JumpStart Foundry and also participated in a follow on round for RentStuff.

RentStuff alerted their user base to their acquisition with the message below posted on their Facebook page:

Tennessee is a great place to startup, apply now for the Seed Hatchery accelerator click here

Linkage:

Find RentStuff Here

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Launch Memphis Launches UpStart Women’s Startup Initiative And 48 Hour Launch Dec 7-9

Launch Memphis, one of the key ecosystem drivers for startups in Tennessee, has launched a new initiative aimed at women entrepreneurs and startups. Getting more women engaged in startup communities is a goal that most cities are working on. Driving entrepreneurial growth among women is also a key factor in the overall health and success of an entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Launch Your City and their Memphis arm, Launch Memphis, are no strangers to the startup ecosystem. They’ve been the driving force behind Memphis’ startup and entrepreneurial growth since 2006. Launch Memphis runs a free coworking space; The LaunchPad, curriculum based initiatives through Launch Memphis and a startup accelerator in it’s third year, Seed Hatchery.

With the success of their most recent endeavors, including playing host to over a dozen Global Entrepreneurship Week events, now is the perfect time to announce a women’s initiative.

The kick off event for the women’s initiative, dubbed “UpStart” is a 48 Hour Launch event being held December 7-9th at Emerge Memphis. The three day hackathon style, startup launching vehicle has been so successful in Memphis, the folks in Nashville recently replicated the event for their startup community.

The UpStart 48 Hour Launch is open to both women and men to participate however the ideas pitched will be from women. These women entrepreneurs will drive their teams through 48 hours of hacking, collaborating and building a viable product.

Unlike many of the “official” Startup Weekend events, 48 Hour Launch is coupled with the existing resources of Launch Memphis and Emerge Memphis which serves as the epicenter for startup and entrepreneurial activity in the mid south.

“We recognize that the disparity between men’s and women’s high growth potential startup companies is not unique to Memphis; however, Memphis can be unique in our deliberate approach to close this gap and fuel women’s innovation and entrepreneurship”. Elizabeth Lemmonds, Chief Brand Officer at LaunchYourCity told nibletz.com

Danielle Inez, a successful PR, marketing and event planning consultant in Memphis is anxious to pitch her newest idea at the UpStart 48 Hour Launch in December. Inez was among hundreds who participated in Launch Memphis’ Risk City Field Day event last Friday as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Inez took to Twitter on Tuesday to express her enthusiasm for both events.

Eric Mathews, Co-President and CEO of LaunchYourCity said: “We are making a commitment to cultivate and fund a woman led and majority woman owned startup by the end of the first quarter of next year. We encourage women to reach out and get involved in all levels of our platform as mentors, investors, and of course as potential founders.”

UpStart programming also includes a women’s meetup and plans on being a permanent fixture in the LaunchMemphis programming.

Linkage:

Upstart Memphis is here

No one covers high growth technology in the south east like Nibletz

Make sure you’ve got a ticket to this grand event

Startup First! Memphis Startups Pitch Federal Court Judge As Part Of Amazing Risk GEW Event

Screwpulp,GuildLocal,Memphis Urban Farm School,Launch Memphis,Memphis startup,startups,Judge Fowlkes, startup pitch

Memphis startup founder Rich Billings pitches ScrewPulp to Federal Court Judge John Fowlkes

For the third year running the state of Tennessee has held the most officially sanctioned Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) events with 91. One of those events as part of Memphis’ GEW activities is the Amazing Risk scavenger hunt.

A call was put out a month ago for startups to apply to compete in the Amazing Risk challenge. The field was narrowed down to three startups; Screw Pulp, Guild Local and the Memphis Urban Farm School. These three startups are competing for $10,000 in cash and prizes (services).

The three startups began the day at Risk City Field Day in midtown Memphis. At 10:00am all three teams were given clues to what they had to do to earn up to 1100 points. At the end of the day the team with the most points will win the prize pot.

The participants had to go to local eatery South Of Beale and pitch one of the waitresses. They also had to pitch Marvin Stockwell the Marketing Director at one of Memphis’ big social entrepreneur examples, the Church Health Center.

Finally the last clue had the teams headed to the Memphis Civic Center downtown which is the collection of state, local and federal buildings. From there they needed to interrupt President Barack Obama appointed Federal Court Judge, John Fowlkes, and again give their pitch.

Judge Fowlkes is no stranger to the Memphis entrepreneur community. His oldest son Andre Fowlkes is the Co-President of Launch Your City, the startup and entrepreneurial epicenter for Memphis Tennessee. While Judge Fowlkes was in on the contest, no one else in the courthouse was, which made the experience a bit challenging at first.

Once each of the three startups arrived in the court room, jitters and nervousness went on extra high. It’s one thing to pitch a room from of entrepreneurs and startup leaders. It’s another to pitch a sitting Federal Court Judge, in open court.

The first startup to arrive in Judge Fowlkes’ courtroom was, publishing alternative startup, Screw Pulp. Screw Pulp is a web platform that allows independent publishers to publish their books. Their book is originally given out free to a certain amount of readers who agree to review the book. After the first hundred copies are given away and reviews are accumulated ScrewPulp then begins to sell the book online in a more traditional manner.

Check out the ScrewPulp Pitch here:

Wes the founder of Memphis Urban Farm School was next to pitch in the courtoom. Judge Fowlkes and his clerks had plenty of questions for Wes.

Just before the judge’s lunch break the team from Guild Local arrived. They did a decent job of describing their startup but Judge Fowlkes still had questions.

We’re pretty sure this is a first for any startup to have to go and pitch a judge, much less a Federal court judge. Later in the day we’ll find out which team won the most points in the Risk City, Amazing Risk Challenge.

Linkage:

Launch Memphis is here

No one covers growth technology in the south east like we do

You want to come to this right?

Atlanta: Points Of Light, Starbucks & Village Capital Announce Social Startup Accelerator

Points of light, the world’s largest organization dedicated to volunteer service along with Village Capital have teamed up to launch a social entrepreneurship focused startup accelerator in Atlanta.

10 social startup teams have been selected and are coming together this week in Atlanta for an intense 12 week accelerator bootcamp. The 12 startups will receive access to mentoring, education, peer support and networking. Along with that each team has received a $10,000 seed investment. At the end of the session, the 10 startups will choose two startups from their peer group to receive additional $50,000 investments to help bring their startups to life.

The 10 startups kicking off the accelerator’s first class are:

AltruHelp (Boston) is building a software solution and online community to increase volunteerism and millennial civic engagement.
Bould (Denver) connects students with the real-world experience necessary for green careers.
CareerVillage (Boston) helps working professionals provide career information and advice directly to students.
Generation Citizen (New York) empowers young people to become engaged and effective citizens.
GivKwik (San Francisco) is a social, mobile and web platform that inspires impulse philanthropy.
HopeMob (New York) unites strangers to rally behind people with pressing needs.
Moneythink (Chicago) makes financial literacy relevant and fun for urban 11^th and 12^th graders.
MyMaryland (Silver Spring, Md.) is democracy’s first 24/7 online town hall.
Smallknot (New York) is a community crowd-funding platform for small business.
UBELONG (Washington, D.C.) provides high-impact, affordable international volunteering opportunities.

PwC Charitable Foundation and the Starbucks Foundation are also supporting the socially driven accelerator.

“Supporting productive and disruptive innovators in the research and design of sustainable, scalable programs that drive charitable endeavors is an important part of our giving philosophy,” said Chris Simmons, president, PwC Charitable Foundation, Inc. “We congratulate the 10 start-ups selected for the accelerator and look forward to seeing their individual plans to catalyze social change through innovation in the areas of education and humanitarianism.”

“At Starbucks, we believe strongly in the power of the entrepreneur and the opportunity for businesses to be the catalyst for change in their communities,” said Adam Brotman, chief digital officer, Starbucks. “We are honored to support this program and look forward the success of these ventures.”

“Entrepreneurs are bringing new thinking and innovative business models to the critical work of helping others,” said Ayesha Khanna, president of Points of Light’s Civic Incubator. “We are pleased to help these 10 promising teams successfully launch civic ventures to drive social good in communities across the country.”

“Over the next three months, these enterprises will get the best support and the toughest criticism they’ve ever received from their peers,” said Ross Baird, executive director of Village Capital. “We’ll focus on everything from customer validation to board-building to fundraising to financials, and we expect that the collaboration of these amazingly talented people will be a force multiplier for their success.”

Linkage:

Find out about Points of Light here

Here’s more startup news from “everywhere else”

Several Atlanta startups will be here, will you?

Calling All Startups Seed Hatchery Applications Now Open! Get A Free Ticket To Everywhereelse.co

Seed Hatchery, the startup accelerator in Memphis Tennessee is looking for a few, well really a bunch of great entrepreneurs and their startups. They’re looking for the type of entrepreneurs that are committed to growing their startup long term and aren’t afraid of hard work.

Beyond that, other globally known phenomena like rock music (the blues), Elvis Presley, and R&B radio have their roots firmly planted in the Bluff City.

With an entrepreneurial pedigree like that you can be assured that the mentor pool for the 2013 Seed Hatchery CoHort will be stronger than most regional accelerators Seed Hatchery’s size.

Hit the links below.

Linkage:

Here’s the application for the 2013 Seed Hatchery cohort

Seedhatchery.com

No one brings you high growth tech news for the south east like Nibletz the voice of startups “everywhere else”

And the world famous “everywhere else conference”

Chattanooga, America’s First Gig City, Welcomes 500 Startups For Will This Float At GEW

One of the biggest misconceptions in the startup and tech space is that Kansas City and Google were the first to offer 1GB Ethernet to businesses and residents. While we love Kansas City startups it’s actually Chattanooga Tennessee that was first with citywide 1gb Ethernet to homes and residences.

Chattanooga has been doing some very big things for entrepreneurs and startups lately. Back in August we brought you exclusive coverage of the GigTank Demo Day. Chattanooga has also been aggressively recruiting entrepreneurs and startups to the region with economic incentives.

Community leaders Sheldon Grizzle and Enoch Elwell haven’t slowed down either. Among other things, including running the Colab space, Grizzle and Elwell have recently been in Chicago, Nashville and Atlanta evangelizing about one of the most truly beautiful places in the world to launch a startup.

In fact it was at the VentureAtlanta event where Grizzle caught the eye of 500 Startups Co-Founder & Sith Apprentice Paul Singh.

500 Startups is the extremely active and diverse vc firm and accelerator in Mountain View. Although the secret 500 startup lair is physically located in Silicon Valley it’s anything but a valley accelerator. Here on nibletz alone we’ve profiled over a dozen 500 startups, none of them have been from the valley.

This week, as the world gears up for global entrepreneurship week so does Chattanooga. Their signature event pits 15 startups against each other this year, in the “will this float” startup competition. The competition, abbreviated WTF, has grown in both the number of participating startups and prize money/investment. The Times Free Press reports that last year’s winner, SupplyHog, is already making money.

This year the contestants include a new startup aiming to help convert streaming music listeners into active music purchasers. Another innovative idea vying for an investment of up to $250,000.

Another startup competing for the gold is looking to turn Farmville into somewhat of a reality. Entrepreneur Troy Cain plans on building an urban farm that is ultimately controlled by mobile devices. Farmers would be able to buy warehouse space where they would be able to plant their own urban farms. Plant watering, and other needs would be monitored and executed via mobile phone commands.

“People want to have a garden and grow their own food, but they don’t have the space or time to maintain it,” Cain said to the Times Free Press. “We’re looking at making it less than the average people spend on food per month,”…”We think it’ll float.”

Entrepreneurs, other startups and the community can come and see the 15 teams pitch live on Thursday at 6pm on the fourth floor of the public library at 1001 Broad Street. They’ll be showing off a new space that’s dedicated to tech work and will even feature things like lights that dance on the walls in response to tweets.

Linkage:

Get your ticket for “Will This Float” here

Source: Times Free Press

No one covers high growth tech in the South East like nibletz.com

We’ll see you in February

Memphis Prepares For Transformation To Risk City For Global Entrepreneurship Week

Next week thousands and thousands of entrepreneurs, startup founders, developers, eco-system partners and stake holders will participate in events across the globe as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week. In fact, GEW officially kicks off later tonight as over 100 different cities get fired up over Startup Weekend.

Tennessee has a variety of activities going on across the state. One of Tennessee’s major metropolitan areas is transforming their city.

Memphis will turn itself into Risk City beginning Monday. Memphis has always been a city that turns adversity into opportunity and embraces risk as a path to progress. Just take a look at companies like FedEx, Holiday Inn and AutoZone. All three pioneers in their industry and when you look at them in the time and place they were founded, potential investors thought the entrepreneurs behind these Memphis based companies were nuts.

The same thing can be said about the blues and it’s off shoot, rock and roll music, which is often credited with starting in Memphis Tennessee.

In talking with a crazy conservative intern of sorts in Memphis it was mutually agreed upon that risk and aversion to risk were what separated the “startup founder entrepreneurs” and the “lets open a dry cleaner, entrepreneurs”. It’s that risk that is this years global entrepreneurship week theme in Memphis.

Don’t get me wrong, Memphis has had it’s share of of big risks, not pan out in the end. That’s why there’s a gigantic pyramid in the middle of the city, and an entire island that’s all but a ghost town these days. However new risk takers, entrepreneurs and startup founders are going to be the ones to reclaim the city.

To that end, the folks at LaunchMemphis has put together some great programming for all of Memphis to see what the startup and entrepreneurial culture is like downtown. Below are some of the activities going on in Memphis. The highlight of the week is “field day”, the Amazing Risk and a huge party all happening Friday night at Minglewood Hall in Memphis.

Also, with Risk City and Global Entrepreneurship Week kicking off, the applications for the 2013 class of Seed Hatchery are now open as well.

Pitch Perfect
Monday, November 12 from 2:00-5:00pm in the Launchpad
For those actively moving forward with their startups – like those involved with Office Hours, BOOSTcamp, 48 Hour Launch or the Launchpad – we will provide a panel of diverse experts to provide feedback on your latest pitch. Accompanying visuals like PowerPoint are encouraged.

Memphis Startup Meetup
Monday, November 12 at 6:00pm in the Launchpad
The Memphis Startup Meetup group offers a special GEW edition of their monthly meetup for anyone interested in and involved with a startup company- entrepreneurs, developers, geeks, tech enthusiasts, professionals.

Mentor Mixer
Tuesday, November 13 from 5:30-7:00pm at Alchemy
It takes a village to grow a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem. We invite you to a casual cocktail event to learn more about the benefits of sharing your time, insights, experience and leadership with our founders and their startups.

High Octane Office Hours
Thursday, November 15 from 9:00am-3:00pm in the Launchpad
Memphis area business leaders join us in the Launchpad for an exclusive, high-powered set of one-to-one Office Hours for high growth potential startup companies. Like Pitch Perfect, these sessions are for those actively moving forward through our platform and process.

SpeedPitch
Friday, November 16 from 11:00am-1:00pm at Minglewood Hall
Similar to speed dating, LaunchMemphis introduces an event for those with fresh, bold ideas ready for some creative customer discovery. You get two minutes to pitch, then three minutes for feedback from business and community leaders. When the bell rings, you’re off to the next table!

Field Day
Friday, November 16 from 9:00am-4:00pm at Minglewood Hall
RSVP http://riskcityfieldday.eventbrite.com
Co-working facilitates conversation, collaboration and impromptu synergies- we hope your startup or organization will bring a team to our inaugural GEW Field Day. Wifi will be available, and food trucks will be around for lunch!

Field Day Mixer and Amazing Risk Finals
Friday, November 16 from 4:00pm-6:00pm

Risk City Soiree
Friday, November 16 at 8:00pm at Minglewood Hall
$5 cover, cash at door or http://riskcity.eventbrite.com
Join us at Minglewood Hall to conclude Memphis’ biggest Global Entrepreneurship Week to date, with our biggest party to date! As if a full week of activities fueling entrepreneurship and growing our innovation ecosystem wasn’t reason enough to celebrate, entertainment includes:

Finally as part of Risk City and Global Entrepreneurship week in Memphis. Anyone who attends any of the events above and brings a friend can get a FREE ticket to “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference” just find an official Launch Memphis employee or volunteer and tell them you want your free ticket to “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference” and introduce them to your friend and you’ve got it.

Linkage:

Launch Memphis

No one covers high growth technology in the South East, like we do

Everywhere Else conference

Autozone Founder Pitt Hyde Puts Memphis Entrepreneurs & Startups In The Zone

Pitt Hyde, Autozone,Startups,startup,Memphis startup,startup news, New Memphis Institute

Autozone founder Pitt Hyde speaks to entrepreneurs and startups at New Memphis Institute Luncheon (photo: nibletz.com)

One of the keys to success of any startup community is the participation of the communities entrepreneurial patriarchs. Most cities across the country have at least one, if not a handful of companies that laid roots in their town.

Take St. Louis for instance. Anheuser-Busch, the billion dollar beer company that eventually sold to In-Bev, was founded in St. Louis. Through the years the Busch family was very active in the entrepreneurial community, and that activity has transcended through generations. Now Busch off spring like Rick Holton Jr are fueling the current startup and entrepreneurial growth, even at a grass roots level with things like Arch Angels, Arch Grants, VentureSTL and Cultivation Capital.

Memphis Tennessee was the founding home for major corporations like FedEx and Holiday Inn. Although their first store was just down the road in Forrest City Arkansas, AutoZone’s next three stores and their corporate headquarters were (and still are) in Memphis Tennessee.

Joseph R. “Pitt” Hyde III, started AutoZone in 1979 as part of the family business Malone & Hyde. At a luncheon today in Memphis Hyde recounted the early days of AutoZone and it’s first store opening in Forrest City Arkansas, opening the next three in Memphis a few weeks later. But he knew when he began the auto parts giant that he needed to be in it and committed to it for the long haul.

Hyde was fortunate to grow up in a family full of entrepreneurs. After earning his degree in economics from the University of North Carolina, Hyde went on to join the family’s wholesale food company, Malone and Hyde. Hyde was the first president of Super D Drugs in 1968 and then went on to be elected President at Malone & Hyde where in 1972 he was elected chairman. For the next 10 years Hyde was the youngest CEO of a company on the New York Stock Exchange. He was also the sitting chairman of Malone and Hyde when it was the first public company ever acquired by KKR, the company that eventually bought out RJR Nabisco.

Today wasn’t for the history buffs though. Hyde was the keynote speaker and the panel moderator for the New Memphis Institute’s “Celebrate What’s Right” “Memphis’ Net Goolden Age of Entrepreneurship Luncheon”.

Although some may consider Hyde an old school, passionate, cut throat CEO, he has the full range of experience and proven results as an entrepreneur.

Hyde talked about one of his company’s GTX. The medical device company was trying to raise money early on. Hyde made the trek up the east coast and eventually to the west coast, the valley and Paolo Alto. He found that most venture firms were willing to invest, if he would relocate the company to wherever they were based. Needless to say Hyde was not having that. That’s why today he sits as Chairman of Memphis BioWorks.

Hyde has undoubtedly had major entrepreneurial success in his lifetime. At a time in his life when some CEO’s choose to retire, Hyde still runs a variety of companies and sits on several boards. But it’s entrepreneurship and startups that Hyde is particularly passionate about.

At one point in his talk Hyde mentioned that many cities “economic development committees” chose to court existing companies to open branches, locations or warehouses in their cities. Some EDC’s even try to lure data centers and car plants. Hyde said that these companies won’t be as vested in the communities as companies that emerge from the city.

The audience at the New Memphis Institute Luncheon was a mix of startup/entrepreneurial community stake holders along with several tables of students in entrepreneurship from the FedEx Institute of Technology and entrepreneurial programs on the campus of the University of Memphis.

Linkage

New Memphis Institute

Startup News from “everywhere else”

No one covers high growth technology in the South East like nibletz.com

And hey, this is also in Memphis

Knoxville Startup: Credit Virgin To Educate And Protect Young Adults From Credit Whoas

Nate Buchanan a graduate of the University of Tennessee and the founder of a new startup called “Credit Virgin” is looking to help as many young people, and college students make their credit lives easier. The Knoxville news reports that when Buchanan and a friend went to rent an apartment, the friend couldn’t get approved for the apartment because he had no credit history. It didn’t matter that the friend worked fll time and both perspective tenants made more than enough to afford the apartment. Because Buchanan’s friend hadn’t established any credit they were turned away.

Of course Buchanan knows that as young adults between 18-24 credit can be a double edged sword. Although it’s not as prevalent as it was in the late 90’s and early part of the 2000’s, there are still plenty of credit card companies and other finance companies that prey on college students who are already racking up enormous amounts of debt with student loans.

According to the UT Federal Credit Union, the average college student graduates with $8,000 in credit debt,outside student loans.

Through Credit Virgin, Buchanan hopes to first educate college students and young adults on the pro’s and cons of credit and how to establish credit via videos delivered on the startups website. He hopes to also integrate the site with a credit card evaluation tool which will compare terms and conditions as well as interest rates and other need to know information about credit cards typically offered to college students.

Buchanan hopes to also offer a credit monitoring service for students and their parents so they can monitor their credit together.

Credit, when used responsibly, can be a tool for young adults starting to establish themselves.

“Younger people don’t realize the implications of that until they go to buy a car and they have to get a loan, or they try and buy a house and don’t have a down payment,” Melinda Wood, Vice President of Marketing at the UT Federal Credit Union said to the Knoxville News.

Linkage:

Source: Knoxville News

Find out more about CreditVirgin here

No one covers High Growth Tech News in the SouthEast like we do

Come on down to “everywhere else”

Nashville Startup WannaDo Finds You What You Wanna Do

It seems like, on the surface, the event discovery space is a big space. When you peel it back though there aren’t many event discovery apps that are doing it right. The two we like the most are Louisville startup Impulcity and Nashville startup WannaDo.

Wannado, under the leadership of founder Steven Buhram, is starting out local in Nashville for now with plans on scaling out soon. Impulcity on the other hand is going all in, connecting their user base to music, and entertainment events nationwide and hyper local.

Wannado has a different approach though, than the average event discovery nut. The first thing that we noticed when testing Wannado in their home town was that everything was laid out in very easy to understand categories.

Play- obviously encompasses fun things to do, artsy stuff, plays and music (which Nashville has a lot of).

Work & Network is your guide t company events and career minded conference.

Eat & Drink, is pretty self explanatory

Learn, is all about learning and can be anything from health and wellness events to CPR courses.

You can even peel back layers and get to geek categories, nerd categories, artsy categories and more.

Once you find the event that’s for you, you can easily save it to your wannado list or share it using this unique share tool that allows you to share it by email, Facebook, text message of Twitter. Why not invite all your friends in the world to the great events you find on wannado.

That’s not the only way wannado differs from other traditional event discovery platforms though. Like any other app you can invite all of your Facebook friends to use wannado and you can see if any of your Facebook friends are currently using wannado. Naturally you’re going to trust a friends opinion about an event.

With wannado though, they also have guides, more seasoned people from an area that may know the lay of the land a little better. You can see what the guides are recommending or you can ask the guide something which makes the experience socially engaging.

So does it work?

Well in one night in Nashville we were able to use Wannado to take in Luke Bryan and Rodney Atkins at two different events free. We found some awesome hamburgers and realized we missed out on what would have been a fun startup breakfast event.

Comparatively speaking Wannado actually showed us more of what was going on in Nashville in one night than any other app we’ve tried. While it seems Buhram is comfortable with building scale with baby steps, if they could replicate this user experience to scale quickly across the country it could become our event app of choice for all events from seminars to cooking lessons to concerts.

Linkage:

Check out wannado here

No one covers High Growth Tech News in the southeast like we do

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Entrepreneur Development Center Opens In Jackson Tennessee

When people think about innovation, startups and entrepreneurship, Tennessee is often overlooked. What people don’t know about Tennessee is there are 9 entrepreneurial hubs across the state, anchored by Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville and Chattanooga. The other five areas are a little more rural, but still breed innovation. As wide as Tennessee is, with nine unique ecosystems, no one in the state is ever more than an hour and a half from an accelerator or entrepreneurial hub.

Tennessee has been an innovator for over a century. Tennessee was a major hub for cotton in the 1800s. In fact, prior to their bankruptcy in 2008, the fourth largest investment bank in the world, Lehman Brothers, had actually started out in Tennessee in the cotton exchange business.

Major corporations like FedEx, Holiday Inn, Auto Zone, Service Master, Sax Fifth Avenue, Gibson and Kirkland’s call Tennessee home. Heck the internet was born in Tennessee, just ask Al Gore.

In that spirit, Jackson Tennessee has announced the grand opening of the Entrepreneur Development Center. The Entrepreneur Development Center will help budding entrepreneurs in Jackson and the Southwest Tennessee area develop their businesses from idea generation to business launch. The EDC will pair entrepreneurs with successful business leaders who will serve as their mentors during their time in the center.

The EDC will launch Tuesday October 23rd at the Aenas Building in downton Jackson kicking off at 11:30am. Kirkland’s Co-Founder and Chairman Emeritus, Carl Kirkland will keynote the event alongside Matt Kisber President and CEO of Silicon Ranch Corporation.

“Through entrepreneurship, I’ve lived the American Dream” Carl Kirkland told Action News 5. The beauty of this country is that you can start with little more than a dream and build a successful business that provides jobs and economic growth.”

“Our new center strives to be the “front door” for entrepreneurs in Southwest Tennessee. We will help our entrepreneurs build their businesses by connecting them to the critical resources they need to be successful. These critical resources include experienced mentors, knowledge, training, seed capital and a supportive community.” Linda Garrard, Executive Director of the EDC told Action News 5.

Marci Harris, founder of award winning startup PopVox and other entrepreneurs will also be featured during the launch event.

The EDC will open just in time for Global Entrepreneurship week from November 12th -16th. In conjunction with Launch Tennessee, all nine startup ecosystems in the state will participate by holding entrepreneurial and startup focused events all week long.

Entrepreneurial leaders across the state like Sheldon Grizzle (Chattanooga), Michael Burcham (Nashville) and Eric Matthews (Memphis) have planned out a weeks worth of talks, discussions, conferences, parties and interactive engaging events across the state for GEW.

Linkage:

Check out the EDC in Jackson Tennessee here

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Memphis Prepares For 48 Hour Launch October 12th-14th

We’re just a couple of weeks away from Memphis’ next 48 hour launch. We were at the last 48 hour launch hosted by Launch Memphis at Emerge Memphis back in June. That 48 hour launch saw four teams of entrepreneurs present Happy Potty, Screw Pulp, YaDoog and LostPetCast.

Very similar to Startup Weekend, 48 Hour Launch puts a room full of entrepreneurs, designers, developers and coders together for 48 hours of hacking together a business.

Friday evening all of those registered for 48 Hour Launch will eat dinner, get to know each other and then pitch their ideas in 60 seconds or less to the room full of attendees. After all of the ideas are pitched, everyone in the audience will get a chance to vote for their favorite startup ideas. At the end of the voting process, an based on how many people are registered, ideas will be chosen that will be developed over the weekend.

Saturday teams will work on customer validation and building product. They’ll have community mentors around to answer legal questions, marketing questions and anything else they can think of.

Sunday, the teams will make their final pitches to show off the work they did over the previous 47 hours.

That’s typically where the traditional “Startup Weekend” ends. Startup Weekend events end with the judging of the final pitches. That’s not where 48 Hour Launch ends though.

After the weekend the 48 Hour Launch teams are invited to utilize the other resources from Launch 48 and it’s parent company Launch Your City. These resources include office hours from experienced entrepreneurial and startup advisors, free office space in the drop in LaunchPad co-working space and some 48 Hour Launch teams may decide to apply to Seed Hatchery, Memphis’ cohort based accelerator.

While some “Startup Weekend” events are held in incubators and can pull resources, Launch Memphis makes 48 Hour Launch a natural introduction into the Memphis’ Startup Ecosystem.

Memphis’ Startup Ecosystem is spearheaded by the efforts of Eric Matthews, Andre Fowlkes and Elizabeth Lemmonds, the team behind Launch Your City. Matthews has been an integral part of the Memphis entrepreneur and startup scene for nearly a decade. He founded Launch Your City in 2006 and before that was a director at the FedEx Institute of Technology on the campus of the University of Memphis.

Fast forward to 2012, and while many cities are just laying roots in a startup ecosystem, Launch Your City has their Launch Memphis efforts, which often plays quarterback to many of the regions entrepreneurial and startup events. Launch Memphis also organizes meetups, runs a mentor network, a co-working space, and provides countless other resources to young, high growth potential startups.

Launch Your City also runs Seed Hatchery and collaborates with other area resources for C2 and Zeroto510 accelerator programs as well.

These twice yearly 48 Hour Launch events, serve as a great place for new entrepreneurs to get their feet wet and get exposed to all that Memphis has to offer. One of the great things about these particular events is the way that others who have participated in any of the Launch Your City programs come out to support the growing startup community.

48 Hour Launch boasts that for just $40 you can:

Launch brand new tech-supported companies, contributing toward our local innovation economy and creating jobs;
Learn by doing, experiencing firsthand entrepreneurial principles that can be applied to any endeavor or work environment;
Connect with like-minded and talented professionals, developing your network;
Play an active role in Memphis’ entrepreneurial community, volunteering your current skills while learning new ones;
Eat and drink well, including all meals and copious amounts of coffee and Red Bull; and
Be a part of something this collaborative, creative and cool?!

You don’t have to live or work in Memphis to participate in 48 Hour Launch. People from as far away as Alabama and Atlanta have come to Memphis for weekend startup hackathon events.

There’s still space left. Hit the link below

Linkage:

Check out our 48 Hour Launch coverage from June 2012

Check out Launch Your City here

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