Nashville Entrepreninjas Take Flight (sort of)

By day Jared Marquette, Ryan Carter, Robbie Goldsmith, Sam Lingo, and John Murdock are Nashville-based entrepreneurs living the good life, making stuff, creating things and innovating. By night, they suit up in the ninja masks that they were reportedly born with, and become entrepreninjas.

Entrepreninjas is the name of the Michael Burcham and Nashville Entrepreneur Center backed team that competed this weekend in Red Bull’s Flugtag competition. Flugtag is a national competition that was held simultaneously across five US cities this past Saturday. The competition calls for teams to create a man powered flying machine. The machine is launched from a runway over water where it’s judged.

The celebrity judges were looking for creativity of craft, distance, and showmanship.

The Entrepreninjas built their craft in Nashville with part of the building taking place at the new Entrepreneur Center where team member Sam Lingo is the operations manager.

Entrepreninjas built most of their flying machine at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center (photo: Facebook)

Michael Burcham, along with the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, Polar Technology, Track Ref, and the Thinkery teamed up to back the Entrepreninjas with the expenses of building a flight machine, getting it to Miami and entering the contest. It seems like perfect sense. If these guys can build companies, they can easily build a flying machine, no problem.

The team competed against other teams in Miami as well as the four other locations. The top 3 teams from each location won prizes from Red Bull, including Red Bull sports and music experiences, and of course bragging rights.

The flying machine looked great, judging from the photos on the Entrepreneur Center and Burcham’s personal Facebook page.

The team seemed to do very well in the showmanship category, showing off their ninja moves on the runway before launching the flying machine into the sky (or the water as it was).

As you can see from the video below though, they didn’t get very far in flight. The Entrepreninjas, despite a valiant effort, gave new meaning to the theory “Fail Fast.” But alas they are entrepreninjas and iteration trumps perfection, so I’m sure we will see them back out again next year.

This was an awesome showing for Nashville and a great team building exercise. For your enjoyment their flight video is below.

Omaha’s Straight Shot Accelerator & First National Bank Of Omaha Holding Code One Hackathon

Omaha’s new accelerator, backed by Dundee Venture Capital, Straight Shot, is making waves in Silicon Prairie. The cohort based accelerator, led by Faith Larson, is taking a big city approach to their accelerator class. Larson and her team have provided an intense amount of mentoring activities, speakers and networking events to make sure their teams are more than ready come demo day.

They’ve also taken a firm position in Omaha’s rapidly growing tech community. Their latest effort is a hackathon happening next weekend called CodeOne.

When Straight Shot partner First National Bank of Omaha decided that they wanted to see some new ideas and technology for their online web platform they turned to the team at Straight Shot. Together they decided to host a hackathon and engage the tech community to help with the banks platform.

The hackathon starts next Friday afternoon and runs through Sunday. Food, drinks, and plenty of caffeine will be supplied to the registrants. The bank is transforming their WinterGarden employee cafe space into a collaborative workspace for all of the hackers

Hackathons like this have created a stir in startup communities in the past. Perhaps most notably was Nashville’s “Code Crush” event. Some hackers are leery of corporations backing a hackathon for the sole purpose of developing their companies technology.

To that end First National Bank of Omaha has been a great partner to the Omaha tech and entrepreneurial community. Not only that but they are giving away $13,000 in cash for the top three teams. First prize is $10,000 cash. Second prize is $2,000 cash and third prize is $1,000 cash.

Throughout the weekend event First National Bank of Omaha will also be looking for potential candidates for their internship program which could lead to employment with the bank down the road. They’ve also made it quite clear developers will be developing for the First National Bank platform. I also hear that the food will be great, we’re not talking just chips,soda and pizza.

It’s looking like CodeOne will be an amazing event for developers, designers, coders and hackers. You still have a few days left to register and if you’re confident your three person team can knock it out of the ball park there could be some money in it for you as well.

Here’s a link to registration.

While you’re at it don’t forget to register for Everywhere Else Cincinnati, the huge national startup conference is just two weeks away. Dundee Capital’s Mark Hasebroock is one of our 30 top notch startup speakers.

Easy Ways To Save On Electronics As A Startup

Starting your own business is a risky venture. Technology is everything in this day and age, and getting the right equipment for your office is expensive. Here are some easy ways to save on electronics for your startup.

Bring Your Own Device

Image via Flickr by DennisCallahan

Incorporating a BYOD policy is a wise idea. With a BYOD policy, employees will use their own phones as work phones. This will save you a ton of money because you won’t have to buy phones, activate them, and sign them up for data plans. With the BlackBerry 10 OS, people can separate their phone profiles into personal and professional sides, so you won’t get confused with apps and information on either side. You can also use mobile management software so you can keep all of your employees in sync.

Another area where you’ll save money by having a BYOD policy is with office phones. If you’ve got a BYOD policy, you have employees with cell phones — there’s simply no need for an office phone. By not having an office phone, you’ll save hundreds, if not thousands.

Buy Used

Most retailers offer used or refurbished electronics at deep discounts. Take advantage of these deals. They’re under warranty and guaranteed to be as good as new. Check discount stores and online sites such as Craigslist for used furniture. On Craigslist, you’ll often run across people that are just parting with their furniture because they’re moving, so you’ll be able to strike up a good deal.

Search for Deals

Image via Flickr by analogkid281

If you have to have an item and can’t find it used, you’re going to have to search for deals. Sites such as RetailMeNot, Groupon, and CouponShack host deals from around the web, so before you buy anything from any website, check with these sites first. You may end up with free shipping for a percentage off!

Another way to look for deals is with Google Alerts. With Google Alerts, you can have Google send you an alert whenever a product drops in price. This is perfect if you’re waiting for an item to go a few dollars lower before dropping the money on it.

Move to the Cloud

Cloud computing isn’t really anything new, but its popularity is soaring. By moving your servers to the cloud, you’ll save your company thousands of dollars annually. The up-time with a service such as Amazon is likely going to be much better than your current provider, and you can use Amazon for storing data and backing up files. This is ideal for employees that want to work out of the office as they can simply log in, download the files, contribute, and upload it again for the next person to work on. With cloud storage, there’s no need for a centralized office!

If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ll quickly sink a ton of money into your startup and it’ll fail before it even gets a chance to start.

Have you tried some of these tips? What other tips did you use?

DJ Miller, a graduate student at the University of Tampa. He’s an avid gadget geek and spends most of his time reading or writing. He is a huge fantasy sports fan and even runs his own blog for fantasy help.

Boulder Tech Is OK! Mobilizing To Help Those In The Canyon

Boulder startups, Brad Feld, David Cohen, Techstars, Boulder Floods

Techstars David Cohen took to Twitter to report everyone was ok and helped mobilize cleanup efforts

Brad Feld, the author of Startup Communities and the founder and managing director of Foundry Group, is one of the Boulder tech community’s most notable figures and a champion for startups and Colorado. When news broke out about the intense downpours and rain that hammered Boulder over this past weekend Feld was vacationing at Vail and watching the coverage on TV, reports USA Today.

Feld keeps a condominium in downtown Boulder, but his primary home is in the nearby mountains. By most accounts the town of Boulder weathered the storm quite well. It was those in the canyon and in the mountains that were hit hardest. Feld took to his popular blog, Feld Thoughts, to let people know that he was a-ok but he wasn’t able to get to his home in the mountains.

One of the biggest themes when Feld and others talk about Boulder is the tight knit community that’s formed around entrepreneurs, technology, and startups. Last July when wild fires ravaged parts of Colorado, Boulder’s tech community banded together to raise money through fundraising drives, t-shirt sales, and other impromptu crowdfunding efforts to help others.

The same holds true today after the floods and rain.

Techstars co-founder David Cohen echoed Feld’s initial sentiment reporting on Twitter that the town of Boulder was ok, but the canyon roads were washed out. Feld also took to Twitter to organize people to help others who had flooded basements. 15 people quickly mobilized just off Cohen’s tweets.

Techstars alum Benny Joseph, whose startup GoodApril was acquired by Intuit before demo day this year, wanted to give back as well. USA Today reports that although GoodApril has moved to the California offices of Intuit, Boulder had a special place in their hearts,and they donated $20,000 to clean up efforts.

Boulder again has shown the community in “Startup Community”

Startup Tips: 5 Tips to Make Your Inbox More Manageable

If you’re like me (or me a month ago), your inbox seems to be like a cancer that is growing faster than you can possibly lop it off. A day out of the office, or a morning of back-to-back meetings, leaves you to return to an unread email count in the hundreds. Just keeping up with your inbox could easily be your full-time job, except for the fact that it wouldn’t cross a single thing off your to-do list.

Tired of wasting time, sacrificing productivity, and putting up with inane subject lines because of email clutter? Here are five simple ways to declutter your inbox.

Set up Priority Inbox. If you use Gmail, you may be missing out on an amazing feature called Priority Inbox. I was initially hesitant to try it because I was worried I would somehow lose emails with it, but it has actually helped my productivity more than anything else I’ve done. Priority Inbox puts new emails in two different places within your inbox — one for ones it considers important, and another for ones it considers unimportant, based on the sender and subject line. Now, even though I might have 90+ new emails when I come into the office in the morning, I can immediately see the 12 that need my immediate attention, rather than getting lost in a sea of daily deal offers and cat slideshows until lunch.
Create filters. Many email providers allow you to set up filters for certain types of emails. You can use these filters to do lots of things: apply a certain label to an email, delete it, send it immediately to a certain folder and more. For the emails that aren’t urgent, set up filters so that they to skip your inbox and go straight into a certain folder for later. Then, once a day, go into that folder and see what’s new. I use this for internship applications I receive, emails from the shopping websites I subscribe to and emails sent to a former employee who no longer works with us.
Use Boomerang. Boomerang is a free plug-in for Firefox and Chrome with Gmail that allows you to do things like schedule an email to send in the future, bring an email back to your inbox at a certain time (like your flight itinerary the day before your trip) or return an email back to your inbox if you have not received a reply to it after X days. Rather than leaving an email in your inbox just to remind yourself to follow up on it or have it to easily access for later, use Boomerang to clear it out for now and have it come back when you actually need it.
Unsubscribe from 90 percent of the lists you’re on. While you probably just delete most of these unwanted emails every day, they clog your inbox, waste your time checking them off and then pushing delete, and make it hard for you to see the emails that actually matter. For a span of about a week or so, every time you get an email you do not want to receive (the ones from your mom don’t count!), take the time to open it, scroll down, and figure out how to unsubscribe from the list. It will require a little more time upfront but it will pay off in the long run when the number of emails you receive on a daily basis goes way, way down. You can also use a service like the Swizzle to help you unsubscribe from lists all at once or opt to receive daily digests from certain lists instead of individual emails.
Use your calendar rather than your inbox. People often leave emails in their inbox to remind them to do something — to make a call, start a project, or to follow up with someone. Instead of taking up valuable inbox space with emails you have already read, schedule these to-dos in your calendar to remind yourself that way. If you’ve been meaning to call to make an appointment somewhere but the place doesn’t open until Tuesday, create an event in your calendar for Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. as a reminder, rather than leaving the related email in your inbox (which you might not even see on Tuesday anyway).

Stephanie Kaplan is the co-founder, CEO & Editor-in-Chief of Her Campus Media, the #1 online community for college women and marketing platform for companies looking to reach the college market.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

From Conference Volunteer To Startup Founder, Audrey Jones Is In The Zone

Last February I had no idea who Audrey Jones was. We were preparing for Everywhere Else Memphis and knee deep in getting ready. diPR consulting’s Danielle Inez was recruiting volunteers and handling many of the pre-show logistics.

When the conference time finally arrived, we met up with all of the onsite volunteers. Audrey Jones was one of them. She told us in an interview that she had heard good things about the conference and was curious about what it was all about. She received an email from one of the civic groups she works with for volunteers and decided she would sign up for one shift.

That day, she took control of registration and front end organization and then stayed on throughout the entire conference, never missing a beat. It was like we had planned and rehearsed her role for months, but for Jones, organization and execution come naturally. It’s one of the qualities her full time employer, Memphis based AutoZone loves about her.

In fact several people from AutoZone’s marketing and IT departments attended at least some part of the inaugural conference in Memphis. At some point during the conference an AutoZone employee came up to me and congratulated us on a job well done. He then said that we could have Audrey for the remaining two days of the conference, but not only that she wouldn’t have to take time off, AutoZone was paying her to work for us.

But this story isn’t about a great conference volunteer or a great company in Memphis. The story continues.

Jones was so intrigued by what she witnessed at the Startup Conference that she started spending her free time with Start Co, the Memphis organization that serves as an umbrella for many of Memphis’ startup efforts. Jones stayed in touch with many of the people she met at the conference from across the country and started to work on an idea.

What intrigued Jones most about Start Co and their various startup initiatives was Upstart Memphis, a women’s startup initiative that included a women’s only 48 Hour Launch and a women’s only startup accelerator.

Jones’ preliminary idea revolved around the way that parents, loved ones, family members, and caregivers communicate. There’s so much technology out there now that phone trees are pretty much dead wood.

“It’s a platform that allows parents to list their children’s emergency contact information electronically. It’s the alternative to the cluttered file cabinet in emergency situations. Parents can grant access to whomever needs access, like sittrs, tutors, daycare and childcare providers,” Jones told us.

Jones had no idea she was an entrepreneur or a startup founder in January of this year. By spring she was talking to people about this idea. Then Start Co put a call out to women led startups to apply for their inaugural summer cohort for their women’s accelerator. Jones admitted she felt like she didn’t think she would get in, but went forward with the application process, even citing Nibletz as a reference after her work with the conference.

Kids360 was one of the four startups selected for the women’s only cohort that puts the women founded startups through a bootcamp-style, intense business and entrepreneurial accelerator. The hope for Start Co co-presidents Andre Fowlkes and Eric Mathews is that founders will be launch ready at the end of the accelerator, which is really just the beginning.

For Jones it’s been non stop since the accelerator kicked off at the beginning of the summer. She continues to work full time for AutoZone and spends another 40-50 hours a week on Kids360.

“Audrey is a great example of the type of entrepreneur we find here in Memphis. She is constantly grinding whether it’s her own startup, helping others or on her job. She’s putting the resources of StartCo to work for her every chance she gets,” Mathews told us by email.

It helps that Audrey works for AutoZone, a company founded by serial entrepreneur Pitt Hyde. The company was very supportive during those few days of the conference and continues to support Jones with a little extra flexibility in her schedule while she is going through the accelerator program. This isn’t the first time that AutoZone has supported one of their employees going through one of Start Co’s accelerator programs. In fact it’s their third go round and they would continue to do it over and over again, Jones tells us.

Why?

“Because entrepreneurs make the best employees,” Jones told us. She is very open about her startup and what she is doing in the program. Everyone on her team all the way up to Pitt Hyde knows that she’s in the program. “Whenever I see Mr. Hyde in the halls I smile with my AutoZone uniform on and re-pitch him again,” Jones said.

“We’ve seen quite a few entrepreneurs come through the ranks at Autozone, which is very supportive of our young entrepreneurs and Start Co. Audrey markes the third time that we’ve been able to help an Autozone employee hone in their inner entrepreneur,” Mathews said.

Hyde is also very supportive of entrepreneurial efforts in Memphis. He is a major supporter and director for Memphis Bioworks and their Zeroto510 accelerator, which is run in partnership with Bioworks and Start Co.

So now with just weeks to go before demo day at the UpStart accelerator, Jones is gearing up to have a booth at Everywhere Else Cincinnati’s Startup Avenue. She’s looking forward to real life pitch practice, talking to investors, and of course helping out the Everywhere Else team.

You can find out more about Kids360 at kids360now.com

It’s not too late to get your own booth or attendee ticket for Everywhere Else Cincinnati.

Event registration for Everywhere Else Cincinnati – “Start Where U Are” powered by Eventbrite

4 Reasons Choosing Startup Life Over College Is Totally Worth It

In 2011, I wrote a post called “Why I Didn’t Get A Real Job” that got a lot of attention. Admittedly, it was a childish reaction to a relative’s assertion that I needed to go get a “real job.” After a few months of full-time entrepreneurship that same summer, I thought I was finally experiencing the startup life. Twenty-four-hour hackathons, no set hours, no boss — “Oh yeah!” I’d say, “let’s disrupt stuff!”

Okay, maybe I wasn’t quite the walking stereotype of Sh*t Entrepreneurs Say, but you get the point.

In April 2012, however, I sat at a crossroads: continue to just scrape by or go all in on my startup Fetchnotes. After a lot of internal struggle, five of us decided to leave the University of Michigan, and our journey eventually led us to TechStars Boston’s Fall 2012 class. With that decision 9 months in the rear view mirror, I’ve had some time to reflect on what really happens when you leave school to start a company.

1. Most people will never quite get you or what you’re doing.

When I talk to people about what I’m doing, I usually get one of these responses:

“So, are you, like, the next Mark Zuckerberg or something?”
“So is TechStars, like, paying you to work on Fetchnotes for them?”
“How long do you plan to do this before you get a real job?”
“How long until you go back to Michigan?” (As if it’s some sort of semester abroad program.)

The fact of the matter is, no one understands until they’ve been in the trenches. And that’s okay. It’s actually part of what I like about not being in Silicon Valley. Even in Boston, with its thriving entrepreneurial communities, most people I meet think what I’m doing is interesting. Maybe it’s an ego thing, but it provides a small dose of happiness every day.

2. All time is not created equal.

As you shed your other non-entrepreneurial responsibilities (like class), each individual unit of your time becomes more valuable.

You’d think it would be the opposite — when you have less time to give each hour is more precious, and there are diminishing marginal returns on your productivity. But in practice, when you have no other distractions, you actually become more productive.

As we dedicated more time and intensity to our specialties, this could be seen across all functions of the business. I became a more effective hustler. Our engineers became more efficient coders. The chemistry that evolves from a small team marching together all day, every day, in lockstep toward the same vision holds incalculable value.

3. Emotions are magnified — both the good and the bad.

Inevitably, there will be some crisis that rocks your foundation so greatly that you don’t know how to respond — and entrepreneurs are such good salesmen that most people have no idea there’s anything wrong. With no finals or homework to distract us, we walk around with a smile masking the internal disposition of a zombie. No one likes to admit it, but we tend to be emotionally unavailable to the outside world when it comes to problems in our startups. Just like parents, we never want to hear that our baby is anything but a darling prodigy.

But then, there will be days of pure, unmitigated ecstasy. You get two large investor commits in the same day. You get introduced to people who basically invented the Internet as we know it. You have two-hour whiteboard sessions with people whose theories you’ve been studying from afar. The press raves about your new release. You scream “YES!” and high-five anyone in your vicinity without explanation. You dance in place.

These are the moments that turn the Startup Bug into Serial Entrepreneur’s Disease.

4. The journey will be worth it in more ways than you can imagine.

Many more qualified people than I have espoused the virtues of starting a company over pursuing a traditional university education. But what makes it worthwhile are all the little things that mean so much more because you’re experiencing a level of career satisfaction most people must wait years for, if they ever achieve it at all.

It’s John-the-building-security-guard finally remembering your name and no longer making you sign in after three months of seeing you every single day. It’s finding out how many other people in your network have started using your product without you saying a word. It’s regularly enjoying team dinners and signing the check.

And then, one day, you look around at that very table of team members and notice that, for once, no one is talking about work. We’re reminiscing about a crazy adventure from the night before, or planning a concert for next weekend, or poking fun at each other’s dating lives. For the first time, you grasp the fact that the bonds you’ve forged would not have been so tight had you not convinced your team to take a bet on you, and more importantly, on themselves.

It’s the moment you realize that what makes you unique isn’t the pursuit of success, wealth or power. It’s that your mission in life is about the pursuit itself, rather than what you’re pursuing.

Alex Schiff is the founder and chief executive officer of Fetchnotes, which makes productivity as simple as a tweet. Prior to Fetchnotes, Alex was the vice president of Benzinga and a student at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

West Capital Advisor and Draper Triangle’s Mark Richey Added To Everywhere Else Cincinnati!

With less than 2 weeks to go for Everywhere Else Cincinnati, we’re still letting speakers out of the bag. Everywhere Else Cincinnati is shaping up to be the destination conference for startups everywhere else. The conference will feature 30 great startup and investor speakers from across the country. We’ve kept ticket prices low to allow even the most bootstrapped startups from everywhere else the opportunity to afford and attend a major startup conference.

We are pleased to announce that Mark Richey, Venture Partner at Draper Triangle Ventures and Managing Director/Founder at West Capital Advisors, will be one of our featured keynote speakers during the Everywhere Else Conference September, 29th through October, 1st in Cincinnati Ohio.

Mark is an experienced technologist, executive, founder, and private equity investor. Most recently, he served as a Managing Director in Draper Triangle Ventures, an early stage venture fund and affiliate of the Draper Network of funds headed by Draper Fisher Jurvetson in Menlo Park, CA. Mark maintains a relationship with Draper Triangle in the role of Venture Partner.

Mark has been involved in many entrepreneurial ventures. Mark founded Synchrony Communications in 1997 raising $38 million in funding from leading VCs and strategic investors, including Charles River Ventures, APAX Partners and GE Equity. He grew the company to a size of more than 130 employees in four cities serving over 80 customers, including Cincinnati Bell, Bank of America, and Proctor & Gamble. In prior years Mark served in management roles with a series of venture backed Silicon Valley companies, including Gain Technology (sold to Sybase), Siebel Systems (IPO), and Genesys Telecommunications (IPO). After graduate school he worked in management consulting with Theodore Barry & Associates (Los Angeles). Mark began his career as a software engineer with Cincom Systems (Cincinnati).

Mark holds an M.B.A. from The Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, and a BS Systems Analysis from Miami University. He currently serves as an observer on the boards of Thinkvine, Oversight Systems, and CardioInsight, the advisory board of Priority Consult (division of Mayfield Spine Clinic), and the TechColumbus Investment Committee. Mark is a past member of the Business Advisory Council of Miami University’s Richard T. Farmer School of Business Administration.

You can get attendee tickets or register for a Startup Avenue booth below. For more info on the conference visit eecincinnati.com

Sell Tickets Online through Eventbrite

Pros And Cons of Working At A Startup [INFOGRAPHIC]

Entrepreneurship is on the rise. The US, as well as other parts of the globe, are turning to startups, innovators, and entrepreneurs to reinvigorate the economy. As entrepreneurship and startups become more popular, working for startups is becoming the “in” thing to do. It seems more and more MBA’s, college graduates, and even people who didn’t go to college at all are turning to startups for work rather than blue chips.

The folks over at VentureVillage have compiled an infographic that shows off the Pros and Cons to working at a startup.

The Pros are of course things like culture, flexibility, and more responsibility. Factors like low compensation, bad work/life balance, and instability top the negatives when looking at a startup job.

If you’re looking to work at a funded startup you may have better luck than working at a bootstrapped startup. However a bootstrapped startup may offer you opportunities a funded startup can’t, like outrageous equity.

It’s apparent that working for a startup is a gamble in itself, but it could payoff. It’s hard to believe but companies like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even Google were at one time startups themselves. Their earliest employees are all pretty well off now.

Take a look at the infographic below and for more visit venturevillage.eu

Y-Combinator Is NOT The Guarantee Some Think, Two 2011 Startups Close Up Shop

It’s no secret that startups fail, and they fail in large numbers. It may seem like startups “everywhere else” have the deck stacked against them from the beginning, because they do. Access to capital, mentors, and talent are three of the biggest road blocks to startups outside the major tech hubs. That’s one of the big things that will be discussed at Everywhere Else Cincinnati.

There are startup accelerators everywhere. Some of them are naturally better than others. Some accelerators focus on a theme, like the Brandery on branding and ZeroTo510 which is solely for medical device startups. Others, like Techstars and Y-Combinator have huge brand equity.

Even after a demo day at an accelerator, many startups have trouble locking up follow-on funding. Some are able to raise a decent seed or Series A round and then run out of steam. While we hear these stories all the time from everywhere, there are still some founders and entrepreneurs who believe Y-Combinator, 500 Startups, and Techstars companies don’t shut down. It seems we believe there is some kind of fairy dust sprinkled on the co-founders, while others feel that Valley based accelerators have to be great because they’re in the Valley.

Y-Combinator is often thought of as the creme de la creme when it comes to startup accelerators. It’s the first application startups from everywhere fill out in hopes they’ll get into Paul Graham’s highly esteemed program and then be on “autopilot.”

Well we’ve learned this week that this couldn’t be further from the truth. Sure there are a ton of startups that went through Y-combinator and failed, but we rarely hear those stories. This week we’ve heard two.

On Monday PandoDaily’s Carmel Deamicis pointed out that Spring 2011 YC graduate Leaky has shut it’s doors. The company offered a price comparison web platform for finding the best insurance quote. Call it Kayak for car insurance if you wish. It seemed like a good idea.

That was until the founders decided that rather than building lasting partnerships with auto-insurance companies, they wanted to take the disruptive way. Co-founder Jason Traff and his team weren’t patient enough to build those vital partnerships. Instead, according to PandoDaily and Greg Isaacs the President of competing startup CoverHound, the team at Leaky actually scrubbed the insurance carriers’ websites without their permission and then published the information.

Without the blessings of the insurance companies, the startup was doomed. This is despite raising over $600,000 in a seed round from YC, 500 Startups, and Box Group. As soon as they started publishing rate information without permission they were served with cease & desist notifications.

The Leaky team came up with a way to circumvent the insurance companies based on the fact that insurance companies had to publicly report how they came up with their data and pricing. Leaky built its models around that information, but that too failed.

On Sunday, TechCrunch’s Colleen Taylor reported on the untimely demise of Tutorspree, a Winter 2011 graduate from Y-Combinator. That startup was often dubbed the “Airbnb of tutoring”

After graduating from Y-Combinator TutorSpree went on to raise $1.8 million dollars from investors including Sequoia Capital. They also bulked up their staff to ten to help develop the product that matched students with high quality local tutors.

TutorSpree didn’t go into specifics as to why they shut down. The company’s three co-founders Ryan Bednar, Aaron Harris, and Josh Abrams said:

Ultimately, we learned about the challenges of willing a company into existence, of building an incredible and unique team to tackle constantly shifting challenges. And finally, we learned about how to make the toughest decision of all – to shut Tutorspree down, not because it was not a business, but because we could not make it the company we wanted.

In an email to TechCrunch, Tutorspree CEO Harris added, “We built something we were incredibly proud of, but got to the point where we realized it would not scale in a way that would meet our goals. It was a tough decision emotionally, but it was the right move from the rational perspective.”

We talk startup failure with Lucas Rayala the founder of Altsie, a startup that failed last year. As they failed Rayala chronicled the experience on TechCrunch. See Rayala speak at Everywhere Else Cincinnati.

Apple Leaves Finger Print Scanner, TouchID Untouchable To Developer’s And Startups

Apple, iPhone 5S, TouchID, developers, startups, mobile wallet

(photo theverge.com)

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook, alongside executives Jony Ive and Phil Schiller, took to the stage today at their Cupertino headquarters to unveil the new iPhone 5c and the iPhone 5s. If you’re a frequent reader of technology blogs, you’ll notice that most of the leaked specs actually came to fruition.

Normally when we are building up to an Apple product release there are several “features” that may seem a little outlandish. Often times they don’t actually pan out. In fact there were 127 rumors of Apple changing phone sizes over the years. Only one time were they actually correct.

One of those rumors this year was a “finger print scanner” that would somehow be baked into the new iPhone. Many pundits said no-way was Apple going to put a finger print scanner on their phone. Well they have. Which actually makes a whole lot of sense after seeing leaked photos of a new home button.

As you can see from TheVerge’s photo above the home button now dubs as a fingerprint scanner. When talking about it on stage, Apple execs said that it provides a new layer of security for those who feel a 4 digit code is too “cumbersome”. Of course a finger print scanner also provides an extra layer of security for people who typically use easy to guess four digit codes.

The finger print scanner, dubbed “touch ID,” can work with multiple finger prints, and with any kind of human finger print it takes into account arches, loops, and whorls. CSI Las Vegas fans, you know what I’m talking about.

In this generation of the iPhone, the TouchID is seen strictly as a security layer for the walled garden within your iPhone. Apple did say you will be able to use your finger print to authorize purchases from the iTunes store. They didn’t say whether you would be able to use it to validate in store purchases with the Apple store app, but that is very possible.

What Schiller was very specific about, though, was that the TouchID information would not be available to other software. Period. It’s never uploaded to Apple’s servers or backed up to iCloud. The Verge’s Dieter Bohn reported in their live blog.

What is possible is that Apple’s Passbook and future apps designed around security and purchasing will most likely benefit from access to the TouchID, but for now startups hoping to disrupt the mobile wallet with a tie-in to Apple’s Touch ID will find it, well, untouchable.

Wait, So Co-Working Isn’t Great?

Co-working is all the rage these days, and for good reason. Many co-working spaces geared towards startups are really hybrid incubator programs. While co-working isn’t new, it’s definitely grown in popularity.

Today’s co-working spaces are often colocated with other startup programs. Those that aren’t housing an accelerator often host small workshops and other curriculum based activities for their members. Of course spaces like 1871, 1776 in DC and The Nashville Entrepreneur Center all house coworking space, incubation space, and accelerators.

Ok so if you’re not familiar, co-working spaces are office space where you can rent a desk or desk space through membership. They’re ideal for those entrepreneurs, startups, small businesses, and remote workers who work out of the house and either need some real interaction with human beings or want to keep their work life and home life separate. Most co-working spaces offer a variety of plans whether it be a few days a month, weekly, monthly, or annually.

Most co-working spaces throw in all of the necessities for work as well. Coffee machines, fax machines, internet, copiers, and other business tools are often included in rent or membership fees. Many co-working spaces also have lecture rooms, meeting rooms, and conference rooms available for their members to either claim, reserve, or rent.

Bigger cities usually have multiple co-working spaces, and there are several startups like DC based Speek and DC based CONT3NT which actually work out of two locations (1776 and Fishbowl).

Many co-working spaces, including Nashville’s Entrepreneur Center, 1871, 1776, CoWork Jax, and The Iron Yard in South Carolina have generously allowed Nibletz to work out of their space while traveling.

The other underlying idea behind co-working is collaboration and collision. You may find your next great technical co-founder or a developer at the coworking space you’re working at. You may be able to provide some much needed business development help to another entrepreneur, and heck, just like school and college, you may make friends. Wow!

Most co-working spaces are available around the clock and many of them also have activities outside of general “work” like cookouts and even field trips. Several co-working spaces also facilitate mentorship or in-service days for local law firms, PR firms, and accounting offices. All in the name of spurring innovation, growth, startups and the economy right?

Well this past weekend Business Insider took a different look in a piece called Montessori Management. In that piece they explored the backlash that several entrepreneurs are having in the co-working space.

Some entrepreneurs feel that co-working is distracting. Others feel that co-working spaces are ripe for stealing ideas, and many feel like forced collaboration actually feels–well–forced.

Business Insider takes a much deeper look though, tracing the roots of Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page who had Montessori educations. An education that promotes democratic learning, collaboration where everyone has a voice. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales also had Montessori educations.

Knocking down walls and throwing in gigantic tables for everyone to work at seems like a good idea on the surface. Perhaps in the startup or small business “co-working model” it works. It seems to work whenever we work out of a co-working space, but for big corporations is it the way to go?

Some people believe that the forced collaboration and the atmosphere created by it can actually be detrimental to business. To some the “Kumbaya” approach to working and collaboration isn’t the way to go. “A focus on interpersonal harmony can actually hurt team performance,” Mark de Rond a Cambridge academic told The Economist. Sometimes there is so much collaboration and so many meetings on top of meetings that people are meeting and collaborating to decide if they are going to meet and collaborate, all the while getting nothing done.

Shifting back to the startup co-working space though, I am definitely still on the side that co-working is good for startups. With the failure rate of startups, co-working spaces give you an opportunity to meet like minded colleagues who may need you or who you may need down the road. In our experience, nothing bad has come out of co-working. In fact we got our Managing Editor after co-working at the LaunchPad in Memphis.

And, just so you know, here are some great coworking spaces around the country.

Chicago Startup Dabble Trying To Save Itself With Honesty

Dabble is a great Chicago-based startup that’s trying to serve as a marketplace for people to take specialty classes on anything from guitar playing to bridge playing to designing websites. The market place for this kind of startup is getting kind of crowded, but the two women behind the wheel, Erin Hopmann and Jess Lybeck are doing whatever they can to chug along.

In all fairness Dabble is doing a little better than just dabbling. Mashable reports that they’ve raised $500,000 in two angel rounds. They’ve received a bunch of good press locally and regionally. In fact they are often compared to other startups with similar ideas as one of the first to market. Add to that the fact that they are on pace to double sales in 2013 and you may be wondering why the need to “save themselves”.

Well at one point, after closing their angel rounds, Hopmann and Lybeck took on a few more employees and salaries for themselves. At this point they’ve cut back down from 7 employees to 3 and also stopped taking a salary. It would seem sales aren’t sustaining the company and they are looking for another big round of funding to get it over the hump.

So they’ve decided to try something a little different. Both Hopmann and Lybeck are penning a blog called “30 Days of Honesty.” “What do you do when you’re struggling with a company you love” is the headline at the top of their blog. In it they talk about the trials and problems they are going through right now as they run out of runway.

The hope is to help other entrepreneurs, and at the same time maybe find that special investment that will get them to the next level.

The women told Mashable that they’ve already received responses from customers who offered to pay more to keep the startup afloat. Other entrepreneurs have written in with encouragement, ideas, and words of wisdom, and they also just set up an appointment with an investor who had read the blog.

Today (September 10th) marks day 16 of their quest.

What comes next? Hoppmann says she may have to find work if the company doesn’t turn around. “If it’s a month from now, and there’s not some hope for taking pay out of Dabble by the end of the year, I will go and seek out something that is a source of income,” she said in the interview

They aren’t the first ones to talk about a startup failing. There was an anonymous Tumblr called “My Startup Has 30 days to Live,” and even our good friends at WorkForPie penned a thought provoking post as they were running out of runway earlier this summer.

What happens next for Dabble? You can keep up with their plight here. Hopefully they will find both the knowledge and the money they need to continue. If not, hopefully they’ll dust themselves off and start again.

What’s it like to fail? Lucas Rayala, the founder of Minnesota startup Altsie, who chronicled the failure of his startup in TechCrunch will speak on that topic at Everywhere Else Cincinnati.

Circle Helps Families Redefine Internet Use

Recently, I downloaded the Kindle FreeTime app for my Kindle Fire. It allows my boys to essentially have their own Kindles within my Kindle, complete with parent controls and set time limits on games, books, and apps.

It’s worked beautifully. The boys are slowly getting acquainted with technology, but I don’t have to worry about them racking up Angry Birds charges by accidentally clicking through to the Internet. And the time limits I’ve already programmed in keep us from fighting over when Kindle time is done.

This is great for my kids now, but how am I going to help them manage that time as they get older? And, frankly, my husband and I need a little control over our devices, too. With our jobs, it’s really easy to get sucked into social media, emails, and texts, even during our limited family time.

It’s one of those problems I have, but I didn’t really realize I had it until I got an email explaining Circle. All at one time, I was made aware of the problem AND the solution. I love that.

Circle works as a kind of middleman between the home router and the different devices used by family members. Through an iOS app, the administrator can manage everything from how long someone can use social media to which category of websites kids are allowed to access. There is also a “pause” mode, ensuring a device-free dinner or family time.

I know what you’re thinking. “My kids can figure out how disable that in 2 seconds flat.”

The team at Circle has thought of that. The device has no off button, so it can’t be turned off. If it is unplugged from the wall, it continues to run on the internal battery. When that battery starts to die, the administrator receives a notification on his or her cell phone. For now, that’s as failsafe as it gets.

Using Circle in the home can ensure that everyone is learning to manage their online time responsibly, adults as well as children.

“As a parent, we have an obligation to learn how to live with technology and help our children explore the internet in a balanced, safe and smart way,” said Circle founder and CMO, Crystal Wiley in a statement. “Circle empowers me to stay on top of and effectively examine my household’s internet habits, and provides tools to improve our family’s online experience.”

Taking a page from Apple’s playbook, the team at Circle has made the device simple and beautiful. The tiny box will fit into the décor of any home, without all the wires and black boxes we typically associate with technology.

Circle recently announced a new Kickstarter campaign, aimed at raising the money they need to bring the product fully to market in 2014. As of publication, they were at X of their $250,000. If you’re like me and thinking, “Hey, I didn’t realize I need that, but I do!” head over and pledge a few dollars.