Startups Archives - Page 113 of 144

Toronto Startup: Verelo Keeps A Watchful Eye On Your Website INTERVIEW

If you’re a web based startup or small business web uptime is crucial. These days if you’re down for even two minutes, it can cause a world of hurt. A customer can go to your website, see its down and then send that information out to the social web.

If you’re launching a startup it can be worse. Launching a startup is one of the most competitive sports in the world. If you’re down, again only for a short time, new users, competitors and the media can stumble upon a down site and never come back.

There are services out there that can cost hundreds of dollars a month. There are also services out there that are free but will send you spam from every SEO business on the planet. In comes Verelo a service that will monitor and protect your website, providing piece of mind.

We got a chance to talk with one of the co-founders of this Toronto startup. Check out the interview after the break.

The 4 Memphis Startups Selected To Develop At 48 Hour Launch

LaunchMemphis, SeedHatchery and LaunchYourCity had over 20 startups pitch on Friday evening to try and secure a spot for development over the weekend at 48 hour launch. The field was great. There were all kinds of different pitches as you can see here at nibletz.com. Here are the four that were chosen by popular vote amongst their peers to develop.

ScrewPulp

ScrewPulp (as in Pulp Fiction, literature etc). Founder Richard Billings has an innovative new spin on the publishing and selling of e-books. Traditional models are flawed because the pricing is so spread out.

Screw Pulp’s distribution works like this. The first 100 copies of an e-book are distributed free in exchange for two things. Those two things are a social media mention across Twitter or Facebook and a star rating review. In other words, threw ScrewPulp an avid reader could read as many books as they want for free, as long as they were one of the first 100 people to download it, share it on social mean and then they give it a rating and review.

Now you can’t get another free book until both the share and the rating/review are completed. Why is this important? Because it drives feedback for the book and sharing of the book. You’re not obligated to give it a good review, just a review.

Now the next batch of books are $.99 then $1.99 and so on. Hear Billings describe it in the video below.

Yaddoog (Good Day Backwards)

I had to think to myself for a while, when was the last time a good photo sharing app was pitched. It’s been quite a while. However Friday night in Memphis a brand new idea for a photo sharing app was pitched and it’s great.

Founder Harold Strong started his pitch out by asking “How was your day” and pointing out that just about everyone in the world says “Fine”, which of course is a BS answer.

Strongs app idea has you take 24 pictures on your smartphone throughout your day. Then at the end of the day at a set time, the app uploads all 24 pictures to the Yaddoog site. Why not one by one, why 24? Because 24 pictures tells a story.

Watch the pitch below… It’s good…

Happy Potty

I know one entrepreneur who had a very similar idea called soflush.it two years ago but never developed it. No problem because Douglas Starnes and Daniel Pritchett have Happy Potty down pat.

Imagine you’re on a car trip and you have to go to the bathroom. When you pull over at the local BP station the restroom is a disaster and hasn’t been cleaned in days. Now imagine if you had an app with bathroom ratings on cleanliness, ease of use, hospitality etc.

Now, imagine that the app followed your GPS location and mapped out for you bathrooms that were open on your route, and clean. You would use that, you know you would.

I can’t wait to see the product they have at the end of the weekend. See the pitch below.

LostAPet

The idea here is great. The pitch was heartfelt, I think the name sucks but that’s because the pitch was so good.

James told a great story about finding a lost dog, spending hours researching what to do with a found dog and then distributing over 100 flyers. This process took hours.

During the presentation, James said “There’s no amber alert for pets”. That’s why I think the LostAPet name sucks so bad.. the name was right there in the pitch, something like “PetAlert””Doggie Alert”BowWowAlert” but nevertheless if 48 Hour Launch was a nationwide popular vote contest, this idea would be hard to beat. Everyone has a soft spot for pets and a nationwide bulletin board site to find and post lost dogs is something long needed.

It’s one of those ideas where you think “Why didn’t I think of that?”, because James did! Watch the video below, and maybe someone from the team will agree that the name could be better:

See more of our 48 Hour Launch coverage here

Memphis Startup Pitch: Agile Assist, Virtual Support System VIDEO

A new startup that promises to be a virtual support system for those with cognitive disabilities was pitched at the 48 hour launch event in Memphis Friday evening. Husband and wife founders, Rhonda and Robert, built this startup based on the experiences with their son who has a cognitive disability.

Cognitive disabilities include autism,brain injuries and even alzheimers. The common factor behind most people with cognitive disabilities is the need for constant support and supervision. While loved ones are always tasked with this duty, and they do it out of love, it certainly takes a toll on the whole family.

In the two minute pitch it was hard to get a grasp on the entire concept. Rhonda and Robert spent a lot of time on some really interesting background information. We did hear that the idea was a virtual internet based support system, utilizing the cloud and video to help with the 24 hour care.

Rhonda says that they’ve already used their system with their son and it’s worked, and their son is happier. Although it wasn’t chosen as one of the ideas to develop over the 48 hour weekend event, we’re hopeful that they will move forward

Check out more of our 48 Hour Launch coverage here

Memphis Startup: Bryant Williams Pitches Crowdfunding Based On Social Clout

Over 20 ideas for startups were pitched Friday evening at 48 Hour Launch in Memphis Tennessee. One of the great ideas was pitched by Memphis entrepreneur Bryant Williams.

Williams wants to take advantage of the JOBS Act and crowdfunding legislation slated to take effect next month. Williams has a rather unique approach though.

What he is hoping to do is have a startup, entrepreneur or whoever is looking for crowdfunding for their project to get it based on the merits of their social graph. Basically, someone looking to get crowdfunded via Williams’ new startup would have to have their Twitter and Facebook influence factored in.

While Indiegogo and Kickstarter both allow for comments on their pages, it’s just another social network to comment on. Why bother utilizing a new comment space when you’re already posting on Twitter and Facebook anyway.

First things first though, is we have to hear the rules on the JOBS act. The SEC has until July 4th to establish those guidelines. Check out Williams pitch below:

Linkage:

See More of our 48 hour launch coverage here

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” here are more stories from “everywhere else”

Memphis Startup: Unique Love First To Pitch At 48 Hour Launch

Tonight kicks off 48 hour launch in Memphis Tennessee. Nibletz is on location covering this 48 hour event where 4 startup companies are going to launch. The event is a collaborative effort of Launch Memphis, Startup Hatchery and LaunchYour City and takes place at the Emerge Memphis campus in beautiful downtown Memphis.

Over 20 ideas were pitched during the two minute pitch sessions tonight. Of those pitches four have been selected to be built out over a weekend of fun and camaraderie for Memphis’ thriving startup scene.

The first two minute pitch was for a unique dating site called “Unique Love”. The site focuses on people who are looking to connect that have common unique loves, obsessions or phobias. Get your mind out of the gutter this is not about fetishes, and more about cat lovers, dog lovers, people who love the stars, or antiques, places to find die hard unique interests.

It’s also a please where two people can connect with common phobias. It may be great to hook up with someone who has the same fear of the dark, spiders, or crowds. You may end up finding someone who understands your unique situation. That’s what Unique Love is all about.

Check out founder Stark Miller, pitching in the video below:

We’ll Be Live At io/LA Covering Hollywood Hack Day

This weekend, while Kyle will be on the East Coast at another Startup event. I’ll be at a Hackathon on the West Coast covering the Hollywood Hackathon. The event, which has moved to io/LA’s venue near the famed Hollywood and Highland intersection in the middle of Hollywood. Will be filled with those trying to make it into the entertainment field by way of Tech.

NY Startup: JustDecide Helps You Make Decisions INTERVIEW

Have you ever wanted someone to help you make a decision. Maybe you didn’t feel like talking to a friend or relative about your decision. Maybe you didn’t want to call the advice call in show? Well now there’s a startup for that, and it’s called JustDecide.

If you’ve ever struggled with a decision (and who hasn’t) than you know the foundation for JustDecide. With this innovative new startup from New York, you get real life people who have had to make the same decisions as you, help you make informative, good decisions. Heck, this startup is life changing.

Jay Amato, a New York executive with quite an impressive resume, launched JustDecide just over a week ago as a platform for social decision making. Amato goes over his resume in our interview with him below. He founded JustDecide when he was faced with the dilemma of making the decision on what to do next.

We talk with Amato about JustDecide, decision making and the New York startup scene. Since TechCrunch Disrupt NYC 2012 we’ve heard different views on whether New York’s startup scene is actually more segregated than it’s west coast counterpart.

Check out the interview below. Based on his life experiences, and lengthy executive work history Amato provides a different perspective on a lot of things in the startup process.

5 Angel List (Angel.co) Startups In Memphis

Please don’t mistake me for an angel.co basher it’s a very useful tool. However, week in and week out we get an email from angel.co with the “trending startups” and they are almost always invariably from Silicon Valley and New York. That’s why we’ve developed this series to highlight angel.co startups from “everywhere else” it’s more of a compliment to angel.co rather than a bash. Oh and by the way it would be super cool if you followed Nibletz on angel.co

Today we’re taking a look at five angel.co listings form Memphis because it’s a big weekend for Memphis startups.

Seed Hatchery

First up is Seed Hatchery they’ve been an instrumental incubator and backer of the thriving startup scene in Memphis, they are also one of the sponsors for this weekends 48Hour Launch Memphis event.

Seed Hatchery was born out of venture capital firm Solidus Company in Nashville Tennessee. Solidus has invested over $112 million dollars in 48 companies over the last 24 years. According to Seed Hatchery’s website, the Solidus Company saw a gap in investment opportunities to stimulate growth in startups. They found that many companies needed a lot less money to start working on their ideas.

In December 2010, Vic Gatto of Solidus, Eric Matthews of Launch Memphis, and Gwin Scott established Seed Hatchery in Memphis to help “seed” growth of early stage startups.

Seed Hatchery held a Demo day last month for their most recent “class” of six startups that went through their incubator.

For more on SeedHatchery visit this site
For more on this weekend’s event in Memphis click here
Follow SeedHatchery on Angel.co here

Friendsignia

Friendsignia is a very intuitive social dashboard that has a lot of people talking. SeedHatchery founder Vic Gatto said of the new social startup:

“They solve the biggest pain point in social media today… too much noise.”

Based on their description alone I’m waiting for my beta invite. What Friendsignia does is pulls social data from Facebook and Twitter and filters out meaningless updates from strangers. Friendsignia delivers the 150 people that matter most to you.

This is perfect for me as I have over 100,000 followers on Twitter and try and follow a good deal back (60,000) however I haven’t been able to look at my “home” timeline in over two years it’s way too noisy, so I use lists and streams from Hootsuite. As their angel.co listing says “For a power user it’s a more efficient social dashboard”.

As with Gatto, for the professional it’s a better way to keep up with business contacts and associates who matter.

Now, not only is Friendsignia a new and more powerful social dashboard but they’ve got this really kick ass blog entry here to talk about what they do.

Find out more & request your beta invite here
Follow Friendsignia on angel.co here

PayTopia

PayTopia is a startup that promises a way to pay online without exposing your financial information. Sure this sounds a lot like PayPal, but so many people are burnt out on post E-Bay merger PayPal that they are jonesing for a new way of using their money online. PayPal complaints are up 70% post merger, with many longtime users switching away from PayPal because they no longer defend the “seller” in most transactions.

PayTopia has taken an innovative approach to paying online. Now your financial information and personal information is no longer at risk. PayTopia allows users to use their email addresses and a pin number to initiate payments.

Merchants submit payments to Paytopia, Paytopia texts the user with an authorization code and then the user gives the authorization code to the merchant to complete the payment.

In addition to providing user safety, it’s quicker than filling out an entire web based payment form.

Find out more about Paytopia here
Follow Paytopia on Angel.co here

StiQRd

I know that loyal readers of nibletz know how I feel about “loyalty and rewards” right about now. We called it right before SXSW that loyalty and rewards were going to replace group couponing and they have. However Memphis based Stiqurd (Stickered) has a couple points up their sleeves.

First off, StiQRd CEO Aaron Prather has a background in restaurants. Before StiQRd he owned his own restaurants. He felt a serious pain point with current loyalty offerings. You could go the cheap route with untraceable punch cards. Or you could spend thousands of dollars, which just isn’t in the margin of a restaurant, to do a swipe card.

StiQRd solves that problem by putting the loyalty and reward piece in the phone.

StiQRd is a QR code based reward and loyalty app for iPhone and Android. On the merchant side they offer a comprehensive dashboard to track visits, purchases and points for their most loyal customers.

As we’ve heard ever so often 15% of the top loyal customers can account for up to 50% of a restaurants revenue. With StiQRd everything is kept in one place, your phone.

StiQRd is currently leading the 1-99 employees category in the social madness competition in Memphis. Voting ends June 19th

Check out StiQRd here at their website
Download the Android app here at the Google Play Store
Check out the iOS app here in the iTunes store
Follow StiQRd on Angel.co

Work For Pie

Work for Pie is a community for open source developers. They describe themselves as a bit like Klout (not sure why anyone would want to do that) and a bit like LinkedIn, but for open source developers.

The social community for open source developers allows developers to collaborate with each other and source each other for help with their projects. Users can also recommend and refer their fellow open source developers.

Their intuitive profile platform highlights not just their biography points but also their coding skills and work history. They also have a point based system based on recommendations and referrals so that if you’re looking for a certain type of developer you can find not just that type of developer but the best developers as well.

Last month Work For Pie closed on a $300,000 round of funding.

Check out Work For Pie on their website here
Follow them on angel.co here

Vancouver Startup: CrowdFanatic Creating A Group Engagement Platform For Facebook INTERVIEW

A Vancouver startup called CrowdFanatic has just recently launched, what they are calling a “game changing” group connectivity layer on Facbeook. It’s actually a pretty innovative idea, and now with the Facebook App store, more people will be able to find it and connect their groups.

Facebook does a great job of one to one connections. What they’ve been missing through the years is the chance for groups to connect with groups. For instance a Harry Potter fan group could challenge a Hunger Games group. Or a Kyle Bush fan group could connect with a Dale Earnhardt fan group and challenge each other.

What’s even better is other ideas that can spark on CrowdFanatic’s layer. For instance, a cheerleading group in California could collaborate, and or challenge a cheer leading group from Connecticut. The possibilities are endless, and after talking with the founders of CrowdFanatic, the biggest question is why hasn’t Facebook or someone else stepped up to do this until now? Well it’s here thanks to CrowdFanatic.

Check out our interview below the break
Read More…

Shark Tank “Entities” Can Take 5% Equity No Matter What

We talk about Shark Tank on ABC here on nibletz.com quite a bit. That’s partly because it’s a great show about startups and partly because no matter what we’ve reported it’s still my favorite show.

In fact, Daymond John and Mark Cuban have done some great things for entrepreneurs, startups, and even students interested in startups and entrepreneurship. Both Cuban and John speak regularly at entrepreneurship conferences and colleges. John even held a Google+ hangout for high school students studying business.

We recently obtained the application for your business to appear on the Shark Tank. It’s not a top secret application or anything like that. Just about any entrepreneur interested in Shark Tank’s open casting calls can obtain the same application.

We highly advise, that if you’re planning on pitching your startup to Shark Tank in their open casting call, and especially if you make it past that point that you read the fine print.

As the headline states, Shark Tank producer’s Finnmax, Sony Pictures Television, and the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), have some very interesting rights, if you chose to appear on the show.

First off they have an option to receive a 2% royalty of the operating profits of any business that actually appears on the show itself, regardless of whether the sharks invest.

If they decide not to take the 2% royalty they have the option to instead take a 5% equity interest in the business.

Now keep in mind this 5% equity investment isn’t in exchange for any funding at all and isn’t contingent on the startup getting funding from one of the sharks. This is just for appearing on the show itself.

That section of the application does go onto say that the “Shark Tank Entities” will give good faith consideration as to which of the two options the business owner/entrepreneur wants them to have, be it the 2% royalty or 5% equity, however it’s at the sole discretion of the “entities” and the irrevocable option is available for two years.

Shark Tank is currently on break but will return for a fourth season and I will watch every episode as I’ve done on the previous three seasons. But now we all know a little more about the show.

Linkage

Read this story about when a Shark Tank startup gets reneged on

See more of our Shark Tank stories here

Michigan Startup: Current Motor, First In Dell’s $100M Startup Fund

An Ann Arbor Michigan based startup called Current Motor, is the first startup to benefit from Dell’s new $100 million dollar Innovator’s Financing Fund. Current Motor is developing electric powered scooters.

The fund, announced Thursday, is entirely funded by Austin based pc powerhouse Dell. Their Entrepreneur in Residence, Ingrid Vandervelt, came up with the idea for the fund, under the supervision of the entrepreneur in residence advisory board.

Current Motor is using the funds from Dell, along with their expertise and “24 hour support” to help them implement an e-commerce system that handles customer service tracking, and also tracks important information on the scooters, such as battery life remaining. They want this entire system to be accessible via mobile app, similar to that of some of the shared bicycle and car apps out there (ZipCar).

“In exchange for a low monthly payment, we get one point of contact and a really comprehensive, scalable technology solution that allowed us to get to market six months ahead of schedule, while conserving our equity capital for sales, marketing, research and development,” Lauren Flanagan, executive chairman and an angel investor in the company told the Austin Statesman.

More after the break
Read More…

Alabama Startup: Arch Data Intelligence Introduces Arch Patent

A very promising startup in Huntsville Alabama has released a professional version of their patent product called Arch Patent. Arch Patent is a product catered to startup founders, inventors, lawyers and corporate R & D departments.

According to founders Tony Rainoldi and Jason Martin, who are both graduates of UA Huntsville, say that their product simplifies patent research.

Most investors, lawyers, and founders are relying on free search tools and even Google to do vital research on intellectual property and patents, that could, down the road, lead to a ton of legal problems. The Arch Patent product has fees associated with it, but it’s much more affordable than hiring a patent research firm.

“We found that people were relying on free search tools offered by Google and other, but were frustrated that they didn’t do enough. They had lots of ideas about what functionality they needed to save time and money. We set out to build the best patent search tool available,” Martin said to AL.com

Arch Patent has other advantages too. One of those is the ability to search patents dating back to 1920. Other patent searches only go back to 1976. Arch Patent will eventually grow to be part of what the two co-founders are calling the Arch IP Global Marketplace.

Rainoldi and Martin are using $25,000 in seed money that they recently won in the Alabama LaunchPad Business Plan Competition. There were three UA Huntsville entrants in the competition. Of the three, Arch Data Intelligence was the only one to make it to the pre-seed or proof of concept stage. They then advanced to the next field where they took part in sharing a $100,000 seed money prize.

Linkage:

Find out more about Arch Data Intelligence here

Source: AL.com

Nibletz is the voice of Startups “Everywhere Else”

California Startup: Recmnd.Me The People Recommendation Site, Interview

Recommendation startups are hot right now. It seems that every time you turn around there is another startup or app recommending something or other. Now Jesse Gant, who has a lengthy resume in some big startups like Ancestry.com, has invented the people recommendation startup.

Now we all know that LinkedIn offers referrals and references, but those are all from your top tier contacts. I couldn’t tell you how many times a friend of mine, or even a nodding acquaintance has asked me to write a referral or reference for them on LinkedIn. A few I’ve done, others I’ve passed on. Most hiring people and recruiters know the value of a LinkedIn referral, which is about as valuable as your LinkedIn password was yesterday.

Recmnd.Me allows you to post a profile for yourself and once you’ve signed up people can decide on their own with just a click if they’re going to recommend you or not. Gant told TechCrunch that he had seven references on LinkedIn throughout his entire career, but on recmnd.me he already had 21.

The other piece for Recmnd.Me is that if you’re looking to fill a position or need, and you search, say, “software developer” Recmnd.Me is going to rank the software developers in the network for you to see and choose.

Through one of our great friends in Utah we were introduced to Gant who took the time to do an interview with us. The interview is after the break.

New Incubator: IncubateNYC Comes To Harlem

We all know that New York City is for the most part, Silicon Valley of the east. Some of the top Startups and technology innovators are being born in the city that never sleeps. We’ve covered a slew of great New York Startups like Sonar, Edaman,FourSquare and plenty more.

We learned t TechCrunch Disrupt NYC that unlike the Valley which encompasses several areas in the region like San Francisco, Menlo Park, Sunnyvale, Mountain View and countless others, the New York tech scene is united on one front a segregated on the other. Each area within New York, like Manhattan, Brooklyn and now even Harlem has their own thriving tech hubs.

Marcus Mayo and Brian Shields are two Harlem based entrepreneurs who are trying to unite the Harlem startup scene and invigorate its infrastructure by launching a new startup incubator called IncubateNYC.

According to this story from cnbc.com, New York may have a thriving startup scene, but Shields and Mayo are willing to bet that most of the 486 Startups that have received funding are confined to 9 zip codes.

Mayo and Shields officially launched IncubateNYC in December after New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg put out a call for proposals for a Harlem based small business incubator. Shields and Mayo couldn’t wait for Bloomberg to select a winner, they immediately went to work in borrowed office space.

IncubateNYC helped the two founders connect with a technical co-founder to help with their own startup focusing on digital payment processing for retail stores. They also immediately started helping other Startups. To date they’ve helped 10 other Startups with resourcing, networking, mentoring and other things that area Startups need. They’ve also partnered with Columbia University and Google to bring resources to startups.

“What we’re providing is an environment for entrepreneurs to collaborate, share ideas and work together to take those ideas to the next level,” Mayo told cnbc.com

Linkage:

Find out more about IncubateNYC at incubatenyc.org

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” here are more stories from “everywhere else”

Get your startup from “everywhere else” featured email startup@nibletz.com