5 Startups Get In Motion At NMotion Demo Day

Nmotion, Startup Acclerator, Demo Day, Nebraska Startup

There’s so much talk about startup accelerators. We report on a lot of accelerators, with an emphasis on the ones accelerating companies outside Silicon Valley. NMotion is one of those accelerators. I spent a bit of time talking with NMotion’s managing director, Brian Ardinger, throughout the course of the program. I also did a mentor session with the five companies in the program about a week before demo day.

Ardinger is one of those accelerator directors that knows the most valuable lesson already: Demo Day isn’t the end for the startups, it’s the beginning.

“When we invest in companies, we help them for life, not just for the summer,” it says on NMotion’s website. On the surface Ardinger is a tech-transfer guy. As the Entrepreneur-in-Residence at NuTech Ventures, Ardinger oversees the crossover from the University of Nebraska and the private sector. However, NMotion was by no means a “student program.”

Each NMotion team received a seed investment of $15,000 which is par for the course for a city Lincoln’s size. The teams also received over $100,000 in important business services and access to a mentor network, which Ardinger stresses doesn’t go away on demo day.

HipPocket, PaperTale, Cinnamon Social, SynserScan, and Alumni Labs worked around the clock as hard, if not harder, than startups at some of the most prestigious Valley accelerators. When the time came on Thursday afternoon, they were ready to show off their summer’s work in front of a crowd of nearly 200 (not too shabby for an inaugural cohort in Lincoln, Nebraska).

Cinnamon Social is a software for automated and intelligent social media content curation led by husband-and-wife founders Jason and Holly Petersen.

SynerScan is a software to digitize hospital operations offering better health care through data led by founder Brett Byman.

HipPocket is a software offering families better context and confidence for financial decision-making led by founder Mark Zmarzly.

Alumni Labs is a software that simplifies and manages the college selection and application process led by founders Martin Wolff and Steve Scharf.

PaperTale is a new software product founded by Dan Castagnoli designed to help manufacturers curb the $500 million dollar loss in paper coupons. Omaha.com reported that Castagnoli revealed in his pitch that people are using photo editing software to change coupons and dupe manufacturers and retail stores out of millions of dollars. In some cases these crooks change $5 coupons to $10 coupons.

While some accelerators immediately start taking applications for the next cohort the day after demo day, Ardinger is making sure that the teams that just graduated into the real business world adjust well. He’s also knee deep in Lincoln’s Startup Week going on all week long. NMotion’s demo day and then Startup Weekend were the official kick off events for Startup Week.

For more information on NMotion click here. Here a  re some of our interviews with NMotion teams in our Startups In The Fastlane feature.

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Harlem’s New Harlem Garage Puts Business In High Gear

Harlem Garage, Coworking, Harlem startups New York startups

“New York’s startup community is made up of several startup communities that come together.”

That’s what Startup Threads founder and New York startup activist Frank Denbow told us in an interview last May. Whether you’re in Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Dumbo District, or even Harlem, every area seems to have a vibrant startup community.

Last year we reported on Harlem incubator IncubateNYC. That effort founded by Marcus Mayo and Brian Shields was in response to a call to action for Harlem small businesses and startups by Mayor Bloomberg.

Now Harlem is getting a new hub for startups called the Harlem Garage.

New York co-working company MicroOffice is opening their newest location at 318 West 118th Street right in the heart of West Harlem. The company already has several small office and desk space options scattered across New York City. They aim to help small businesses and startups transition from the home to a more traditional office.  Like most co-working companies, MicroOffice bundles all the needs of today’s workers into one easy-to-understand agreement. Things like power, faxing, conference rooms, and internet are all in the agreement.

The company also installs community managers at their locations, but they function as much more than just landlords. They try to ensure complimentary diversity within the coworking space. They also help facilitate programming that’s necessary for today’s growing companies. Legal, accounting, PR, and other workshops are a mainstay across the MicroOffice facilities.

The Harlem Garage is 5000 square feet of coworking space and will house a diverse community of 150 members according to Black Enterprise. They also plan to offer discounts to women and minority-owned businesses as well as hold annual contests for desk space.

“Harlem Garage is about the advancement of Harlem small businesses through the exchange of expertise,” Ryan Young, Harlem Garage’s Community Manager told Black Enterprise.

They plan to open in the coming weeks. You can find out more about Harlem Garage at harlemgarage.com

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Vancouver Startup Wantering: Google For Fashion?

Wantering, Big Data, Vancouver startup, startup interview

You’d be surprised how many data points there are when it comes to shopping online. When you take into consideration data across the web and then across the social web we’re talking about hundreds of millions of data points. While the normal shopper can’t analyze or look at all of those data points, sometimes shopping for clothes online can easily result in 30 or 40 open browser windows. This can get ugly, confusing, and slow your computer down.

A Vancouver startup called Wantering is hoping to help solve your fashion faux pas, by analyzing over 100 million data points for you in what they call the “WantRank” algorithm.

Whether you’re shopping by deal, brand, category, color, print, fabric, or any other category, wantering can help narrow down your search and point you to the best deal. Then, the web platform can take you to a destination to purchase.

The team behind Wantering all came from the online retail world and they’ve spent years combing through and analyzing data.

We got a chance to talk to Wantering Evangelist, Kathleen Ong. Check out the interview below.

wantering2

What does your company do?

Ever try to shop online when you’re not quite sure exactly what you’re looking for? We’ve been there. Wantering helps shoppers find clothes they’ll love through our fashion search engine. Save yourself the wasted time and frustration of opening up multiple browser tabs, wondering if something is on sale or in stock, and trying to shop from tiny thumbnails.

You can shop for clothes by brand, category, materials, prints, and color across a curated list of boutiques, flash sales sites and major retailers all in one place. And if you’re curious about why something is at the top of a search result, it’s because of our WantRank algorithm. WantRank tracks and analyzes over 100 million data points across the social web and ranks products based on what’s getting the most social-love.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

The Wantering team are no strangers to online shopping. Wantering’s CEO is Matt Friesen, a technology industry veteran. Matt was previously the founder and CEO of Thirdi Software, a custom software development shop specialized in building eCommerce stores and web applications. Matt started Wantering in 2011 after Thirdi Software was acquired by Invoke Media (the creators of Hootsuite). Nick Cairns is Wantering’s head of UX and was previously the Director of User Interface & Design at Move Inc (the parent company of Realtor.com). Jesse Sherlock is Wantering’s CTO, and has experience building highly scalable systems for Reinvent (one of the largest domain owners in the world) and the BC Lottery Corp. Nicholas Molnar is the head of product, and was previously a web strategist at Thirdi Software. Nicholas sits on the board of directors of F Cancer and has been a speaker at numerous technology-focused events including TedxVancouver.

Where are you based?

Wantering is based in Vancouver and New York City.

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

Vancouver is known as Silicon Valley North. There is a great startup scene here with a growing community of startups, investors and accelerator programs such as GrowLab, which Wantering went through in 2012.

In New York, we’re based out of General Assembly. Wantering was selected as one of six startups to be part of the Canadian Technology Accelerator (CTA) New York program this fall. We’re looking forward to meeting people and getting to know the New York tech community on a more intimate level.

We get the best of both worlds; participating in Vancouver’s growing tech scene is such a rewarding experience and travelling to New York, where the industry is much more mature, has been eye-opening.

What problem do you solve?

We’re solving some of the most basic problems in online shopping. Where do I look for a new pair of shoes? What’s on sale from my favorite designer? Where can I get a blue cocktail dress for this wedding I’m going to?

Wantering gives shoppers a beautiful platform to discover and buy clothing by pulling together the best e-commerce stores all in one place. Gigantic images, detailed descriptions, trending products, and up-to-date stock and sale information make shopping less time consuming and more fulfilling.

Why now?

We believe searching for clothes online has lost its way. The results you see in leading product search engines are typically paid posts by retailers. One look at Google Shopping and you’ll find a big notice in the corner explaining exactly that! Not to mention, they don’t understand my style taste, and they completely disregard current trends in fashion.

Can you name two new features in product search since the ’90s? Shopzilla launched in 1996, Yahoo Shopping in ’97, MySimon in ’98, and Nextag in ’99. They’ve barely changed since, and are somehow still billion dollar businesses.

We think this is an area ripe for disruption. On Wantering.com we put the best products first by using 100 million data points from the social web, and we aren’t going to sell our users out. There is tons of room for innovation in this space, and we’re excited to be building something really cool to help people shop online better.

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

There’s been quite a few big milestones for us in the last 18 months. Releasing our search engine in spring 2013 was a one of the biggest moments for us; it’s both rewarding and motivating to see what you’ve been working on for months come to life. There is still more work to be done and we’re looking forward to what’s ahead.

What are your next milestones?

We have some cool product features in the works over the next while, so we’re excited to get those out!

Where can people find out more? 

Shop for clothes you’ll love on www.wantering.com

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

Personify, Chicago Startup, Immersive Video,startups, startup interview

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

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

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

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

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

What is your startup called?

Personify Inc.

What does your company do?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

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

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

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

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

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

Where are you based?

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

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

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

Why now?

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

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

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

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

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

What are your next milestones?

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

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

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

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

More information about Personify can be found at personifyinc.com

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Cincinnati & Pittsburgh, A Startup City Swap?

Pittsburgh, RustBuilt, Cintrifuse, Cincinnati Startups

Sports rivalries are intense between Pittsburgh, PA and Cincinnati OH (home to the Everywhere Else Cincinnati Conference). Of course there’s the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals but also the Pirates and the Reds. Enough to make a grown person very passionate. Another thing people in both cities are passionate about is entrepreneurship and startups.

Pittsburgh has several startup initiatives including Built In Pittsburgh and Rustbuilt. Cincinnati has Cintrifuse, The Brandery, and CincyTech. This year Cincinnati also has the national Everywhere Else startup conference.  Leaders in both startup communities thought the natural sports rivalries created a unique synergy of sorts that could help entrepreneurs in each city learn from each other.

So to further those ideas, Cincinnati’s Cintrifuse and Pittsburgh’s RustBuilt accelerator are holding a city swap on the last two Fridays of the month.

On Friday September 20th Rustbuilt will host a group of Cincinnati entrepreneurs from Cintrifuse at their facility in Pittsburgh, just in time for RustBuilt Night at PNC Park, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Entrepreneurs from both cities will enjoy each other’s company, share best practices, and then take in a night of baseball as the Pittsburgh Pirates host the Cincinnati Reds.

Then, the following week, Cincinnati’s Cintrifuse will host a group from RustBuilt for either startup speed dating or a startup crawl of sorts, still to be determined.  Then the startups will enjoy an evening of baseball at the Great American Ballpark as the Reds host the Pirates.

But wait there’s more. Pittsburgh entrepreneur Kit Mueller tells us that several of the Pittsburgh startups will stay all weekend long and attend the Everywhere Else conference beginning that Sunday night.

Tickets for Rustbuilt night at PNC Park in Pittsburgh September 20th can be found here.

Info on the Cintrifuse event at the Cincinnati Reds game can be found here.

Go register for Everywhere Else Cincinnati here.

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How To Build A Semantic Startup

Semantic startups, guest post, startupHow to Build a Semantic Startup

Google’s “semantic search” concept is an innovative approach to search queries. Queries on the search giant aren’t just analyzed as individual words, like the way most search engines deliver results. Google’s algorithm is trained to read and understand a user’s query, drawing on past queries and lots of Web browsing data to determine exactly what the user is searching for and deliver those results.

You can build a semantic style startup too, one that that tests theories and uses that data to help increase conversions and improve the quality of your product.

Learn Your Industry

A unique skill that entrepreneurs must possess is the ability to look objectively at one’s competition to discover what they do better. The copy and messaging your competitors use has often been finely tuned to get the most conversions for that niche. If you see others advertising on AdWords, try running a campaign there with some ad extensions to direct customers to your product pages or get more phone calls.

Websites like Alexa collect some statistics on your competition that you can view publicly, like the age range of people who visit your competitors or which part of the country they live in. With this data, you can learn and make guesses as to what customers expect when they visit your page. You’ll get a better return on your investment if you study your market carefully instead of shotgun blasting your ads around the Web.

Educate Yourself

Any individual in business for himself must resign to a life of hard work and constant education. For instance, the health industry is in for some major changes that software developers can capitalize on if they know what’s expected. Changes to health information technology have created openings for developers to design the programs and infrastructure needed to connect patients, doctors and health care professionals. The old generation of office paperwork is on its way out, and candidates looking to get into this field can now learn more than ever from online universities offering degrees and certifications in those fields.

Educating yourself does not necessarily mean returning to school. Independent certification or accreditation from institutes and seminars can also help someone with an existing skillset expand their abilities. In the case of software developers, a certificate in health care will help teach the necessary jargon and common practices hospitals face to make software design for that industry more intuitive and easier to understand.

Test Your Ideas

Very rarely is your first campaign a huge success, so you’ll often need to test out new ideas to increase conversions. Even a campaign that launches with a strong conversion rate can often undergo testing to increase the efficiency of that campaign. That means writing new copy, playing with the arrangement of the elements on your Web page and trying new forms of customer outreach is crucial to expanding your business.

You should also figure out which forms of traffic are the main factors behind your conversions. Perform testing on those platforms, then port the successful changes you find to other sources of traffic. If you work primarily with PPC and find a formula that works, try that formula in a cost per view campaign and see if you can grow your niche on other networks.

Invest in Technology

Just like Google had to invest in its search algorithm, so too will you need to invest in technology for your business. Software that automates your workload or keeps track of your task lists are all small investments with large payoffs overtime.

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Everywhere Else Cincinnati Is Less Than A Month Away

Everywhere Else Cincinnati, Startup Conference, Start Where U Are, Nibletz

The national conference for startups everywhere else continues to grow.

Thank you so much for being part of the Nibletz community. We all know that startups across the country and around the globe are fueling innovation and creating jobs. Whether it’s in Boise, Idaho, Memphis, Tennessee, Pittsburgh, Alaska, or anywhere in between we all face similar challenges.

That’s why Everywhere Else Cincinnati is all about starting where you are. Learn tips from pros. Hear from people who have raised money outside of Silicon Valley and New York. Meet investors who could be looking for deals in your neighborhood.

We’ve assembled over 30 top tier national speakers for the two and a half day event which starts September 29th and runs through October 1st at the Duke Energy Convention Center in downtown Cincinnati.

With the conference less than a month away our early bird pricing will end at the end of this week. Right now you can save big on an attendee ticket or Startup Avenue booth which includes three attendee tickets, booth space, exhibition area, and a great pitch event.

Need more reasons to attend Everywhere Else Cincinnati? Here’s 42 of them.

Here are the speakers we’ve announced so far (we still have even more to announce):

  • Blair Garrou, Managing Director Mercury Fund
  • Scott Gerber, Founder of YEC
  • Ethan Austin, Founder GiveForward
  • Joe Medved, Partner SoftBank Capital
  • Naithan Jones, Founder AgLocal
  • Derek Flanzraich, Founder Greatist
  • Andrew Warner, Founder Mixergy
  • Andy Sparks, Co-Founder MatterMark
  • Wil Schroter, Founder Fundable
  • Jake Stutzman, Founder Elevate.co
  • Jonathon Perrelli, Managing Director, Fortify Ventures
  • Justin Gutwein, Filmmaker and Entrepreneur StartupLand.tv
  • Mark Hasebroock, Founder Dundee Venture Capital
  • Jason Healy, Founder Blu
  • John Bracken, Founder Evite and Speek
  • Dave Knox, CMO Rockfish, co-founder Brandery
  • Patrick Woods, Managing Director a>m ventures
  • Sarah Ware, Founder Markerly
  • John T. Meyer, Founder Lemon.ly
  • Raghu Betina, Managing Partner The Starter League
  • Ryan O’Connell, VP Influence & Co
  • Blake Miller, Managing Director Think Big Accelerator
  • Michael Bergman, Founder Repp
Investors committed so far:
Mercury Fund, SoftBank, Detroit Venture Partners (DVP), CincyTech, am>ventures, Fortify.vc, Ben Franklin and many more.
You can register below at a great early bird discount rate or at eecincinnati.com 

Tech Cocktail’s Kira Newman Wants Entrepreneurs To “Audit Your Soul” At SXSW

sxsw, panel picker, tech cocktail, startup, entrepreneur

Kira Newman is a senior writer over at Tech Cocktail. She’s been covering startups and entrepreneurs for a while now and even took a trip across the world learning about how they do things in different cities. After covering hundreds and hundreds of entrepreneurs she has some great insight.

Newman has noticed that in the “just do it” and do it now, lives of entrepreneurs, they don’t take the time to “know thyself.” Many entrepreneurs know how important it is to know their customers, but they often overlook their team and themselves.

We are combing the pages and pages of the SXSW panel picker for 2014 to find some of the more interesting startup discussions vying for a spot in the SXSW lineup. Newman’s talk is definitely worth a vote.

Why is looking into your soul and knowing thyself important? This is Newman’s take from the panel picker page:

“Entrepreneurs who pinpointed their fear of failure would perform better than those plagued by unknown terror. Entrepreneurs who understood their personality quirks could build a more cohesive team. Entrepreneurs who consciously valued independence would make completely different decisions from those who valued money.”

During the two and a half hour workshop, Newman will go over ten important questions that every entrepreneur should ask themselves.

You can vote for Newman’s talk here!

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Startups In The Fastlane: Velocity Startup Pass It

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

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

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

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

passitappheader

What is the name of your startup?

Pass it

What accelerator are you in?

Velocity Accelerator. http://velocityindiana.org

Where is your startup originally from?

Seattle

Tell us about your current team?

Bryce Anderson – Moving the business forward.

Robert Eickmann – Mobile developer with superpowers.

Cameron Chinn – Marketing and user acquisition specialist.

Jon Matar – Primary Advisor

What does your startup do?

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

What are your goals for the accelerator program?

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

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

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

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

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

What is your goal for the day after demo day?

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

Why did you choose this accelerator?

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

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

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

Where can people find out more?

www.passitapp.co

What’s your twitter handle?

@PassPics

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Philly’s Novotorium Announces New Seed Funding Program

_novotoriumPUBPhiladelphia’s Novotorium continues to support health, wellness, and nutrition startups across the Philadelphia region. We’ve covered Novotorium quite a bit over the last 18 months and their progress has been fun to watch.

The team backing the startup support organization wants to get in with companies in their wheelhouse as early as possible, sometimes backing companies as early as a business plan stage or during the development of a companies minimum viable product (MVP). More often than not, companies at that early a stage are turned away and can’t develop without funding, especially in health and wellness sectors.

Novotorium has announced a week’s worth of programming geared towards the earliest stage companies. The program runs the week of September 16-20 and at the end of the week those that participated will be part of a business plan competition on September 23rd. The competition will have a $2500 prize, but Novotorium will consider all participants for possible future investments ranging from $5,000 to $250,000.

Novotorium, Seed Funding, startups, Philly startups“Our goal with this program is to work with companies in the early stages of developing a business plan and creating the first iteration of their business. We are looking forward to helping them build out their plans and create their minimum viable products. We anticipate that we will be able to offer seed funding to several companies,” Novotorium Managing Director Stuart Segal said in a statement.

Novotorium’s Marketing and Business Director, Chuck Hall, summarized the program on their blog:

During each day of the week-long program — September 16 through 20 —  Novotorium partners will be on hand at Novotorium in Langhorne to offer classes and hold office hours on key parts of creating and launching a business — finance, law, marketing, sales, operations, lean startup, agile development, technology, health care products and markets and more. This is a completely free week of sessions, with the goal of helping entrepreneurs accepted into this program move forward with their business plans and business implementation efforts.

On Friday, September 20, business plans and business development efforts will be vetted, with approved startups slotted into presentation times for Monday, September 23. Entrepreneurs will be asked to present to a Novotorium panel that will then determine the winner of the competition. The winner will receive the top prize of $2,500 in cash and $3,000 in services at Novotorium over a 30-day period.

Companies wishing to participate in the program must apply on the Novotorium website using the ordinary application form. Applicants should note “TBD” in any part of the application that is yet to be determined. Applicants should also note “Applying for September Program” in the “What Else?” section of the application.

Interested? Hit the application link above

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

Linkett, WestonExpressions, Canadian startup, startup interview

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

Although RIM has stopped innovating, Waterloo has not.

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

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

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

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

What is your startup called?

WestonExpressions

What does your company do?

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

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

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

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

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

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

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

Why now?

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

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

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

What are your next milestones?

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

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

linkett.com

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

Mexican Entrepreneuer Working On Hospitality Retention With His Startup Guest Retain

GuestRetain, Mexican startup, startup interview

With all the online platforms out there for hotels, spas, and other hospitality oriented services, the first and most influential exposure  is typically based on price. I know when I started using the hotel site we use today, back in 2002, it was strictly price driven. Now, we typically book 100s of nights a year, and we look for amenities and hotels that will still let us use our brand rewards even though we book through a third party.

Once a user gets over the initial cost benefit, retaining customers to any one brand and becoming loyal is a tough sell. Most of the time when we hear about loyalty and rewards, which are the centerpieces around customer retention, we are typically talking about retail and restaurants.

Geordie Wardman, a Mexican entrepreneur, is hoping to change the way companies in the hotel, salon, and spa industries retain quality customers and solve customer issues as fast as they can.

We keep hearing stories about consumer giants like Best Buy, Dell, and American Airlines, who have devoted huge teams of employees to monitor review sites and social media. But what about the small business, or even the startup?

That’s where Guest Retain comes in. Wardman’s company monitors the biggest review sites and social media to find the buzz words and other indicators of a negative review, alerting a business owner within minutes so that they can try their best to turn a negative into a positive.

A customer who has been turned around from a bad experience is far more likely to be loyal than just a regular customer. Guest Retain hones in on that idea, getting the most important information back to the companies so they can act on it.

We got a chance to talk to Warman. Check out the interview below.

What is your startup called?

GuestRetain – We handle online reputation marketing for Hotels, Spas and Salons. Our solution basically automates positives reviews by capturing testimonials and when the customers responses are positive guiding the customers to leave positive reviews on the social review sites like Google Reviews, Yahoo, TripAdvisor, Yelp, City Search and any others that are beneficial to promote the business reputation of our clients. When a customer experience is bad, we warn the owner and give them the opportunity to correct the situation directly with that client before they go on to the social review site.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

Founder is Geordie Wardman

Where are you based?

I am based in Sayulita, Mexico where I live on the beach with my family and surf 3 to 4 days a week (when there are waves!)

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

There is none, and I have to form my own mastermind groups and accountability groups because I live in a very rural area of Mexico.

What problem do you solve?

The problem that I solve is only angry customers leave reviews, not good loyal customers because Good Service is expected. When a problem does arise, the owner is given notice of it BEFORE the customer complains on it on the social review sites. Previously, the owners only found out about customers problems AFTER the customers had left a scathing critique of an experience online, where it stays forever to detract future business prospects from checking their business. We are an alert system for business owners to stay in closer contact with their customers, so they can be proactive about their customer retention and relationships, and augment their online reputations.

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

Funded development by pre-sales. Collected from 3 customers 12 months in advance revenues. Already achieved $4,000 per month in recurring revenues after 2 months of being live, with 40 customers and a 20-30% growth rate per month in new clients.

What are your next milestones?

100 clients and $10,000 in monthly recurring revenues by Jan 1, 2014.

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

http://www.guestretain.com,

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JuiceTank — Innovation Lab, Accelerator and Coworking Space — Takes Shape in Somerset

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Krossover, Because Everyone Loves A Great High School Sports Comeback

Krossover, New York startup, startup story, coaching

So, I may have shed a little tear when watching Undefeated earlier this year. It’s one of those tug-at-your-heart-strings comeback stories. Team does horribly, needs more direction, gets it in adversity, and wins. In the case of Undefeated, the team almost went all the way.  While Undefeated was more about culture and upbringing, and we may have a little bias being based in Memphis and all, it’s still a great high school comeback story.

High school comeback stories are good for morale, good for building strong minds, and in a lot of cases great for the community.

New York-based startup Krossover is giving high school coaches everywhere a better chance at making that comeback. They provide access to tools that used to only be available to college and professional coaches.

Coaches subscribed to the Krossover service upload their raw game video footage to the Krossover servers.  Then a network of over 1300 crowdsourced employees in the US, India, and Europe watch the films and document everything. What’s delivered back to the coach in 24 hours looks like a college or professional sports analytics.

According to Business Insider, Krossover indexes the video and data, and a coach can instantly call up shots by a particular player, bad running plays, missed free throws, and just about every piece of the game.

“We are sitting on mounds of data, about 20 terabytes of video, data, and analytics,” James Piette, Krossover founder told Business Insider. “Our service is cataloging exactly what’s happening in every single play like who took a shot where, who rebounded the shot, who inbounded the ball, everything.”

Krossover has thousands of coaches as customers and provides their services for football, basketball, and lacrosse. One of their customers Sean McInnis, the basketball coach at King Philip Regional High Scool in Massachusetts. Before he took over the team and signed up for Krossover, the team had gone winless in three seasons, with over 60 losses. The year he tried Krossover they improved their record to 14-8.

Check out Krossover here.

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