Startups Archives - Page 124 of 144

Israeli Startup: “Pops” Makes Android Notifications Pop

Remember when downloading ringtones was the hottest thing on the planet? Then after that ringback tones became popular. Well at one time Ringtones was a $7 billion dollar industry world wide. Now, it’s less than a billion. They just went out of style I guess.

Israeli startups have been really good at harnessing the power of the mobile device. Recently we featured SellARing which is an Israeli company that is selling the ringback tone as advertising. Rather than listen to 10 seconds of ringing, you get to hear an ad, get a discount and engage.

This Israeli startup called “Pops” is making notifications more interesting by bringing all kinds of customizable content to notifications. Pops allows you to customize any kind of Android notification that you could possibly have and use content you like to pop up, wake your phone up and alert you of your new message, Gtalk, Text, email or a host of other notifications.

When we talked with the co-founder he told us in addition to major brands like Rovio Mobile’s “Angry Birds”, they are in negotiations with record companies to produce customized “Pops” from users favorite artists.

Pops is free in the Google Play store. Their monetization is through a customized app store where you pick your pops content. A lot of the “pops” are free but there are some premium “pops” available now.

Check out the video below:

Linkage:

Find Pops in the Google Play Store here

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Baltimore Startup: Parking Panda Expanding To Philly & San Francisco

The genius parking startup out of Baltimore Maryland, Parking Panda, has announced that now that they’ve rolled out service in the nation’s capital, the next cities on the list are Philadelphia and San Francisco.

Parking Panda CEO and Co-Founder, Nick Miller, has reported that they’ve closed one $250,000 round of funding and have another one in the works.

The service works similarly to the way that hotels.com works. Users logon to their website at parkingpanda.com and they can browse the available parking spots in the city they are looking at. The spots are a variety of vacant spots in parking garages and also individual driveways and business lots.

The user can pay for the current day, a future date or a range of dates. They prepay using their credit card and are guaranteed a parking spot in the facility they selected. Parking spots range anywhere from $5.00 on up.

Parkingpanda goes one step further and lets users know what the parking spot they are looking at is near. In Washington DC Parkingpanda tells the user the nearby attractions like museums and metro routes. In Baltimore, Miller reports that a lot of people are renting their driveways on Ravens and Orioles game days.

There’s been no date announced for the expansion but it looks like it will be sooner rather than later. Miller told BmoreMedia that they are working on finding the parking spaces in both Philly and San Francisco.

Linkage:

Check out ParkingPanda here

Source: BmoreMedia

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Pittsburgh Startup: Pulse Motors Expanding To Tel Aviv

Micah Toll, who graduated with a bachelor of science degree yesterday from the University of Pittsburgh, is the founder of an electric bicycle startup called Pulse Motors. Pulse Motors is based in Pittsburgh, but now with Toll graduated from college, he’s ready to expand. Rather than expand down the street, or another state over, he’s decided to expand to Tel Aviv, Israel some 6,000 miles away.

The company’s first electric bike is called the Personal Electric Vehicle Zero or PEVO. Toll, his partners Thorin Tobiassen, and Max Pless along with their fleet of beta testers in Pittsburgh have already amassed 1,000 test miles on their first prototype and Toll reports that the #2 and #3 bikes aren’t far behind.

Toll, who was named one of the top 5 college entrepreneurs by Entrepreneur Magazine, has already spent dome time in Tel Aviv. Through the Jewish Agency for Israel Toll was able to participate in a program called “Birthright” on a trip to Israel in 2011 Toll communicated with his team via video chat, which he will continue when he moves out there this summer.

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St.Louis Startup: BonFyre Brings Social Network Back To Campus, Attracts Square Co-Founder Jim McKelvey

Last month we brought you the story of LockerDome a social network for amateur athletes based in St.Louis. LockerDome was able to attract some key investors and advisors. One of those is St.Louis native Jim McKelvey who just happens to be the co-founder of the widely popular mobile payment startup, Square. McKelvey co-founded Square with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.

Another social networking startup has also received backing and advice from McKelvey. McKelvey sits on the board of Off Campus Media LLC, the paurent company to the BonFyre app.

BonFyre was founded by Mark Sawyier, a graduate of Washington University. The app is a social media and location sharing app aimed at college students looking to plan what’s next with friends, find out what’s hot and save money around campus.

One of the main concepts behind Bonfyre is to take the social network back to students. We all remember the days when Facebook was exclusive to students with a college email address. While everyone wanted to join this exclusive club (and we all eventually did), the exclusive college nature of Facebook at the time, made it more about sharing social events with friends and then getting out and doing stuff together.

More after the break

Miami Startups: Herald Announces Winners For 2012 Business Plan Competition

The Miami Herald newspaper just announced the winners of their 14th annual business plan competition contest. The contest had several tracks including a high school track and the winners came from a variety of categories. Yes you read that correctly while many cities are just now working on their inaugural business plan competitions, and others have contests less than five years old, the Miami Herald has been promoting startups through the contest for fourteen years.

All of the contestants were judged by entrepreneurial experts from the Miami area as well as successful entrepreneurs, investors, consultants and academics. The Herald also has a “People’s Pick” category that was voted on by video. The contest is sponsored by Florida International Univerity’s Eugenio Pino and Family Global Entrepreneurship Center.

The winner of the community track was a winery experience for cruise ships called Blend Craft Wines. Blend Craft Wines also won the “People’s Pick” category, which was the first time in the last six years that the same startup has won both categories.

A mobile couponing Android app called Geopon won the FIU track in voting. Other startups that ranked in the top included: Agape Marine Ventures, LegalFileIt, BidThatProject and WedWu.

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Denver Startup: DailyCloset To Open Monday

A new woman owned, Denver startup in the daily deals space is slated to open tomorrow. The #startup called DailyCloset, is going to offer daily deals on a variety of women’s clothes and accessories.

DailyCloset realizes that the daily deals space is getting crowded. They plan on differentiating themselves by making their #dailydeals more socially appealing to their users. Users will be encouraged to comment and share the deal of the day via their Facebook account.

“In addition to providing a product for purchase, we utilize the featured item as a centerpiece that engages visitors and stimulates conversation,” said Charles Cunningham, Chief Marketing Officer with Dailycloset.com. “We want to see users talking about the product and respectfully share their opinions, whether good or bad.”

DailyCloset is going to kick off their site tomorrow morning at 9am EST at dailycloset.com their first deal will actually be free while supplies last. DailyCloset has teamed up with AJ Morgan to give away hundreds of free sunglasses. Each user will be able to get one pair of free glasses and all they have to do is pay DailyCloset’s flat rate shipping fee. After they run out of the initial free pairs they will have more available for $4.00. The deal lasts for 24 hours like all the deals on DailyCloset.

DailyCloset will also have a weekly drawing for a free handbag tied in with liking the site on Facebook. Every day at 5pm EST DailyCloset will post a new daily deal. The deal will end at 4:59pm the next day.

The free deal starts at 9am Monday.

Linkage:

Check out DailyCloset.com here at their website

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Nibletz Road Trip To Continue This Week

Thanks for checking out Nibletz.com whether you’re new to the site or have us on RSS and come every time there is a new story, thank you thank you thank you.

The feedback to the site and our mission to be the voice of startups “everywhere else” has been met with great enthusiasm from startups we’ve covered, and startups that we haven’t covered to angels, VC’s, incubators, tech enthusiasts, and startup enthusiasts alike.

We’ve actually only had two pieces of bad feedback, both along the lines of “Silicon Valley” is where all the startups are. We actually found out by talking with Jared Konczal Senior Analyst at the Kauffman foundation that, that can’t be further from the truth. There are over 300,000 startup stage companies across the country and only a fraction of them are in the valley.

We love the valley and what it’s done for technology. Our other site wouldn’t be where it is without the valley, but our mission is “everywhere else”.In covering that message we found very early on that the best way to do that is to get in the trenches with all the other startups. We’re a startup ourselves and that kind of coverage has meant sleeping in the car (and a whole lot of Motel 6’s and Red Roof Inns), eating a lot of Ramen and Pop Tarts, going to every mixer with free hor dourves and camping out while covering incubators and co-working spaces so we can really get some work done.

We’re headed back out by car at first, but we’ve been given the opportunity to use a friends 37′ bus as a mobile newsroom, promotional vehicle for our mission and the startups everywhere else, and as a place to sleep and take a shower. Of course that costs money that’s why we have this indiegogo page set up. Please check it out and help if you can.

Over the next three weeks we’re going to be in New Orleans, Chattanooga (again), New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Boston and Connecticut. We’ll be gradually moving west towards Chicago, St.Louis, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Omaha, Wisconsin, and many more. We are going to be on the road from next week through September of 2013 taking a 5 day break every 3 or 4 weeks to be with our families and rest.

We’re doing this because it’s an explosive time for growth for startups and we’ve made so many great friends along the way. We’ve seen so many great areas and we can’t wait to see more.

So wish us luck and please check out our indiegogo page. Also if you want us to stop in your town please drop us an email at startup@nibletz.com let us know your startup, incubator, co-working space or event and we’ll see if it works in our calendar.

The nationwide startup community everywhere else is great and it’s only getting greater! Here’s another link to the indiegogo page

Thanks,

Kyle, Cameron and Brent

NY Startup: MOWA Launching Today, We Find Out What It Is In This Interview

A new startup in New York City is launching today. The startup called MOWA tells Nibletz.com that they are producing the ultimate social game to win unique and exclusive prizes. Sure the social gaming space is a bit crowded but with a unique name and a unique plan we’re hoping MOWA has a successful launch.

Now just as a quick note this isn’t the full launch but it’s a start. We got a chance to interview MOWA on this momentous day for them. Here’s that interview:

What is Mowa?

MOWA is the ultimate social game to win unique and exclusive products.

MOWA is mobile social game with challenging daily missions about fashion, beauty, food, sports and events. It is played by sharing pictures that respond to the challenge of the daily mission. The most voted picture of the day wins coveted prizes sponsored by trendy and high-end brands.

“So, you wake up in the morning and before anything else you grab your phone, just like most of us do. You read MOWA’s mission of the day which might read something like: ‘Who doesn’t love a lazy Sunday? We sure love kicking back and making the most out of the day off. Show us your lazy Sunday pajama and we just might hook you up with some PJs that are even more comfortable.‘ And the mission will show you what is the final prize. After that you snap a picture of your lazy Sunday PJs, and post it up on MOWA. You can promote your pic as much as you want, because in the end it’s all about other people voting for your picture. The picture that receives the most votes wins.”

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

The founder of MOWA is Matteo Franceschetti. He’s an Italian serial entrepreneur, passionate about conceiving and developing business opportunities and always focused on what’s next.

He’s most recent venture, before entering the tech industry, was GIR, an international group operating in the renewable energy industry with a main focus on solar energy.

Matteo’s passion for business and start-ups has motivated him to keep developing projects and mentoring young talents, which is a key element for him when putting teams together.

(you can read more information about Matteo on his site:www.matteofranceschetti.com)

More after the break
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Wisconsin Startup: Planduck A Social Network Based On Schedules INTERVIEW

A new Wisconsin startup was pitched at last weeks Startup Weekend in Madison Wisconsin as Schedule Link. Now they’ve changed their name to Planduck. The company has been recruiting developers and plan on doing something that doesn’t appear to have been done before. Planduck is launching a social networking platform based on scheduling and events.

To start off PlanDuck will cater to college students, faculty and staff by being a centralized location to plan, and share events. With PlanDuck it won’t be just one singular event like a Facebook event but all of the events that people are having in their lives and that they want to share across the social network.

When we were preparing for this interview I didn’t exactly get the concept, as you’ll see I asked him was it just event sharing, was it like Path. PlanDuck founder Mike Walsh admitted that Path founder (and former Facebooker) Dave Morin is one of the people that he looks up to and hopes that PlanDuck will one day be able to integrate Path APIs.

So let’s talk with Walsh about PlanDuck and launching a startup in Wisconsin.

What is PlanDuck?

PlanDuck will be a social networking platform that helps people find, share, and create all the events in their lives. It will start with the University of Wisconsin – Madison and immediate surrounding community.

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Chicago Startup: PortaPocket Has A Safe Place For Your Stuff INTERVIEW

We recently brought you the story of the innovative JoeyBra. The JoeyBra is obviously for women and it incorporates pockets in the sides of the bras to hold anything from your credit cards and cash to your cell phone. The JoeyBra was recently featured in a Seattle area tech event and has now been featured all over the internet.

It’s actually that story that led us to meeting Kendra Kroll. Kroll is also a woman entrepreneur and her innovative product called PortaPockets add a pocket for you to carry your stuff even if you don’t have pockets. They’re perfect for running, beach days, or just as an extra place to keep your cell phone, cash, and other personal items.

The biggest difference between the PortaPocket and the JoeyBra is the fact that men can use it too. Kroll launched her company, Undercover Solutions in 2007 and has recently added a new bling line. She’s still pretty much self funded. A few years later, and with this recent boom in smartphones, it’s time for PortaPocket to shine, because it is a great idea.

We got a chance to interview Kroll, so let’s see what she says about Under Cover solutions and her invention, the PortaPocket.

What is portapocket?

PortaPocket is a patented strap-onto-the-body carrying case system that makes life easier and brings peace of mind…it’s THE solution for pocket-challenged outfits everywhere.

Wrap the lightweight neoprene PortaPocket band around your thigh, calf, ankle, arm or waist and wear under or over the clothing. It’s detachable, interchangeable and easy to use. So comfy you almost forget it’s there. Pockets attach onto the band and swap out to carry the things you need on any given day. Perfect for small valuables and essentials like ID, cash, cards, keys, cell phones, lipstick, tampons, cameras, passports, insulin pumps, inhalers, epipens, more. Use ’em solo or even WITH that stylish bag or purse to keep more important items closer. Never risk theft, loss and inconvenience that comes with keeping things apart from your person. Now you can lose the worry… not your stuff! Ideal for working out, going out, travel and every day.

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Cleveland Startup: Foundersync Helps Startups Everywhere Find Co-Founders

You may have heard about the exclusive and very cliquish, Silicon Valley based Founderdating. The site suggests they connect the best of the best to founders in the Valley and a handful of other cities, but what about everywhere else? Well there’s a company in Cleveland Ohio has you covered.

The problem with the founderdating site is it bleeds the mantra that everything that happens in the Valley is better. However with over 300,000 startups across the country there are plenty of great ideas, great founders and great startups, well “everywhere else”. Foundersync will of course connect valley startups to founder and other resources, but they definitely realize the growth of startups on a nationwide level.

Foundersync is a startup itself, they started in 2011. Foundersync deals in a pretty easy to understand idea, there are plenty of business oriented social sites that connect you with people that you do know, or are connected somehow. Foundersync connects you with people that you SHOULD know.

Foundersync’s mission is “To ethically and efficiently help entrepreneurs reach their potential by providing a conduit to the resources that will best serve their needs.”

They achieve this mission with their combined mixed experience in marketing, design and development. The four co-founders, Ryan Gambrill, Nick Pavlak, Robert Clark and Todd Goldstein met by accident in 2011 and immediately clicked. They are all entrepreneurs in their own right and wish that they had a service like Foundersync when they were getting started.

If you’re idea driven, a workaholic entrepreneur that bleeds ideas than you need to register for a Foundersync profile. On their website they also offer some great startup advice on their blog page like, exercise before pitching.

If you’re tired of the snobbery from sites like founderdating we’re sure you’ll benefit from the community of founders being built at Foundersync

Linkage:
Go get a foundersync profile

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” check out these new stories

We’re on a sneaker strapped nationwide road trip, check it out and support us here

Pennsylvania Startup: PrizeMonkey Lets You Win Free Snacks From Vending Machines

Wait free snacks? Yes free snacks!!!! Brad Thorne, the founder of PrizeMonkey is a true startup entrepreneur and founder. He told an awesome story to the StartupAmerica partnership website.

But first lets dive into what PrizeMonkey is. As we just said, Thorne is a true #startup founder and entrepreneur, in otherwords he’s poured his heart and soul into an excellent idea and for the time being he can’t even afford snacks in a vending machine, so he created a platform that solves that problem.

PrizeMokey gamifies the vending machine. Through Thorne’s innovative technology your wi-fi enabled smartphone connects with the wi-fi enabled, and PrizeMonkey enabled snack machine. Now, instead of paying for snacks, you can play sponsored games for your chance to win free snacks. Again, for emphasis, you play games on your smartphone and instead of racking up virtual points, you can win free snacks.

You’ll be able to pick from your choice of Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, Lays Potato Chips, heck even rice cakes if their in the machine. Whatever’s in the machine that’s Prize Monkey enabled can be yours for winning these games.

It’s a win-win for the end user and the game sponsor. The sponsor wants to engage the end user and what better way then with candy and snacks.

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Singapore Startup: Dropmyemail Can Back Up All Your Email

A Singapore based startup that was founded after a hosting failure caused their first startup to go-down, is rapidly catching on.

Dropmyemail was founded by John Fearon after his first startup Eatads.com had a hosting failure. Fearon told youstory.in after they lost all their data he had an idea about a cloud based website backup called dropmysite. Dropmysite is a simple enough idea, giving website owners a cloud based backup of their website on established intervals. The next evolution was dropmyemail.com which was launched on March 1, 2012.

Since March 1st they’ve added over 600,000 users which is a faster adoption rate than DropBox and Pinterest.

“We now have over 600K signups since our launch of Dropmyemail.com from around the world. We began offering the freemium service on 1st March, 2012 and within days we saw great traction in new user adoption and the coveted hockey stick growth kicked in, the company has been adding close to 15,000 new users per day since then. India is a very big market for us with around 20% of our users coming from India.” Fearon told yourstory.in

There are some major benefits to Dropmyemail’s fermium service. The first of course is that it’s free. Users can easily sign into the service using a Facebook or Google account. From there the users emails will be backed up to the cloud every 24 hours. Fearon also insists that they have no access to the data stored within the email accounts and they also offer migration service so you can back up and move your emails from one account to another.

It’s the simplicity and ease of the service that is attracting more than 15,000 new users a day.

Linkage:

Read the rest of the interview here

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” get your startup featured email us here

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Texas Startup: Stripper Turned Entrepreneur Creates “Naked Maid Service”

You may have caught a glimpse of this story as it’s been all over the net the past month or so. Melissa Borrett, a Lubbock Texas based former stripper has turned into an entrepreneur with a new startup that is turning heads. The company is called Lubbock Fantasy Maid Service and according to Borrett business is booming.

“We actually had problems with our phone lines, because they were so busy for a while,” Owner Melissa Borrett said.

Lubbock Fantasy Maid Service even came up as part of Jay Leno’s Monolog a couple of weeks back. Is it something to joke about? Not according to Borrett. She has 5 maids to date and they are of course quite popular. This isn’t some kind of escort service or in call prostitution. The maids do whatever work they are assigned to do which is asked in the online “order form” on the company website.

Some maids do a full house-cleaning just as their fully clothed counterparts would do. Maids have also been hired to serve drinks and food at parties as well. The maids did so well that Borrett also launched a male version of Fantasy Butlers. The butlers do housework, handyman work and yard work.

Borrett offers three types of maid services, lingerie, topless and nude. She goes to great lengths to outline safety policies as well as mentioning quite a few times that physical contact is not acceptable. She reminds users that the maids are there to be maids. Also, maids that are nude or topless will not work and will leave if there is anyone under 18 in the residence, and of course, like with an in-call escort service, security is standing by.

Borrett says she is doing well however she also reports that they do about five bookings per week. If all of the bookings were completely nude that would amount to $750 so we’re not sure how “well” they are doing.

What do you think about this startup idea? Let us know in comments:

Linkage:

Fantasy Maids website

Source: 14news.com

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” get your startup featured email us here

We’re on a nationwide sneaker-strapped startup road show, for more on that and to help click here