Startups Archives - Page 129 of 144

Charlotte Startup: Rawporter Talks About What DEMO Was Like

Our good friends Kevin and Rob at Rawporter were among the startups that presented at DEMO last week in Santa Clara. We reached out to many of the startups that were coming from “Everywhere Else” to DEMO to talk to them about their experience and what it is they were doing.

Rawporter is an app and service (Service as an app) that allows everyday people with smartphones to take pictures and videos, upload them to the rawporter site and then get paid for providing “man on the street” coverage to news outlets across the country, and the world. It’s also a great service for bloggers to source video that they might not otherwise be able to cover.

“Now anyone who needs custom video and photo content can request it from our users who might already be in the right place at the right time. In exchange for responding to assignments, our Rawporters get the compensation and credit they deserve simply for putting their smartphone to work.” Kevin Davis, co-founder of Rawporter told Nibletz.com

So we wanted to find out why, with all the startup competitions across the country, did Rawporter choose DEMO?

“We knew DEMO was a tremendous platform to launch a new business, but since we’re still bootstrapping, we weren’t sure if we could afford the exhibition fee. Luckily, they offered us a scholarship and that made it a very easy decision. The DEMO team was incredibly helpful and we can’t thank them enough for the experience and exposure that Rawporter received at the event.”

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Baltimore Startup Parking Panda Launches Service In Washington DC

(photo: Baltimore Sun)

One of the things Cameron and I noticed when we were in Washington DC as part of our nationwide startup road trip, was that their parking meters were equipped for internet payment. That meant we could refill our parking meters while we were meeting with some great startups all over town, and not have to run back to the meter. Convenience had it’s price but we needed to do what we needed to do.

If you don’t want to mess with the high tech innovative meters in DC, or the hassle of finding a space, Baltimore Startup Parking Panda has you covered. Parking Panda works with owners of un-utilized parking spaces. These could be in the form of small lots of the side of buildings, or parking company owned lots that have spaces that aren’t used on a regular basis.

Parking Panda Users can rent spaces using the service and basically pay in advance for a guaranteed spot. This really comes in handy, especially in a city like Washington DC where street parking, even at the meter, can be scarce.

“A city resident myself, I know that finding available parking can be maddening, expensive, and sometimes almost impossible,” said Nick Miller, CEO of Parking Panda. “Parking Panda takes the hassle and expense out of searching for a parking spot. Parking in D.C. will no longer be such a time-consuming, daunting task because people can reserve spots ahead of time and for less money.”

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Startup Weekend Heads To Madison Wisconsin

While most people intone with the startup scene are well aware of “startup weekend”, the 54 hour hackathon style startup marathon, people in Wisconsin have never had an event quite like this. That’s why entrepreneurs and startup types are heading to Madison WI this weekend, the home of their first ever startup weekend.

“We want to foster and encourage people who are doing startup companies and get more people involved,” said Forrest Woolworth, one of the organizers of the event and brand director at Per Blue,told madison.com. “We want to continue to make Madison known as an awesome place to start a company.”

According to startupweekend.org there have been over 500 official “startup weekends” with over 45,000 participants to date. There have also been “unofficial” and similar events structured around the same model, like Hack Omaha. Great things have come out of startup weekends all over the country and all over the world. This first event in Madison will let entrepreneurs from a state widely known for cheese and the Green Bay Packers show off their tech scene.

Startup Weekend Madison will be held this Friday through Sunday at Madison College West Campus 302. S. Gammon Road in Madison.

“Younger startups are now growing to become a cornerstone of the Madison economy,” Mayor Paul Soglin said.

Madison’s startup weekend is part of Capital Entrepreneur’s Week which kicks off tomorrow with speakers, mentors, bootcamps and more for local entrepreneurs.

source: madison.com

Chicago Startup: Iconicast’s “Smurks” Puts The Heart In The Machine

How can you share that smile on your face through digital and mobile? How often have you misinterpreted the context of a text message because you didn’t know how the other person was feeling. Does that LOL mean laugh out loud, that’s really funny. Or does that LOL mean laugh out loud you’re really stupid?

Iconicast, a Chicago Startup, co-founder Pat Burns took the stage at DEMO in Santa Clara CA last week and talked about the three stooges movie he just saw. He gave the example of talking with a friend who asked how the movie was. In his presentation he pointed out that if the friend was in front of him the look on his face would tell the complete story.

That’s what smirks is all about. Now when you first look at Smurks, the new app by Iconicast, it may appear to be a 2012 take on the emoticon. However, the gesture based app is an extension of human emotion. Swiping up shows off a happy face, swiping down sad. Left and right offer equally as polarizing emotions via the app. In fact there are many different faces that you can make.

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Philly Startup: Blue Claw Tough Stylish Bags Made in America

The Blue Claw Company is a Philadelphia area startup that launched in 2010. Blue Claw Co manufactures handmade Luxury Bags that have the bright bold look that the mid 20’s to mid 30’s business professional craves and the durability to handle all the travel people can throw at them. As many of our readers know we spend significant periods of time on the road. Just last month we traveled to Chattanooga, Washington DC, and other cities along the eastern shore of United States. We are preparing to head off on the “Road Trip to Everywhere Else.” So Blue Claw came into our lives at just the perfect moment.

We tend to have at least two or three bags a piece before getting on the road and most of our “luggage” consists of backpack or messenger bags. We have been in need of at least one professional appearing bag for each of us. I’ve struggled with a very strong dislike for plain bags. If my bag is impossible to identify at the baggage claim; or if somebody could easily walk anonymously away with my bag – well, I don’t feel comfortable. As you can see in the photo above, the Worton Weekender maintains a professional look but with flair.

Most of their bags come with waterproof liners an absolute must for other tech geeks like us. The bags offered by Blue Claw are made with Imported Leather and 1050 D Ballistic nylon. This is to help provide years of use (and abuse) by seasoned travelers and still be available to hand down to their kids. What was the impetus that caused the decision to launch a luxury bag company in the midst of a recession? How did this all come about? We asked Adam Blitzer (Founder) a number of questions.

1. Your name is Adam (last name?) and your co-founder is named?

My name is Adam Blitzer. My cofounder’s name is Alex Realmuto.

2. When you contacted us you said “If you guys are interested in covering a startup that is bringing jobs back to the USA and the improbable concept of starting a luxury company amidst a recession…” You bring up a great point, what were you thinking? Was there a specific set of circumstances or was this just a “let’s do this, economy be damned” decision.

As crazy as it sounds, it was actually the perfect time to launch. People were cutting out impulsive purchases which is exactly what we are not. No matter what the economy is doing, people value quality products that will last forever. We knew if we created the perfect line, people would become brand advocates. There were not a ton of luxury bag companies popping up at the time so the buzz was magnified. This really helped get the ball rolling.

Florida Startup: Showoff.com Provides DIY Home Virtualization For All

If you’ve purchased a new home in the last few years you may have had your real estate agent show you what the house you were buying would look like with hardwoods instead of carpet, or sky blue paint instead of brown. They may have shown this to you on a laptop using some very expensive virtualization software.

Well the folks at VisApp in Sarasota has launched an award winning web tool called showoff.com that provides free virtualization software for home owners. This new startup has already won the award for the best website generating leads at the 2012 BizTech Innovation Summit in Tampa.

Showoff.com was also showing off their home virtualization tool at the DEMO conference in Santa Clara California last week.

While the fact that you can use showoff.com when you’re buying a new house, the software can be applied in so many other ways. TechNewsWorld’s Rob Enderle is building a house in Belize. As he writes in his piece about Showoff.com’s appearance at DEMO, he can now do all his modifications at home and see what they’ll look like at his house in Belize. Possibly shaving off some expensive travel to and from, not to mention explaining to his contractor in Belize exactly what he wants. With Showoff.com he can just show him.

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NY Startup: Iwannanom Has Reinvented The Cookbook INTERVIEW

Sure there are a lot of recipe startups and websites out there. But how many were started by men, and how many are looking to reinvent and simplify the cookbook? That’s a lofty goal but it’s just what Iwannanom co-founders Danny Nahtan and Chuck Masucci have in mind.

Co-Founder Danny Nathan tells Nibletz.com:
“I Wanna Nom is a reinvention of the cookbook for the digital world. It’s a recipe bookmarking and discovery tool that allows the user to keep track of recipes they discover anywhere on the internet and easily share them, rate them, comment on them, and find new recipes and dishes by following friends and fellow foodies.”

The two co-founders met at POKE NY a creative technology and innovation consultancy based in New York. Masucci, a four year veteran of POKE has recently moved on to be the CTO of ske.dj an upcoming mobile/web startup and Nathan is approaching his fifth year there.

“We’re both ardent believers in the approach of creating simple, smart, and social products/services that add value and utility to people’s lives. (This thought process is largely what sets POKE apart from other innovation companies and has helped make it what it is today.) That thinking is certainly pervasive throughout the I Wanna Nom experience and has shaped our plans for the future of the product.” Nathan said.

We had a chance to interview Nathan about iwannanom and how they hope to (uggh i don’t want to say it), disrupt the recipe and cookbook space.

What are the differentiators from iwannanom and other online cookbook communities?

“The idea came about because recipe sites have become overwhelmingly difficult to use. There are too many, they’re too crowded, and many don’t show off food in a way that makes it appetizing. We were discovering more things that we wanted to cook on other sites – blogs, newspaper sites, tumblr, etc. – and we were usually drawn in by an image more than anything else.”

“The problem was, there was no way to keep track of those recipes other than bookmarking (which feels like too much of a commitment) or another social service that was crowded with anything and everything that people felt like saving (which feels like drinking from the firehose). The inevitable result was a bunch of good dishes and recipes floating around the internet that we’d never cook because we’d forget about them.”

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Atlanta Startup: MyCouponDoc Gets You Coupons For Your CoPays, Presents At DEMO

An Atlanta startup in the healthcare industry that just launched this month, demonstrated their web app that connects patients with real, legitimate coupons for their medications.

Kishore Eechambadi, Co-Founder of MyCouponDoc has built the startup to battle the increasing cost of co-pays for medication. According to Eechambadi co-pays have doubled in the last 10 years. According to the Wall Street Journal the costs of co-pays will continue to increase 15% annually.

MyCouponDoc has already been accepted into the Healthbox Accelerator Program that provided them with $50,000 in seed funding. They’ve sourced over 400 coupons on the most popular prescription and over the counter medications. According to Eechambadi mycopondoc.com’s coupons are accepted at pharmacies and doctors offices.

MyCouponDoc also plans to roll out their technology to 500 pharmacies across the country so that the coupons are available at point of sale. They’re also partnering with a major EMR (Electronic Medical Record) service provider that will help integrate their sourced coupons in the doctors office at the time of prescription. This would give those doctors the option to recommend a prescription knowing the coupon is there and tell the patient about the discount during the exam.

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Startup Quick Byte: Birmingham Al Startup Inks Deal With Zillow

A Birmingham AL new media startup called magiccitypost.com, which is a community news and lifestyle site in Birmingham Alabama has inked a new deal with real estate giant Zillow. The startup operates out of Birmingham’s Innovation Depot a local tech accelerator.

The Birmingham Buziness Journal reports that a new co-branded web product will launch next month. Although the details are scarce it would make sense that it will be some sort of real estate directory or interactive listing section for the site.

Emily Lowery, founder of Magic City LLC said that the launch will include rebranding and new marketing. She would not disclose the financial details of the deal to the Business Journal. It has been reported that the deal is expected to double their annual revenue.

Source: Birmingham Business Journal

Chicago’s Lightbank Invests In Santa Monica Startup LifeCrowd

LifeCrowd is a Santa Monica based social startup that helps consumers participate in social events in their city. Lifecrowd users can browse activities ranging from a night full of board games, to rock climbing, band jamming, and wine tasting. They can then invite friends to join in the activities.

They’re different from other sites like Meetup. Meetup lets anyone create groups centered around one focus. LifeCrowd offers all kinds of singular events which strangers can join in on, and in effect be more social. LifeCrowd users create the events but LifeCrowd curates them to make sure only the best events show up.

This $5 million dollar round of financing was led by Chicago’s LightBank and included Bullpen Capital, Baroda Ventures and Prism VentureWorks. As part of the round Lightbank partner Paul Lee will join LifeCrowd’s board of directors. Lightbank is a venture firm formed by Groupon co-founders Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell.

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European Startup: Gambitious Hopes To Be The Kickstarter For Games

While Kickstarter is a great place for projects, it does have it’s drawbacks, which we experienced first hand and why we had to go with Indiegogo for our project. One of the main drawbacks to Kickstarter is international projects. While there are folks building international projects and have no problem delivering perks/rewards to U.S. backers, Kickstarter uses Amazon payments for collection and disbursement, and Amazon payments doesn’t work outside of the U.S.

Well a new European startup hopes to take some of that pain out of European project starters, specifically gaming focused projects. Gambitious is a crowd-sourced funding site for gaming projects. It’s a very lucrative market. With just U.S. based gaming projects over $10 million has been raised and funded using Kickstarter.

While Gambitious has a lot of the same fundamentals as Kickstarter, the company actually lets you buy into the gaming project. Not only did you help fund it but you will receive royalties from it as well, you will in essence become part owner of the game. This could prove to be a great opportunity, especially if you choose to invest in the right games.

As Joystiq suggests, instead of receiving a copy of the game in advance or a lunch date with one of the art directors, you’ll actually own part of the game.

Gambitious won’t be ready for another 4-6 weeks as they are planning an E3 launch.

Linkage:

To learn more about Gambitious click here

Like GeggyTah, Nibletz covers startups Wherever You Are

We’re on a nationwide sneakerstrapped road trip of startups, please support us getting on the bus

source: Joystiq

Denver Startup: Forkly Giving Foodspotting & Nosh A Run For The Money

Forkly is of course a food based mobile app. It’s the brain child of Brightkite alumni Brady Becker and Martin May, so they went into Forkly seasoned startup founders. Back in September 2010 Becker and May left Brightkite. As TechCrunch reported at the time they left a farewell note at Brightkite and rumors started surfacing that they were starting something called Forkly.

Forkly was in stealth mode. Back then there was just a splash page that said “We are Forkly”.

A year later Forkly was revealed. Forkly was a food and restaurant discovery engine of sorts. By the time Forkly launched last summer the food recommendation app space was filling up. The two most well known competitors are FoodSpotting and Nosh. Foodspotting is more visual while Nosh uses both ratings and photos. Forkly does both.

Some tech pundits weren’t too sure about Forkly. Becker and May were experienced at startups but Brightkite, a location based discovery app, was a little too early on the scene. The fear with Forkly was that it may have been too late. That didn’t prove to be the case.

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Toronto Startup: Quimby Technolgies Creates Self Destructing Mobile Messaging

Have you ever been in a relationship and maybe sent a naughty message or two, possibly with a picture? Did you live to regret that message when you broke up with that person? Now we’re not talking about kids or teenagers and sexting here, real adults do this kind of thing, especially those that travel a lot. Maybe you had a really rip roaring night at the club and sent a bunch of photos to your posse, perhaps you wanted them to live the moment with you, but not on Monday morning back at the office. What about this, have you ever had an idea you may have wanted to share with some somewhat trusted colleagues, but just enough so they could grasp the idea, not steal it down the road?

If you’ve ever found yourself in one of those scenarios or millions of other similar types of situations than you’d be happy to know that Heather Burns and her Quimby Technologies, a Toronto Startup, has created a self destructing messaging platform. Burns teamed up with Alkarrim (Alex) Nasser of BNotions, to create Quimby Technologies and Quimby the self destructing messenger app.

Now Burns is pretty sharp, she is well aware that there are some people who are going to shout out at the rooftops why this is a bad idea. The same kind of people that can’t get over the fact that Craigslist or Zaarly exist, and in our exclusive interview we asked her about just those types.

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Nibletz “They’re All Over The Place” The Best Compliment Ever

Word got back to the Nibletz headquarters that a colleague of ours based in Silicon Valley told another colleague of ours “Nibletz, They’re all over the place”. That has to be the best compliment about nibletz.com

If this is one of your first trips here, here’s a little bit about is. This is our second new media startup. We soft launched it in June of 2011 basically at Disrupt. Our mobile focused site was doing very well and two of our writers Brent Fishman and Cameron Wright, and I wanted to write about other things outside of mobile operating systems. When Cameron and I went to Disrut in NY we soft launched Nibletz with a lot of that content.

We’ve actually pivoted twice and at South By Southwest our mission became very clear. We were becoming the Voice of startups everywhere else. Our traffic grew over 500% and continues to grow every day/week. After South By Southwest we decided we immediately needed to get in the trenches and live and breathe this thing like a startup, and we are.

We piled into Wright’s Toyota prius with 5 kilos of Mate, peanut butter and jelly, Ramen for the hotels and stay between the car, the rest stops and Red Roof Inns (you know they’ve upgraded a lot of their hotels). We’ve made some awesome friends in our travels and will continue to do so. We plan on staying pretty much on the road through the summer of 2013 (taking 4 or 5 days every 3 weeks to see our families).

We’ve discovered some truly awesome startup clusters in Washington DC, Philly, Richmond, Chattanooga, Birmingham Alabama and many more places. We’ve covered startups all over the place. One thing about this great country, and the world is that there are great ideas EVERYWHERE. Maybe next year we’ll go overseas too.

Now we’ve got the opportunity of a lifetime. A friend of ours, from our first site, has agreed to donate to us, the use of his 37′ bus for the rest of the trip. This means we can stop sleeping in the car and at Red Roofs. We can write more often and stay at stops longer to get even more of the great stories. We plan on going back and forth across the country and into Canada.

We’re turning to our fellow startups, incubators, accelerators, VC’s, angels and everyone in the startup community to help support our efforts. The downside to the bus is that it has a 75 gallon gas tank and goes about 8 miles per gallon. That’s roughly $400 per tank.

We’ve set up an indiegogo page at http://indiegogo.com/nibletz we’ve got some awesome sponsorship packages out there for what well be a legendary trek through America highlighting the best startups in little towns, medium cities and “Everywhere Else”

Our good friend Caleb who has co-woring spaces throughout the country kicked us off last week. Our new friends at LockerDome in St.Louis have also contributed.

Please take a look and support us if you can. We even give hugs and share Mate.

Here’s that link again at Indiegogo