Knoxville Based bounceit Launches Social Decision Making Platform

A group of Knoxville entrepreneurs has launched a new and exciting social decision making app called bounceit. Now social decision making isn’t anything new, we’ve seen several startups try and succeed in this space.

Startups like Brooklyn based JustDecide come to mind when we think about social decision making platforms. Where others have fallen short in the past though, the crew at bounceit has figured out ways to make social decision making more fluid, easy to take in and easier to decide and vote on. Their highly visual platform makes the entire process more intuitive.

Users begin by uploading a question or statement, accompanied by a photo: “Should I buy this outfit?” “Is this car cool?” “Want to go out after the game?” Other users vote your question up or down for yes/no, or like/dislike. A realtime line graph shows you all theirresponses over time to aid in your decision making!

Until bounceit, many people relied on Facebook and their own social networks to help make decisions; “With bounceit!™, a user can post an opinion, decision, idea or just a cool photo, and thanks to our unique line graph they’ll actually see instantly if people agree or not. It’s crowd-sourced decision making at its best! With our graphing capabilities, a user immediately sees if something is a like or a dislike. You can see whether there is overwhelming agreement or any struggle it has gone through among users. That tells a much more powerful story than a bar graph or percentages.” co-founder Gary Hardin told nibletz in an interview.

Hardin explained, “People today research and bounce ideas off friends before they do something or buy an item. bounceit!™ streamlines that process for them. Crowdsourced sharing and decision making is everywhere now. We just make it more fun and in one centralized location!”

Bounceit is now available in the iTunes app store, download it here. For more information visit bounceit.com. Check out Bounceit in person at Everywhere Else Cincinnati.

42 Reasons You Should Attend The National Everywhere Else Conference In Cincinnati

Downtown Cincinnati is preparing to play host to the national Everywhere Else conference September 29-October 1st at the Duke Energy Convention Center. Over 25 top shelf speakers from across the country will be featured in keynotes, round tables, panels, and workshops catering to startups from everywhere else. The goal: to help entrepreneurs “start where you are”.

Startups, entrepreneurs, developers/designers, students, press, and investors from around the world are heading to Cincinnati for the big event. Here’s a great list of reasons why you should get an early bird ticket or early bird Startup Village booth for the biggest startup conference everywhere else.

Startups

Meet & talk to investors
Get a booth to showcase to our 1000+ attendees
Find new talent
Learn from our amazing speakers
Close new deals & partnerships
Top startups will get to pitch on stage

Entrepreneurs

Learn from other top founders & investors
Find out about the latest trends
Meet the speakers & investors
Find a co-founder
Make new partnerships

Investors

Find the hottest startups
Hangout with other investors
Meet awesome entrepreneurs
Enjoy great content
Learn from like minded investors

Developers & Designers

Meet cool startups
Learn from the best
Find new customers or jobs
Network and party
Improve your skills

Corporate Execs & Marketers

Find new partnerships
Top notch networking
Meet decision makers
Find news customers or jobs
Dip your toes into entrepreneurship
Discover the latest trends

Students

Boost your CV
Meet your next employer
Be amazed by our speakers
Learn about top startups
Make important contacts
Kickstart you career

Volunteers

Support the startup community
First 15 get a free ticket
Work along side the Nibletz team
Access to parties
Boost your CV
Get a free t-shirt

Press

Guaranteed News
Interview startup founders
Access to speakers

Oh and of course the Parties! Get your early bird attendee or Startup Village booth below. Here’s an up to date list of speakers (and we still have more to announce)

Blair Garrou, Managing Director Mercury Fund
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

And because John Hall of Forbes said our first event was one of the “Must-Attend 2013 Conferences for Entrepreneurs.”

Online Ticketing for Everywhere Else Cincinnati – “Start Where U Are” powered by Eventbrite

Image: downtown Cincinnati

New York Startup Is Paving A ClearPath For Legal Immigrants

Immigration is a hot topic for startups. But typically when we are talking about immigration and startups we’re talking about the laws that need to be changed to allow startup founders and technologists an easier path to create their companies here in the United States. We don’t typically come across startups that are looking to make the immigration process easier for people trying to legally come to the United States.

Many of the people that are crossing the border illegally are doing it because they want to get over here as quickly as possible, or they have something holding them back and preventing them from legally crossing the border. There are some people, though, who are coming over to the United States illegally because the legal process is quite cumbersome. There are a lot of forms that need to be filled out, kept organized, and turned in. Like with most bureaucratic processes, if one form is not completed correctly or signed properly, the whole process comes to a screeching halt.

Michael Petrucelli, who once led the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Alan Samuels, a UK immigrant, and entrepreneur have founded ClearPath. Think of it as TurboTax for immigration.

Their platform keeps all of the important paperwork for the immigration process straight and organized.

“Clearpath allows immigrants to securely and confidentially fill out a variety of immigration forms online (including a new version of the site in Spanish and new forms in Spanish, like the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals application or the popular N-400 naturalization form) while the site checks data in real time for potential errors and compliance and then prepares the forms for submission to the USCIS. It’s the only online service of its kind that offers a patented, affordable online option for immigrants, costing a fraction of the fees typically charged by legitimate immigration lawyers or shady notarios,” Samuels told us in an interview.

Clearpath will make it easier for those looking to start their new lives legally in the United States. As the company grows it will also deter some of those trying to cross our borders illegally and get them to come into the U.S. the right way.

Check out the rest of our interview with Samuels below.

What is your startup called?

Clearpath

What does your company do?

Clearpath has developed a greatly simplified digital filing process for immigrants applying for visas and naturalization in the USA. Think of it as a TurboTax® for immigration.

Clearpath allows immigrants to securely and confidentially fill out a variety of immigration forms online (including a new version of the site in Spanish and new forms in Spanish, like the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals application or the popular N-400 naturalization form) while the site checks data in real time for potential errors and compliance and then prepares the forms for submission to the USCIS. It’s the only online service of its kind that offers a patented, affordable online option for immigrants, costing a fraction of the fees typically charged by legitimate immigration lawyers or shady notarios.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

Founder and Chairman, Michael Petrucelli, led the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and wrote many of its policies and procedures. CEO Alan Samuels, a UK immigrant, previously founded an education finance marketplace, lead the sale of Dotmenu to GrubHub, and managed a $100 million corporate product line for S&P.

Where are you based?

Clearpath’s corporate headquarters is in NY, with offices in Washington D.C. and Miami, Fl.

What problem do you solve?

Immigration law is comparable in complexity to the US tax code. It is no simple task to navigate the USCIS website, identify the appropriate form, or complete it correctly. Lawyers charge between $4,000 and $10,000 to aid this process. (Notarios charge around $3,000 but often provide fraudulent services.) Clearpath Immigration brings the knowledge of US immigration administrators to these consumers with a safe, secure, smarter solution for a fraction of those prices.

Why now?

With all the discussion around comprehensive immigration reform, what is clear is that there will be more people eligible for more statuses and, ultimately, more forms being filed. There may be up to 11 million people who will have a path to citizenship if the Senate version of the bill is passed. This will only add to the 100 million immigration forms that are filed yearly with the United States Citizenship & Immigration Service (USCIS). Hence the opportunity for tech-enabled solutions to streamline the byzantine immigration filing process.

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

Our product is live at www.clearpathimmigration.com and currently covers just under 30 different immigration forms including: citizenship, deferred action for childhood arrivals, bringing over a foreign relative, adjustment of status.

What are your next milestones?

We are in discussions with a number of potential partners to jointly market our services. Look for a pilot with one of the largest Latino organizations later this year.

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

http://www.clearpathimmigration.com

https://www.facebook.com/clearpathimmigration

https://twitter.com/iclearpath

http://www.linkedin.com/company/clearpathimmigration

See why hundreds are flocking to this national startup conference in Cincinnati Sep 29-October 1.

Startups In The Fastlane: Velocity Startup GreekPull

Crowdfunding is everywhere, there’s crowdfunding for your startup, crowdfunding for your movie, crowdfunding for the things you want and even crowdfunding for college money. Now, thanks to a San Diego startup that’s accelerating at Velocity in Indiana, there is crowdfunding for your fraternity or sorority.

Back in the olden days, before computers, internet, and crowdfunding, fraternities and sororities that were working on a project would have fundraisers, cash boxes, collection jars, and a treasurer to collect all the money. Then you had to trust that the treasurer didn’t spend the fraternity’s money on his own stash of brew and other college accoutrements.

GreekPull is working on a crowdfunding platform for fraternities and sororities that eliminates all these problems, makes it super easy for members to raise money for projects, and then securely collects the money so it can’t be squandered on the frivolous. Now when a sorority or a fraternity wants to hold a big clean-up project, restore a building, or buy toys for local needy kids the money is there. They can even use the funds for special events like spring formals and dances.

We got a chance to talk with AJ Agrawal about GreekPull and their team’s experience at Velocity. They’ll be graduating at the end of the month and think making the move from San Diego to Jeffersonville, Indiana was one of the best choices they’ve ever made. Check out the interview below.

What is the name of your startup?

GreekPull

What accelerator are you in?

Velocity Accelerator

When is demo day/investor day/graduation?

August 29th, 2013

Where is your startup originally from?

San Diego, CA

Tell us about your current team?

Eghosa Aihie- The Hustler: In charge of sales and marketing

AJ Agrawal- The Visionary: In charge of product development and investor relations

What does your startup do?

We’re a crowdfunding platform for Fraternities and Sororities

What are your goals for the accelerator program?

To complete our next seed round of $350,000

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

Never edit your product without talking to customers first, you’ll save a lot of time and money.

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

Always being ready to pivot. It feels like your starting completely over when you pivot and sometimes it’s hard to stomach that it’s all part of the learning process.

What is your goal for the day after demo day?

To further conversation with potential investors and customers.

Why did you choose this accelerator?

Over half the National Fraternities and Sororities are located in Indianapolis, so we are in an ideal location to get customer feedback.

If you relocated for the accelerator are you staying in your new city?

Yes, however, we will most likely move a little closer to Indianapolis.

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

We’ve been amazed how nice the people in Jeffersonville have been to us. Coming from San Diego, we were unsure what to expect heading into Southern Indiana. Overall, the connections we have made has been priceless, and we look forward to staying in touch with all the people we have met.

Where can people find out more?

greekpull.com

Startups In The Fastlane: NMotion Startup SynerScan

While EMR (electronic medical records) are nothing new, and innovation continues to change the doctor’s daily life, there hasn’t been nearly as much innovation centered around the nurses. Specifically, nurses that are making rounds at any hospital or treatment facility.

Nurse rounds are still often documented using a clipboard, pen, and paper. If nurses need to enter something into an EMR, they often do it at the nurse’s station, transcribing it from that pen and paper.

It takes so long that Bryan Health in Lincoln, Nebraska sought the help of a Lincoln startup called SynersScan to help solve that problem. Typically it’s the other way around. The startup comes up with an idea and then tries to sell it to the user. Now there are users built in, in the case of Bryan Health, with more users waiting in the wings.

SynerScan, which is currently accelerating at Lincoln’s NMotion accelerator, is creating a digital platform to manage nurses rounds.

Synerscan is the latest startup in the “Fastlane” interview feature that talks with a startup currently in an accelerator program. Check out our interview below.

What is the name of your startup
SynerScan Technologies, or simply SynerScan.

What problem are you solving
What we’ve done is develop a software solution that enhances the benefits of hourly nursing rounds in hospitals. This process is currently documented on a physical sheet of paper, causing a couple problems. 1) That sheet of paper is typically thrown away, providing little to no feedback to management, and 2) Backlogging and accountability of nursing staff has become an issue as a result. What we’ve done is digitize the entire process, uncovering a number of value adds in the process. For example, we can now provide visual cues for any staff member to know when a round is due, real-time operational insight for management, and revolutionary communication to friends and family.

The best part about our solution is that we began with market validation. We are currently partnered with Bryan Health in Lincoln, who actually came to us to solve this very problem. What most companies do is spend months developing a solution only to find out that nobody actually wants to use it. We had a top 50 cardiovascular hospital come to us and say “here is our problem, who is able to solve it for us?”. That validation out of the gate has had a huge impact on our traction and chances of success moving forward.

The ultimate goal in changing the process of nursing rounds is to increase patient satisfaction in hospitals. Hourly rounding has been proven to increase patient satisfaction, decrease falls, and provide greater quality of care as a result. A hospital’s patient satisfaction score is what determines the amount of reimbursement a hospital receives from Medicare and Medicaid. These scores also determine the salary and benefits of a hospital’s executive staff. For these reasons alone, incentives are very high for a hospital to increase patient satisfaction. Our solution provides just that.

Nmotionad
Why now?
A lot of these incentives have come about as a result of recent healthcare reform. Hospitals will be compared to one another relative to patient satisfaction, infection rates, and many other metrics. Hospitals will be driven by quality, service, and costs in order to compete. Government sanctioned funds will be given or taken dependent on where the hospital ranks in regards to these metrics. For this reason, it will become imperative that hospitals implement tools to maintain a competitive advantage in the industry.

The US healthcare system is at a critical point in increasing quality of care for patients. Hospitals will no longer receive reimbursement based on a “pay-for-reporting” model, where they were simply required to post patient satisfaction scores. Every hospital in the country will now be reimbursed on a “pay-for-performance” model, where the quality of those scores will determine each hospital’s reimbursement rate.

Who are your competition?
There are a number of companies recognizing the potential of increasing patient satisfaction in hospitals. What’s great is that there is no one single way of doing so. What’s frustrating is that there are a lot of unknown and unavoidable factors that affect a patients perspective of their care. First impressions, last impressions, and unforeseen occurrences can drastically alter a patients perception of their care.

Although companies like Scan Am and Walsh Integrated have similar solutions in the healthcare space, we have a few tricks up our sleeve that help differentiate us as serious players in the industry.

What’s your secret sauce?
What really sets us apart from our competition is the communication platform we have engineered to provide friends and family with relative insight on the condition of their loved one. With our solution, we are able to push nursing round information to a family members smartphone, tablet, or PC. If you have to be at work or home with the kids, no longer do you have to wonder about the kind of care your significant other is getting. The feedback we’ve received on this aspect of our solution alone has been outstanding. Since our launch at Bryan Health, we have helped family members from San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City, and everywhere in-between see the quality of care their loved ones were receiving, all in real-time. Imagine you had a child or spouse in the hospital and the importance of a tool like this because quite clear.

Where are you/were you based before NMotion?
Born and raised right here in Lincoln.

Why NMotion?
There are some really cool and innovative things happening in Lincoln right now. Most people are oblivious to this fact. We are still highly referred to as a flyover state and this simply isn’t the case. Our entire founding team is comprised of University of Nebraska – Lincoln alumni, and one of our primary goals is to change the perception people have about Lincoln and the potential that remains untapped here. Jumping on the opportunity to be a part of Lincoln’s first accelerator program was a no brainer.

What’s one lesson you’ve learned since the NMotion session has started.
Before NMotion, our team was progressing at a steady rate. We were making informed decisions, building relationships, and learning everything as we went. What we realized very quickly after starting NMotion is that we weren’t moving fast enough. We were doing too much strategizing and needed to simply begin executing. We are now moving faster, breaking things, learning quickly, and repeating.

Where can people find out more?

Check out our website at SynerScan.com

Email us at info@synerscan.com

Put Congress In Your Pocket With This Nashville Startup

With smartphones in the pockets of tens of millions of people, information is extremely easy to obtain. You don’t even need to wait to get home to check something on the internet. You just reach into your pocket and hit Google or whatever your favorite information source is.

The information age, the internet age ,and now the mobile age has made government more accessible, and with that accessibility becomes accountability. Long gone are the days that any Congressman or other elected official can just sneak something passed the people. When a bill is before Congress, voted on, or signed, you can find all the information about it online. You can look it up on your phone as well.

Now a Nashville Startup called PocketCongress is looking to streamline all that information into an easy-to-use app. SouthernAlpha reports that David Swift was watching the news one night and wanted to look up further information on some legislation that was just reported on. He found the process of finding that information more cumbersome than he thought it should be. To make it easier he created PocketCongress.

We talk with Swift in the interview below.

What is your startup called?

Pocket Congress

What does your company do?

We are an easily accessible research tool for Congressional information. Search various ways in both legislation and legislator fields.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

I, David Swift, am a local business owner in Nashville and am constantly looking to become more involved in the tech world. I concocted this idea in early 2011 and refined it over the next few years. In August of last year, I connected with an old high school classmate, Joey Vadala. Joey is a long-time techie and computer genius, even since the high school days. He’s built a few apps and I was impressed. Looking for someone who would build the app for profit equity AND pull off a simplistic, usable UI/UX, Joey was a great fit. Joey absolutely crushed the fine design details and construction of the app. I handle the business aspect of things, marketing, etc. and Joey is working on 2.0 for Pocket Congress.

Where are you based?

Nashville, TN

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

Fantastic. There’s a lot of old money here, nearly all of it concentrated on the health care industry. That tide is slowly turning with all kinds of tech start ups popping up here and there. The new building of the Entrepreneur Center is magnifying a lot of start ups that wouldn’t get the attention otherwise.

What problem do you solve?

We solve the lack of true government transparency and the inability for the casual news-watcher to gather any real content on what’s being reported on their TV, what’s being voted on in their capital, and ultimately what’s affecting their lives on a daily basis. The entire concept of Pocket Congress is to further true government transparency and to aid in involving the casual political observer. The app is easy enough to navigate for a casual news watcher, but has enough information for a political junkie. The information is out there and is researchable, but not easily and quickly. Pocket Congress allows not only quick research & reference, but also tracking of legislation and social sharing of all information. Real government accountability and transparency must be done by the people, not the government.

Our app searches both Members and Legislation. In Members, one can search via: current location, name, ZIP code, committee, state, or browse. In Legislation, one can search via: HOT bills, number, locally sponsored, keyword, recent actions, and type. You can read actual legislation via .pdf. Anyone can interact with local senators and representatives by easily accessing their Twitter feed, biography, district map, committees, and all their social media outlets. One of my favorite features is the ability to tweet directly to a senator, send them an email, or call their office directly from the app.

Why now?

We need it now more than ever. (How many times have you heard that?) There are now more iPhone users in existence now than ever before. As a country, that’s more ready access than has ever been provided in the past. Never has Congressional members and the legislation they pass been so easy to access and share. Our phones are always with us, so an app is truly the timeliest way to access this type of information and a real vehicle for government transparency.

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

We have been featured in SouthernAlpha’s blog. We are followed on Twitter by a few Washington Post journalists, and have been retweeted by Congressional members, most notably Darrell Issa. After being in the App Store for 5 days, Apple chose us as a New and Noteworthy app in the Reference section. We currently headline the Reference section in the App Store.

What are your next milestones?

A segment on Mike Huckabee on FOX. We have a connection to him particularly, as I worked with him personally on his last book signing tour over a course of three weeks. He’s a large government transparency advocate. We would then like to leverage that appearance to other media outlets, including other politically-charged TV shows.

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

Website: http://pocketcongressapp.com

iTunes short URL: https://itun.es/us/VgmgL.i

Joey’s personal page: joeyvadala.com

Is This Brazilian Startup The YouTube Of Books?

The publishing industry is ripe for a disruption, and many of them. The traditional music industry where we used to buy records, tapes, and CD’s has been all but replaced by digital media. Many predicted that books would always be safe. People love the touch, the feel, and the smell of actual books.

Now Borders is gone, Barnes and Noble has shut down many of their stores, and the mom and pop shops are drying up. It’s unfortunate for readers. But just like in the music industry, it leaves a gaping hole for disruption. Everything from distribution, to consumption, to the publishing of digital books is all open terrain for the right startups.

One Memphis startup, Screwpulp, is well on their way to disrupting the self publishing model with their unique platform that calls for feedback in exchange for free books.

Brazilian startup Widbook is a digital collaborative reading and writing platform where authors can improve their writing, publish books online for free, and solicit feedback and work together with fellow members. It was launched in June 2012 and was instantly described by Mashable as “The Youtube of Books.” The platform recently reached a milestone 30,000 members and has over 1,100 published books with thousands being written.

We got a chance to talk with the team behind Widbook, check out the interview below.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

FLAVIO AGUIAR Co-founder and CEO at Widbook

Early career

• Founded Digitale.XY2 digital agency, a company headquartered in Campinas and São Paulo that has for 10 years worked with the planning of digital marketing, digital presence and consultancy.

• Was head of the merging process with Attitude Global group, one of the biggest commutation groups in the world.

• Has worked in the software development market as system analyst and participated in the official process of implementation and assessment of the CMMi methodology.

• MBA in Strategic & Economic Business Management from Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV) and Ohio University in the U.S.

ANDRÉ CAMPELO

Co-founder and COO at Widbook

Early career

• Founded Digitale.XY2 digital agency, company headquartered in Campinas and São Paulo that has for 10 years worked with the planning of digital marketing, digital presence and consultancy.

• Was ahead of the merging process with Attitude Global group, one of the biggest commutation groups in the world.

• He has been one of the directors of APADi – Associação Paulista das Agências Digitais (São Paulo Association of Digital Agencies) since 2010.

• MBA in Strategic & Economic Business Management from Fundação GetúlioVargas (FGV) and Ohio University in the U.S.

JOSEPH BREGEIRO

Co-founder and CTO at Widbook

Early career

• More than 13 years of experience as web developer and project manager

• Was the chief systems architect of e-Commerce of Fnac Brasil (fnac.com.br) and was responsible for its entire system development and support team.

• He participated in the official process of implementation and assessment of the CMMi methodology and was responsible for the study and implementation of several other technologies in others companies.

What’s the startup scene like in Brazil?

The company is based in Brazil, but plans a move to the U.S. in the future. The platform is virtual and has a presence in over 200 countries worldwide (with 60 percent of its users from the U.S.). The startup scene in Brazil is fairly new compared to the U.S. but it’s growing quickly. The government is starting to offer programs to support startups and lots of well-known events, like TED Global and the MIT Global Startup Workshop, are coming to Brazil.

What problem do you solve?

The publishing industry receives hundreds of thousands of manuscripts/book submissions each year and only a small fraction are reviewed, and even fewer accepted. Widbook offers members the opportunity to bypass the publishing house and publish their work quickly easily (while also getting valuable feedback from other members).

Why now?

The ebook industry is positioned to expand beyond the print book market by 2017 (driving $8.2 billion in sales by then). Widbook wants to offer more than just a platform for self-publishing; it wants to be the place where people go to read and write ebooks for free and collaborate and network with other members.

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

Dec. 2012 – Investments secured by W7 Brazil Capital

Feb. 2013 – Widbook 2.0 released

May 2013 – Widbook team attended NYC’s Book Expo America

June 2013 – Widbook CEO attended START Series event START SF (an invite-only gathering of 150 early stage startups and entrepreneurs)

July 2013 – 30,000 members reached

What are your next milestones?

The iOS app is in the works and set to be released soon (Android app is already available for download), and we hope to be at 50,000 members in the very near future.

Where can people find out more?

Widbook.com

Widbook on Facebook

Read this: How to nail your next VC Pitch

Founder Spotlight: Matt Ehrlichman CEO & Co-Founder, Porch

Matt Ehrlichman is the CEO of Porch, where you can get inspired by the best home projects your neighbors have completed, see what any home project will cost, and find the best service professional your neighbors and friends recommend. Previous to Porch, Matt was a founder and CEO of Thriva (acquired by ACTV) and Chief Strategy Officer of Active Network (2011 IPO). Matt lives in Seattle, WA. Follow him @mattehrlichman.

Who is your hero?

My personal hero is Pete Carroll. My business hero is Warren Buffett.

What’s the single best piece of business advice that helped shape who you are as an entrepreneur today, and why?

No one will ever remember how much money you made or what your title was. They will only remember you for how you changed and impacted the world in a durable way. Because of this, I am on a mission to build a truly great company that improves the world one household at a time with Porch.

What’s the biggest mistake you ever made in your business, and what did you learn from it that others can learn from too?

The first company I ever started was a sports summer camp in Western Washington at age 14; later, I needed to transition the camp into new leadership. With the change in leadership, the camp failed to continue. Had I known better, I would have worked harder at diligently finding the best way to balance not only the camp sustainability but a successful exit as well.

What do you do during the first hour of your business day and why?

I methodically organize my week to make sure I provide appropriate attention to our key efforts: management, consumer growth, product, marketing, and sales. During the first hour of each day, I speak with the respective discipline leader (walk and talks). We go over priorities and execution, and I roll up my sleeves to dig into subject matter challenges.

What’s your best financial or cash-flow related tip for entrepreneurs just getting started?

Entrepreneurs by nature make mistakes and take opportunistic risks. We track key financials and metrics that provide us with health and appeal for investors. The only one that matters at the end of the day is your last day. Keep strong watch on your cash runway end date, and ensure that you know what the date is with no revenue as well as with conservative estimates.

Quick: What’s ONE thing you recommend ALL aspiring or current entrepreneurs do right now to take their biz to the next level?

Turn the tables and ask your employees to give you a 360 review!

What’s your definition of success? How will you know when you’ve finally “succeeded” in your business?

Success to me is building a truly great company that solves a really big problem. I will know that I am successful if I build a company that delights customers, creates beautiful experiences, helps millions of small businesses, and forms a culture and team passionate about embarking on a joint mission.

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

Columbus Entrepreneurs Sparking Innovation With Sundown Rundown Events

With a name like Paul Proffitt, it’s easy to picture this Columbus-based entrepreneur helping people make money. He just wants to make sure it’s done the entrepreneurial way. In an interview Proffitt told us that he’s been a lurker in Columbus, Ohio’s tech community since the 90’s, when he worked with the now defunct Talon New Media Ventures and OnVentures incubators. Since then Proffitt has been working in higher-ed and digital marketing.

In 2006 though, he got re-bitten by the entrepreneurial bug when his team took second place at the OSU business plan competition for a biodiesel startup. Nowadays you can find Proffitt at Columbus State Community College where he is an adjunct faculty member and being a judge and mentor for the OSU Business Plan Competition. With all that experience Proffit wanted to do something even more.

Proffitt has created a monthly pitch focused startup event called Sundown Rundown. These aren’t business card pushing events. Sundown Rundown calls for 5 minute pitches with 5 minutes of feedback, and startups are vetted in advance. Sundown Rundown connects investors, mentors, and talent across the Columbus region.

We got a chance to talk with Proffitt about Sundown Rundown.

What does your company do?

We are a monthly evening business idea pitch event series that connects entrepreneurs with investors, mentors, and talent to help get their companies to the next step.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

Paul Proffitt – A lurker in the Central Ohio Entrepreneurship scene since the late 1990s who had worked with now defunct Columbus based incubators Talon New Media Ventures and OnVentures. Got bit by the entrepreneurial bug in 2006 when his team took second place at the OSU Business Plan Competition for a biodiesel startup. Besides having full-time gigs in higher-ed and in digital marketing, he spends his remaining professional time being an adjunct faculty member at Columbus State Community College and acts as a judge and mentor for the OSU Business Plan Competition.

What’s the startup scene like in Columbus?

Its growing. There was some progress in the late 1990s, but the dot com bubble forced a reboot in the early 2000s. The state figured they needed to diversify their economy and created the Third Frontier Fund and state money backed, private non-profit incubators started popping up.

At best the startup scene is fragmented. A lot of attention is paid to those low investment, potential high return software based startups and capital intensive, long development medical and bio tech. Nothing solid right now in the middle, small to mid-sized business startups.

What problem do you solve?

Trying to defragment the scene and get a self-sustaining community running in Central Ohio to help bring good business ideas to the forefront regardless of their industry.

Why now?

It feels right… if you take your shoes off and stand in the grass you can feel the karma starting to align in Central Ohio… it could go good or bad at this point… say the same set of factors happen around the 2000s. I kind of want to help put Central Ohio in a position this time for something good to happen and not have another reboot that will take another 15 years to get to another make or break point.

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

We’ve established credibility in the Central Ohio entrepreneurial community as something that can be trusted to give people a fair shake at getting an idea out into the community. Showing we don’t play favorites for people who come in and pitch. We’ve got an audience that shows up and we have interest in people wanting to pitch their ideas each month.

What are your next milestones?

Keep growing…. The bar we hold the event at holds, 150 people. We would love to have to find a bigger place at some point.

Get funding for this events. We do it on a shoestring and right now the rental for the space is the biggest cost.

Where can people find out more?

http://sundownrundown.org

Checkout this huge national startup event in Cincinnati Ohio.

Image: sundownrundown.org

Follow Friday: Follow These Startup Rockstars

Our Follow Friday tradition continues with another list of great startup people to follow on Twitter. Today follow the list of startup rockstars below. Then, get your attendee or Startup Village ticket for Everywhere Else Cincinnati, where you can see them all in person, speaking and networking with startups from “everywhere else”.

Jonathon Perrelli, Founder, Fortify Ventures
Mark Hasebroock, Dundee Venture Capital
Jason Healey, Founder, Blu eCigs
John Bracken, Founder of e-vite and Speek
Dave Knox, co-founder Brandery, CMO Rockfish
Patrick Woods, Managing Partner a>m Ventures
Andrew Warner, Founder, Mixergy
Raghu Betina, Managing Partner, The Starter League
Wil Schroter, Founder Fundable
Ryan O’Connell, VP Influence & Co
Blake Miller, Managing Director, Think Big Accelerator
Sarah Ware, Founder Markerly
Naithan Jones, Founder AgLocal
Michael Bergman, Founder, Repp
Andy Sparks, Co-Founder MatterMark
John T. Meyer, Founder, Lemon.ly
Jake Stutzman, Founder, Creative Director, Elevate.co
Blair Garrou, Managing Director, Mercury Fund
Joe Medved, Parter, SoftBank Capita
Derek Flanzraich, Founder & CEO, Greatist

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Startup Weekend Heads To Biloxi

Startup Weekend, the globally famous 54 hour startup hackathon, continues to grow. Next weekend Startup Weekend heads to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, where Biloxi will play host to entrepreneurs, developers, coders, and their supporters while they hack the weekend away on what could become the next big business.

Startup Weekend Biloxi is being put on by Innovate Mississippi, a public-private partnership thats fueling the economy by supporting startups and innovation across the state.

Although it’s the first Startup Weekend event in Biloxi, it’s not the first in Mississippi. Jackson, Mississippi held Startup Weekend last year. The organizers of that event were also on hand for Memphis’ official Startup Weekend last July. Startup Weekend is a staple in Florida cities like Orlando and Tampa.

“It’s our turn,” Stephen Witt, the Executive Director of the Innovation Center told the Sun Herald, “and a great opportunity for the Coast. Pulling together all of the entrepreneurs, designers, marketers, and innovators from all backgrounds and all ages and putting them together for a weekend of creating, designing, and launching new ventures is pure chemistry.”

Startup Weekend Biloxi will follow Startup Weekend’s normal 54 hour format. Entrepreneurs who sign up here, will meet each other over dinner on Friday evening. After that they’ll pitch their ideas in 60 second pitches where the audience will decide which ideas will be worked on all weekend long.

Once the ideas are chosen, the audience will divide up into teams and conquer the startups at hand. They’ll work through the weekend with access to mentors and coaches. Saturday they’ll go through customer discovery and work on their wireframes and pitch decks.

Sunday the teams will put together the finishing touches on their presentations and pitch to the panel of judges. Judges for the Biloxi event are:

Bud Jones, AGJ Systems
Dr. Lou Finkle Entrepreneur/Angel Investor
Stephen O’Mara, Renaissance Corporation

Coaches for the Biloxi event are:

Ryan Giles, Founding Partner CFO AGJ Systems & Networks Inc
Mark Henderson, Lazy Magnolia Brewing Company
Matthew McLaughlin, Balch & Bingham
Kathleen Chapman, Patent Attorney
John Shinn, President, PPS Software
Cathye Ross, Independent Marketing Consultant
Charlie Beasley, MSET

You can find out more about Biloxi’s Startup Weekend and register here at startupweekend.org

Jobs Is Great For Entrepreneurs And Startups

(photo: Jakob Henner)

So I went to see Jobs for the Thursday early showing. You know nowadays theaters aren’t even waiting until midnight to show Friday releases.

The movie was absolutely remarkable and blew me away, despite my being a huge Pirates of Silicon Valley fan. The previews didn’t even do the movie justice. When I saw previews I thought that startup investor, entrepreneur and actor Ashton Kutcher would fail in comparison to Noah Wylie’s portrayal of Steve Jobs in the 1999 TNT film that’s now a cult classic.

Kutcher has been praised over and over again for his portrayal of Jobs. We knew before the movie debuted that Kutcher had studied Jobs more intently than any other role. Several news sources, mostly tech leaning, also pointed out that with Kutcher’s investment in startups, role as startup adviser, and entrepreneurial spirit, he was paying homage to a pioneer in a field that he may love even more than acting.

The script was very well written and chronicles the birth of Apple, to the ousting of Steve Jobs and then Jobs’ triumphant return to Apple and his subsequent replacing of the Board of Directors.

The movie opens with Kutcher (as Jobs) unveiling the iPod at an internal Town Hall meeting. The camera angles make the viewer wonder if they are watching some old Steve Jobs footage instead of Kutcher.

I’m not sure if it was in the screen play, Joshua Michael Stern’s direction, or Ashton Kutcher’s acting but the movie really stares down the barrel of entrepreneurship and takes a lot of time (possibly for dramatic effect) looking into those “startupy” moments of Apple.

For example, the movie concentrates on the early stages when Wozniak has an idea and Jobs shows him the potential. It looks at the founding team in a way that resonates with two person founding teams of today’s startups. There’s a tech guy (Steve Wozniak) and a business development guy and visionary (Steve Jobs), and of course Jobs is the ultimate visionary.

While the duo is adding employees 3 through 6, they are still in Jobs’ parents garage. They even have a token “young guy” who just wants to be a part of something, and they don’t even need to pay him (at first). During that sequence of events you also see Jobs pitching over 100 companies on the phone, crossing names off of a list until the one angel believes in them. That is of course Michael Markkula.

Most of us startup folks knew the story of Apple well before the movie was even an idea, even before Walter Isaacson’s book came out. But we all knew the story of Facebook as well and went to see The Social Network.

The movie shows the struggle between the visionary leader and founder, the board of directors, and the CEO who was actually handpicked by Jobs. It repeatedly shows the iteration upon iteration of Apple and even spends a good amount of time on Apple’s big failure under Jobs, Lisa. Some may say that Newton was the company’s biggest failure, but that wasn’t under Jobs).

To tell the whole story, the movie could have gone on six hours, but in two hours and five minutes they did an amazing job of talking about the legacy of Steve Jobs and that legacy should resonate with all of our readers.

$600,000 Investment In GigTank Startup WeCounsel Proves Accelerators Still Work

WeCounsel, Chattanooga startup, GigTank, UltraGroup, Funding

WeCounsel CEO Harrison Tyner pitches at GigTank demo day (photo: NMI 2013)

Just last week we were in Chattanooga for the GigTank accelerator’s second demo day. GigTank debuted last year, right on the heels of Chattanooga becoming the first (sorry KC) city with 1gb ethernet to all residential and business addresses. This year’s cohort came literally from across the globe with startups from Bulgaria, India and the Cayman Islands choosing to spend the summer in Tennessee.

During the two day celebration of startups in Chattanooga, there was a lot of hush hush talk about accelerators in general. It’s actually a common discussion, whether or not accelerators are worth the time and money. Many think the 3-4 month model isn’t enough time to build real companies, and with accelerators all over the country, there may be an accelerator bubble.

Another struggle is attracting investors. Outreach is tremendously important for an accelerator. Sure you can invite the same 50-100 investors on the VC academy list of VC Pro database, and they may come. But often the startups presenting aren’t in their investment wheelhouse. For accelerators not in their first season, the investors have seen the same PowerPoint template presented over and over again .

Accelerators and their demo days get interesting when you include anyone who’s interested into the startup community. Entrepreneurs come in all shapes, sizes, and colors and so do startup supporters. CoLab and GigTank director Sheldon Grizzle is very good at bringing the whole community together around entrepreneurial events. On the eve of the GigTank demo day, there was an event called Fireside Talks which included entrepreneurs 20 and under working on a variety of projects.

UltraGroup is not one of your typical startup investors. UltraGroup is a healthcare company that specializes in behavioral health programs. They provide outpatient care at 40 rural hospitals across eight states, according to the TimesFreePress. They are based in Chattanooga.

WeCounsel is a GigTank startup that went through the most recent cohort, graduating last week. They offer an online platform that allows therapists to take notes, coordinate scheduling, share documents, store client records and interact with colleagues. They are also based in Chattanooga, and one of three local startups in this year’s GigTank Cohort.

WeCounsel co-founder and CEO Harrison Tyner told Nibletz by phone that UltraGroup was on their radar to talk with earlier this summer.

“Relationships we built at the GigTank made our talks with UltraGroup progress even further,” he said. He went on to say that without the GigTank helping them iterate their idea to perfection and mentorship from others in the GigTank’s network, they would not have been ready for UltraGroup’s $600,000 investment reported Wednesday.

“None of this would have been possible for us without the GigTank. It’s been the best thing to happen to our startup,” Tyner said.

Tyner and his co-founders Riley Draper and Joshua Goldberg are all originally from Chattanooga and will stay there to grow WeCounsel. Currently they are still operating out of CoLab but plan on moving to their own office in about a month.

“Chattanooga continues to prove that it’s a great city for entrepreneurship,” Tyner said. By staying in Chattanooga, they will be able to work closely with UltraGroup and continue to work with the mentors and leaders they formed relationship with at GigTank.

When the GigTank presentations kicked off, Toni Gamayel co-founder and CEO of Banyan took the stage. His company, which has designed a collaboration platform for researchers, won $100,000 from Alcatel Lucent at last year’s demo day. Shortly after demo day the company went home to Tampa, Florida, where Gamayel has been a fixture in the startup community. He told a story about coming up to visit during the winter last year and realizing that Chattanooga was on its way up. With that realization entire team loaded up a Uhaul and moved back to town.

For more info on WeCounsel visit them online here.

Check out more GigTank coverage here.

Meet Everywhere Else Cincinnati Speaker Blake Miller, Managing Director Think Big Accelerator

With Everywhere Else Cincinnati rapidly approaching, we’re going to spend some time introducing you to our great speakers. There are still a limited number of early bird discount attendee, investor, and Startup Village tickets still available at eecincinnati.com

As a partner at Think Big Partners, Blake Miller is the Managing Director of the Think Big Accelerator program, consults for both local and national startup companies, and manages the Think Big in-house dev team (also known as Think Big Labs). Blake’s strengths are in ideation, innovation, UI/UX, growth hacking, and connecting the dots. Blake has co-founded a number of tech startups, including BodeeFit, WeeJay, Inboun, and Pitchcaster. He sits on the board of Keyzio and is an adviser to SquareOffs and Kahootz.

What was your first experience with startups?

I’ve always kind of had my own “startup” in that I’ve been building websites for small businesses since I was 13. However my first true startup was not in tech. About 4 years ago, I got into a new Consumer Packaged Good called The Secret Sauce. The BBQ Sauce was outstanding, it won the American Royal BBQ Competition (out of 500+ sauces) 2 years in a row. We did well at first when we started bottling, but starting a CPG company is REALLY HARD and EXPENSIVE. We ended up failing after getting a large purchase order from Costco, but couldn’t get a bank to loan us the money to produce the order because of Costco’s terms.

What made you want to become an entrepreneur?

Doing the same thing the rest of my life terrifies me. I just can’t imagine having the same routine for the rest of my life. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But I get to work with some of the smartest people anywhere day in and day out solving real problems. It also probably stems from my parents, they’ve been entrepreneurs ever since I can remember.

What has been the most important thing you’ve learned running an accelerator?

Two things actually: no matter how experienced the entrepreneur… EVERYONE NEEDS help because building a company is hard. Two, there’s no such thing as “the traditional accelerator model.” We realized this early on. Although many problems that arise for entrepreneurs start to look the same, every company is a bit different and needs a slightly different approach. To add to that, not everyone is always in the same space and not every company can naturally progress at the same speed.

What has been your biggest failure and biggest success at Think Big Partners and what did you learn from them?

We’ve made A LOT of mistakes and I think depending on who you ask in our organization, you’ll probably get a million different answers. I’d say the biggest is our initial approach to the accelerator model. It was definitely a “me too” approach, which I think you are seeing a lot of across the country. We quickly realized that we needed to do a lot more then just hand an entrepreneur a check, tell them here’s our list of mentors, let us know if you want to be connected, and “oh yea we will have office hours once a week.” This model obviously works for some, but what we experienced was that entrepreneurs need more resources.

In my opinion one of our biggest success is a result of that failure. We quickly realized that many entrepreneurs need help actually building their product. Luckily we didn’t realize this too late. We built a team of devs and designers so that we could help the entrepreneurs build MVP’s and get to market faster. Our success in this instance is that out of 6 companies in our first cohort, 5 are in the market, gaining customers, and generating revenue.

What do you like most about working with startups?

Solving Problems. I could expand on that a million different ways, but it always comes back to the challenge of solving real problems. It sounds far reaching but there is something extremely sexy to me about waking up every morning and solving problems for potentially millions of people. It also doesn’t hurt that I get to wear Jeans and T-shirt every day.

How can people keep up to date with you online?

Follow me on Twitter @ImBmills

Connect on Linkedin

Find ThinkBig at thinkbigpartners.com

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