SAHM Turns Digital Scrapbooking Hobby Into Lincoln Startup GottaPixel

Stacy Carlson isn’t your everyday startup founder. She’s not a caffeinated-up hackathon junkie, or a gamer chick turned business developer extraordinaire. She’s a stay-at-home mom from Lincoln, Nebraska, who turned her digital scrapbooking hobby into a startup that now has a team of 21 designers, and 13 employees.

Silicon Prairie News reports that Carlson was never one for paper scrapbooking (me neither). But when her daughter started getting older she wanted to find a way to preserve those hundreds of digital pics that every parent has of their kid. She got back into computers and immediately picked up digital scrapbooking as a hobby.

When Carlson started gottapixel in 2005, it was a place where digital scrapbookers like herself could share layouts with online friends. The layouts that were publicly available weren’t nearly as good as what the user base at gottapixel were uploading to the site.

“When my cousin Brenda, and I started in 2005, it was a hobby. We started with just a few members, a gallery, and a desire to create a digi home that was reliable, friendly, and fun. 7 years later, we have over 25,000 members in our forum, 7,000 active products and over 275,000 layouts in our gallery…but even though the site has gotten bigger, the family feel is still there!” Carlson told scrapstacks.com

GottaPixel has become one of the most respected and trusted sites among people who do online scrapbooking. Some of the designers who make digital scrapbooking layouts for gottapixel have their own websites and galleries, and Carlson told SPN that the best designers make more than $1000 per month for their work.

Now that her kids are in schoo,l and the company is running on all four cylinders, Carlson is active in the startup community via Startup Lincoln, AwesomeCamp, and Ladies Who Launch.

Are you a digital scrapbooker? Try it out at gottapixel.com

Meet The Five Startups In Indiana’s Velocity Accelerator

We already know that Indianapolis has a strong startup scene. Fort Wayne and Valparaiso are also bursting at the seams with new entrepreneurial activity. But, right across the river from Louisville, in Jeffersonville, Indiana, Velocity is about to graduate their first class of startups.

Each of the five teams in the Velocity accelerator received $20,000 in seed money in exchange for a small amount of equity. They also received free workspace and access to mentors from across Kentucky and Indiana.

We’ll be on hand to see these startups graduate from the program in front of a room full of investors later this summer. In the meantime here are the five teams that are accelerating at Velocity.

Collabra- Collabra allows musicians and fans to create, collaborate, and share music in a new and innovative way. Combining a novel song arrangement platform with an easy-to-use recording suite, Collabra enables musicians around the world to connect and create music while engaging fans in the creative process for the first time ever. Due to its low-barrier-to-entry approach, for musicians and fans, as well as a robust feature set, Collabra has the potential to change the music creation process forever.

Large Insights- Large is laser-focused on generating insights from data to increase client revenues, and we do that by establishing digital and social business goals, tracking activity and measuring success.

Change My School- Change My School is a platform for students, teachers and parents to upload and watch videos. It is available to users of all ages and provides a video contest platform. The winning videos each month receive $1,000 for items such as supplies, projects, or technology. It also provides students and teachers opportunities to incorporate creativity, video technology and project based learning into their classrooms.

Steel Fashion- Steel Fashion provides a free styling software service that allows men to style clothes they have, want, or are looking to purchase. They can discover and purchase new brands easily by identifying brands they already like. Confidence and creativity are easily harnessed when visiting Steel Fashion.

Greek Pull- Greek Pull enables a Fraternity or Sorority chapter to reach their target markets in an efficient way. Those target markets are potential new members, their alumni and the Greek Community. Because of this, GreekPull differs from other social media solutions because GreekPull is focused on bringing those target markets to chapter houses. The network is exclusive to Greek Life and helps chapters with efficient marketing. We bring Fraternity and Sorority target markets to Greek Chapters so they can be easily contacted, creating an efficient communication tool.

London Startup Dressipi Partners With Ebay For Fashion Discovery

Ebay has been looking to broaden it’s horizons and be more than just an online auction site. Over the past year and a half to two years, we’ve seen Ebay develop a more robust e-commerce site, leaning on its auction business less and less. I remember when Ebay was just starting out, and you could get that real good deal on some artifact that meant something to you but not necessarily to the seller. Those days have just about dried up as the auction portion has become home to liquidators, drop-shippers, and professional storage auction shoppers.

But, the company’s newest partnership may have the thrifty Macklemore taking a look a second look at the former pillar of the online community.

Ebay has announced a partnership with Dressipi, a London startup for fashion discovery. The partnership will begin as a six month trial for Ebay users in the UK. Those users will use Dressipi’s Fashion Fingerprint, a fashion profile of sorts. Once the user completes their ideal Fashion Fingerprint, Dressipi will then scour Ebay site for Buy It Now options and auction listings for fashion items that fit the user’s tastes.

Dressipi combines big data, social media, and old fashioned customer service to return the most relevant results.

Ebay users in the UK can start using Dressipi here.

Los Angeles Startup Treats Amateur Athletes Like Superstars

A brand new startup in West Los Angeles is hoping to make amateur sport players feel like superstars, giving them the tools that they need to organize and manage their sports leagues, pick up games, and teams. With Sportifik the founders want amateur athletes to have fun, meet new people, and keep up with sports that often fall to the wayside.

Still a little over two weeks away from launch, the team behind Sportifik is “throwing the pigskin around,” meaning they’re putting the finishing touches on their platform and making sure it’s ready for the after work league and the local pick up game.

In the meantime we got to talk with Marco Franzoni, Sportifik’s co-founder and CEO about this new twist on sports.

What is your startup called?

Our startup is called Sportifik. A mix between sports and fantasterrific, only with a k.

What does your company do?

We are creating a global community of athletes and changing the way people participate in sports. We are providing amateur athletes and avid sports fans with the best means to easily organize and manage their sporting activities through a user friendly one-stop-shop mobile and web solution. Our platform will enable users to seamlessly organize sports games in a fun and rewarding way while enabling them to meet members of their local communities who share a passion for the same sport.

Our goal is to push new boundaries, make any game feel like a national championship, and make every amateur player feel like a superstar.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

We are three co-founders and friends.

Marco, our CEO, is an all-around athlete hailing from Italy with a consulting background. He’s the soul of this operation. It’s his inspiration and drive that brought us together in a common belief that sports should be uniting people.

Josh, our CTO, is an avid golfer with various experiences in web development and startups. He’s the heart of the operation as he is the one keeping us going (as well as the most important person in our lives today).

Chris, our head of biz dev, is passionate about all sports and comes from investment banking and social enterprise backgrounds. He’s the brain at Sportifik – not in that he’s intelligent but he makes sure everything is running correctly and logically.

Where are you based?

We’re currently based in West LA where we think the outdoors environment is the best to start an active sports venture.

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

Pretty amazing. For years the LA and Santa Monica startup scene have been growing. It’s a phenomenal environment of smart dedicated people who are always looking to help each other out. We’ve been really fortunate to kick things off on the shores of Silicon Beach.

What problem do you solve?

We solve the problem of having to spend copious amounts of times and several different platforms to organize sports games. We spent too much time every week trying to get people together at the same spot to play soccer or basketball for games that would inevitably get canceled anyway. We thought there’s a better solution out there.

Why now?

People are becoming more active and mobile and at the same time we’re busier than ever with a ton of different things to do. Finding the time for collective sports games has become harder but they’re no less important in our lives.

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

We launched a beta product in April and collected a bunch of early adopters. We’re re-launching on the 31^st of August (join us for our launch party through our website!).

We’ve also created a promotional clip to feature the community and outreach aspects of what we do. This includes supporting our friends who have a wheelchair basketball team and are looking to raise money for their upcoming season. If you are interested in helping Alvin and his team, get in touch with him at alvin.malave@gmail.com.

Finally, we’ve established an informal sports hierarchy internally. Josh is our golf master, Chris rules the ping pong table and Marco does pretty much everything damn well.

What are your next milestones?

Launching (see above)! We’re looking to get as many users as possible starting in West LA and the UCLA community and expanding as soon as possible to the rest of LA. We’re going to be looking to partner with local sports leagues, stores and venues to offer a more comprehensive service to our users and drive local businesses.

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

Follow us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/sportifik), Twitter (www.twitter.com/sportifik_), WordPress (www.blog.sportifik.com), and youtube (www.youtube.com/sportifik)

Minnesota Firms Launch Tech Search For Elderly Focused Products And Startups

Baby Boomers are the largest generation in history, and now they are getting older. While the elderly will soon become the biggest demographic segment in the population, one of the unique things about this segment is they are the first group that started integrating with new ideas in technology. People entering their 60’s and 70’s now were likely to have used computers in their workplace and cell phones in their daily lives.

That’s why the time is ripe for startups and inventors catering to older segments of the population to bring their products to market.

To assist in that goal, St. Paul Minnesota based AgePower.org has created a program for entrepreneurs building products catering to this segment

MoJo Minnesota, an innovation cooperative, and Ecumen a Minnesota organization providing housing and care to over 10,0000 elderly residents in the state, have teamed up to launch the “Age Power Tech Search.”

The program is a hybrid: part incubator, part accelerator, and part customer discovery program. Startups will submit their idea, company, or product to a team of judges from MOJO Minnesota and Ecumen. They will then pick 4 companies that will be in the program and get to test market their product to Ecumen’s robust network of elderly clientele.

The selected startups will also get access to mentors through both organizations and access to local investors through MOJO Minnesota. In exchange the program will take a small equity stake in the company, Venture Beat reported.

Eric Schubert, Vice President of Ecumen told Venture Beat in an interview that the elderly segment is often overlooked in technology.

When asked about what kind of ideas they are looking for, Schubert told Venture Beat, “Is there a technology that can help an elderly person live independently? How about helping them maintain social connections? Or improving the rehabilitation experience after a surgery?”

Interested entrepreneurs and startups can submit their ideas through October 31st here at Agepower.org

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SoftBank’s Joe Medved And Mercury Fund’s Blair Garrou To Speak At Everywhere Else Cincinnati

Today’s been a big day for Everywhere Else Cincinnati. Earlier this morning we announced that Greatist founder Derek Flanzraich had joined the already amazing line up for the conference taking place in Cincinnati September 29-October 1st.

The Everywhere Else conference series is aimed at startups “everywhere else,” cities across America where startups are fueling the new economy. Startups in areas that aren’t traditional tech hubs, like Silicon Valley, often have a common set of challenges including access to capital, access to talent, and not knowing which resources are available to tap into.

At Everywhere Else Cincinnati, startups, angel investors, and VC’s from everywhere else will be able to learn and collaborate with like minded people in similar situations. We’ve compiled an amazing list of national speakers who will offer a range of discussions from starting up everywhere else, to raising money everywhere else, to accelerating everywhere else, and even what VC’s and angel investors are looking for when they turn to startups everywhere else.

After our huge conference in Memphis last February, a theme kept recurring: the need to “Start Where U Are.” This conference will help startups realize that in most cases starting where they are is the best scenario for them and the community.

We already have VC’s from some of the nation’s most respected firms attending or speaking at the conference. Two more of those VC’s, Soft Bank Capital’s Joe Medved and Mercury Fund’s Manging Partner Blair Garrou, will share their insight into what VC’s are looking for and how startups, who often have the odds stacked against them in the first place, can make sure they look good and ready in front of investor.

Both VC’s are distinguished in their fields, have an active role in their startup communities and advisory roles with their startups. Both investors have also been on the Business Journal‘s 40 under 40 in addition to other great accomplishments.

Joe Medved joined SoftBank Capital in 2005. He’s been investing in digital media companies for over nine years, from seed through growth stage. He focuses on supporting primarily Seed and Series A stage companies with special interests including consumer and enterprise mobile, gaming, and social marketing.

Prior to joining SoftBank Capital, Joe was an Associate with Constellation Ventures, a media and communications venture capital fund under Bear Stearns Asset Management. Prior to Constellation Ventures, he was an Associate and Analyst for the Technology, Media and Telecommunications Group with JPMorgan Investment Banking.

In 2011, Joe was selected by the Boston Business Journal for its 40 Under 40 class. He is Co-Founder of the Digital Media VC/Corp Dev Connection, a group that brings together active investors and corporate development professionals from large corporations focused on digital media. Joe is also Chairman Emeritus of the New England Venture Network (NEVN), one of the largest venture capital organizations on the East Coast.

Blair Garrou is a co-founder and Managing Director of the Mercury Fund (formerly DFJ Mercury). The Houston-based VC firm makes investments in technology and energy where they even support their own accelerator called Surge. Garrou’s reach to accelerators doesn’t end there, though. He is a big believer in the accelerator model and is a mentor at The Brandery and often speaks to other accelerator cohorts across the country.

Prior to co-founding the Mercury Fund, Blair was the CEO of Intermat, Inc., a leader in product information management software (acq. by IHS). Before Intermat, Blair was a Principal of Genesis Park LP, a Houston-based venture capital and private equity firm, where he focused on the firm’s software investments, including Intermat, FuelQuest (acq. by Saracen Energy), and SAT Corporation (acq. by Invensys). Prior to Genesis Park, Blair helped launch and was the Director of Operations for the Houston Technology Center (HTC), the largest technology incubator in the state of Texas, and he led the formation of the Houston Angel Network, one of the largest and most active angel investment organizations in the U.S. Previously, Blair was an investment banker with BMO Nesbitt Burns, and an auditor with Deloitte & Touche. Blair is a licensed CPA in the state of Texas. He received a B.S. in Management with special attainments in Commerce from Washington & Lee University.

Medved and Garrou join this already amazing list of speakers

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 Patner The Starter League
Ryan O’Connell, VP Influence & Company
Blake Miller, Managing Director Think Big Accelerator
Michael Bergman, Founder Repp.

Startups hurry only 4 Startup Village Booths left at the early bird discount rate!

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

Greatist Founder Derek Flanzraich Added To Everywhere Else Cincinnati Line Up

No, we did’t misspell “greatest” in that headline.

Greatist is an web startup about health and wellness. It’s an expert community driven resource that helps you reach fitness, health, and happiness goals. Whether you’re looking for great healthy recipes, workout tips, or even how to get over a hangover, Greatist offers a variety of wellness and health related content.

While the content on Greatist.com is overflowing, the team at Greatist encourages their users to take it slow, one week at a time. The startup’s mission is to inspire and inform the world to make at least one healthier decision per week. Whether you want to lose weight, eat better, get stronger, get motivated, relieve stress, or just start working out, Greatist offers the content you need, in an easy-to-read format for all of their users.

Derek Flanzraich has been an entrepreneur since his first “lemonade stand” startup dog walking business. All the while friends, family members, and new acquaintances would ask him what drove him, and one of those main ingredients was health and wellness. That’s why he created Greatist.

Flanzraich has been featured by Forbes as an up and comer. That’s also why Andrew Warner, the founder of Mixergy, (and another Everywhere Else Cincinnati speaker) interviewed Flanzraich on his popular site Mixergy, home of the ambitious startup.

Flanzraich told Warner in the interview that he thought of product first, in his case the content on Greatist, before he thought about revenue and traffic, a healthy recipe that seems to be working out.

Flanzraich can talk about his experience building a school newspaper in middle school, a political forum in high school, or a web TV show and network at Harvard. He can also talk about how he joined Clicker, a startup that sold to CBS for hundreds of millions, right before exit. He even picked the startup route over joining Google. Then he can talk about building Greatist into the greatest. Why people come, why they stay, and what he has learned in his career in new media.

Check out Flanzraich’s site, Greatist, here

Flanzraich joins the growing list of confirmed national speakers for Everywhere Else Cincinnati:

Naithan Jones, Founder agLocal
Andrew Warner, Founder Mixergy
Andy Sparks, Co-Founder Mattermark (backed by NEA and a16z)
Wil Schroter, Mr. Ohio, founder of Fundable
Jake Stutzman, founder evlevate.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 e-vite 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 Patner, The Starter League
Ryan O’Connell, VP Influence & Company
Blake Miller, Managing Director, Think Big Accelerator
Michael Bergman, Founder Repp.

Get your ticket or Startup Village Booth for Everywhere Else Cincinnati below.

Saving Detroit: Grand Circus Is One Of Many Startups Hoping To Reinvigorate Detroit’s Economy

When we think of startups, tech, and entrepreneurs we don’t usually think of the industrial revolution, or the invention of things like the automobile. We don’t often equate names like Henry Ford, William C Durant, Charles Stewart Mott, or even Berry Gordy. Decades ago these were the innovators and entrepreneurs that bucked the system, created companies and created jobs. Henry Ford created Ford Motor Company, Durant and Mott were behind General Motors, and Gordy is the king of the R&B music we know today, the founder of MoTown.

All we think, when we hear Detroit today, is $10,000 mansions in foreclosure and a city government that’s filed for bankruptcy. Now it’s up to the next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators to refuel the city that was once a thriving mecca of modern day technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Detroit startups are at the foreground now of breathing life back into one of America’s industrial beacons.

One of those startups is Grand Circus. While Grand Circus is a startup itself, they are on the ground floor of Detroit’s technological revolution. Grand Circus is 15,000 square feet of tech training space. But we’re not talking about traditional certificate-based classroom learning.

“…we dismiss that true skill comes with a certificate. We focus instead on outcomes that matter. With project based instruction our training delivers real world expertise. We call it training with a purpose. Our curriculum is based on the latest in technology, business, and design, and we have partnered with the best and brightest. Our instructors are real world practitioners who are at the top of their field and committed to the success of their students. [We’ll offer] More than 30 different classes this fall – including Build an iPhone App, The Design Process, and Digital Marketing,” Grand Circus’ Kelly LaPierre told Nibletz in an interview.

Michigan, and Detroit specifically, already have a handful of great startups, that if successful will continue to create jobs in the Motor City. But this time instead of motors they’re using keyboards, computers, laptops, the internet and iPhones. We’ve recently covered myfab5, a Detroit startup making restaurant reviews and decision making much easier. Two weeks ago we reported on UpTo, a Detroit shared calendar startup that raised a $2 million series A. DVP (Detroit Venture Partners) has also graced the pages of Nibletz quite a bit over the last year. So there’s no doubt that people in Detroit are stepping up.

Grand Circus is making it even easier for people to step up by learning the skills that they really need to create the next wave of startup companies. They will also play an instrumental part in grooming the next generation of employees for these startups.

We got a chance to interview the team behind Grand Circus. Check out the interview below:

What is your startup called?

Grand Circus – named after Detroit’s historic Grand Circus Park that our new space overlooks in downtown Detroit. We are located in 15,000 square feet of space in the newly renovated Broderick Tower.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

Grand Circus was kick-started when co-founders Damien Rocchi and Brad Hoos met while working at Detroit’s collaborative tech space in the M@dison building. “We saw the opportunity and quickly converged on a mission to create an amazing home for tech training in Detroit, a city with immeasurable talent that is just starting to reach its full potential,” said Rocchi.

What’s the startup scene like in Detroit?

Detroit startup scene is booming – SA Today names Detroit one of the “10 Great Places to be Inspire by Innovation” Fast Company’s piece “How A Young Community of Entrepreneurs is Rebuilding Detroit” called the city a “refuge for techies looking to tackle real problems.” The New York Times also spotlighted Detroit’s tech scene, nothing that hiring in the city’s tech sector is pulling developers from the coasts. Detroit has seen a 10 percent year-over-year increase in tech job listings, which makes the city the fourth in the nation for total employment in the tech industry.

What problem do you solve?

There is an ever-growing need for tech professionals in Detroit’s burgeoning digital hub. “As Detroit continues to grow and evolve its technology core, developing creative and talented technology professionals is critical. We are excited about the important role Grand Circus will play in the city’s continued revolution,” said Josh Linkner, Managing Partner of Detroit Venture Partners.

Why now?

“Detroit’s tech scene is dynamic and there’s a certain vibe and feel that exists here that you just have to experience,” said Hoos, COO and Co-Founder of Grand Circus. “We’re excited to be at the epicenter of Detroit’s tech earthquake just as it’s making waves.”

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

Grand Circus joins Detroit Venture Partners’ (DVP) portfolio, a venture capital firm formed by Detroit business leaders Dan Gilbert, Josh Linkner, and Brian Hermelin.

What are your next milestones?

Classes start this fall

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

grandcircus.co or www.facebook.com/GrandCircus or @grandcircusco

Join lot’s of Michigan and midwest startups at this huge, national startup conference Sep 29-October 1 in Cincinnati.

Teams, This Baltimore Startup Has The Answer To Sharing Passwords

When you’re collaborating remotely or even if you’re working in the same office, sometimes it’s necessary for teams to share passwords. Here at Nibletz our core team needs to share site passwords, social passwords, analytics passwords, and more.

There isn’t really an easy way to share passwords amongst your team. If you’re a team with employees rather than just co-founders, there may be a risk in sharing a spreadsheet filled with all of your important passwords. If there is a great element of trust on your team it can just be cumbersome and inconvenient.

Well a Baltimore startup called, TeamPassword (see how easy that is to remember) has come up with a way to share passwords across your teammates and keep them safe and secure.

We got a chance to talk with Alex Zaremba about TeamPassword. Check out our interview below.

What does your company do?

We do collaborative password management, for teams that need to share and manage passwords in their company. Think 1password with sharing. Our mission is to replace that shared excel spreadsheet companies use to keep track of their accounts.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

TeamPassword was founded by a group of friends with decades of combined tech experience. Their combined experience covers every facet of product development, including deep experience with product design, programming, UI and UX, Marketing, Sales, and operations.

Where are you based?

Sunny Baltimore MD.

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

It might be surprising, but Baltimore has a great community for start-ups. Since I’ve been on the scene, I’ve seen a huge growth in the number of institutions and programs focused on fostering and accelerating entrepreneurship. Additional, we have a great technology community with a huge Ruby on Rails and Javascript meetups, which is a huge advantage when it comes time to scale our team.

What problem do you solve?

We solve the password management and sharing issues for Companies, which really has two components: Productivity and Security.

Right now, the prevailing method of managing passwords is a spreadsheet, shared some way with all the employees on a need to know basis. There are a number of problems with this:

1) It’s really inconvenient to get to and update, which means

2) It’s usually out of date

3) There’s no great way to segment the data; meaning your marketing team sees your server credentials, and

4) If this document got into the wrong hands, or, leaves with a disgruntled employee, you’re in trouble.

Here’s how we solve these problems: when users interact with TeamPassword through their Chrome extension, they have instant access to the accounts that are shared with them, and only the accounts shared with them. They can fill the username and password directly into the password, making getting into the accounts they need to do their job easy. Additionally, since users don’t need to remember the password, you can use a long, secure, randomized string.

Why now?

Why not? If TeamPassword would have been around while I was working at my past 3 companies, I would have been the first in line to get signed up. Having a great shared password solution mirrors the trend in software being replaced by the web: servers, error tracking, social media, banking, invoicing, and all important business operations are handled online. Companies have great systems to manage finances, employees, paperwork, so it’s about time we have a system to manage the information that protects everything we do.

One piece of enabling technology is the proliferation of Javascript frameworks—all of the tricky encryption we do at the user level would of been really hard to do even a year or two ago, we’re riding the wave of pushing more intelligence to the browser.

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

We launched at a Startup Weekend late last year, incorporated in January of this year, powered through our alpha, and just recently launched into open beta. We now have dozens of customers, growing daily.

What are your next milestones?

We’re working on increasing our user base by a large factor over the next few months, and we also have some very cool, top secret technology in the works that we think people will get excited about.

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

TeamPassword.com and @teampassword are the places to go.

Now check out: Here’s how NOT to pitch nibletz, or any other site for that matter.

Kauffman Foundation’s 1 Millon Cups Heads To Georgetown, Delaware

The Wednesday morning coffee and networking event called 1 Million Cups, created by the Kauffman Foundation, has added its 10th location and its first northeastern city. It’s not New York, Providence, or Boston. Instead, the latest community to join the 1 Million Cups family is on the Georgetown, Delaware, campus of Delaware Technical Community College. Georgetown, Delaware, sits about 20 miles from the Delaware and Maryland beach resorts.

1 Million Cups began in April 2012 in Kansas City, the hometown of its founding organization, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Kauffman Labs is a program of the Kauffman Foundation.

With its launch on the campus of Delaware Technical Community College in Georgetown, 1Million Cups is on target to expand its network to 20 cities by the end of 2013. Program leaders also plan to have at least one international city in the mix this year.

“We are thrilled to welcome Delaware entrepreneurs to the 1 Million Cups family,” Thom Ruhe, vice president of entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation said in a statement. “Georgetown represents not only our 10th city overall, but it is our first Northeastern community and the first time 1 Million Cups has partnered with a community college. We expect to learn things in this new environment that can be applied as we continue to introduce the program to ever more diverse audiences and locales.”

The 1 Million Cups model is consistent in every market. Every Wednesday morning in each city, two early-stage startups present their companies to a diverse audience of mentors, advisers, and other entrepreneurs. Each founder presents for six minutes and then fields audience questions for another 20 minutes. The program is run entirely by local entrepreneurs who serve as community organizers.

Entrepreneurs, innovators, and interested community members from Georgetown and the surrounding region will meet at 9 a.m. each Wednesday at Java 101 in the Student Service Center on Delaware Technical Community College’s Jack F. Owens Campus. The college also hopes to attract attendees from its other two campuses in the state. The first week’s presenters will be Lead Your Way Solutions, a leadership and organizational development startup, and fast-casual restaurant go brit! fish + chips.

“We’re extremely pleased to be partnering with the Kauffman Foundation to bring 1 Million Cups to the College and to the citizens of Delaware,” said Dr. Orlando J. George Jr., president of Delaware Tech. “We look forward to hosting this very exceptional program at all of our campuses to support entrepreneurs statewide.”

Georgetown joins Kansas City; Des Moines, Iowa; Houston; St. Louis; Cedar Rapids/Iowa City, Iowa; Reno, Nev.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Denver; and Chapel Hill/Research Triangle Park, N.C., in offering 1 Million Cups locally. Additional cities slated to launch 1 Million Cups in the next two months are Columbia, Mo.; Lawrence, Kan.; Orlando, Fla.; and San Diego.

1 million cups is great for startups everywhere else, so is this.

Founder Spotlight: Ryan Frankel CEO & Co-Founder VerbalizeIt

Ryan Frankel is the CEO and Co-Founder of VerbalizeIt, the company that delivers instant access to a global community of translators. Ryan received his MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 2012 and a Bachelors of Arts degree from Haverford College in 2006. Ryan is a 2012 TechStars alumnus, former private equity investor for Goldman Sachs and an endurance athletics enthusiast. Follow him @rvfrankel.

Who is your hero?

My dad, hands down.

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

Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you. If you find yourself at the top of the intelligence chain at your company, you’ve done something wrong. In creating a team of intelligent and driven individuals, encourage healthy debate. Disagreement is a good thing, and many times, it’s the best of things in plowing the right path forward. Encourage people to air their opinions and take a stance, even if it’s against the broader consensus.

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 biggest mistake has been spreading myself and our team too thin by chasing after too many different opportunities. One of the best pieces of advice I have received is that the worst word in any entrepreneur’s vocabulary is “and.” As in, “We’re focused on X, and Y, and Z ….” Be laser focused and avoid becoming a mile wide and only an inch deep.

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

I scroll through all of my emails and pick the highest value emails to respond to first. It’s my own 80:20 rule and it helps me focus on the most important outcomes. I also don’t neglect or push back emails to family and friends. When I first launched my business, family and friends naturally took a back seat and I have since re-prioritized my time to make time for those who support me beyond by business.

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

There’s a fine line between (a) being so scrappy that you miss out on the right opportunities or are not able to hire the best talent and (b) being ineffective or inconsiderate with cash management. As a naturally scrappy person, I have found myself in situations where being pennywise and pound-foolish has detracted more value than it has saved me capital. I make a conscious effort to remain mindful of our cash position but cognizant of how my naturally scrappy personality can be an impediment to meeting business objectives.

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

Find someone who will absolutely rip your vision apart and engage them in a constructive debate. Even if 95 percent of their feedback is off base, you’re bound to find some real pearls of wisdom in there. Accelerate success and failure by pushing yourself outside of your preconceived notions of the right approach.

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

Success for me is encapsulated in both personal and professional achievements. Finding personal satisfaction and enjoyment in my work and ensuring that I’m enjoying the journey and not just focused on the destination is important to me. I know I have a penchant for being too focused on the end result. Professionally, setting and achieving specific goals for revenue, market share and brand awareness is how I evaluate when I’ve finally “succeeded.” I constantly revisit these goals and our relative progress.

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.

SellingThe Parents, Richard Branson & Acquisition: Bad Ass Startup Chick Stacey Ferreira Tells Her Story

Stacey Ferreira is a bad ass startup chick, and quite frankly has one of the most bad ass stories we’ve ever heard. That story starts when she was a student at an all girls Catholic high school in Phoenix, Arizona. When you hear about entrepreneurs starting out as developers in high school, a lot of times those stories are about boys.

Well Ferreira was lonely and missing all of her public school friends who were about 40 miles away. Looking for something to do to pass the time she turned to her brother Scott. He had just begun teaching himself how to program, so the two of them decided they would learn how to become game developers.

Through the rest of her time in high school, Ferreira spent her free time creating and developing different projects with her brother. Then the time came to graduate high school and their parents insisted that they had just one more summer left before they had to go get real internships like everyone else. The Ferreira siblings decided to go all in and move to Los Angeles to build out one of the projects that they had worked on in high school. That project became MySocialCloud.

During that summer Richard Branson held a fundraiser contest of sorts that said if you could donate $2,000 to his charity you could have cocktails with Branson in Miami. Stacey wasn’t even old enough to drink, but quickly realized the value in spending time with Branson. Oh, the other problem was they didn’t have the money. To make matters worse, when they called and talked with someone in Branson’s office they discovered the two of them would need $4,000 not $2000.

Scott and Stacey now had the daunting task of selling their dad on getting a loan. Dad wanted a business plan, Stacey told the standing room-only crowd at a startup event Tuesday in Chattanooga. So she and Scott developed a business plan. Almost reluctantly their dad said yes, but they had to return the money in 3 months.

That ended up not being too tough because that meeting in Miami ended up with a million dollar investment.

Stacey, who is also involved with the Young Entrepreneur’s Council, told her story during FireSide Talks, which featured Thiel Fellows and other entrepreneurs 20 and under. Stacey talked about her entrepreneurial journey from that private school in Arizona, to living in almost the slums of Los Angeles, meeting Branson, getting $1 million dollar investment, and eventually getting acquired. Oh, and that was in less than two years.

Watch Stacey tell her own story:

DC Startup Bracketeers Engages Customers With March Madness All Year Long

Contesting is one of the best ways to enhance customer engagement. People love to win prizes and are typically willing to give up their contact information and other data to get something free. The problem with this is that after the contest is over, the engagement is over as well.

Facebook and Twitter may seem like excellent forms of engagement, but they have one big drawback. The problem with engaging on these social media platforms is that you’re sending customers to other websites instead of keeping them engaged on your site. Social media is an amazing source of engagement, but there is risk that you could lose your audience.

Well DC-based serial entrepreneur Craig Zingerline, one of the cofounders of Barrel of Jobs, has launched a new startup called Bracketeers. They offer longer tail engaging contests, typically tournament style like March Madness. The goal: keep the customer engaged and coming back.

“All businesses want hardy, exciting relationships with customers and more potential to reach new ones. However, engagement and list building is challenging and costly. Existing social marketing and contest platforms are expensive – often starting over $5k/month – and businesses are at the same time sending users out to Facebook when they could be keeping them on their own websites. We provide a cost-effective, easy-to-use, and FUN way to enhance customer relationships,” Zingerline told us in an interview.

In addition to providing customers with a fun and engaging way to improve a customer relationship, the user, or brand is getting valuable data from the experience itself.

We got a chance to talk with Zngerline about Bracketeers. Check out the interview below.

What is your startup called?

Bracketeers

What does your company do?

Bracketeers is a SaaS web-based platform for connecting companies & brands to consumers through voting and list contests. We offer “March Madness” style tournament Prediction & Voting Brackets as well as matchup based voting. Our clients grow their audience and marketing list with high engagement contest tools, and have more fun while spending less money doing so.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

Craig Zingerline, Co-founder & CEO – Craig is a 15 year veteran of web technology and brings deep team building, product development and strategy to the team. Craig provides pragmatic leadership and direction to the company and started developing web-based applications while in college. He has been both founder and executive of multiple startups, and has also worked for and consulted with dozens of small to large firms. Craig earned his Bachelor of Science in Information Management and Technology from Syracuse University.

Stephen Phillips, Co-founder & CTO – Stephen’s career has spanned close to 20 years, building enterprise applications in a myriad of technologies for major brands. During that time he has held the role of CTO, Technical Architect, Consultant, Senior Software Engineer, and business owner. Prior to founding Bracketeers, Stephen held the role of Technical Architect for Accenture, one of the world’s largest consulting firms, working with major brands like Google, Motorola, Godiva, and Taylormade-Adidas-Ashworth. Prior to this, he founded Cardiff Creative, an interactive consulting firm, building an impressive portfolio of premier life science companies.

Where are you based?

We’re based in Washington, DC and San Diego, CA.

Why now?

We are the only company offering prediction & voting bracket contests that we know of. Our platform is getting great input from the market, and with all of the high profile enterprise acquisitions of social contest tools (i.e. Wildfire acquired by Google) there is an opportunity in the lower cost SMB segment to reach a huge number of clients who have been priced out of other platforms.

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

We have multiple paying clients now, including monthly and yearly subscriptions and are just getting started! Our system has collected tens of thousands of leads for our clients, and we’ve seen over 1.6 million votes tallied so far.

What are your next milestones?

We’re looking to raise a seed round to continue building our team, refining our product, and ramping up marketing and sales efforts – we’ve been growing solely on word of mouth so far.

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

People can follow our updates at www.bracketeers.com. We’re on twitter @bracketeers and facebook

Bracketeers will be in the Startup Vilage at this huge startup conference.

Startup Accelerators: The Hard Advice

GigTank, Mira Designs, Sisasa, TidBit, startups, accelerators

(Lawrence Yu CoFounder of Mira Designs. Photo NMI 2013)

Startup accelerators are great,] because they give young growing startups capital, access to resources, mentors, and hopefully investors. But they aren’t always rosy. In fact, if all your days in an accelerator program are rosy, then you need to run like hell from that accelerator program.

On our sneaker-strapped startup road trip, we’ve had the privilege of meeting several startups in mid session. We’ve seen startup founders cry, scream, cuss, even break things, typically right before they have that “aha moment”. What we normally find is that the hardest piece of advice, and usually the “ugly baby” moment, is very early on in the accelerator. In fact most accelerators engineer an activity on day one or two where mentors, advisors, or even media members are invited in to tear an idea to shreds.

We got a chance to talk with Lawrence Yu, cofounder of Mira Designs, Alejandro Dinsmore, cofounder of Sisasa, and Sam Bowden, founder and CEO of TidBit. All three startups graduated from the GigTank accelerator in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Tuesday afternoon.

For Yu, the hardest advice came as an eye opening experience that they weren’t the only startup trying to fix offline retail with online components. The team at Mira Designs needed to make sure that they were clearly differentiating themselves from the competition and they needed to do it in a big way.

For both Bowen and Dinsmore, their harshest advice was an ugly baby moment that for both startups meant a pivot. Sisasa totally changed course from the idea they came into the accelerator with. For Bowen it meant going after a different industry, actually an industry he knew more about first hand. The end result of both of their “ugly baby” moments was what most would call traction.

The video below features all three founders talking about their harshest or most eye opening advice in the GigTank.

Check out the accelerator panel with accelerator heads from across the country at this national startup conference.