We Talk With Frank Denbow The GoTo Guy For StartupThread And New York Tech

Once your startup moves from idea stage to something, that often times involves a logo. The next natural move is getting that logo put on whatever you can, especially t-shirts. It seems that no matter how big or small the startup, there’s always a t-shirt for it. NY entrepreneur and startup community leader Frank Denbow has embraced that as the founder of StartupThreads.

StartupThreads is a startup itself that allows startups to go on their site, design, upload, create and have their merchandise shipped. Dealing primarily in startups, Denbow offers very competitive pricing and has seen closets and closets full of startup t-shirts.

Startup culture is becoming more mainstream. Walking the streets of any big startup community, whether it be San Francisco, New York, Boulder or even Nashville you’ll see your fair share of startup wear. Going somewhere like TechCrunch Disrupt or SXSW and you’ll see t-shirt overload. In fact, one of the travel tips I’ve given for SXSW is only pack a t-shirt to wear to the event, startups and bands have your week long wardrobe covered.

As you can imagine with the amount of startups in the world Denbow is a pretty busy guy. But in addition to StartupThreads he’s working on another startup simultaneously and in the infamous words of Billy Mays (RIP), but that’s not all.

Denbow also finds time to attend the NY Startup Meetups, plan and help with NY Startup Weekend and curate the Startup Digest. He also sits on the board for the Academy of Software Engineering.

Denbow is well respected and well liked amongst the startup community across the country. In fact he’s even good friends with our friend Denver Hutt who we reported on earlier this week.

Check out our interview with Denbow below he talks about Startup Threads and how the NY tech startup community has grown so fast.

We’ve got over 50 startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013.

Buffalo NY Startup Gradfly, Portfolio’s For High School Students

Everyone’s familiar with how artists and designers have portfolio’s for their work. An artist or designer’s best work is kept in one place, now online of course, so that it’s easy for fans, clients and even buyers to see.

Well Buffalo NY startup Gradfly is doing the same exact thing for high school students with a concentration in science and technology students who are “building the most awesome things”, Oscar Pedroso, Gradfly’s CEO and co-founder said in an interview.

Students who enjoy STEM-oriented activities such as building robots, writing code, or solving complex math equations, can build an online portfolio and share their technical creations and achievements in picture, video, or Pinterest-like format with friends, colleges and companies. GradFly’s vision is to bridge the gap between a STEM education, technical training and employability.

GradFly is committed to help open doors in STEM and STEM only. It’s not just going after any high school or college student, GradFly is going after students who want to succeed in this new information-based and highly technological society; the company even welcomes curious students. GradFly understands students need to develop their capabilities in STEM to levels much beyond what was considered in the past. At GradFly, talented students are taking their first step by creating an online portfolio and then connecting to technical colleges and companies that are looking for tomorrow’s scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians. GradFly is empowering these students (and their parents) to make the best and most affordable decisions about their education and career in STEM. For college and companies, GradFly will standout by offering modern tools focused on sourcing, talent analytics, assessment, interview management and search.

The startup’s team, which also includes Anna Hadnagy (CIO), Elliott Regan (Front End Programmer) and Herb Susmann (Chief Architect) were selected last fall for the Z80 Labs Technology Incubator.

The work they’ve done over the last 9 months really paid off as they were one of the startups selected to pitch on the TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 Battlefield stage.

During that appearance, the judges questioned why high school STEM students couldn’t just use GitHub. To that Pedroso says that Gradfly is more visual, helping students tell a story with their work. They also have a focused community of high school aged students, where of course there is no age requirement for GitHub.

Check out our video interview with Pedroso below and for more information visit gradfly.com

Check out all these other startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013

Kentucky Startup Givr Launches Frictionless Giving To Charitable Causes

As the mobile wallet space and frictionless payments for consumers continues to explode, socially charged entrepreneurs are starting to explore using that technology for good. Specifically, socially conscious startups are starting to embrace technology, and mobile technology to facilitate charitable transactions.

Last week in Memphis Tennessee, Pam & Tom Cooper launched their startup Boosterville, out of the Seed Hatchery accelerator program. Boosterville embraces mobile technology, incorporates loyalty, rewards, mobile payments and fundraising, all in one easy to use app.

Now we drive up the road to Danville Kentucky where Brock Klein along with Brushfire Interactive started Givr.

“Givr is a native iPhone payments application dedicated to helping charitable organizations achieve their giving goals. The Givr app provides users with an elegant, frictionless giving experience that dramatically reduces the time and stress associated with mobile giving.” Phoenix based Brushfire’s Brandon Clarke told us in an interview.

The logic here being that as it gets easier to actually donate money to a cause or charity, more money will be donated. This has been shown time and time again when natural disaster’s have struck and the Red Cross has mobilized donations via text message. With the simplicity of using a mobile phone to quickly donate money, more money comes in.

Check out the rest of our interview with Givr below.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Givr was founded out of a passion for technology and philanthropy by Brock Klein. After studying economics and statistical analysis at Centre College in Kentucky, Brock worked in the financial services industry. His evolving interest in digital development led him to Phoenix, Arizona based BrushfireInteractive, where he worked as project manager. With the support of Brushfire’s founder, Gabe Cooper, Brock began to refine the scope of Givr and development began in the Fall of 2012.

Where are you based?

Danville, KY (Central Kentucky)

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

Nascent. Startups have been coming out of Kentucky for a while but the community is just beginning to get connected and evolve.

What problem does your startup solve?

Remove the friction with routine giving. Don’t have cash on you? Don’t have a checkbook? Not in front of your computer? You can still give to a cause or organization important to you.

What is one challenge that you’ve overcome in the startup process?

One of our greatest early challenges was defining the scope of the project, balancing big dreams with a lean launch.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

Our first milestone was closing our seed round of financing, catalyzing our development process.

Our biggest milestone was launching our iOS app in the App Store.

What are your next milestones

Our next milestone is 100 nonprofit organizations adopting our platform with at least 1,000 users (Givr’s) using the app for their routine giving with these organizations by the end of the year.

Who are your mentors and role models?

We wouldn’t be where we are today without the mentorship and counsel we’ve had. One of our early investors, First Southern National Bank, has consistently given invaluable counsel – particularly the chairman and founder, Jess Correll and the Director of Culture and Outreach, Dan Lewis. Gabe Cooper and LorenKutsko of Brushfire Interactive have also given consistent and indispensable advice and insight into the mobile giving space. Finally, Brian Crall, an executive coach and successful business leader, consistently points us in the right strategic direction.

What are some of the advantages/disadvantages growing your startup outside of Silicon Valley.

Quiet. We’ve been able to put our heads down and focus on our product and our mission. We’ve had all the benefits of top line expertise without any of the noise.

What’s next for your startup?

We’re moving into the broader launch of our platform. “How can we help people express their generosity through mobile?” Wherever that answer leads is where we will go.

Where can people find out more?

People can see our product at www.givrmobile.com.

Startup America and Startup Weekend have merged, story here.

Memphis Animation Startup ProdigiArts To Partner With Nibletz Community

Prodigi Arts is an animation startup that works out of the same incubator that we work out of. While an animation studio may not be your typical high growth potential startup, as a technology company based in Memphis founder Chris O’Conner and all around jack of all trades and Public Relations Coordinator for the company Joshua Colfer, are running the company with the vigor of any startup.

They rely on the resources that other startups in Memphis rely on and they face many of the same issues tech startups face in a medium sized revitalizing market. As Colfer tells us below, O’Conner started Prodigi Arts as a side business or side startup and then made the decision to take the plunge and take the company full time.

Now both O’Conner and Colfer will contribute to the Nibletz community providing content based on their experiences as entrepreneurs, experience in technology and experience in technology. Prodigi Arts will contribute on a wide range of themes, from best practices for startups resorting to animation videos for telling their startup stories, to taking the plunge and pushing an idea forward.

Both O’Conner and Colfer are committed to the world of startups and animation. After just moving into the incubator they made it appoint to attend the first everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference and then sought out the nibletz team to share their thoughts. Colfer and O’Conner are joining an evergrowing stable of great people contributing to the nibletz community like Sarah Ware (co-founder and CEO of Markerly), Mike Muhney the godfather of CRM, and several members of the Young Entrepreneurs Council.

Below Colfer tells us a lot more about Prodigi Arts and just why they’re part of the nibletz, “everywhere else” community. If you want to take your animation project to the next level you can find out more about Prodigi Arts here at prodigiarts.com and you can email Josh directly at jcolfer@prodigiarts.com

Prodigi Arts is an animation studio that produces memorable and poignant multimedia productions used in advertising, commercials, product development, training videos.

Prodigi was founded in 2005 by Memphis native Chris O’ Conner. Steeped heavily in the arts world, Chris grew up sketching, singing, composing music and performing for audiences everywhere. After graduating from Middle Tennessee State University in 2006, Chris had the opportunity to continue his education in animation in Southern California, or return to Memphis to grow and cultivate Prodigi Arts. He chose to return to his hometown to work as a Marketing Representative for the Germantown Performing Arts Center from 2007 to 2010, and served as a Creative Consultant for the performing arts Group, Watoto De Africa as well. During this time, he also began fine tuning the business plan for Prodigi Arts and making connections in the area.

We are based in Memphis, TN.

The startup culture in Memphis can be likened to the AV kids in high school who find support and belonging in the dark confines of the technology room, who one day hope to join the society of filmmakers or special effects artists. Fortunately, startups in the Bluff City have the support of organizations like Launch Memphis, Emerge Memphis and the University of Memphis Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Since Memphis is a city that is not as quick to embrace innovation and technological advances, startups face some difficulty securing capital from investors willing to take risks on fresh ideas.

Prodigi Arts creates memorable, engaging and entertaining productions through the art of animation. Capturing the attention of audiences is a difficult endeavor for any company, small and big alike. We solve this problem by incorporating 2D & 3D animation, motion graphics, live action and video production into every project. We solve the problem of communicating complex ideas in a simple and concise manner for companies and organizations to tell their stories in the most understandable way possible.

A difficulty that we have faced is entering into the entrepreneurial process without investors or startup capital. Thus far, we have been able to subside entirely on revenue generated from client projects, with the intentions of holding private ownership over the company.

A recent stride that we have made as a company has been our Corporate Sponsorship of Leadership Memphis, which is shared by large entities like United Way and FedEx. In addition, we have signed a three year contract to create the animated and video productions for the CFO of the Year and Small Business Awards with Memphis Business Journal. In addition, Prodigi’s founder, Chris O’ Conner has spoken at numerous events about being a minority business owner, and was honored with the Innovator of the Year Award in Decemeber of 2012 at the “Agents of Change” Gala.

Within the next year, we hope to take on projects that will stretch our creative abilities as an animation studio and grow a more diverse portfolio that highlight different animation techniques. We also aim to become a staple animation company in the Memphis and Mid-South region within the next year that companies will go to when they seek animated commercials, instead of larger firms in the New York or Los Angeles area.

One of Chris’ mentors is a marketing professor at Middle Tennessee State University, who has helped him organize his business plan and strategize about how to market animation services to businesses in the area. Another is Dale Carnegie, author of the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. While no longer alive, Carnegie’s ideas about forming business relationships and working within the framework of others’ objectives is an imperative lesson for Prodigi as we seek to make connections with companies and grow our clientele base.

One of our advantages to being located in Memphis is that we are the only animation studio to occupy a niche that has previously gone unoccupied in the past. Being the only animation company, we can provide a creative service at a lower cost than the larger studios in New York or Los Angeles. However, the associations with animation have at times dissuaded businesses from using our services. More often than not, companies assume that we provide animation for children’s shows and cartoons, rather than for companies looking to tell their stories in creative ways. In Metropolitan areas, animation is used regularly in advertisements and commercials, and provides a memorable alternative to video production. Many businesses in Memphis have yet to think of these kinds of applications for animation, and still hold on to their assumptions of animation for children’s shows and cartoons. In essence, we are creating a market for animation.

At the moment we have just finished a live action animation project with Hnedak Bobo Group, and will be starting on the Small Business of the Year Awards with the Memphis Business Journal within a week. After that we have potential clients in mind that we will focus on reaching out to in hopes of partnering with them to bring their brands to life.

We can be found out at www.prodigiarts.com

Facbook

Twitter Name: prodigiarts1

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Designers You’re Going To Love This Madrid Startup, Concept Inbox

The best designers in the world hate having to deal with technology. As crazy as that sounds they want to create things and design things. They don’t have the time to worry about how to share it.

Now a lot of designers, at least the good ones, know that they need clients and need good relationships with them. In many ways good designers need these same personal traits that web developers have. But outside of that, great designers should be tasked with great design.

It’s that premise, and of course simplicity, that’s inspired Oscar del Rio, Miguel Angel Gaton, and Yesica Gonzalez, three entrepreneurs based in Madrid, to create “Concept Inbox”.

“As a designer, all you have to do is send your designs by email to an address that we provide, and automatically this will generate a workspace where your client and you will be able to interact quickly and easily. With Concept inbox, you can manage all your design projects with a single tool therefore avoiding distractions, and focusing on what really matters which is getting quick approval and saving time and money.” del Rio told nibletz.com in an interview.

Check out the rest of our interview with del Rio below:

What is Concept Inbox?

Concept inbox is a powerful, straightforward, and extremely easy to use tool for designers, to improve interaction with their clients, in order to get feedback, and quick approval on their designs.

In layman’s terms, how does it work? (In other words how would you explain it to your grandmother)

As a designer, all you have to do is send your designs by email to an address that we provide, and automatically this will generate a workspace where your client and you will be able to interact quickly and easily.

With Concept inbox, you can manage all your design projects with a single tool therefore avoiding distractions, and focusing on what really matters which is getting quick approval and saving time and money.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Oscar del Rio (CEO): Studied Music (Bassoon / Piano) and Software development. Microstrategy Business Intelligence certified. 7 years experience working on design / development areas and 3 years as an entrepreneur. Started 2 companies, 1 success, 1 fail (this is third) and collaborate with others as an advisor / mentor

Miguel Angel Gatón (CMO): Computer Sciences Engineer, Master degree in Marketing. 5 yrs experience (Michelin) as Media Planner and Online Marketing manager. Co-founded 3 companies.

Yesica González (CFO): Computer Sciences Engineer, Master degree in Finances. Co-founded 3 companies.

Where are you based?

Madrid, Spain

What’s the startup scene/culture like where you’re based?

Madrid startup community is growing every day. We have great startup accelerators, tons of events and an extensive network of mentors

How did you come up with the idea for Concept Inbox?

Concept inbox is made by designers, for designers. We really love design, but it also can be very stressful …The questions, last minute changes, misunderstandings, endless calls and interruptions that can cause setbacks on deadlines.We suffered this for years, so we tried to simplify it. Concept inbox is as simple as sending an email.

How did you come up with the name?

The name came up thinking we’d like to have an unique tool with all the incoming feedback from our customers about our concepts / designs. Like an email inbox but with no penis enlargement or viagra messages and that stuff.

What problem does Concept Inbox solve?

Concept inbox provides an easy workspace to use, where designers can share designs with clients, get feedback from them and get approval faster, avoiding endless calls and misunderstandings that cause delays on deadlines

What’s your secret sauce?

We are focused on providing tools to drastically save time to both designer / agency and customer. Now we are developing the new version of the platform which includes some of that new tools.

Are you bootstrapped or funded?

We have received 40k € from Telefonica’s accelerator Way

What are some milestones you’ve achieved?

We’ve been up and running from September 2012, and we already have over 3000 designers from 17 countries using the tool.

Concept inbox was selected as one of the TOP50 Startups at Pioneers Festival, Vienna.

Also we were chosen from 450+ startups to participate in Wayra Madrid acceleration programme.

What’s your next milestone?

We are working hard to launch a new version of Concept inbox in two months.

Who are some of your mentors and business role models?

Since the beginning of the project we had the support of many different mentors, from serial entrepreneurs to multinational professionals with extensive experience.

They have helped us to look at the big picture and see things from other points of view.

What’s next for Concept Inbox?

We’re about to launch the new version and also looking for funding to let more people to know our service.

Where can people find out more?

conceptinbox.com

See the mobile email startup we like better than mailbox.

San Diego Startup Forward Metrics Is Strategic Planning Made Easy

San Diego startup ForwardMetrics is off to the races running. They specialize in simple, easy to understand strategic planning, but once you dive into ForwardMetrics it’s much more than just planning. The ForwardMetrics community is made up of entrepreneurs, c-level executives, executive and business coaches and people just starting out in the business world.

Last october at CTIA’s MobileCon event, ForwardMetrics founder Ozzie DiVinere told bnetTV.com that ForwardMetrics will become the goto place for anyone in business who wants to be successful.

Their enterprise class strategic planning software is based in the cloud and has two main products FM Navigator which any sized company can use to help brainstorm new strategies, hit goals and hold stakeholders accountable.

The other piece is Client Navigator which is a set of tools for executive and business coaches that offers new ways to work with clients.

Then they have the ForwardMetrics community which is designed to connect forward thinkers at any stage in their business lives, to ultimately become more successful.

We got a chance to talk with Andrew Hard the Marketing Director at ForwardMetrics. Check out the interview below:

What is your startup, what does it do?

Our startup is called ForwardMetrics, we have built enterprise-class strategic planning software that is based in the cloud. Companies can use our software (called FM Navigator) to brainstorm new strategies, hit their goals and hold stakeholders in key departments accountable.

We also have a Client Navigator product, a different version with a set of additional tools designed specifically for consultants and executive coaches that offers new ways to work with clients – along with powerful tools for acquisition, retention and revenue.

Our very unique go-to-market strategy is not to sell directly to companies, but to license our software to consultants and executive coaches, who are the individuals that actually conduct strategic planning sessions at the vast majority of companies.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

The founders are our CEO Ozzie DiVinere and CSO Scott Warner, here are their brief backgrounds:

Ozzie DiVinere is CEO/Co-Founder of ForwardMetrics.com. He Co-Founded the company in 2011 with a vision to bring enterprise cloud-based technology to the strategic planning, performance management and project management space. DiVinere’s passion is to transform organizations by connecting them with executive coaches and strategic planners to adopt cloud technologies to help each one achieve success and grow their businesses. A win-win paradigm.

In his previous role as Senior Vice President of the Private Client Group at Altegris, which was acquired by the Fortune 250 Company Genworth, DiVinere was responsible for delivering strategic sales and support to Altegris’ wealthiest customers globally. In addition, DiVinere created a very successful toy company, Skate Monster, which had Walmart as its primary customer.

DiVinere received his B.S. in Business Administration, Marketing from San Diego State University.

Scott Warner serves as Chief Strategic Officer/Co-Founder. After Co-Founding the company in 2011, Warner provides the vision for the company and is the Chief Architect of the FM Navigator and Client Navigator platforms.Prior to founding ForwardMetrics he was the Founder, CEO and Chairman of AccuSoft Corporation, the leading imaging technology company, which was acquired in 2008. He is also the founder of several other companies in areas including fitness and real estate as well as an angel investor and adviser to numerous organizations in the area of strategic planning and growth.

Where are you based?

We are based in Encinitas, Calif. Encinitas is just north of downtown San Diego.

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

The culture is San Diego is very strong for startups, BioTech especially. The downtown San Diego area is extremely friendly for startups. Very friendly and very strong startup culture. There are a number of incubators and angel investors in the downtown area, a lot of venture capital floating around and a very strong entrepreneurial spirit.

The startup capitals in the area are in Carlsbad (biotech), Sorento Valley and downtown there are several business parks (nearby the Qualcomm campus, etc.) There are definitely pockets throughout the area – San Diego has a very unique startup culture, but there a very friendly atmosphere, resources and money to be invested.

Most San Diego-area startups are Biotech, consulting or chipmakers – ForwardMetrics is very unique for the area.

What problem does your startup solve?

Eighty percent of companies DO NOT HAVE a strategic plan – a ship without a rudder. The other 20 percent do not implement their plans properly.

Most often, a consultant will come in to an organization and conduct a lengthy and highly expensive sessions – at the end of which he hands the company their strategic plan for the next one to five years in the form of a static Excel spreadsheet. That static, print document is not dynamic and becomes old just weeks after the consultant walks out of the building – most often it ends up in a desk drawer and is looked at never or rarely, and then only by the executive team.

ForwardMetrics’ new cloud-based software lets consultants and coaches offer companies a dynamic, living strategic plan that can be tracked and implemented at an organization after they leave. The software tracks goals from the plan in different departments, making it so the company leadership can track progress and make sure that the company is performing as needed.

What is one challenge that you’ve overcome in the startup process?

We have overcome a number of obstacles. We’ve overcome the typical obstacles around raising money from investors, skepticism and reluctance to take risks. Round A of fundraising will end this coming week – after really starting the process a full year ago.

We’ve also faced the challenges that many area startups have dealt with – difficulties with finding the right outside development team, marketing/design agency and video vendors. There are many resources of this kind in the area – but many of these companies overcharge, underperform and care very little about their clients.

Shifting from a dev team in India, to our current team in the Ukraine – along with having many different remote employees — has caused all sorts of interesting communications problems.

We’ve also face the problems that a lot of startups deal with of being understaffed – people are wearing multiple hats and there is more to get done than we have resources and people to do them. Through all of that, we have managed to launch a solid, enterprise-class software app with an eager base of prospective clients and a solid social and PR presence.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

On May 15, we will launch game-changing new technology – which helps organizations change the paradigm and operate on a results-based approach. It is a revolutionary shift in how companies are run, changing the focus from managing activity to a focus only on results.

We also have a thriving community site that has grown to over 500 executive coaches, consultants and business leaders sharing content and making connections. The membership growth on this site has increased very rapidly in just the last few months – and the growth is only spiking even more.

We’ve also forged an impressive number of strategic partnerships with hundreds of consultants, executive coaches and strategic planners – generated a lot of interest from surprisingly large companies – and have also gotten some good press exposure.

What are your next milestones?

Our next milestones are to launch the product and grow to at least $2-4 million in revenue by the end of the year. We also intend to grow our community site well into the thousands by the end of the year, and of course growing our client base to several top consulting firms and prominent companies.

We also want to receive that crucial customer feedback and greatly enhance our products so that they can be integrated into literally thousands of businesses around the globe.

Who are your mentors and role models?

Mark Cuban, Marc Benioff, Larry Ellison, Jeffrey Immelt, Steve Jobs, Steven Covey

What are some of the advantages/disadvantages growing your startup outside of Silicon Valley?

Advantages: Top talent is extremely attracted to the San Diego area, both because of the city’s reputation and the natural beauty of the destination. Top talent in sales and marketing can also be found at extremely discounted prices in this area as opposed to L.A., New York, etc. There is also a large base of VC and angel investors, along with retired businessmen, in the San Diego area – so the region also helped with fund-raising as well. San Diego also offers an interested array of strategic business partners and marketing boutique-type resources.

Disadvantages: Finding good development resources is definitely a challenge – this might apply to a lot of places, it’s probably something you her somewhat frequently, but it’s very hard to know what you’re going to get and also get good work back for your dollar. Through everything, we have ended up with a very talented dev team that we’re able to work with very closely. Another great advantage of being in the Silicon Valley area is access to input from a wide array of technology companies – however, at ForwardMetrics we have had access to great input from professional strategic planning professionals and received extremely positive feedback even very recently.

What’s next for your startup?

The way we reach the market is very unique: Instead of going after companies, we work with consultants, executive coaches and strategic planners – who introduce the technology to their clients and continue to work with them to create and execute plans that achieve goals.

From there, we launch FM University to train and certify our partner coaches and consultants on the use of FM Navigator and our other cloud-based tools, and conduct extensive trainings and virtual events – along with a massive PR blitz! We will also be hiring on more staff including a much larger, more robust sales team and more in-house marketing resources, heck, maybe even an HR person!

Where can people find out more, and what is your Twitter username?

To find out more, please visit www.forwardmetrics.com or visit our social: Our Twitter is @ForwardMetrics, our Facebook is facebook.com/ForwardMetrics and our LinkedIn page is http://www.linkedin.com/company/2537683.

Now check out Recruiting for Success: Tapping into Your Local University

New York Startup InBetweenJobs Is For People Who, You Guessed It, Are InBetweenJobs

Finding yourself in between jobs can be one of the scariest things on earth. Some people are lucky, and they know when they might have to start looking for work. Most people, on the other hand, have no idea that they are about to get laid off or that a company is shutting down. For anyone out of work though, uncertainty can be a very scary thing.

Not knowing where the next paycheck is coming from is typically the biggest threat in between jobs, but other things like health insurance, other employee benefits, taxes and resources can become overwhelming.

Big companies usually help out displaced workers through third party companies. These companies, chronicled in the George Clooney movie Up In The Air, connect people to job placement services, resume companies, skill builders and other resources. For the rest of us though, navigating in between jobs can be the hardest job of all.

InBetweenJobs is a New York startup that sets out to simplify and enrich the process of being in between jobs. The company offers access to resources for things like polishing your cover letter, updating your resume, improving your skills, researching trends and companies in your field and of course hunting for jobs. They’re also hoping to offer interviewing tips, information about COBRA insurance and anything that anyone in between jobs could need.

InBetweenJobs incentivizes the time between jobs by offering points for real life rewards. When a user participates in an activity like taking a quick online course in cover letters they earn points. Points can then be redeemed for things like metrocards and free coffee, which when you’re saving every dime you have, can come in quite handy.

Not only do the points come in handy because they provide value to the job seeker, they can also serve as even the smallest little morale booster which people often times need when they are out of work.

Check out our video interview below with CEO and founder Diego Orofino and to sign up to be notified when InBetweenJobs opens, head over to inbetweenjobs.com.

Check out over 50 startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 here at nibletz.com

The Grizz N Grind Of The Grizzlies Spawn Startup Hoop City Memphis

Two Memphians who are fairly well known in the local Memphis community found common ground in a passion that the mostly blue collar city shares, the love of basketball. I must admit when Nibletz made the move to Memphis I had no idea how much Memphian’s loved the University of Memphis Tigers. Being from Baltimore and having lived in Auburn, the only Tigers I knew were of the blue and orange variety.

The Grizzlies on the other hand I knew. Baltimore’s native son, Rudy Gay, played for the Grizzlies his entire professional career until earlier this year when the Grizzlies traded him to the Toronto Raptors. Anyone from Baltimore or who lived in Baltimore in the early part of the 2000s knew that local Baltimore TV sportscasters had three segments, the Orioles, the Ravens and Rudy Gay. They tracked the high school standout right up to the point where he decided to commit to UConn instead of Maryland. With the stellar record of our closest team since the days of Wes Unsled and Manut Bol, (the Washington Wizards), it was no wonder I had turned to Memphis as my NBA team 6 years ago. So when the opportunity came to move to Memphis there was definitely Grizz appeal. I quickly became a season ticket holder.

What I witnessed first hand through the best and worst of games throughout the 2012-2013 season in person, was nothing less than remarkable. The way Memphis and Memphians come together to support their college and NBA basketball teams is nothing short of remarkable. It reminded me of the days that an AHL, not NHL team, the Baltimore SkipJacks, united Charm City.

Memphis is a town that was built on entrepreneurship, it’s just skipped a few decades recently. Household names like Fedex, Holiday Inn and Autozone found their roots in the Bluff City. The cotton trade, and water to rail transportation were staples in Memphis for hundreds of years. As of late though, the city shows signs of trying times, scars as the team from Hoop City Memphis puts it.

“We may live in an era of plastic surgery, but Memphis wears it’s scars for all to see. They are scars from our history, a darkened past many would like to forget. But all of it has made us what we are as Memphian’s. Getting here wasn’t easy, and there’s still a long way to go, but while we can, let’s pause for a moment and think about how unique Memphis is.” Hoop City Memphis writes on their website.

The t-shirt company is the brain child of two friends, a marketer, Leslie Skelton and a designer Ian Lemmonds. Both, who wear their grit n grind proudly. Skelton grew up in the Memphis area no stranger to a city who’s outskirts are crime ridden (downtown on the other hand is the safest district in Memphis), and no stranger to the businesses that left in droves through the 90’s.

Lemmonds on the other hand grew up in a family of 5 siblings on the brink of poverty. Escape for Lemmonds was found in art, skateboarding and ice hockey.

The two met at Mouse Foundry, an interactive agency in Memphis. Later, both ended up working for two different local papers. Lemmonds is a UX Designer at the local daily and Skelton is now working for one of the areas largest agencies. On the side though they created Hoop City Memphis. They weren’t’ looking to get rich, and they certainly couldn’t predict that the Memphis Grizzlies would be the favorite for many national sports publications, to win the 2013 NBA championship. Hoop City Memphis actually had more Tiger inspired t-shirts than Grizzlies.

Hoop City Memphis is a company that’s more about culture, and uniting a community through the commonality of basketball. “Nothing brings Memphis together like basketball” Skelton told us in a phone interview Monday.

The designs are all creations that Skelton gives most of the credit to Lemmonds for coming up with. While some may be a spin on something familiar they are all original. Memphians wear Hoop City Memphis gear more as a badge of honor, to “rep their city”.

Over the past few weeks, since the Memphis Grizzlies made the pages of the national papers, people have been talking about Memphis’ grit and grind. Many articles we’ve read on the big sites like SBNation, Yahoo Sports, Sports Illustrated and ESPN have talked about this underlying theme in Memphis. On the Hoop City Memphis site, both Lemmonds and Skelton nail that theme on the head. Memphis is a city that’s breaking out of it’s “low self esteem”. That idea can be seen everywhere in the Bluff City. From entrepreneurship on the rise, to the hundreds of thousands that partake in Memphis in May, to the Memphis Grizzlies.

Hoop City Memphis offers shirts that celebrate Memphis. Sure there are shirts that celebrate the Tigers and the Grizzlies but one of their favorites is one that says 38103 which is the zipcode for downtown Memphis. A few of the others deal with “grinding” a theme that Memphis is beginning to embrace, but it didn’t start in Memphis.

Lemmonds explains: “I’m actually a big hockey fan, and a lot of people don’t know, but the notion of a “grinding” team comes from hockey. It’s the idea of just to keep working hard, and eventually an opponent will give in. In the late 90′s the Toronto Maple Leaf’s were constantly called a “grinding” team. The idea of “grinding” is something Memphis needs to embrace in many areas when we compete against other cities – not just in sports, but in education, economic development, entreprenuership, etc. You may not realize it, but Memphis is competing against other cities in ways that are much bigger than sports…”

That was where Lemmonds came up with “Memphis Where Everywhereelse.co Comes To Grind” for the t-shirts given away at the inaugural everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference.

One of Memphis’ biggest industries these days is tourism. With that there are several companies that make t-shirts about Memphis. Skelton and Lemmonds are making t-shirts for Memphians that Memphians are proud to wear and can be found on any nationally televised Grizzlies game spread out in the crowd.

Skelton admitted though, that it’s nice that they are getting orders lately from all over the world. “Sure we have our site optimized but people come to Hoopcitymemphis.com and really like our designs.”

Hoop City Memphis has done such a good job they’ve garnered the attention of a copycat who uses the name “hoop city” which is actually a trademark of the NCAA. The copy cat has actually used property of the Grizzlies by marketing t-shirts with their team name and players faces on them. Imitation is of course the best form of flattery.

I learned about the copycat on Friday night at the Memphis BBQ festival when Memphis Grizzlies DJ Justin Baker, told me the shirt I had just been given that said “Whoop That Trick” on it, was actually from the fake Hoop City company.

As the Memphis Grizzlies continue to make franchise history, you can check out Hoop City Memphis’ shirts here and order some for yourself. For the locals the duo will have a pop up shop at South Of Beale on Main Street this Saturday before game three of the Western Conference Finals.

Grizzlies are all in with entrepreneurship and startups.

Want to see what Memphis is all about, come to this:

Memphis Seed Hatchery Investor Day Draws Global Audience

On Thursday in a swank movie theater in Memphis’ revitalized midtown district, six startups presented their companies to a theater that was literally, standing room only by the beginning of the pitches.

BetterFed (farm to consumer), MentorMe (e-harmony for mentors), Soundstache (a fan engagement platform for bands), Boosterville (a huge disruption in fundraising), Musistic (Github for musicians) and ScrewPulp (a better way to self publish), took the stage for 12 minute investor pitches after concluding the three month Seed Hatchery accelerator program.

Investors and spectators from Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee and as far away as Singapore and Silicon Valley were in attendance to take in the pitches.

Mara Lewis, a San Francisco based entrepreneur and founder of stopped.at, was in attendance for the Seed Hatchery festivities which included an after party at the world famous Memphis BBQ competition. Lewis, who’s pitched in front of plenty of crowds said that this group at Seed Hatchery was one of the best groups she’s seen. Lewis is currently working with Start Co’s co-President’s Andre Fowlkes and Eric Mathews on their upcoming Upstart women’s startup accelerator.

After playing host to a group of Memphis entrepreneurs (including myself) in Silicon Valley in March, Kuji Chahal of Fisher Investments made the cross country trek to hear the pitches from the Seed Hatchery cohort. Chahal stuck around throughout the festivities to talk with all of the new entrepreneurs.

Andre Mouton, an investor from Singapore has been ecstatic about Memphis’ entrepreneurship. He made a trip to Memphis in February which included visits to Launch Memphis, Bioworks and everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference. Mouton took meetings with entrepreneurs all weekend long at the BBQ Festival and over at the Peabody Hotel. Mouton told us that he was impressed at how hard everyone was working in Memphis, that my friend is the Grit N Grind.

Vic Gatto, a Managing Partner at Solidus, the investment firm that seeds the Seed Hatchery class along with Jump Start Foundry in Nashville, made it a point to call out investors in the room with a call to action to talk with the entrepreneurs, and see that all six businesses have a good chance of survival. Gatto’s partner Townes Duncan, along with his son Walker Duncan, co-founder and Editor in Chief at southernalpha also made it down from Nashville. The younger Duncan was returning from an event in Atlanta. Obviously the Grit N Grind of Memphis is expanding state wide.

Both Fowlkes and Mathews were quick to point out that Investor Day isn’t the conclusion of the Seed Hatchery program but rather the beginning. They recently added Rhodes graduate, Hillary Quirk, to the Start Co team as Community Manager. In her new role Quirk is forming an alumni association for Memphis’ accelerators which include the two cohorts at ZeroTo510.

You can find out more at neverstop.co and at their old site launchyourcity.com

See all the pitch videos from Seed Hatchery’s investor day here at nibletz.com The Voice Of Startups Everywhere Else.

Animate Your Life With Techstars Cloud Alum Skit [video]

Boston Startup Skit is a mobile app that lets you take your photos, and drawings and easily turn them into an animated story. The user doesn’t need to know a thing about animation. The app itself is all gesture based and easy for anyone with a little bit of mobile experience.

Skit is a lot more than an animated gif creator you can take your photos and drawings, turn them into a story, whatever story you want. Then you can share them with the Skit community and all of your friends through your social channels. Once you’ve shared your animation, anyone can “remix” it and make it their own.

You start with a blank canvas and Skit allows you to choose from art they provide for free or you can use your own photos and drawings from your iPad’s library. You can choose weather the photo or drawing is a character or a background, and the app provides you with tons of props as well.

Robin Johnson and Max Woon the cofounders of Skit both have animation backgrounds. Johnson has experience working on the Medal of Honor franchise, among others, while at Electronic Arts. Woon tells Silicon Hills founder Laura Lorek that he also have gaming and animation in his background but became obsessed with this animation idea after watching the making of South Park. In the video interview at SiliconHills website, he talks about how the creators of Southpark would sit in a studio and do the script first and then the animators would get to work.

Both Johnson and Woon wanted something easier and quicker to animate whatever the user wanted and to tell stories.

After the user finishes creating a skit they can save it locally or share it via Facebook and Youtube.

The team behind Skit launched it to the iTunes App store back in February and were chosen for the coveted last pitch position in the recent Techstars Cloud investor day pitches.

Check out our interview with Johnson below and for more information visit skitapp.com

We’ve got more startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 here.

Stop Putting Your Fitbit on Your Dog, Fitbark is Here [video]

Fitness and the “internet of things” go hand in hand. Today there are hundreds of devices with sensors and monitors that interact with your smartphone to give you the data you need on just about everything. We’ve tested devices here at nibletz world headquarters that monitor everything from temperature, to humidity, to steps walked to chlorine levels in a pool. Yes everything has a sensor.

The biggest segment here is of course fitness. Fitbit, Fuelband and other devices allow users to have their workouts monitored and the info tracked on the smartphone.

Well if you’ve decided to tether fitbit to your dog’s collar either to make it look like you’re working out more or you’re curious what kind of workout Rover is getting while you are at work, you can stop now.

Thanks to the brother and sister team of Davide and Sara Rossi, there is now Fitbark. As you may have gathered, Fitbark is one of those “internet of things” devies that allows you to monitor the energy level and things that your dog does. You may want to make sure that after that steak you fed him last night, he is sweatin to the oldies while you’re dropping the kids off at school.

But seriously,

Fitbark has some great real life uses that most dog owners would actually consider, before buying the device.

For instance, you want to know that your dog actually went for a walk while he was at the boarding facility or while you were paying the neighbor to “dog sit”. You could tell by the level of activity whether your dog sat around all weekend or if he had his walk. You can also tell by the data sent from the Fitbark to the smartphone app, whether or not your dog was walked at the proper times. If the pet sitter says she walked him at 4:30pm but you see he was sleeping, blasphemy, caught in a lie!

Fitbark is also a great way to monitor your dogs health. After all dogs can’t really talk. You may notice in the monitoring of your dog that he or she goes a few days with a lot less activity, that’s probably an indicator that something is just not right.

For those folks out there that are parents, and only to the canine species, a device like Fitbark may be just what the doctor, I mean veteranarian ordered.

You can support Fitbark on Kickstarter and hopefully be one of the first people to get one.

Check out our video interview with Davide Rossi below.

And here are over 50 more startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013.

Spanish Startup Moodyo Is A Smarter Social Shopping Community

Spanish startup Moodyo is growing itself in the Spanish countryside away from big metropolitan areas like Madrid and Barcelona. In the town of Seville, where Moodyo was born, there are less than 10 active tech startups, making talent and capital extremely hard to find. That didn’t stop Javier Padilla though.

At a time in Spain where they unemployment rate is a whopping 26% Padilla went ahead and quit his job and with $120,000 dollars of his own money, embarked on creating a social shopping site. Others have attempted to bridge a social network with on and offline shopping but Padilla insists that Moodyo has it right.

Others in Spain must have agreed because he was able to raise $600,000 last November. Now he plans to expand his startup based on three simple ideas; I want it, I Have it and I love this, by opening up an office in New York. Padilla tells nibletz.com that they’ve spent the better part of a month, staying in New York after presenting in the Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt. They’ve started forming relationships in the New York startup scene and with New York based investors.

But they weren’t alone, especially at Disrupt. That’s where we saw both Styloola and 3 Other Things, also international startups testing the waters of on and offline shopping.

We got a chance to catch up with Padilla check out our interview below.

What is your startup, what does it do?

Our startup is Moodyo. It’s a social shopping network that really connects the dots between consumers, vendors, brands and trendsetters. We’ve created a system where users can find the right people to follow based on their personal taste, and brands/shops can use Moodyo Insights to track the behavior of potential customers -in a non-intrusive way…- and send them targeted offers and discounts.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Javier Padilla, CEO and Co-Founder and Alex Guerra, CTO and Co-Founder.

Javier Padilla has a deep background in the Internet business. He’s a designer and coder that started building websites in 1997. In the last 16 years he has developed more than a hundred sites for companies and individuals. He co-founded in 2006 El Desmarque (http://www.eldesmarque.com), a network of news sites that has around 80.000 unique visitors each day in Spain and is profitable. He also directed the IT department of ABC (http://www.abcdesevilla.es) for 5 years (2006-2011). ABC is the third largest online news site of Spain. Javier loves music and plays drums and the electric guitar in his spare time.

Alex Guerra is a Software Engineer with a great knowledge of Java and other related technologies. He worked for several years developing big websites for corporative clients in Spain.

Alex and Javier worked together for 2 years before they decided to quit from their jobs and start a new career with Moodyo in 2011.

Where are you based?

We are now based in Europe (Spain), but in the summer a part of the team will move to New York. We’ve spent a month now in the City looking for partners, investors and we’ve got an amazing feedback from them.

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

Well, honestly there’s no startup culture in Seville (the city where Moodyo born). There are like two or three startups in the city and a 99% of the people doesn’t know what the word “Startup” means. It’s hard to raise a company there. And it’s more difficult to raise money so we’re very happy about having closed our first round of funding back in November 2012.

In Madrid or Barcelona is different. There’s a new ecosystem of startup companies and some investors with an interesting background. In Spain we have some recent successful companies that have been acquired by the big ones. Amazon acquired BuyVIP two years ago and Telefonica did the same with Tuenti.

What problem does your startup solve?

The platform solves many problems. First, you get recommendations from people you really trust. That’s important because we’re not uploading a bunch of products that we want you to buy but, instead, users with a taste like yours are uploading things that you may like. As we have a follow/unfollow system, all the info received by the user via email, via Moodyo or via other social networks is filtered. Also trendsetters have the chance to build a community of loyal fans and shops don’t expend money on spamming users with the wrong offer. As a result, the user finally gets the product that he needs at the best price/location and shops/brands don’t spend money spamming people with offers that they will never use.

What is one challenge that you’ve overcome in the startup process?

The unemployment rate has reached 26% in Spain. There are more than 6 million people without a job (a 26% of the active population). That’s crazy. And that means that there’s a little chance for entrepreneurs to get money from banks and people around you (family, friends and fools, the famous “3 F’s”) are out of money. So you really need to have an interesting product to convince someone to invest in your project. The first thing I did was to quit my job and put $120.000 from my pocket. Everything I had. Then I tried to find the best people around and fortunately I created an amazing team.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

We won the Tech Media Europe award in February 2011. That was important because we didn’t have the product in those days and some investors validated our idea. Then we joined the Mola Incubator from Spanish entrepreneur Enrique Dubois who gave us some interesting advices. In November 2012 we closed our first round of funding ($600.000). From January 2013 the network started to grow steadily. Three weeks ago we opened the first shop inside Moodyo and we’re already processing orders everyday. So getting the famous “traction” is our last milestone.

What are your next milestones?

Getting a big amount of active users to be seen as a real opportunity for investors is the first one. We’ll do it because we’re already growing in every way. Moving to New York is also mandatory for us now from my point of view. We’re working on both things at the same time. The mobile app, that will be launched in June will help us because it’s a real tool for shopping.

Who are your mentors and role models?

Well, my first role model is my father. He taught me to work 24 hours a day if you want to succeed. Then Jeff Bezos is a big inspiration and a role model for me. I totally agree with him about how important is the team. It’s the most important thing. If you have a committed and smart team then you have a 50% of the job done. The idea is important, of course, but there are a thousand ideas that died because they didn’t have a team to support them.

What are some of the advantages/disadvantages growing your startup outside of Silicon Valley.

It’s very hard to create a new concept and spread it. When we started to talk to others about “Social Shopping” three years ago in Spain it was like… “Social…what?”. Then the media and blogs outside our country are very hard to reach. If you’re not in New York or The Valley you don’t have the chance to reach to the big ones. Now we’re starting to do it. Nibletz is one of the first sites where we’ll be featured outside Spain (and we’re very happy about that :-)). In Spain we’ve been featured in the most important blogs and newspaper.

What’s next for your startup?

Growing, growing and growing. Then we want to find new partners in United States. In Spain we have 36 pending requests to join us with a shop inside Moodyo.

Where can people find out more, and what is your Twitter username?

We have a blog > http://blog.moodyo.com

We’ve been recently featured in El Pais (sorry, it’s in Spanish. It’s the largest newspaper in Spain) > http://tecnologia.elpais.com/tecnologia/2013/04/22/actualidad/1366654572_098303.html

Moodyo Twitter account > http://twitter.com/moodyo

Check out more than 40 other startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 here at nibletz.com

London Startup Simplifies Employee Performance Reviews, Moves Them To The Cloud

Nyk Lygkonis and James Strickland are two London based entrepreneurs who are looking to change the way employee performance reviews are done. Their startup, Appraisly, is being built in a clandestine location in the middle of London’s thriving startup hub. They’ve found great wifi, coffee and a color printer in the lobby of a swank hotel. That’s where these two financial guys by day are perfecting the art of performance reviews.

The product they are bootstrapping will help companies both large and small with employee retention. By having their employee performance platform based in the cloud, it offers easy access for both employees and managers to reference past reviews, keep up with goals, set new goals and conquer milestones. Long gone are the days that an employee should need to wait for an HR person to rifle through file cabinets to find the latest review.

While the company insists that for employees and employers to benefit from reviews they need to discuss them and have an actual in person dialogue their SaaS platform also allows employees and employers to communicate within the platform on a goal. This makes it easy for the employee and employer to remain on the same page. This can be critical for retaining good talent and for employees to set and know benchmarks so they can get raises.

We got a chance to talk with the guys behind Appraisly, check out the interview below.

What is your start-up, what does it do?

In your day-to-day job have you ever had a bad performance review? How did it feel? Unfair? Unjustified? Like your side of things had not been taken into account? Evidence had been ignored? Biased? All of the above?

Appraisly is a cloud-based employee performance management service which will improve the way performance appraisals are conducted at our customers businesses. Our solution allows business owners to manage employee performance in a manner that aligns individual goals to those of the business, in real time and in the cloud. It’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

Think of Employee Performance Management as all of the activities that ensure that goals are consistently being met in an effective and efficient manner. It is the method by which job performance of an employee is evaluated. We think every business (small, medium or large) in every country should be doing this; and if they’re already doing it they should be doing it better.

Appraisly will provide the guidance, tools, processes and outputs to enable business to conduct effective and value adding performance appraisals without requiring any integration with existing systems.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

I’m James and my co-founder is Nik. I’m from Cape Town, South Africa and have a background in corporate and retail finance while consulting to some of the world’s biggest organizations. I have extensive experience with large scale talent management software (solutions provided by SAP, Oracle and IBM) and personal experience with the ups and downs of the performance management process at some of the world’s top consultancies. On the start-up scene I’ve been involved in a couple of businesses including a custom t-shirt website for social media trends, an affiliate advertising master plan which never took off, and a fledgling financial trend analysis business. On the side I am a passionate PHP developer currently learning about the joys of Ruby on Rails and Python. And I love sci-fi (especially Dune).

Nik is an ex-pat who fled the sunshine and blue seas of Greece to land up in the Welsh countryside. He mastered the town of Aberystwyth and climbed the ranks of one of the world’s leading commercial finance businesses, and ended up in the same consulting jobs as me a couple of times. He’s a pitbull and doesn’t understand the word ‘no’; literally. He has a real problem with authority but is the driving force behind some of the great work we’ve done on Appraisly so far. He’s big into Basketball but has wisely decided to focus on start-ups, since he’s a short white Greek guy who can’t jump very high. He codes on the side

Where are you based?

We’re based in the cultural melting pot of London, U.K. We also have full time jobs in the Financial Services sector at the moment (but hopefully not for much longer). We tend to operate out of a swanky hotel but this is mostly because we like the waitresses, the beers are cheap and the wi-fi is free. Also there’s a color printer. We just pretend that we are staying in the hotel, but really we just rock up each evening and use their facilities. I will decline to mention the name for obvious reasons.

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

We are fairly new to the startup culture, but outside of Silicon Valley I would say that London has a great deal to offer especially around the Old Street area. There are meet-ups occurring all the time and plenty of interesting ideas and people to meet. It seems like every person we meet in our day job has an idea for a start-up too – probably because there’s a lot of really motivating success stories in the UK right now, and some really viable channels to obtain funding. Having said that, I think the proportion of folks who actually get up off their seats to make their ideas a reality is really small; and the people who have the determination and motivation to succeed is even less.

What problem does your startup solve?

Small businesses aren’t doing performance appraisals. They should be. Bigger businesses probably are doing performance appraisals, but they aren’t doing them well enough. This affects people’s job happiness and success, and ultimately affects the bottom line of even the smallest business. Overall, employee performance is not measured or managed accurately.

What is one challenge that you’ve overcome in the startup process?

Doing valuable and unbiased market research is hard, and something we’ve failed to do in past ventures. We’ve been incredibly candid with friends, family and people we meet – we are pitching the idea to every man and his dog. But getting honest unbiased market research has been tough. Here’s how we overcame that: we built a market research survey on Google docs and personally emailed everyone we knew. We put ads on Gumtree and Google to garner additional responses; we promoted the hell out of it on Twitter. In addition, we harvested as many publications and research papers as we could from the routes available to us in our day jobs. At this early stage the data looks really promising, and most importantly it’s proving some of the hypotheses we initially conjectured. The findings are proving very useful as we move through the construction of our detailed business plan.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

Getting off the ground in the right way has been a real win. We’ve tried the lean approach in a few other scenarios but we’ve really not found that method to be a great success. With Appraisly, we wanted to plan things out properly and that’s been a huge help. By planning I mean the following: We’ve drawn up a macro plan which outlines where we want to be in 5 years, where we want to be in 1 year, and then what we need to do to get there. Some of the key outcomes from that process have been things like “We COULD go away and build this thing right away; but it’s more sensible to plan, design and then raise investment before starting”. We feel so passionate about this idea that just going away and doing a slap-bang job would be doing a great disservice to ourselves and to our idea. Having said all that we do understand that our plan almost certainly will not survive the first investor contact, let alone the first customer contact – but it will get us to those contact points in good shape, and that’s a big deal.

We’ve also drawn up a 6 week plan to get us out of the plan phase, and into design. That’s nearly complete and we’re looking forward to wire framing.

We’ve also built a holding page (htttp://www.appraisly.com), bootstrapped it and launched an EC2 instance to host the site. We’ve started a blog (http://www.appraisly.com/blog), built up a good network on Twitter (@appraisly) and most importantly, registered from early stage investor events. This gives us real targets to aim for and those targets align to our macro plan.

What are your next milestones?

At the moment we’re finalizing our detailed business plan for 12^th May, as well as a ten page investor pitch and a couple of one-pager infographics. Following that we’re going into a detailed design phase for the following 6 weeks. That will flesh out our major product offering – we’re really looking forward to this. We’ll be doing an extensive wireframe in Balsamiq and preparing detailed use-cases. Upon completion of the design phase (mid-June) we’ll be heading into the funding/investing phase.

Who are your mentors and role models?

Our role models are Mark Cuban (the man started an IT business, bought a sports team and starred in Entourage!), Elon Musk (the guy has started three separate $1bn businesses – enough said) and Kenny Powers (fictitious), the washed out baseball player from the HBO show Eastbound and Down.

Our mentors include our buddy David Batey (@davidlbatey) a coding genius and lead developer on a couple of awesome projects like Shutl, The Mediagraph and many others. If you want to mentor us give us a shout on Twitter, we’d love to hear any advice you can offer to a new start-up.

What are some of the advantages/disadvantages growing your startup outside of Silicon Valley?

Our major advantages include ready access to the rest of the world (outside of the US). European venture capitalists are on our doorstep, along with a number of potential Arabian and Asian investors. The scene is growing massively and we’ll be part of that wave. We think investors outside of Silicon Valley are looking for founders who are serious, experienced, determined and will not give up. That’s us.

The disadvantages are probably on the flip-side – from what we’ve read, having never visited Silicon Valley, the culture is very immersive; everyone is talking about start-ups or knows someone who knows someone. I guess the disadvantage we have is in terms of the networking possibilities available to us. We also have to ditch our full time jobs and focus exclusively on Appraisly.

What’s next for your startup?

Getting featured in Nibbletz!

We’ll be kicking off our external facing campaign on June 13^th at the Launch 48 Showcase event in London. Look out for us there, and stay in touch on Twitter (@appraisly) and via our Blog in the mean time. You can find out more at appraisly.com

ThisChattanooga startup is gamifying workplace wellness.

Memphis’ Bad Ass Startup Chick Brittany Fitzpatrick Pitches MentorMe

The day of reckoning is upon us and it appears that Bad Ass Startup Chick Brittany Fitzpatrick’s nerves have calmed a bit. After working tirelessly on a startup she originally pitched at the women’s 48 hour launch in Decemeber, Fitzpatrick is ready to show the world her answer to many of mentoring’s problems.

Community service and helping people have been what Brittany Fitzpatrick’s life’s work have been about. But what makes this Memphian even more amazing is that she left a position with one of the most prestigious, well known brands in the non-profit space, Ronald McDonald House Charities, to start something of her own, again in community service.

As the communications coordinator for Ronald McDonald House Charities of Memphis, Brittany took the passion and drive she’s had since high school and through college at Howard University and Memphis University, and combined it with the tools available in recent day to double the groups social media reach. Ronald McDonald House Charities of Memphis works with the most well known children’s research facility in the world, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Over the last six years, Brittany has been a mentor and helped other mentor’s in a variety of programs. Through her work with Ronald McDonald House Charities and other stops along the way, she found that mentorship was a great thing, but flawed in many ways.

When she first pitched the idea for her startup “Mentor Me” back in December at a women focused 48 Hour Launch, she revealed that most mentor orgranizations spend more money re-placing mentors and mentees than they do setting up original pairs. Brittanny quickly realized if someone could fix the initial matching proces than these programs could focus on their original goals and save a lot of money.

That’s where her startup Mentor Me comes in. Mentor Me is a mentor and mentee online matching service that uses a variety of information given from both parties and an algorithm to make more successful matches. While Brittany is hesitant about using the verbage “e-harmony for mentor”, at the core that’s what it is and that’s why it’s going to be so successful.

But the biggest factor in the success of Mentor Me is going to be a combination of the technology and the founder. Brittany is a dynamic young woman. Back in December, the prize for the 48 Hour Launch competition was a startup village booth at everywherelse.co. When Brittany came in second place she decided to crowdfund the people in the audience so that she too could have a booth for her startup. Within minutes her mission was successful.

After working for three months in the Seed Hatchery startup accelerator, Fitzpatrick unveiled MentorMe to the public at large Thursday in Memphis. Check out her pitch below:

Find out more about Mentor me here at getmentorme.com