Say Your Message In The Sand With SandSign [interview]

Well we’ve never seen this idea before. While we were at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 we met Anton Velikanov the CEO and co-founder of SandSign. This unique startup allows users to deliver a customized message in the sand.

In it’s simplest form, SandSign has a network of photographers across the globe. These photographers live in beach areas and are contracted through the website at sandsign.com.

A user goes to sandsign.com and can order a “sand sign” to say whatever they would like. Once the user pays for the order, the photographer is contracted to draw the message in the sand and then they take a photo of the name or message in the sand. They also offer candle signs, where messages are made from candles and signs with video. The company can also have your message designed in a field and than shot from an airplane or helicopter.

So you see what I mean, I’ve never seen anything quite like this. It makes a lot of sense and messages can cost anywhere from $20-$150 and it’s a unique message, but is it something that can build scale?

Check out the video below and for more information visit sandsign.com

Here are 35 more startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013.

Thanks To Israeli Startup Webydo, Great Designers Don’t Need To Know Code

Some of the best graphic designers in the world don’t know a lick about HTML, CSS, Javascript or anything else involved in web development. Unfortunately for many of those designers, their great work can be hacked up quickly when trying to fit the best designs into the limitations of the web.

Now, thanks to a startup based in both Israel and New Jersey, called Webydo, professional designers can create and manage cross platform websites without knowing one bit of code.

More than 38 million graphic designers currently working to create professional websites are enslaved to an old process that depends on handwritten code. This process is slow, expensive and cumbersome, marginalizing the designer’s role and preventing direct communication between designers and their clients. On the other hand, the DIY platforms offer only preformatted templates that are not suitable for professional web creation.

Webydo solves this problem with a sophisticated DMS (Design Management System) that liberates designers from their dependency on handwritten code or limiting DIY templates. Using the company’s sophisticated online software, designers can bring any creative web design to life. With the click of a button, an advanced HTML website is published online including a friendly built-in CMS (Content Management System) for the website owner. No programming or technical knowledge is needed. With Webydo, DMS plus its CMS integrated system, designers can finally focus on the creative side of web design.

Behind the scenes, Webydo’s innovative code generator (US patent pending) automatically generates both a cross-platform HTML website updated to the latest industry standards and optimized for SEO, and a friendly built-in WYSIWYG CMS that enables the website owner to update the website content, independently.

Webydo is a community driven platform created for designers, by designers who know what they need from a SaaS product like this.

“In essence, Webydo is about unchaining millions of graphic designers from the rusty old ‘designer-programmer-client’ process of designing and managing websites,” said Shmulik Grizim, Webydo’s Co-Founder and CEO. “With Webydo’s powerful cloud platform designers can finally bring any web design to life, without writing code. Now, we want to share this technological innovation with the global design community.”

Webydo launched last week at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 and we got a chance to spend some time with Grizim. Check out the video interview below and for more information visit webydo.com

Now check out over 30 more startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013

Memphis Startup ScrewPulp Launches Disruptive Self Publishing Platform

With one week to go in the Memphis based Seed Hatchery startup accelerator program, one of their startups, ScrewPulp, has officially launched (isn’t it nice to see real products at demo days).

Long time readers of nibletz.com, The Voice Of Startups Everywhere Else, are very familiar with ScrewPulp and it’s founder, Memphian Richard Billings. Billings comes from a wide background of creativity, and media. At one point in his career, Billings was a radio disc jockey. Throughout though, he’s been a tinkerer on a very grand scale. For instance his home has a full movie theater and he’s building arcade and pinball machines in his spare time.

So what’s ScrewPulp? It’s a way for self publishers to generate traction by trading their wares for social media mentions, reviews and ratings. In it’s simplest form the model works like this:

– Author publishes their book on ScrewPulp
– The first 25 copies are given away free
– Those people are expected to engage with the material through reviews, ratings and social media mentions
– Readers can continue to get the newest books free as long as they support the model.

After the initial free period, publishers start making money on their book. Pricing is based on how well the book was received, or sales. What’s especially nice for publishers is the platform is non-exclusive and publishers get 75% of the take.

“I want to change a broken industry,” Billings said in a statement. “Screwpulp is removing the obstacles that discourage so many authors, and empowers everyone to take control of publishing’s future.”

ScrewPulp is a product of the entire LaunchMemphis ecosystem. The idea was conceived at a 48 Hour Launch event in June of 2012. From there, ScrewPulp was one of the startups selected to compete in a Global Entrepreneurship Week challenge, which included pitching the concept to Federal Court Judge John Fowlkes. At that contest, ScrewPulp won over $5,000 in cash and prizes.

ScrewPulp founder Richard Billings pitches his startup to Federal Court Judge John Fowlkes.

It was only natural for ScrewPulp to continue iterating and preparing for launch under the development and instruction of Seed Hatchery, Memphis’ cohort based technology accelerator.

“It’s been a fun uphill battle all the way, but we have our work cut out for us after investor day next week.” Billings told nibletz.com in an interview. He’s also very excited about the progress they’ve made to date. ScrewPulp soft launched last week with four books and four authors. In just one week, and with no promotion, marketing or media they now have 23 books from 23 authors, and 250 readers signed up for the platform.

To add to that momentum, ScrewPulp’s mentor, Publishing executive Joe Wikert, will be flying into Memphis to introduce the ScrewPulp team at Seed Hatchery Investor Day next week. Wikert was the Publisher and Chair of O’Reilly Media’s Tools Of Change conference. Wikert has also had executive positions with publishing giants, Wiley and Macmillan Publishing.

You obviously like to read, so go read a book at ScrewPulp.com

Here’s ScrewPulp’s first ever pitch at 48 Hour Launch

This Memphis founder also launched her startup at 48Hour Launch and is now a finalist in the Black Enterprise Elevator Pitch Contest.

Miami Startup Geopon Prefers “Mobile Advertising” Over Coupons, Loyalty & Rewards

While we were at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013, we got a chance to talk with Ido Meos, co-founder of Miami startup Geopon. As he explains it, Geopon is a mobile advertising platform, not to be confused with coupons, loyalty and rewards.

Obviously loyalty & rewards is the cramped up space this year, along with anything social, local and mobile. Meros says that Geopon, which offers mobile coupons, offers, and reward based digital punchcards, is actually a lot different. According to him, Geopon’s edge is that they are serving up menus for restaurants when they give away a restaurant coupon. When they have an offer or a loyalty deal with a movie theater, they also deliver the latest showings.

So Geopon is an all in one shop for merchants. They are able to create mobile advertising campaigns based on which engagement platform they, and the merchant feel, are the best to reach their customer base.

They also try and touch the users at least twice from every engagement. They want to give out a coupon to get a customer in the door and then help the merchant retain the customer through loyalty/reward based incentives.

Each of the individual spaces are pretty crowded, but providing a one stop destination for local businesses to try various programs could prove profitable for Geopon.

Check out our video below and for more information visit geopon.com

Check out over 30 more startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013.

Indiana Startup Stacked Labs Takes To Kickstarter With Their Go Go Gadget iPhone Case System

Indiana startup Stacked Labs, headed by Ryan Lantz is taking to Kickstarter with one of the most ingenious iPhone accessories I’ve ever seen. I was originally going to title this story “Indiana Startup Stacked Labs Takes To Kickstarter To Take On Mophie” but once I spent a little time on their website at gostacked.com, their product is about so much more than charging.

GoStacked is an interchangeable iPhone case system, now we’re not talking about pink cases, neon cases or rhinestones, we’re talking abut accessorizing your iPhone with things you could really use. The GoStacked system features a protective case with a port where you can slide in a GoStacked card.

Right now, Stacked Labs is prepared to launch with a GoSolar card and a GoBattery card for those that need charging power on the go. The cards are much more easy to manage when you’re on the go. Three or four cards will actually fit in your pocket. GoStacked has just about answered the call as to what to do when your JuicePack runs out.

With the GoStacked modular system you could in essence by three battery cards and insure your phone will never lose charge.

Now in the infamous words of the late great Billy Mays, “that’s not all”.

StackedLabs is working on developing some other really cool cards. These new card ideas include:

A wifi booster card
Speaker
Key Fob to interact with your car
Hard Drive
NFC Reader
FM Transmitter

We hear there may be even more ideas beyond those.

Stacked Labs is an Indiana startup focused on technology to help people with their every day needs. It’s founded by brothers Ryan and Troy Lantz. Who have the technical and business backgrounds to pull something like this off.

Right now they are a little over 20% of the way to their $75,000 kickstarter goal. I’d fund the whole thing if I could, the GoStacked case system adds just about every function you could ever want for your iPhone in one modular system.

You can support GoStacked on Kickstarter here and find out more about them here.

What else is going on with Indiana startups find out here at nibletz.com The Voice Of Startups Everywhere Else.

Female Founder Spotlight: Jess Butcher CMO & CoFounder Of Blippar

Jess Butcher is the CMO and Co-Founder of Blippar, and chief proponent and evangelist for the new verb “to blipp.” Follow her @jessbutcher.

Who is your hero?

Margaret Thatcher. Like her or loathe her, Britain’s first female prime minister made her way in a man’s world and changed the way we think of women politicians.

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

Stop benchmarking yourself against other successful entrepreneurs or business people – it wastes valuable energy! Your personality and circumstances are unique and there is no right or wrong way to grow an innovative business. Yes, learn from others’ experiences and be inspired by them, but also make your own rules and navigate your own path. Trust your gut instinct as much if not more than the numbers, and surround yourself with people who you respect and enjoy working with.

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

I don’t really associate with the word “mistake,” preferring “learning!”

The occasional error of judgement or wrong move can often move your business faster than the right ones. To be honest, I don’t think we’ve made any big errors of judgement — only wasted time and effort that could have been better spent — but you tend only to appreciate that in hindsight, and re-focus accordingly. Knowing when to stop and draw a line under a particular strategy or approach is critical. About-turns are not weak, they’re strong and demonstrate good leadership, but they need to happen quickly and be communicated decisively.

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

A bit of Twitter and industry website browsing first thing on my train commute (to put my head up and check out what’s happening around us), then a good half-hour of writing and rewriting to-do lists and priorities for the day. The sheer number of balls I’m juggling means I’m constantly scribbling down to-do lists. (And I haven’t yet found a to-do app that is as satisfying as my multiple scraps of paper when it comes to drawing a heavy line through a completed item, a big bold star or a screaming, underlined caps item in red!)

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

Don’t pay yourselves until you have to! That, and hire a good finance director. This isn’t always possible from startup, but having that skill set within your founding team seriously helps. If you’re fortunate enough to have a product or service that you can trade for another, then “in kind” deals can help a lot with cash flow in the early days.

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

Possibly a slightly strange one — but if you haven’t already got one, find a good “better half” or at least draw closer to those real friends in your life whose support you’ll need. The life of an entrepreneur is all-consuming, with a poor work-life balance and a roller coaster of highs and lows. Having one personal, special cheerleader who celebrates your highs with you and brings you out of despondency during the lows makes all the difference and keeps you focused and balanced.

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

For us, there’s a simple measure of success: when to “blipp” becomes as ubiquitous a verb as googling or tweeting, and as habitual an everyday behavior. Everywhere we go in our daily lives, we will be surrounded by physical images and objects annotated with Blippar ‘b’ instructions, which tell you why each is worth blipping and unlocking for a unique content experience. We will simply look at the world around us through an enhanced Blippar lens — whether via our phone or maybe even hardware we wear — and the world will instantaneously jump to life with additional content experiences.

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.

Check out these other Bad Ass Startup Chicks

Got Klout? Now You Can Get Into The American Airlines First Class Lounge

The “new” American Airlines has been doing a lot these days to come out of an airlines typical “business traveler” comfort zone. They are the only domestic airline that’s supporting startups at the ground level. Through a variety of partnerships and a nationwide team devoted to small business, and specifically startups, American Airlines is promoting their BusinessExtrAA program to the business leaders of tomorrow.

Their efforts to help startups don’t just end with an extra layer of rewards, the American Airlines team that’s working with startups is routinely found at startup events, job fairs and even hackathons. At these events they’re telling people about American’s programs but also mentoring and providing sound business advice to entrepreneurs both young and old.

Paul Swartz, who heads the airline’s small business and startup outreach in the north east, is routinely found taking office hours at events. We saw him spend countless hours talking with startup founders and entrepreneurs at CES 2013, and at SXSWi. One founder at SXSW told us that during his office hours consultation they talked about marketing, and brand loyalty.

Now American Airlines has decided to beef up their social outreach. Sure they’ve had a Twitter account that tweets out business tips, blog posts and customer service tips, but now American Airlines wants to reach influencers.

Through a unique partnership with Klout, American Airlines is now offering 1 day access passes to their first class Admiral’s Club lounge for those with high Klout scores. The best part is, you can get the benefit and hang out in the lounge, even if you fly on a different airline that day (we’re not sure why you would want to).

From experience the Admiral’s club lounge typically has great wifi, comfortable workspace, workstations with printers and desk tops, a variety of snacks, soda, beer and wine and it’s all free. Many of the Admiral’s club lounges have favorable views of the tarmac, gates and runways and they make for a great escape while waiting on a layover. In some of the bigger airports, the Admiral’s lounge offers private call areas and lounge furniture so you can catch a quick nap.

There is no restriction on the Klout perk for more information you can visit klout.com and for info on American Airline’s BusinessExtrAA program click here.

We flew American to NY for TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013, Here are over 30 startup stories from Disrupt.

Top Cities For Women Entrepreneurs In A Pretty Infographic

You love infographics right? Well lately we’ve been talking a lot about the gender divide and promoting women entrepreneurs from “everywhere else” as best we can. We recently told you about a new Memphis accelerator for women founders. Also in Memphis we highlighted Pink Robin Avenue and it’s founder Danielle Inez who grew her startup out of a 48 Hour Launch weekend, to the finals in the Black Enterprise Magazine Elevator Pitch Contest. We also regularly feature a “Bad Ass Startup Chick”.

Well the fine folks at Intuit, the finance company behind products like Quickbooks, have commissioned an infographic using data from Forbes and nerdwallet, highlighting the best cities for women entrepreneurs.

Coming in at number one was Silicon Valley, however the rest of “everywhere else” faired quite well.

Seattle came in at the number 2 spot with a score of 63. Washington DC, Minneapolis and Portland Oregon rounded out the top five. All five cities had more than 30% women owned businesses.

The survey sample for the data consisted of 552 female business owners. 66% have said they are more optimistic about growth in women owned businesses than they were last year.

Dollars and cents.

The most recent data from 2007 says that 7.8 million women owned businesses in the United States, counted for $1.2 trillion dollars in revenue. That’s up from 5.4 million women owned businesses just ten years prior.

Check out the infographic below provided by Intuit.

Check out more women owned startups at nibletz.com The Voice Of Startups Everywhere Else.

Code On The Beach, A Coder’s Conference In Paradise August 16-18th

Picture this, the thick of the summer of 2013 and you find yourself at the amazing One Ocean Resort in beautiful Atlantic beach. You’re there with hundreds of like minded coders, developers and software engineers, learning, living and having fun. Oh and did we mention your wife and kids are hanging out by one of the pools or on the sandy beach? This sounds like a great “working” vacation right?

It’s a reality at Code On The Beach, a software engineering conference in Atlantic Beach August 16th-18th. The conference will cover topics from ASP.NET MVC to Windows Azure to HTML5 to SQL to mobile. Friday will feature intro and beginner tracks while Saturday and Sunday will feature intermediate to advanced level content. Conference organizers have made the session length longer so you can “dive in”, but they’ve also structured the event so you can literally take some time and “dive in” to the ocean.

Intro sessions on Friday afternoon
Intermediate to Advanced sessions on Saturday and Sunday
Great hospitality with a full beach resort experience
Family-friendly: bring your spouse and kids
Top speakers from across Florida and the U.S.
Longer session length allows for deeper dives
Open Space track where you can speak on any topic you desire
Nightly hackathons to benefit local non-profits
Opportunities to meet local industry leaders and employers
Steps from the session rooms to the beach or beachfront pool
Walking distance to excellent local beach dining and nightlife
Early registration starting at just $99 (compare to other weekend conferences!)

So if you’re like me and constantly on the road to conferences and events leaving your husband or wife at home to tend to the kids, no worries, Code on the beach will be a vacation for them too:

Catch sun or waves at the beautiful Atlantic Beach
Lay back or splash at the beachfront pool, with poolside docent services (hotel guests only)
Relax and get quality treatment at the ocean view hotel spa (hotel guests only)
Visit the 24/7 fitness center for exercise (hotel guests only)
Walk to nearby beach shops, dining, and nightlife
Attend beginner programming sessions so they can get in on the conference action too
Hack on projects with you at nightly Hackathons by Ignite for local non-profits
Travel to nearby attractions like the Jacksonville Zoo & Gardens, Adventure Landing Water Park, and Talbot Island State Parks

You can get in on the early bird registration and a savings of $60 per night at the resort. The link to register for the conference is here. The link for hotel registration is here.

For more information visit codeonthebeach.com

While you’re checking out conferences, the early bird rate for attendees for Everywhereelse.co ends this weekend.

Chicago Startup BTSocial Launches The Social Network For Business Travelers

At Chicago Techweek 2012 we met Tim Hines the founder of BT Social. BT Social is “The Business Traveler’s Social Meeting Place”. It’s geared towards business travelers that travel a lot. Whether they travel by plane,train or automobile, as long as they stay in hotels and “travel” this is a place for them.

Think about that George Clooney Movie Up In The Air, where Clooney plays the role of a man who travels all over the country firing people. He lives a very disconnected life, he is rarely home and then meets a woman who travels just about as much as him. They spend the night they meet each other comparing loyalty cards and loyalty status for airlines and hotels.

Although it’s just a movie there are people out there in the world that travel as much as Clooney does in the movie.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could make travel buddies. You could find out if one of your travel buddies is in the hotel lounge that you’re staying at or maybe picking up a bite down the road. You could share travel itineraries with friends a lot and get alerts when you and one of your travel buddies is in the same city/state as you.

Well now you can as BTSocial has finally launched to the public.

The BTSocial team is solving the traveler’s problem of drinking alone at hotel bars or reading the same tired newspapers during airport layovers. The new app puts the power of networking in the hands of business travelers while on their trips. “Business travelers can now find current friends and colleagues and meet new ones through the app,” said Tim Hines, President. “The app is for business travelers looking to get out of their hotel rooms and create a social experience by meeting other travelers in real life,” he continued.

Built for the mobile web, the BTSocial Travel App is accessible on web-enabled phones, tablets and traditional web browsers. “We built a responsive app so that it works on any device business travelers prefer,” said Karl Jackson, CTO. “All of our features, including check-ins, function on any device. Plus users can avoid the clutter of a multitude of apps on their devices,” Karl continued.

The app’s features are what really set it apart from other travel tools. Users can check-in to any location around the world, whether it is a specific venue or an entire city. Once checked-in, users are visible to other users within the vicinity. “Checking-in is our way of raising your hand and saying ‘Hi. I’m here and I’d like to network,’” said Hines. “Check-ins are what truly drive the social experience of the app.”

Users can also use the Trips feature to plan to network during their travel downtime. Unlike other travel apps, it doesn’t ask for your itinerary, but focuses on the gaps of time during trips. When users create a trip, they can enter gaps like layovers or time between meetings to meet other travelers. The Trips feature also allows users to see other travelers that share similar gaps of time to entice meeting up.

The most unique feature of the app is Socials, where users can plan their own social events during their trips. Whether hanging out in the hotel bar or airport lounge, users can create a Meetup using the simple feature and invite other travelers. In addition, the events are visible to users that check-in in the vicinity.

In addition to the social features, users can also store their loyalty account numbers to avoid carrying those pesky cards. That’s not all, BTSocial even packed in a stats tracker so users can see how active they are on the app.

For more information on the BTSocial Travel App and to access it today, visit app.BTSocial.com.

Check out this Chicago startup that’s caught first lady Michelle Obama’s eye.

Dallas Startup University Passion, A Collaborative Community For College Students

What are you passionate about? Chances are if you’re a college student there are other students on campus that share your passion and collaborating could make your projects come together. Before the world of online platforms a college student with a side project, or that wanted to tackle an issue with a club, would post something on the bulletin board. From there they would get responses, presumably by phone, note or even email. Next, the students would meet and have to weed out those that were serious and could really contribute, and those who just want to be involved in something.

Enter Sam Hicks and his startup University Passion.

Collaborative platforms are nothing new. There are a ton of collaboration tools out there for almost every special interest. But, nothing out there is addressing college students, while they are college students. Sure there are students using cofounderslab and other platforms to get a jumpstart on startups but within the closed communities of campus there’s nothing out there.

Hicks is a marine biologist by trade and education. He’s an extremely bright guy and was able to get to the finals in TechWildcatters. The young entrepreneur from Mississippi left his home state the day before college graduation to head to Dallas because of their startup scene.

Check out our interview with Hicks below.

What is your startup, what does it do?

University Passion is a cloud based collaboration platform for student projects that creates a dynamic e-portfolio for college employers…

There are lots of interesting possible features: The website will contain a lot of valuable data about student projects, skills, education majors. Etc. I envision a web platform that could leverage the data of college student’s academia validation through projects.

A unique collaboration platform that connects students from across the globe to help complete projects – whether they’re building, brainstorming, or expanding a business.

Here’s a quick overview of how, the cloud based platform looks like:

Who are The Founders and What are Their Backgrounds?

Sam Hicks

Sam Hicks, Founder and CEO of University Passion, a student by occupation, an entrepreneur by profession, graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi and started a custom aquarium business known as, Pristine Aquatics LLC.

Sam is a chemist, and biologist who know everything about marine life like the back of his hand; he’s a small business guru, tenacious salesman, and social media addict. His skills and experience earned him a $2,000 grant proposal from a world recognized and nationally known College in the States.

His passion for salesmanship earned him a top spot as the best salesman in his firm. As an entrepreneur, he believes in, passion, determination, persistence, and ACTION.

Chris Greene

Chris Greene is a computer nerd, writer, and webmaster for the University of Southern Mississippi Student Printz newspaper. He’s an avid blogger and drupal developer who loves using programming languages to help spread the knowledge and make it free for many to access it.

If he’s not writing programming languages, he can be found hanging out with friends and giving lives a meaning…

Where are you based?

I love hanging out mostly in Mississippi and Dallas, Texas.

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

Dallas is a beautiful city with a very affordable cost of living for growing startups. Since my early days in College, I’ve had the passion of participating in the Tech Wildcatters Spring 2013 class but I never knew I’d come out as a finalist.

In fact, University Passion was invited as a finalist to pitch to 30 perceptive Investors in the spring class of nationally recognized Techwildcatters.

Tech Wildcatters is a mentorship driven micro-seed fund and startup accelerator. Founding teams endure a three-month accelerator program ranked by Forbes as top 10 in the USA, and boasting a 4% acceptance rate. Learn more: http://techwilcatters.com/

The founder of Launch DFW, Alex Muse and the Co-founder of Shop savvy have been supportive; every month, they host successful tech entrepreneurs which gives us the opportunity to network and work hand in hand with over 100 techies.

Dallas universities are blessed with geniuses for interns and co-founders; few can be found in Southern Methodist University, and University of Texas at Dallas, Art of Institute.

Dallas is endowed with thriving startup communities such as Austin and Houston Texas.

What problem does your startup solve?

Like I said earlier, there has been no platform with good interface that makes networking among students easy. University Passion is the first of its kind!

Students normally find it challenging recording their academia experiences in efforts to become marketable to employers but with the University Passion cloud based platform, they find it easy to create and keep portfolio’s.

University Passion wants to inspire College students to make a living doing what they love and create businesses that support their passions. As a result of this, University Passion have produced remarkable College students who’re now making impact in their campuses.

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

Getting the validation of the first customer was a big challenge.

We have to develop the minimum viable product first, beta test it and address the issues. It has been an exciting journey so far; it’s an overwhelming experience when someone validates your company’s product which you helped grow from inception.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

We’re excited that Colleges and education institutions appreciate this platform; we’ve received over 100,000 responses from universities, which has geared us to take advantage of the niche market.

We’ve also partnered with 4 universities to launch the University Passion on their campuses.

We’ve pitched technology giants like: Tech Stars, Tech Wildcatters, and Kaplan and we’ve received positive feedbacks on the usability of the networking platform.

What are your next milestones?

Like every other growing startup, developing a strong technical and web development team has been our top priority. We’re also working on building connections and expanding the University Passion platform.

Who are your mentors and role models?

I’m a ‘’do it all alone’’ person, but I’ll always be grateful to Tech Wildcatters teams, program manager and the startups who’ve been solidly behind me.

Under30CEO has always made my day by delivering great contents.

Role Models: Steve Jobs has always been my mentor since my teenage years; here’s one of his favorite quote that always make my day:

“It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough. It’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing’’

Kanye West, Jay-Z, and Aristotle Onassis are also in my ‘’book of mentors’’.

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

I don’t believe that the success of my business is in a location; I don’t believe one has to be in Silicon Valley to be successful. In fact, I’ve never been to Silicon Valley (though, I’ve heard that the streets are paved with gold); but I’ve witnessed startups scale and grow in other cities.

A businessman is like a man on a mission; if you allow the location of a place tie your business growth, you won’t go far in business; but if you’re hardworking and determined to face business challenges, you’d definitely succeed (even without being in Silicon Valley).

What’s next for your startup?

We believe in the possibility of a bright firm; and we’re constantly working hard to ensure that University Passion becomes a NO 1 cloud collaboration platform for college students.

Presently, we’re investing our time and resources in networking with other startups and upgrading the University passion platform.

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

I’m more of a Facebook addict; but you can hook me up on Twitter; here’s my Twitter handle:@3amgrind; when I’m not on Twitter chit-chatting with my fellow entrepreneurs, you can hang with me via, Facebook or via, Angel list: https://angel.co/university-passion or just email me directly: sam@universitypassion.com

This young woman from Memphis took her startup from a 48 Hour Launch event to the finals for Black Entreprise’s Elevator Pitch Competition.

Mother’s Stroke Inspires NY Entrepreneur Chad Ruble To Create TapGram

Here at nibletz.com The Voice Of Startups everywhere else, we’ve profiled a few startups that have made the lives of those living with autism easier. Often times these technology startups come in the form of mobile or tablet applications to assist with communication. Whether it’s picture based short messaging or assigning pictures and graphics to simple sentences, doctors have praised the work of those entrepreneurs creating these kinds of apps.

Chad Ruble, a New York based entrepreneur has created something similar, but this time for his mother, who suffered a stroke.

We met Ruble on our sneaker strap road trip when we stopped at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013. It was there that he told us that communicating with his mother was very important to both her and him. So he went to work to create a mobile app that allowed her to send simple messages that were assigned to pictures.

TapGram lets users communicate by tapping large icons to signify moods and needs. After suffering a stroke TechCrunch reports that Ruble’s mother has been dealing with a condition called Aphasia which prevents her from processing language the way that she used to. TapGram was born out of a Microsoft Kinect hack that Ruble put together to help his mom write emails.

TapGram has been in public beta over the last four months and Ruble has found that people who suffer from Autism, brain injuries and of course strokes are using TapGram to assist in their communication.

Check out our interview with Ruble below and for more information visit tapgram.com

This Pittsburgh startup has created a robot called PopChilla for kids with Autism.

Norwegian Startup OogaBaby Is Instagram For Babies

I’m going to date myself here and say when I first heard the name of this Norwegian startup I thought about the fat baby dancing on Ally McBeal. I’m sure some of you are thinking, who the heck is Ally McBeal.

After getting over the uber cool name (and you know we love great named startups here at nibletz) we got to talking with the startups co-founder Gunnar Wold, about just what an OogaBaby is.

In the simplest explanation, OogaBaby is Instagram for babies. Using the OogaBaby app, gushing parents everywhere can upload baby photos to their hearts content. They can also track their baby’s height, weight and even the circumference of their heads. Parents can add milestones and special moments as well in this social network for babies and their parents.

Now as a parent myself I totally understand and get it, I just wish I had it five years ago. Speaking of which Wold says you can track your kid as long as you want but it’s primarily designed for baby’s up to age five.

Oogababy is great for parents and their friends with kids, but it’s also great for friends without kids. Why? Because with OogaBaby parents can stop flooding their Facebook walls with pictures of their babies.

Wold created OogaBaby after he became a father and realized there was really nothing like it on the market.

Check out our interview with Wold below and for more info visit Oogababy.com.

This Athens Georgia startup began with a bee’s dance.

Demo Days Are The Worst Source Of Deal Flow? Mark Suster Says Yes

Since starting our nibletz sneaker strapped startup road trip last year we’ve seen hundreds of startups pitch at countless demo days. Nick and I were finally relaxing with one of our advisors, Patrick Woods’ with a>m ventures, on the last night of SXSW and we had counted over 65 startups that we saw pitch through a variety of demo events at the annual festival.

We’ve also seen countless accelerator demo days and with it being May and most of the spring accelerators graduating this month, we’re on track to enjoy another dozen or so before we get to the thick of the summer. Speaking of summer, last August their were three accelerator demo days in Tennessee alone.

Startup community members and leaders are constantly debating “the rise of the accelerator” and where accelerators should focus their resources. Is the best accelerator model general tech and cohort based? Or vertical and rolling? Who knows, it will take several more iterations until each community finds the accelerator model that works best for them.

But what about demo day?

On Friday Business Insider ran this piece which references an indepth article about YCombinator and it’s historic demo day from the New York Times. In it, author Nathaniel Rich, quotes an investor saying that YC’s demo day, often thought of as the super bowl of demo days, “used to be a can’t-miss event, but that’s not so anymore. It’s a different vibe. Some major investors are starting to skip it.”

Rich points out that one investor said that YC Demo Day used to be a feeding frenzy for deal flow and it’s just not anymore.

Of course YC’s demo day is all the way at one end of the spectrum. Y combinator is said to take the best of the best and with hits like DropBox and Airbnb, the newer teams know they can set their valuations and standards higher, pricing a lot of smaller VC firms out of the deal. This either leaves VC’s empty handed or startups empty handed.

“The only way for a company to be overvalued is if there’s someone willing to pay that price,” Graham told the NYT. “So what they’re saying is: Going through Y.C. causes companies to raise money on better terms than they would have otherwise. We wouldn’t have the barefacedness to make that claim ourselves!”

Graham acknowledges that YC does take some bad startups though, saying sometimes investors can’t pick out the good startups; “Well, it’s not because the good start-ups look bad,” Graham says. “It’s because the bad start-ups look good! Which means we’re doing our job.”

Business Insider recently shared some of Mark Suster’s, a VC with GRP Partners and the founder of LaunchPad LA, best and worst sources of deal flow from his personal blog.

Surprisingly, blogging was revealed to be the best source of deal flow available. “The sheer number of relationships I’ve built through being public, transparent and being willing to engage in comments and through social media has enabled me to get to know entrepreneurs even before they launch their next company,” Suster said on his blog.

Investment bankers were said to be bad sources of deal flow, but the worst? Demo Day.

“Getting excited about a company at a conference and investing is a sucker’s bet,” Suster writes. “Entrepreneurs raising at prices not normally supported by progress face risks downstream when they have to raise more capital. And that fund raising is part of the job of being an entrepreneur – not something that gets in the way of your doing your job.”

Startup accelerators everywhere else are having a hard enough time getting investors in the door for demo day as it is. One accelerator participant in the middle of the country told us “outside of the investors that had a stake already in the cohort, no investors came to our demo day last year.” That can be hard to swallow.

As to the blogging, we have a handful of angels and VC’s that email us from time to time to get the vibe on some startup we wrote about. We also get thank you cards in the mail from startups that have gone on to raise money after getting their first piece of press from nibletz. To that end, we live off of our crowdfunding so to help out the everywhere else cause, click here.

See Dave Tisch’s biggest pet peeve when VC’s are talking to women entrepreneurs.