DC Sartup DeJed Wants To Be Ebay For Digital Goods [interview][video][disrupt]

Daniel Kim and Bhupinder Singh were at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC’s starutp alley on day one. Their startup DEJED is a new digital goods market place that Kim describes as “ebay for digital goods”.

They are hoping to bring together creators, marketers and buyers in one platform that allows people to find the digital content they need and for creators, and affiliates to get paid.

In an untraditional model the duo are attracting third party people with social clout to help market the digital goods that the creators are selling. This may offer DEJED the biggest competitive edge over competitors. Singh is very excited about this aspect of the business, he told us during an interview that someone with tens of thousands of followers could easily make good money helping to bring buyers to digital goods.

DEJED hopes to become the go to place to buy and sell music, videos, ebooks, apps, plug-ins, code, models, icons, avatars, class notes, games, pictures, animations, how to’s, comics, coupons and any other good that has digital delivery.

On the buyer side DEJED will offer lifetime cloud access for all of the purchased digital goods as an archive to save everything someone buys using the DEJED platform.

Check out our video interview below and for more info visit dejed.com.

Crowdsource Video From An Event With NY Startup Crowdflik [DISRUPT][video]

Crowdsourcing is nothing new, neither is shooting video, however putting it all together in a beautiful format is new and that’s what New York startup Crowdflik is doing.

Crowdflik allows users who are signed in an at a particular event, to upload videos from that event. Then what happens is magical. Crowdflik stitches all the videos together to make one fluid video with lots of different movie clips shot from a variety of users.

Crowdflik users will be able to see all of the videos aggregated and stitched together or browse the variety of videos shot from different users.

We got a chance to interview Crowdflik’s Vice President of marketing Sarah McClutchy check out the video below. For more information sign up for updates at crowdflik.com

We’ve got more from TechCrunch Disrupt 2013, here at nibletz.com

Bad Ass Startup Chick: Mentor Me’s Brittany Fitzpatrick

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.

(Brittany’s first pitch at 48 Hour Launch)

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.

(Here’s Brittany’s second pitch from 48 Hour Launch)
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.

We got to interview Brittany as she prepares for demo day at SeedHatchery, where she tells us about her latest venture into crowdfunding and what she’s learning at the Memphis startup accelerator:

So tell us what is Mentor Me?

There are 3 million kids in the U.S. being mentored. Yet, there are another 15 million waiting for mentors. Sadly, half of all matches between mentors and youth end within months – which does more harm than no mentoring at all. One of the top reasons for these pairs falling apart is poor matching.

Mentor Me provides cloud-based mentor matching and management tools that make mentoring more efficient and effective for both programs and mentors.

How did you come up with the idea?

The idea came from my own experiences as a mentor. I’ve been mentoring for 6 years now and have been through the process of getting matched with a mentee several times. Through these experiences, I’ve learned just how much of an impact mentoring can have for both the kids who are being mentored and for the mentors themselves. But, as with any process, there are things that can be improved and there are ways to use technology to make the process better for everyone.

Who else is on the team?

My Co-Founder and CTO is Sean Lissner.

Sean has a Bachelor’s Degree in both Mathematical and Computer Science from the University of Memphis. Sean’s specialties include: mobile applications, web applications, web services, distributed computing, embedded systems, cloud architecture, machine learning, and wireless sensor networks.

Before joining the Mentor Me team, Sean worked with large-scale, enterprise level application development projects, including FedEx’s Android mobile application. In addition to his passion for improving communities, Sean brings more than a decade of coding experience and a usability-centered design focus to the Mentor Me team.

Our advisors are: Austin Baker, President and Chairman of the Board of HRO Partners and Co-Founder of the University of Memphis MILE Mentoring Program; Jenny Koltnow, Executive Director of the Memphis Grizzlies Charitable Foundation; Emily Yellin, Customer Experience Consultant

What made you decide to apply for an accelerator?

I knew that going through Seed Hatchery would give me the best chance for success. With accelerators, you’re given a strong network of support through the staff and through the network of entrepreneurs who have gone through the program before you. The support of one’s fellow cohort-members is also invaluable. And of course the fact that they are mentor-driven is also innately appealing to me.

What have been your three biggest take-aways so far from Seed Hatchery?

My three biggest take-aways from Seed Hatchery thus far have been:

The importance of investing in yourself: I left my job right before Seed Hatchery to go all-in on my startup

You have to practice how you play.

Iteration trumps perfection

While some accelerator startups just sit around and wait for investor day, you’re out there fundraising now, tell us a little bit about your crowdfunding?

We kicked off a crowdfunding campaign to match our $15,000 investment by May 16. We’re about 10% of the way there. Our crowdfunding page is at www.gofundme.com/MentorMe.

What’s the reaction to Mentor Me been so far?

The reaction thus far has been positive. We already have our first paying customer and we’re in the process of getting more organizations on board for our beta test this summer.

One thing you learned about yourself in the accelerator?

I’ve learned so much about myself through this process. I think above all I’ve learned how to push myself outside of my comfort zone. I actually look for those types of opportunities now.

What happens May 17th?

The grind continues. Investor Day is just the beginning.

Here are more Seed Hatchery startup stories at nibletz.com The Voice Of Startups Everywhere Else

This New York Startup Wants More Grandmas On Facebook

New York startup FamilyRibbon doesn’t think there are enough grandmas on Facebook. Actually what they are really doing is trying to make it easier for beginning users to learn how to use Facebook. Yes, there are still plenty of people out there without a Facebook account. Just think how much your buubie is missing by not being on Facebook.

FamilyRibbon isn’t just about Facebook though. Their suite of apps called the EasyFamily AppSuite, is a total 7 in 1 app solution for beginners which takes the complexity out commonly used computer apps that we take for granted like Skype, email, photo albums, reminders and yes of course Facebook.

The suite of apps includes:

Easy Skype, Albums and Call-Back Requests

Quick and easy launch of Skype, Facetime, Flickr, Picasa and Facebook photo albums in easy interface. Call back request emails and texts sent with just one click.

Easy Facebook and VideoEmail® with Security Features

Facebook app with ‘Safe Mode’ designed for beginners. Email audio and video messages in just one click. The email ‘whitelist’ feature offers extra security.

Medication & Appointment Reminders & More!

Make sure medication is taken as scheduled – if a reminder has been ignored a family member will be notified by text or email.

Remote Administration and Illustrated User Guides

Manage reminders, photos, contacts, websites and even view app screenshots, all from another computer! Print our easy-to-follow user guide.

We got a chance to talk to the team at FamilyRibbon, check out the interview below:

What is your startup, what does it do?

The goal of EasyFamilyApps.com is to develop easy apps for beginner users – such as grandma and grandpa. The goal is to enable your aging parents to start using Facebook within a short period of time, to inspire them, and to make them part of the online community.

Our easy-to-use apps allow beginner users to socialize on Facebook, check email, make video calls, view online photo albums, and browse web pages. EasyFamily Social® and EasyFamily AppSuite® apps make it easy and safe to stay in touch online.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Ivan Osadchiy – founder, CEO

I am personally invested in helping seniors get online. When my father was admitted to the hospital, I found no simple tech solutions that would allow him to stay connected with the family. How could Dad see his newborn granddaughter thousands of miles away?

Mykola Komarevskyy – co-founder, CTO

I hope that our apps will help our parents to feel closer to us and have fun online. Apps like ours are especially important when there is distance between family members. For many years, I lived in a completely different time-zone than my mother and she really missed being able to contact me. She is now beta testing the app and is so excited that she can now keep in touch whenever she wants and she loves sending and receiving messages.

Where are you based?

The startup is based in New York City, New York and affiliated with PlugAndPlayTechcenter.com – a SF accelerator.

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

Fast-paced, time and focus demanding work. The three key success factors that must be embedded in the startup culture are (1) teamwork, (2) rigorous prioritization, and (3) communication. Teamwork ensures that things happen. Prioritization ensures that the tasks with the highest potential are executed, as there is always more work on the plate that can be “eaten”. Communication is vital to convince investors, build partnerships, and engage prospects and users.

What problem does your startup solve?

It allows any Grandma get on Facebook

⁃ In 30 minutes

⁃ Easy and Safe

Please also take a look at the video: http://GrandmaOnFacebook.org, and the infographic attached – for additional information, numbers, and sources. Separate slides are available at http://bit.ly/ZKQgFZ.

We conducted some research and found out that 40% of women over 60 live alone and 7 million U.S. seniors are not mobile and face isolation. In addition, multiple studies by top faculty at the University of Chicago, Harvard and Stanford have suggested that isolation significantly increases health risks.

We realized then there was a great need for an easier and safer set of applications for the older generation so that family communication – easy video calls, e-mail, Facebook, online albums, etc. – could flourish, and loneliness and isolation problems that strongly affect seniors could be reduced.

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

The area that was surprisingly challenging was finding the most effective marketing channels for seniors and their families. This is where predecessors have failed.

Seniors rely almost exclusively on expensive traditional media and word of mouth, and that takes a long time to build. Their children – our generation – is nicknamed “sandwich mothers / fathers,” as we try to balance our careers with taking care of both our children and our parents. Competition for our time is fierce – being heard over clutter requires creativity and making products as viral as possible.

Some of the tools we’ve found effective include:

 Reaching out to B2B channel partners. We were approached by tech schools requesting permission to use and promote our applications with their students

 Piloting with a retirement community

 Direct-to-consumer marketing and the use of SEO/SEM (optimizing your website to improve your standing in search results)

We’re employing a combination of word of mouth, viral marketing, and traditional channels.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

We have raised seed funding and a follow-on bridge round from the existing investors. Thanks to this investment, the two apps EasyFamily Social® and EasyFamily AppSuite® for iPad and Windows computers were released. Remote administration is also available for the EasyFamily AppSuite®. Family members can manage user’s account from any device via easy web interface – they can update the address book, add and review medication reminders, upload family photos, view user’s screenshots etc.

What are your next milestones?

Our next milestone is to complete the Android version of the EasyFamily Social® app for Facebook – to make it the best Mother’s and Father’s Day gift for parents. The “17 Million Grandmas on Facebook” crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo will help us to raise the funds necessary to complete the job.

Several users and organizations asked when we were going to release the Android versions of our apps. Android tablets are the most affordable choice and are ideal for low income families, charity and educational organizations.

We hope that with the release of the Android version of the easy and safe Facebook app, many more Grandmas will join Facebook and will reach the 17 million mark sooner.

Readers can help us to achieve the milestone by supporting the “17 Million Grandmas on Facebook” campaign or by helping their Mom or Grandma to join Facebook!

Who are your mentors and role models?

Sir Richard Branson, our role model, supports the “17 Million Grandmas on Facebook” Indiegogo effort. He provided hand-signed “Elders Rock!” and “Screw Business As Usual” inscriptions, with which we’ll reward our backers at www.GrandmaOnFacebook.org.

Mary Furlong – MFA & SeniorNet founder, aging expert – is helping us to develop the right solution for grandparents.

Jim Tobias – Inclusive Technologies, Strategies and Stakeholders at RaisingtTheFloor.org; accessibility expert – provided valuable feedback on usability of our apps.

We also work with senior tech schools, including Jane Ratliff from Blue Hair Technology Group to polish user experience.

We are grateful to our mentors and are honored to work with them.

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

Physical location of the team is less relevant these days. Silicon Valley would probably provide more opportunities to meet potential investors face-to-face and to hear more about experiences of fellow entrepreneurs and experts. However, in the era of LinkedIn, Skype, and broadband connections, entrepreneurs can meet the necessary people from any location to achieve its investment, business development and learning objectives.

What’s next for your startup?

Getting 17 million grandmas on Facebook! :-)

We hope that people will help their parents and grandparents to join Facebook this Mother’s day.

We’ll work hard to make www.GrandmaOnFacebook.org a success that will make the easy and safe Facebook app available for even more grandmas – on the affordable Android platform.

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

Facebook @GrandmaOnFb Blog

Facebook shmacebook, these DC grandma’s have created their own startup, check out our interview with Quad2Quad here!

Startup Weekend Madison: Holsinger Keynote Salutes “Dumb” Ideas That Lead to Unexpected Experiences

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Contactually Study: Negative People Reply To Email 36% Faster

Email seems to be a pretty popular topic, especially on the weekend. Last weekend a lot of tech sites were talking about why they ignore emails and auto responder messages. Earlier this week I checked out the refresh of Microsoft’s outlook.com and the reinvigoration of Hotmail.

This week we’re first to bring you some pretty startling results about email. Our friends at Contactually, the popular email CRM startup from Washington DC, just published results from a rather interesting survey.

Engineers at the company recently analyzed over 1oo million email conversations looking at positive and negative words across the data set. What they actually found was that “On average, negative people tend to reply to emails 36% faster than their positive, bubbly colleagues.” Ousmane Mariko, community manager at Contactually reported on their blog.

For the study engineers looked at wording in emails. Words like “care” and “amazing” made their list of positive words. Words like “missed” and “stupid” were considered negative. After they counted up all the instances of multiple positive and negative words they calculated the ratio between positive and negative words across the data set.

Overall what they found was that people who were always positive in their replies responded to 47% of their emails within a day. 64% of people who were negative or unhappy in their email replies responded within 24 hours.

“It’s not immediately clear why positive people aren’t as good with email,” Jeff Carbonella said, CTO of Contactually. “Maybe the negative folks are more active online in general.”

Carbonella jokingly suggested that this may explain interent trolls. Another cause of this could be that sending a positive email reply takes a little more time.

The study also suggested that users of Contactually were much better at quickly following up with their top contacts, citing that they generated 44% more referrals for their business.

“We don’t necessarily have to be mean and cranky,” COO Tony Cappaert said. “Maybe we just need to use better software.”

What is Contactually, find out here in our startup interview.

Etsy + Ebay + Facebook For Nerds = Florida Startup Nerdular [video]

Last week at OneSpark, the World’s Crowdfunding Festival, a big blue tardis served as a beacon saying something nerdy was going on at the Dalton Agency building in downtown Jacksonville. Perhaps nerdy was the wrong word. The correct word would be Nerdular.

Nerdular was one of seven startups in attendance at OneSpark from the St. Augustine based “Factory” accelerator.

The Florida startup put their best foot forward at OneSpark and hosted an opening party on Wednesday night, and of course the tardis, ready for anyone who wanted to take a picture like Doctor Who.

So what is Nerdular? Well when we first heard about it, it was described as a marketplace for nerd stuff. You know, video game t-shirts, Doctor Who gear, nerdy memorabilia and crafts. We immediately thought,ThinkGeek. ThinkGeek is the powerhouse e-commerce site that sells a lot of that same stuff.

So what’s different about Nerdular?

According to one of their biggest mentors and supporters Jeremy Vaughn, co-founder of the Factory accelerator, Nerdular will be part ebay, part etsy and part community. Think of it essentially as a “merch” room at Comicon or Dragoncon. A big gigantic, organized, flea market of all things nerdy. There will be professional full time vendors selling anything from t-shirts to swords, to steam punk gear, and those hobbyist store owners with handmade wares.

The other thing that is going to drive Nerdular is the social community that will form around the site after it debuts later this year. Nerds from across the globe will be able to talk about all things nerdy in rooms, across status messages and even on pictures of items. So yes, add an element of Pinterest as well.

As for ThinkGeek, it’s strictly a traditional e-commerce site. ThinkGeek contracts with all their vendors, the same way Amazon or Best Buy does. They then house everything in their own warehouses and distribute it as things are sold.

The bad ass software developers at feature[23] are feverishly working on an online platform that bridges all of these ideas together. The Florida software development firm that Vaughn owns is also the backbone for The Factory accelerator. All of the Factory’s companies can draw from the experienced team at feature[23]. The developers know that the nerd audience can be very critical, especially when something is designed specifically for them.

Check out our interview video below you can find out more at nerdular.com

Wait, there’s more from OneSpark, here.

New York Startup PaddleYou Has A Ping Pong Paddle For Your Startup

PaddleYou is a New York based startup that is, you guessed it, in the ping pong paddle business.

As startups grow up and move out of the spare bedroom or the garage they look to make their first office space more “startupy”. Often times you have to do it with a budget. So what does a bootstrapped startup do to give their new office the “startup feel” without breaking the bank on some full sized upright arcade machines, or the latest virtual reality gear?

Well the “rock some tags” of course, and go for the ping pong table.

Over the last 18 months, travelling on our “sneaker strapped road trip” I’ve become actually decent at Ping Pong. I think we’ve seen over a 100 ping pong tables at various startup spaces. It’s funny how HD Tvs and Nintendo Wii’s can sit dormant forever, but find a few developers and designers and when they take a quick work break it’s for a fast game of ping pong.

Well PaddleYou creates custom ping pong paddles. You can put a picture on a paddle or your startups logo. Our “N” will look great on a ping pong paddle.

What’s even greater about PaddleYou is that the startup founded by Table Tennis Nation and ping pong star Marty Reisman, actually pitched at the February New York TechCrunch Pitch off and came in second place. The company has also been nominated for an Edison award and they’ve been Men’s Journal approved.

Table Tennis Nation President Cooper Fallek will be in the hardware alley Wednesday at TechCrunch Disrupt showing off just how cool ping pong paddles can be.

If you’re jonesing for a paddle now, PaddleYou is up and running and you can get your customized paddle for just $29.99 with 10% off by using code tcdisrupt1 at paddleyou.com.

Check out some of our TechCrunch Disrupt coverage from last year, click here.

Dallas Startup: Adscend Media Co-Founder Fehzan Ali In Our Startup Spotlight

Fehzan Ali is the co-founder of Adscend Media and serves as the Chief Executive Officer. He is responsible for driving and implementing the strategic vision of the Company. Since inception, Fehzan has secured business with high revenue publishers and top advertisers through his deep relationships and experience in the sector. He is an industry thought leader, providing editorial content about ad-based solutions through strategic opportunities. Follow him @fehzan1.

Who is your hero?

My parents. They raised me with a foundation focused on morals, values, and being the absolute best I can be. Their entrepreneurial spirit also cultivated mine.

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

Above all else, believe in yourself. This is a foundation for both success and happiness. If you don’t believe in yourself, who will? In my earlier years as an entrepreneur, I was filled with doubts. What if I fail? Is entrepreneurship right for me? What will I do then? I created backup plans for my venture, and then backup plans for those backup plans.

In my opinion, that’s a mistake. To be a successful entrepreneur, you have to be fully invested in your business. You have to believe in yourself and your ability to succeed even when you fail, even when you are under close scrutiny. Persistence and determination is the cornerstone of success. The day I really started believing in myself is the day that I became successful. I’ve failed more times than I can count with new solutions and product launches, however, I’ve also learned so much about myself, what I’m capable of, and the value of persistence. Never give up.

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

There’s a difference between an entrepreneur and a manager. Most successful entrepreneurs that I’ve met are great leaders and know how to create a product/solution and inspire their vision into the company. Once Adscend reached a size where it required us to hire additional manpower, we went out there and found great talent and delegated a loose set of tasks to each new team member. We continued this process until we realized that we had a very talented team, yet they were all lost and confused on how to help accomplish the company vision and goals.

Therefore, the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in business is a lack of organization/structure of the company. After consulting with my team and other resources, I spent a few months implementing organizational changes based on feedback I received from the team, and it was actually surprising to see how happy our team was with the new changes. The changes led to increased satisfaction in the team and helped us position the company to scale for growth moving forward. Furthermore, I had more free time after the changes to focus on innovation and the company vision.

If you are an entrepreneur struggling with scaling your company or getting started, pay attention to structure! If management is not one of your strengths or if you simply do not have time to set up the structure, hire someone else to do it. As a smaller organization, sometimes the leader has to be the manager as well. This is something you don’t want to overlook.

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

I usually spend the first hour of my business day reading up on industry trends and new innovations within my industry. In our fast-paced world, you have to be vigilant to remain relevant and create innovative products/solutions that fills in a gap in the market. This research is important to maintain an edge in the market over competitors as well.

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

Focus on the bare necessities for success to cut your operating costs. For example, you don’t need a fancy office or a secretary to get started. By running a lean organization, you are able to minimize your risks, reach profitability quicker, and build cash flow to establish a healthy financial foundation for your company. Assess the needs of your company on a set schedule to ensure that you are maintaining a lean, yet efficient organization that scales as needed.

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

Keep an open mind and constantly seek knowledge. Never stop learning.

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

I personally believe success is more comprehensive than simply financial gain. To me, success means being passionate about what I do, spending time with friends and family that I love, enjoying life in general, helping others, and of course being able to generate an income from my passion. As for success in regards to just my company, I knew I was successful when I signed up our first large client to my ad network and started generating revenue. It was a snowball effect from there, and we took off. Although that may seem like a small accomplishment to attribute as success, it really bolstered up my confidence, and we soon became one of the consistently top-rated companies in our industry.

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.

Now Check out:

Indy Couple getting their grit and grind on at Memphis’ Seed Hatchery Accelerator

Interview With Al Leston, On The Wall, A Community’s Digital Story Board [OneSpark]

Al Leston is the host of the popular NPR documentary series, State Of The Re-Union. The NPR documentary style show has Leston going into communities across the country and chronicling the world around him. The show highlights, what makes the community.

Leston was on hand at the OneSpark crowdfunding festiva showing the next extension of State Of The Re-Union, a gigantic, digital tablet based wall. “The Wall” is an installation piece that he hopes to have setup in busy, high traffic areas in a town or city.

“bus stops, court yards, plazas and downtown street corners” are locations that Leston has in mind for this gigantic piece of interactive story telling art.

Just like SOTRU, The Wall will open up dialogue between people with different ways of life and different perspectives, promoting understanding and encouraging conflict resolution. If we can be connected with others in different regions, with different cultures, we will have a better chance of creating solutions to pressing issues. We will become better listeners. We will increase empathy.

The Wall challenges how media inhabits our space. The Internet is an ether, as intangible as it is infinite. But we have trapped ourselves – become idle, passive voyeurs of media. The Wall will surprise us. The Wall will touch us. The Wall will change us. And we will have the power to change The Wall. – From the OneSpark profile page.

In meeting Leston he was genuine, concerned about communities and extremely creative. A video loop showing throughout the week at his OneSpark booth showed what he hopes to create with the end result of the wall. He wants people in cities, towns and community’s to take a moment and discover the stories that are being home grown.

The community aspect, creativity and merged use of technology, in “installation art” are what made The Wall the top vote getter in the technology category during the OneSpark festival.

Find out more about Leston’s State of The Reunion program here.

We’ve got over 30 startup stories from OneSpark here.

ReThreaded The Social Startup That Won The Most Votes At OneSpark [video]

ReThreaded,Social entrepreneurship,social startup,Florida startup,OneSpark,Kristin Keen

(photo: NMI 2013)

Last Wednesday OneSpark, the World’s Crowdfunding Festival kicked off in Jacksonville Florida. It was five days of creators, entrepreneurship, artists and startups. The creators, and entrepreneurs came from all different categories and all different walks of life.

During the opening ceremonies, led by voice of the Jacksonville Jaguars, Brian Sexton, we were given a glimpse of what was to come. Sexton invited random creators to raise their hands and come up and pitch their creation, business or startup to the crowd. Each of the five creators had 90 seconds to deliver an on the spot pitch. One of those pitches was Kristin Keen the founder of Rethreaded.

Rethreaded is a social startup that puts women who’ve suffered some of the worst abuse known to humans, sex trafficking, human trafficking and prostitution, and gives them a new sense of life, and worth through business, artistry and employment. Keen spoke to the crowd with a genuine passion. She had spent five years of her life in India where she helped empower women who had suffered the same kind of abuse through teaching them to sew.

Keen told Florida’s First Coast News that when she got back home to Jacksonville she couldn’t sit still she wanted to do something to continue her mission, and that she did.

She started Rethreaded, which crafts children’s clothes out of used t-shirts. So not only is she putting women who need a lift up a place to work and be creative, but she’s also upcycling t-shirts.

Little did she know when she pitched her company on Wednesday afternoon that she would be the runaway vote leader at the end of the week. She also didn’t know what was in store for her just a few moments later.

After all five creators had pitched, OneSpark volunteers handed out sealed white envelopes. Sexton informed the crowd that in those envelopes (which we weren’t allowed to look in) were $1 and $5 bills, $1000 dollars worth. The crowd was instructed to find the creators who just pitched outside of the creator lounge tent and hand over the envelope. Like me, many of the crowd didn’t even look in the envelopes.

I had made a core group of new friends at OneSpark and silently we all took our envelopes and walked over to find Kristin. We weren’t alone. She won that contest by a landslide.

The OneSpark staff did daily updates at 5:30pm each evening to inform the crowd of who the biggest movers in voting were and sure enough on Saturday evening Rethreaded was the biggest mover.

Their OneSpark booth was a hut constructed out of used t-shirts, which made a great make-shift shelter when the rain came pouring down Saturday afternoon.

Keen was one of the greatest creators we met. She was extremely kind and humble and we’re pretty sure she wasn’t even expecting the win. I caught a glimpse of Keen in her hut on Saturday afternoon, tearing up telling a group of passerbys that she never expected the outpouring of support she received at OneSpark.

Naturally I was gunning for a tech startup to win the overall vote during the five days of crowd voting, but I couldn’t be more pleased that the top vote went to Kristin Keen and Re-Threaded, a social entrepreneur with a heart of gold. With the most votes, Rethreaded took home $6,768.42 of the $250,000 crowdfunding prize. Event registrants voted for one creator using the OneSpark app and the money was distributed evenly among the top vote getters.

You can see how genuine Keen is in her 90 second pitch below:

Find out more about Rethreaded here.

Here’s over 30 more startup stories from OneSpark.

Indy Couple Getting Their Grit & Grind On At Memphis’ Seed Hatchery Accelerator

Memphis’ Seed Hatchery accelerator is less than a month away from demo day for their third cohort of startups. This years class has some major standouts and Boosterville is one of them.

Boosterville was founded as Sodbuster by married couple Pam and Tom Cooper. The Cooper’s hale from Indianapolis Indiana and they are the only “out of town” team for this years Seed Hatchery class. I met Pam Cooper on Brad Feld’s alternative to Hacker News, the Startup Revolution Hub. Meeting woman entrepreneurs is nothing new these days however Pam and Tom admittedly have adult children, sometimes older than the other founders on the Startup Revolution Hub, and the other founders at Seed Hatchery.

I quickly struck up an online friendship with Pam that resulted in her presenting at the startup conference and facilitated an introduction into the Seed Hatchery program.

What makes the Coopers even more interesting is that Tom is the founding CTO of Cha-Cha and has been a distinguished CTO for the last 30 years. While I wouldn’t call them “startup rich” the Cooper’s have done well. Pam founded a successful cleaning business. Tom has hit a few doubles and triples in his career. Tom enjoys flying his prop plane when he can pull away from the computer screen.

That’s what makes Cooper’s truly unique. They aren’t in the Seed Hatchery program for the seed investment (which of course helps any startup, Boosterville included), they are in it for the grit and grind and the whirlwind business training that happens during a three month, intensive accelerator program.

While Pam sometimes jokes about being the “class mom” with this year’s Seed Hatchery, they work with the best of them, until late hours of the night and back again first thing in the morning. Tom made arrangements with his development job in Indianapolis to work from Memphis every morning before working on Boosterville.

So what is Boosterville?

It’s a new platform that combines the mobile wallet with a loyalty and rewards type program that benefits local schools. Pam and Tom grew tired of neighborhood kids hitting them up with the same popcorn tins, wrapping paper and World’s Finest Chocolate bars. The school fundraiser was destined for a disruption.

Boosterville has partnered with Peabody Elementary in mid-town Memphis and merchants in the Overton Square and Cooper Young neighborhoods for their beta testing.

The Boosterville mobile app is tied in with local merchants and local schools who have agreed to give a kickback to the school of the user’s choice when they checkout with the Boosterville mobile wallet. The Cooper’s live on the cusp of new technology, and to that end, where others have used Paypal or Google Wallet for checkout, Boosterville uses fellow midwestern startup Dwolla as it’s wallet back bone.

Dwolla’s founder Ben Milne knows Tom well and is very enthusiastic about what Boosterville is doing.

Despite their age, and experience, Boosterville is treated the same way every other startup in the Seed Hatchery class is treated. They’ve been going up and down in the weekly rankings like every other startup and they went through a name change and a couple pivots during the past two months.

Boosterville will graduate from the Seed Hatchery program on demo day which is May 16th and will coincide with the Memphis in May festivities. For more info on Boosterville visit boosterville.com.

Find more startup news from the south east here.

Florida Startup Musical Math Number Line Has An Innovative Approach to Teaching Math

Florida teacher turned entrepreneur Deb Bowers has an innovative, musical way to teach students adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers. She’s put it all to music and song using one of FAO Schwartz most popular toys.

Long gone are the days that one has to travel all the way to New York City to see FAO Schwartz signature toys. You know the ones made famous by many New York based Christmas movies including Home Alone. Toys-R-Us has created an FAO Schwartz section in all of their stores and one of their most popular toys from the brand is a gigantic piano kids can walk and jump on.Think Nintendo power pad meets keyboard.

Well Bowers has created a way to use that piano toy, affix a number chart on top and teach kids to add and subtract positive and negative numbers, while performing a song.

Musical Math Numberline comes with everything a parent needs to teach this method at home, except for the piano itself. You can either order it from Bowers’ site via a link to Toys R Us or go to your local Toys R us and pick it up. The numberline comes with the overlay for the piano along with a song book that is filled not only with songs, but songs composed by performing math problems.

To get the entire gist of the idea you should watch the video below. Bowers said she got the idea from her students. She would put masking tape on the floor and have them move about the front of the room adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers. Some students suggested that there had to be a way they could add music to it, so Bowers did.

She just showed off the idea at OneSpark the World’s Crowdfunding Festival where she hoped to get a jump start on bringing the company out to a bigger market. She told us there were lots of interested people that came to see her at her booth and that she was going to continue with Musical Math Numberline regardless of whether she was one of the companies to get funded at the event.

Check out the video below. You can find out more at musicalmathnumberline.com

Here are even more startup stories from OneSpark!

Never Miss Your Kids Game With RUA Sports, And Raise Money For Their School Too!

One thing that sucks about being on the “sneaker strapped startup road trip” is missing time with my kid. FaceTime makes it almost bearable, and home time is just that, home time. Now my daughter is going to start officially playing soccer in the fall and while I am going to try and schedule our road trip stops around the soccer schedule, inevitably I’m going to miss a few games.

Aaron Russell the founder of Jacksonville startup RUA Sport feels my pain, along with the pain of thousands of other parents who’s schedules dictate that they can’t be there for all the goals, home runs and triple doubles. Russell’s startup is also great for grandma’s and grandpa’s all over the country that want to keep up with their grandkids games.

RUA Sports is the creator of MyMobile Scoreboard. In essence this app crowdsources a network of users on-site at a youth sports event in a “play by play” style manner. You’ll never miss a goal, save or a triple play again.

Russell and the team at RUA Sports have also figured out a way to do some non-traditional fundraising for the schools that utilize the app and the social crowdsourcing play by play that it offers.

MyMobile Scoreboard costs $1.99 to download and RUA Sports will give back 50 cents of every download to the schools or youth sports organizations that download the app. Each organization will have it’s own mobile scoreboard so for example a high school could have a mobile scoreboard for their basketball program. Then the parents and others who want to keep up with the game can download the app and give back $.50 per download back to the school. For some schools with heritage and history this could prove to be a really good fundraiser.

Check out our interview video below with RUA Sports and for more info visit ruasports.com

Here are more awesome startups from OneSpark the World’s Crowdfunding Festival in Jacksonville.