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Cincinnati Startup REPP’s Brandery Demo Day Pitch VIDEO

The Brandery, Cincinnati’s branding and marketing tech startup accelerator, held demo day on Wednesday at the Great American Ball Park. They showed off 11 new graduate startups to a packed house of nearly 400.

REPP was one of the startups we actually missed on our last trip to Cincinnati at the end of June. What we saw, was a team that knew how to dress in some awesome hot pink pants. After getting over their keen sense of fashion, REPP is actually a great new spin on a variety of old ideas rolled into one.

Have you ever met a girl that you tried to date, but a year to make love she wanted you to wait… oh wait that’s a song lyric. Have you ever met a girl that you tried to date and after she stood you up you found out she “pre date stalked you”? Well that’s exactly what happen to REPP founder Michael Bergman, when he actually met his now wife. Luckily for Bergman he’s got a pretty popular name. In fact, Chris Bergman, the founder of Chore Monster (which is a previous graduate of The Brandery) isn’t even related to Michael.

So sure we internet stalk everyone now. The first thing I do when I get a new business card or meet someone at a conference I find intriguing is go right to good ole Google. The problem with that in the dating world is that there is a lot of stuff out there that may be better suitable after a few dates.

Now take a situation at the complete other end of the spectrum. It’s time to sell your iPhone 4s on Craigslist. Now this is a hot item and you may want to know a little bit more about the man who just pulled up to a panel van and appears to be packing a pistol in his sweatshirt.

In both of these cases you want more information about someone. If you were the someone in question, with REPP at myrepp.com, you can control that flow of information.

REPP aggregates your social graph and can even integrate a background check into a profile that you can give people access to. You can also control how much information is given out in that profile.

You may want the ladies to know a little more information than the guy you’re buying the stolen Xbox from. Nonetheless both the Craigslist seller and the nice young lady would be more comfortable with more information about you.

So REPP is a background profile platform. With it’s wide variety of customizations and it’s great variety of information sources, REPP stands apart from anything else in it’s space. REPP costs $9.99 per month but for that you get a whole lot more than any other similar service. Also, the person that wants to meet you or wants to do business with you doesn’t have to foot the bill. To make that $9.99 an even better value proposition, REPP has a way to gift subscriptions of their service to other potential users.

Watch Bergman’s Demo Day pitch below. After you get over their hot pants, you’ll see why REPP won’t ruin your REPP.

Linkage:

Check out REPP here

Here’s more Brandery coverage

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Brandery Demo Day: Utah Startup CrowdHall PITCH VIDEO

We’ve really liked CrowHall even before we found out they were going to be part of the 2012 class at the Brandery. Their platform is a great way to let celebrities, public figures, politicians, bloggers and micro celebrities respond and interact with their following in a clean, branded manner that’s both organized and archivable.

The premise for the idea is great and they’ve been testing out the platform and in July they did a public test with “Bachelorette” winner Jef Holm. Holm sent out one tweet the day before the test saying that he would be taking questions on CrowdHall. He didn’t include a link to the site or the secret page that would hold his CrowdHall forum, but his fans were relentless, they went to the CrowdHall site, and founder the private page. The end result was that when Holm logged in for his CrowdHall session during the test he already had 29 questions waiting for him.

COO and co-founder Jordan Menzel pitched today at The Brandery’s Demo day at the Great American Ball Park. Menzel was decked out in a yellow t-shirt and cutoff shorts which they explained before the pitch was a “cost cutting measure”. While they have money committed they used all of the seed money working on validating their concept, and buying caffeine for their developer Nick.

The product looks great and hopefully it will be a household word in the 2016 election. Check out the pitch video below:

Linkage:

See what CrowdHall is all about here

Check out The Brandery Here

Check out more of nibletz’ Brandery coverage

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Kansas City’s Think Big Accelerator Becomes Latest Microsoft Bizspark Partner

Kansas City’s brand new Think Big Accelerator has just announced that they are the latest partner in the Microsoft Bizspark program.

Think Big Partners and the Think Big Accelerator for emerging early stage, high growth potential startups just announced their first class of six startups last week. The six startups will participate in the accelerator program for 22 weeks of intense training to prepare the startups for a demo day to investors at the end of the session in January.

The six startups selected to go through the program received a seed investment between $18 and $25,000 dollars in exchange for 6-8% equity.

The six startups are:
H2OCloud (New York, New York): H2OCloud is a cloud-based application that connects music fans to bands in a mobile-based platform. H2OCloud helps bands create more revenue through better marketing, smarter asset management and improve the overall fan experience and artist-fan interaction.

inCharge (Kansas City, Missouri): inCharge is a kiosk-based mobile phone charging station that provides digital out-of-home targeted advertising to the consumer. inCharge’s initial focus is high teledensity overseas markets.

Kahootz (Kansas City, Missouri): Kahootz is a consumer-focused online calendar platform that provides users with easier ways to combine, share and manage all obligations and profiles on one easy-to-maintain social-based platform. Kahootz also enables user-controlled, privacy-enabled, permission-based business-to-consumer markets through event promotion syndication.

Keyzio (Kansas City, Missouri): Keyzio has been defined as the Match.com for real estate for two people who don’t know they are trying to find each other. The Keyzio platform connects people and helps them find, buy and sell real estate that may not normally be available through MLS.

Phone2Action (Los Angeles, California): Phone2Action uses location-based mobile technology to instantly connect constituents to their lawmakers making in-the-moment advocacy easier.

Weejay (Kansas City, MO): Weejay is a virtual jukebox application that allows customers to control music in particular venues through mobile devices. Weejay’s venue management feature dashboard enables total control of music for a specific venue and creates better revenue opportunities for venue owners to enhance the overall patron experience.

With the announcement of their partnership with Microsoft’s BizSpark program, these six startups will receive a higher level of Windows Azure cloud access, setting up each entrepreneur for success in the cloud. Microsoft BizSpark will also provide the six startups in the Think Big Accelerator program with consulting, insight, mentorship and expertise.

“We are excited to have Think Big Partners join our BizSpark Plus Partner Program,” said Mark Relph, Senior Director, Strategic and Emerging Business Team at Microsoft. “Think Big Accelerator startups have the potential to spur business growth in the Midwest. With Windows Azure, startups can save the cost of investing in IT infrastructure and only pay for technology resources as they use them. We look forward providing member startups with access to technology, resources and business connections.”

“The partnership we have developed with Microsoft will not only benefit the startups involved with the Think Big Accelerator program, but will also help to strengthen the entire Kansas City startup community,” said Herb Sih, co-founder of Think Big Partners. “We are excited to already provide Midwestern startups with the benefits of the Microsoft partnership, such as the Azure Cloud and Windows 8 App Kickstarts for developers. This is a great partnership for our startups, the accelerator and Kansas City entrepreneurs.”

Linkage:

Learn more about the Think Big Accelerator here

Learn more about Microsoft BizSpark here

Learn more about an awesome startup event here

New York Startup: Cheek’d Brings Back The Actual Calling Card For Romance

New York startup Cheek’d is bridging the online dating world with old school real world romance and bringing back the physical calling card. In an time where everyone knows the now infamous line:

“Hey I just met you, and this is crazy, here’s my number, call me maybe”

Lori Cheek and her innovative startup are bringing back traditional calling cards for people to hand out to people while at the gym, the club, the bar, a restaurant or even walking down the street. From the calling card the person given the card can engage with the person who handed out the card via the web portal.

The explosive hit by female pop sensation Carly Rae Jepsen actually brings back memories for the parents of the teeny boppers listening to the song ever so loudly in the car. In fact, even in my 30’s I remember jotting my number down on a piece of paper and giving it to a cute girl or two at the ice rink in the 8th grade.

Sure back then all we could do was leave a phone number. Now through Cheek’d you can create a profile online and point people to it via the Cheek’d card. Some singles have resorted to having their facebook profile links on their business card or personal cards. Some even jot their Facebook profile down on that slip of paper they hand to a potential love interest. We all know that Facebook may not be the place we want someone we’re interested in to check us out.

Cheek is actually an architect by trade and now she’s designing new architecture for the dating space. Check out our interview with her below:

Washington DC Startup: Review Signal Launches More Trusted Review Platform

Washington DC startup Review Signal launched last week after 19 months in the making. Founder Kevin Ohashi has developed a product review platform that can be more trusted than traditional platforms like Yelp or Google reviews. Review Signal analyzes data points across social media to gauge the pulse of what people think about a particular product or service.

While there are hundreds of verticals that Review Signal could be applied to Ohashi has started with web hosting reviews as his first full on demonstration of how the system works.

Review Signal mines the data across social networks, and then separates the “mentions” for a specific product or service into good or bad. As Ohashi tells us in the interview below, if there are 100 tweets about a product with 50 being positive and 50 being negative, the raw review score would naturally be 50%. Now people aren’t forced to read long, sometimes biased long-form reviews.

One of the biggest problems we’ve seen with traditional reviews stems from the reason the average person would write a review anyway. Aside from career reviewers and those types that have to review absolutely everything, the bulk of the rest of reviews on review sites come when a customer is raving about a company, product or service after having a great experience or after they’ve had a bad experience.

You don’t get a lot of “average” everyday folks that take the time to write a review about a run of the mill or average experience.

For example say you went to a decent (not exceptional, just decent) restaurant and had the best chocolate cake ever. You’re much more likely to tweet “had this awesome chocolate cake” with a photo, rather than write a 5 paragraph review on the restaurant itself or, heck, even the chocolate cake.

One of the most fascinating parts about this story is how it came about in the first place. Ohashi actually based Review Signal off the idea he used for his masters thesis.

Check out our interview with Ohashi below. He does a really great job of explaining how the system actually works.

Nashville Startup Jamplify Exhibiting At DEMO Courtesy Of Startup America

As we reported earlier this morning, Startup America revealed the 8 startups that won their contest for a free trip to DEMO in Santa Clara California this week. Four startups are exhibiting in the DEMO Showcase Pavilion. The other four startups are presenting on the main stage.

Nashville Jumpstart Foundry graduate Jamplify was one of the four startup selected for the exhibit space in the DEMO Showcase Pavillion.

Jamplify is a hybrid, promotional, crowdsourcing platform. With Jamplify’s finished product, you get the most logical promotional vehicle for bands, musicians, and bloggers that’s available to date.

Jamplify crowdsources people for promoting the bands that they love. Rather than crowdsourcing for actual capital Jamplify is crowdsourcing for social capital and human capital, and then there’s the payoff.

Jamplify is like the kickstarter for fan based, crowd based musical promotion. As a fan of a band or a promotional ambassador you can agree to promote a band or musician. Based on your social graph and the amount of people that you actually touch with the campaigns short, trackable url you will become eligible for prizes from the band or artist you’re promoting.

Jamplify arrived at Nashville’s Jumpstart Foundry from New York City where the founders worked on Wall Street.

Check out their video pitch from Jumpstart Foundry’s demo day in August below:

Linkage:

Check out Jamplify here

DEMO here

Startup America here

Everywhere Else here

Give Your Photos A Voice With Orlando Startup Picvoice INTERVIEW

Now that I’m in my 30’s it seems that every time I go home to visit my parents I go through photo albums and unless the photo is blatantly obvious, you know like the Magic Kingdom castle is in the background, I have no idea the context for the photo. Mom did a decent job of handwriting notes on the back but that still doesn’t give the photos a real good back story.

Fast forward to the internet age and I’ve got digital photos going back to the mid 90’s. All in all I probably have near 100,000 photos. I’m a big picture taker. The problem is, just like with those traditional photo albums, I have no idea the context on lots of them.

Imagine if the photos talked? Well they can now thanks to Orlando startup PicVoice. Currently PicVoice is a web application that allows you to sign in through Facebook, upload photos and then add up to 30 seconds of audio to accompany the photo. Now your photos can really tell a story.

As we learned in our interview below with Founder and CEO Matt Andrews, they’re working on a mobile app right now. They aren’t alone in this space though. Atlanta startup StoryMark also allows you to add audio to photos. They went the other route and put together a great mobile app first, without a web app. That makes StoryMark great for taking photos and posting them with audio. PicVoice on the other hand is great for people who have thousands of photos that are just waiting for a story.

Check out our interview with Andrews below:

Meet The 8 Startup Winners From Startup America’s DEMO Contest

The fall DEMO conference kicks off in Santa Clara California today. It’s one of the most popular startup events, and longest running startup events in the world. In fact, TechCrunch Disrupt was born just to compete with DEMO.

Unlike “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference” presenting at DEMO can be extremely expensive, especially for a bootstrapping startup from “everywhere else”. That’s why Startup America teamed up with their regional partners to run a contest for 8 lucky startups to attend and present at the DEMO conference free of charge.

Four of the startups will show off their companies in the DEMO Showcase Pavillion. The other four will show off on the main stage following in the foot steps of companies that were once startups themselves and have grown into household names, like E*Trade, TiVo and Salesforce.

“We’re incredibly excited to collaborate with DEMO and our regions to send startups to launch at this renowned event,” said Scott Case, CEO, Startup America Partnership. “You only need to look at a list of DEMO alumni to see what a game-changer it is for any startup focused on growth.”

Here are the four startups that are exhibiting in the DEMO Showcase Pavillion:

Jamplifiy- Nashville TN
CEO: Andy Pickens
About-Jamplify believes in the power of existing fans, and that they are a marketing force for anyone seeking a new audience. Jamplify is a promotional platform allowing anyone who has content to leverage their current fan base to get the word out. Promoters are assigned unique links for a Content Creator¹s particular jampaign, and Jamplify tabulates the number of unique people that each Promoter drives to the content.

CoPatient
Region:Oregon
About: CoPatient was created to give patients the knowledge and insight desperately needed to understand medical bills. By using technology, patients have a stronger voice in financing their healthcare.

Charlie Contacts
Founder: Junaid Kalmadi
About: Charlie Contacts let’s you “have them at hello” by arming you with all the need-to-know information about your contacts before any meeting, conference or phone call. This mobile-to-mobile app searches news and social sites and everything in between to provide you with all the details on your upcoming interaction.
Hallway
Founder: Sean McElrath
About: Hallway’s website allows students to post questions on various school subjects which their peers then answer. Students can then rate the most useful questions and answers, which rise to the top of the page. Students can also share notes and collaborate on assignments, and the website has built-in tools such as a personal calendar, class calendar, and assignments tabs. While there are several Q&A sites made specifically for college students (including startup Answer Underground, Hallway is one of the few that targets high school students.

Here are the four startups that will get to present on the DEMO main stage today and tomorrow

EcoLek, LLC
About:EcoLek LLC aims to reconnect people with nature by helping them identify the birds around them. Our Bird Alerts, available now at www.GetBirdeez.com, sends you customized notification emails about birds that have been seen in your area. The Birdeez App will help you identify birds and collect bird sightings, and the Birdeez Social Network let your share those sightings with your friends and to meet other birdwatchers in your area.

eBrevia, LLC
Founder:
Ned Gannon
About:eBrevia is commercializing natural language processing technology developed at a major research university to assist corporate attorneys, in-house counsel, and business executives in performing a variety of tasks more efficiently, accurately, and cost effectively. Using machine-learning techniques, the company¹s software can extract and summarize legal provisions from a wide array of legal documents.

Click With Me Now
Founder:
Mike Behr
About: The company offers a simple screen sharing solution that doesn¹t require extra software and works directly within the browser, allowing users to quickly share their online experience in real time with friends, coworkers, or clients. Click With Me Now received $50,000 in seed funding following its acceptance into the Capital Innovators program earlier this year, and is currently running in closed beta.

RecBob
Founder: John Schnipkoweit
About: RecBob is a Facebook app that manages adult sports teams, making them easy and fun! RecBob sends game reminders, tracks who¹s in and who¹s out on game day and automatically finds subs as needed so rosters are always full.

Of course we wish all eight startups good luck while they’re out there at DEMO. The DEMO conference can be very lucrative for any startup. This isn’t the first time Startup America has been able to help get startups from “everywhere” to major conferences and events. StartupDC held a pitch contest earlier this year for a spot at the highly coveted Capital Connection/TechBuzz event. That winner CONT3NT went on to the finals of the TechBuzz competition.

Linkage:

Find DEMO here

Startup America here

Everywhere Else here

Hong Kong Startup: DataField Lets Your Field Workers Go Paperless

Do you run a business with lots of workers in the field? Are they coming back from collecting data with clipboards full of paper? Well Hong Kong startup DataField is hoping to help change that for you and your company.

DataField is a SaaS startup that helps businesses and enterprise with field workers collect data on forms or surveys quickly, easily and digitally. DataField is the perfect solution for route drivers that collect orders while on their route. It’s also perfect for those workers out there collecting data from customers completing surveys. DataField could also be used for political canvassers that are out door to door trying to get easy questions answered.

No matter how big or small the data sample is, DataField offers a paperless way of collecting that data which then also gives companies the option of getting the data back wirelessly in real time.

DataField solves several pain points which all lead to increased productivity. Say for instance you own a food delivery company. Route drivers could use DataField instead of traditional order sheets. When the delivery person is at the customers home delivering their current food order and taking the next, the minute the new order is complete in the DataField system it can be processed back at the warehouse while the driver is on their way to the next customer.

Traditionally, before systems like this, the warehouse wouldn’t see the order sheets until the end of the day when the route driver returns.

We got a chance to speak with Antoine Dercoche co-founder and CEO of DataField. Check out the interview below.

London Startup FlatClub: AirBnb Meets Couch Surfing Meets LinkedIn For College Students

So what do you get when you take two Israeli guys, move them to London and mash together AirBnb, CouchSurfing and LinkedIn? You get London startup FlatClub.

FlatCub is a network for college students and alumni to find temporary housing situations amongst their friends, friends of friends and trusted acquaintances. FlatClub connects college students from all over with each other to offer spare bedrooms, couches, and even apartments. Say you have a year round lease on an off campus apartment and you’re not going to be at school during the summer, you could use FlatClub to find a trusted renter.

FlatClub utilizes the social web, requires users to be college students, and provides a safe and secure payment system for taking the payments for booking.

The growing startup closed an undisclosed Series-A round back in May from a syndicate of non-traditional VC’s. They are also a product of the London Business School Incubator. But even with the security of a Series-A round and the backing of an incubator like the London Business School co-founder and CEO Nitzan Yudan is far from done the hard, sweat equity type grunt work.

Yudan is planning a US expansion to the top 30 universities and plans to do it with a road show across the country. He’s looking to generate as much buzz as he can. Yudan feels that FlatClub offers a safer more secure way of finding temporary accommodations. By requiring users to be college students or alumni there’s an element of security already in place.

FlatClub also provides an element of real social interaction. Students and alumni renting accommodations will see how they are socially connected to potential renters and vice versa. Also for those students and alumni that are renting rooms, they’ll get the in person interactions that you can’t find with similar services.

We got a chance to interview Yudan. Check out the interview below.

Florida Startup: Seek.ly To Launch Online Speed Dating At DEMO

Online speed dating isn’t a new concept however it’s one that could use some definite improvements. Online dating sites typically bury their users with superfluous messages. They also give off false positives by matching users with people that aren’t interesting or compatible.

Florida startup Seek.ly plans will eliminate those problems and others to make online speed dating more spontaneous the way that it is when you go to an in person speed dating event at a local restaurant, bar or singles meet up.

Profiles be gone!

While at first this may seem like a crazy idea, one way that Seek.ly puts that spontaneity back into online speed dating is by eliminating profile pictures, and questions. To often people eliminate potential dates by profiles. The other down fall is that profiles are often blown up or only show the absolute best a person has to offer (or what they perceive is their best). With Seek.ly there’s no BS around the profile, more time is spent focusing on getting to know the person.

“Seek.ly does not have profile pictures, questionnaires or compatibility testing because we know that at the end of the day those processes just can’t take the place of human interaction. By eliminating these crutches, seek.ly users are more inclined to get to know the person and not the profile. I’m very excited about our public launch and validating these ideas.” said Susie Steiner, Founder of Seek.ly.

Steiner and co-founder Kim Randall will launch Seek.ly today at the fall DEMO conference in Santa Clara California. They’ll have six minutes to wow those in the audience and those watching from home. Online speed dating needs a makeover and Seek.ly is confident they’ll deliver.

“We are ready to take Online dating to the next level and I am very excited that we are launching our video speed dating platform at DEMO Fall 2012,” said Kim Randall, Co- founder of Seek.ly LLC.

Linkage:

Check out Seek.ly here at seek.ly

Check out DEMO here

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” speaking of “everywhere else” click here

Toronto Startup Picatic Launches; Protects Event Organizers By Crowdfunding Tickets

Toronto startup Picatic has an excellent proposition for event organizers,”Never lose money on an event again”. They can guarantee this proposition for event organizers that use their platform for their events.

Picatic’s EventTilt platform is a crowdfunding site to fund events. Users take to the traditional crowdfunding model and essentially purchase tickets early for an event that an organizer has posted to the site. If the event gets enough early tickets from the crowd, those that crowdfunded the event will receive discounted tickets based on their contribution. Should the event not get enough commitments than the user’s card isn’t charged and everyone walks away happy.

With EventTilt event organizers can finally host events without worrying that they won’t sell enough tickets to break-even or make the profit they expected. The platform eliminates all of the financial risks of hosting an event by offering a preset number of early tickets at a discount. Once discounted tickets are sold the event Tilts and tickets go back up to full price — the event is on! For events that don’t Tilt within the time allotted, EventTilt will refund buyers 100% of their ticket price.

Just like other crowdfunding sites Picatic can also offer other incentives to those that purchase their tickets early. Incentives like early admission, VIP access,T-shirts and other swag can be used as incentives to the buyers.

“EventTilt is changing the way we plan and market events. Our goal is simple, create a platform that not only ensures events get the funding they need to be successful but also helps organizers engage with their most loyal supporters.” CEO and Co-Founder Jayesh Parmar said in a statement.

There are a few other crowdfunding startups in the ticketing and event space like GigFunder and Queremos. While many view Picatic as a way to eliminate risk for event organizers, others wonder if it’s worth backing or committing to an event that may or may not happen.

Picatic has raised $200,000 in seed funding and their site is up and running.

Linkage:

Check out Picatic on the web here

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everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference Announced February 10-12th 2013 In Memphis Tennessee

MEMPHIS TN, & EVERYWHERE ELSE- “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference” has been announced for Sunday February 10, 2013 through Tuesday February 12, 2013 and has already attracted an all star line up of speakers, panelists, investors,startups and entrepreneurs. The conference will take place in the heart of beautiful Memphis Tennessee at the Memphis Convention Center.

The three day conference will feature over 30 panels, keynote addresses, roundtable and fireside chats geared towards the challenges that entrepreneurs, startups and even investors face outside Silicon Valley. The conference will also include three signature networking events as well as a three day startup exhibition featuring 100 startups from “everywhere else”. Startups from every stretch of the country, and as far away as Israel and Romania have already committed to exhibit in the Startup Village.

Startup America CEO and founding CTO of Priceline Scott Case will keynote at the event. Best selling author and motivational speaker Tracy Myers,Rohit Bhargava,Bill Harris former CEO of Paypal and Intuit and many more, will also speak at the event. everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference will continue to announce speakers over the next two months.

Startups, startup founders, accelerator heads and investors will round out three fun filled and educational days in Memphis Tennessee on topics ranging from “raising money everywhere else”, “what I learned in an accelerator”, “what investors outside the valley expect”, “startups: life after hip hop, music and sports”, “kick ass female founders from everywhere else” and more.

There will also be three startup pitch contests with finals taking place at the conference; “The Best of Everywhere Else”, “The Startup Village People Awards” and the “Top of Tennessee” startup pitch contests will have their finals take place at the conference in front of a panel of well known angels, VC’s and celebrities. With the three startup contests over $100,000 in cash and prizes will be given away.

The Best Of Everywhere Else contest will begin with video pitches on November 1, 2012.

The Top Of Tennessee pitch contest will be open to startups throughout the state of Tennessee and will begin during Global Entrepreneurship Week.

In the Startup Village People Awards, Startup Village companies will compete for $25,000 in cash and prizes by audience participation vote via the official conference app.

“everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference” has made both exhibiting and attending affordable for even the boot-strapping startup from “everywhere else”. Attendee tickets are $60 with an early bird rate of $39 for all three days. Startup Village booths are $480 with a few $295 pre-sale booth spaces still available. An earlybird rate for Startup Village booths of $350 will continue through October 31st.

Linkage:

Check out everywhereelse.co

Attendees get your attendee tickets here at the special early bird rate

Startups, here’s a link for $295 startup village booth space that ends Tuesday at 11:59pm

San Diego Startup: The Tip Network Is PayPal For Servers

Although restaurant and hospitality industry technology has improved by leaps and bounds over the years, one area where it still falls short is tipping. That’s where San Diego startup The Tip Network comes in.

With the economy the way it is these days restaurant owners and managers are mice-managing their shift schedules even more than they ever have before. Owners are managers are quick to make cuts to their wait staff the minute they can. This causes a major pain for servers. In a lot of restaurants servers either need to stick around after getting cut or at the end of their shift, come back at closing time or wait until the next day to reconcile their tips and tip out. This can be a major pain point for servers.

The Tip Network offers solutions for problems like that and other problems that plague proprietors of tip based businesses.

Tip Network is a cloud based tip management solution for independent and chain restaurants. We enable managers to easily track, allocate, and distribute tips digitally to their staffs Tip Network. Each staff member has their own unique Tip Network profile that allows them to (1) send money to any account, at any bank (2) send money to anyone in the network, (3) and many other things down the road .

Using the Tip Network, servers take ownership and management of their tips over, instantly. Now, from the comfort of their own home, or device they can tip out to support staff, move tips to their bank accounts even pay back loans to other servers. Like PayPal, with The Tip Network users get their own ID and can move their tips around anywhere in the network.

Founder Greg Crisci has first hand experience as a server and knows the pain that his startup hopes to solve. He’s busy these days looking for integration partners and preparing the implementation of his new tipping alternative. He did take a few minutes to talk to us though. Check out the interview below: