gThrive Brings High-Tech To Growers

There are 7 billion people in the world today, and population estimates say we could reach 8 billion in about 10 years. (Check out this world population clock. The numbers are a little dizzying.)

We’re going to have to feed all those people, but as the population grows, farmland is disappearing rapidly.

Agriculture is ripe (get it?) for disruption, and gThrive is one of the companies providing it.

For those of us who are not growers, it can seem pretty simple. Stick a seed in the soil. Water it. Watch it grow. If we think hard about it, maybe we’ll consider potential pests or soil conditions, but for the most part it seems pretty cut and dry.

Yet, with large fields to manage, it is impossible for growers to know the condition of all of their soil. It’s also hard to gauge how much irrigation a certain patch might need, but water is expensive and can’t be wasted. Drones are increasingly being used to aid in farm work, but they can’t read these soil conditions from the sky.

That’s why Bruce Borden and his team came up with the gStake. The wireless, battery operated stakes boast sensors that read the soil information and transmit that data to web and phone apps.

Currently, the stakes work with Google maps. The location of each stake is noted with a color coordinated system that tells the grower how much water is in the soil,

Angel Capital Expo

if there’s enough fertilizer, and if the temperature varies too much.

Yet, the technology has proven difficult to create, and most of gThrive’s competitors are bigger, bulkier, more expensive systems. gStake is the first stake sensor that is inexpensive and movable, providing more value for the growers who can move them around the field.In our high-tech world, it seems like such a simple solution. Of course we should be able to read the ground like that, right?

Each gStake combines 5 different software systems, from the sensors to the transmitters to the apps that read it all. Yet the finished product looks simple and non-threatening, which is key to disrupting an entrenched industry like farming.

The stakes have already been through a prototype run and are now in some field trials in California. Borden sees possibility in the high-turnover, water-sensitive California crops like lettuce. For the average consumer, gStakes mean we can better predict the quality of the produce we buy. No more watery lettuce!

gThrive is presenting at the Angel Capital Expo on Thursday.

Cariloop: The Expedia For Senior Care

It’s going to happen to all of us.

There will come a day when our parents become dependents, and it becomes our job to care for them. Sometimes that means they will live with us, but it’s more than likely that we will need to find some kind of assisted living or retirement community. And, it’s possible those care options could be hundreds of miles from where we live.

Steve Theesfeld spent several years working for Sunrise Senior Living, and in that time he realized that it’s impossible for patients and family to get good, quality information about geriatric healthcare options. It wasn’t the organizations’ fault, necessarily. They often spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in marketing and branding, but they do it in outdated ways that end up being inaccessible.

With this understanding, Theesfeld founded Cariloop, described to me by CEO Michael Walsh as an “Expedia for senior care.”

Cariloop’s platform enables family members to get all the information they need about local options, pricing, and availability. They also provide direct access to the providers to facilitate easier admission.

Today the Cariloop team will pitch at the Health Wildcatters’ Demo Day. They’ve spent the last 3 months going through the accelerator, learning how hard it can be to build a business while essentially going back to school.

In true Texas form, Health Wildcatters takes its name from risk-taking oil entrepreneurs who take big chances in where they drill. This kind of mentality rubbed off on the Cariloop team.

“There is a good way to do things and a disruptive way to do things,” Walsh told us when we asked about the one thing he learned during the accelerator. “Entrepreneurs need to put everything they have into differentiating themselves, building something’s that better than everyone else’s, and sharing their passion with the world.”

After Demo Day, the team hopes to get some sleep. But, after THAT, they are already hard at work on some new features they will release in January. They’ve also signed a partnership with the Texas Organization of Residential Care Homes, which represents some 250-300 homes in the state.

For about Cariloop, check out the website and follow them on Twitter.

How An Online Platform Could Save Your Mental Health

According to a study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a full 20% of American adults experienced mental illness in the past year. Most often, these illnesses came in the form of depressive or anxiety disorders.

Yet, the stigma around mental disorders is still prevalent. In our startup culture, we champion the hard-headed, never-say-die entrepreneur. We glamorize the battle to start up and the sacrifices to health and family that many founders are willing to make. And, in the last year we saw not one but two high profile suicides.

Jonas Jones saw firsthand how mental illness affected behavior when he taught in south central LA and the bayous of Louisiana with Teach for America. After he left that organization, he volunteered his time leading groups for local youth.

During that experience he saw for the first time a therapy called “parent child interaction therapy.” Rather than sit with a mental health professional, the parent and child would sit in a room together and the therapist would be behind a two way mirror. An earpiece allowed the therapist to coach the parent through the conversation, and over time helped rewire both the parent and the child for positive interaction.

Jones thought, “There has to be a way to scale this.”

He founded Tao Mountain Inc, a company devoted to building secure online platforms that provide reliable information on a variety of mental health issues. The platforms provide videos, articles, and public discussions around topics such as depression, trauma, eating disorders and more. Profiles are 100% secure, and no one can see what a member is searching for or reading up on.

The first platform is parentchildinteractive.com and focuses on helping parents help their children. Members have access to a wide array of licensed therapists and behavioral experts, all of whom are cleared by an advisory board.

The platform is free to members. Revenue for the company comes through the fees paid by the experts who post videos and facilitate the discussions. The use of an online platform helps these providers scale their own practices and help more people.

Tao Mountain is also able to do a “skin change” and offer branding for corporations that want to provide mental health services to its employees. The example Jones gave me was of the Honolulu police department. Before his company came along, mental health services were offered on a certain floor of a certain building and EVERYONE knew it. If you were seen there, well, obviously you had problem.

The online platform allows members of the force to get the help they need, in the security of their own homes.

Parentchildinteractive.com is fully launched and functional. In the coming months, Tao Mountain will also launch an adult mental health site and a special needs site with the same services.

Tao Mountain is one of the presenting companies at this year’s Angel Capital Expo.

The Next Step In The Sharing Economy Is…

In the summer of 2012 Jaclyn Baumgartner got separate calls from her two brothers, each saying the same thing.

“I think I’m going to have to sell the boat. It’s just too expensive to keep up.”

At first glance, this probably sounds like a rich guy problem. But Jaclyn’s brothers are like the majority of boat owners in America. They make less than $100,000, own a small boat, and only use the boats and average of 14 days a year.

“Just rent it,” Jaclyn told her brothers, which does seem like the obvious answer. Except that boat insurance doesn’t cover renters. Boat rental companies pay for a whole other class of insurance that would never make sense for the average boat owner.

So, with her background as a strategy consultant, Jaclyn did some research into the car-sharing industry, trying to find something that could be applied to boats.

The ultimate problem is that even small boats are expensive and relatively unused, even by the most avid boater. The ability to rent out the boat would help with costs and provide boaters with a wider range of craft to experience.

The solution was, obviously, an insurance policy that would allow for rentals.

That solution, obviously, proved more difficult that you would think.

Jaclyn recruited help and spent 9 months knocking on the doors of major and minor insurance providers. She tried to convince anyone who would listen that a peer-to-peer insurance policy would solve the problem and provide income for boat owners and, ultimately, insurance providers.

“It was like trying to get them to invest,” she told me.

Finally, she convinced a major insurance provider to set up a policy, and Cruzin was in business.

In the spring of this year, Cruzin did a test run at the WesTrec Marina in Fort Lauderdale, FL. By the end of the test run, 10% of the marina tenants were signed up

on the site. The company found that boat owners didn’t just rent their boats. They were also excited to try out other boats and are also some of the most frequent renters.

After such a successful test run, WesTrec was happy to open up all their marinas to Cruzin, and since the summer soft launch, the site has grown to include 27 states. They’ve kept their marketing focus on Florida, so the growth they’ve seen is almost completely organic.

It takes a lot of trust to allow someone to man your boat. Cruzin also prides itself on thorough background checks and vetting processes. Boat owners maintain the right to refuse to rent a boat to someone, and they can even set up a test run with the potential renter. Those measures–plus the $1 million insurance policy–eliminate a lot of the hesitancy owners may feel.

Just a few months after launch, Cruzin is post-revenue, and Jaclyn knows they’ve proven the model. The company will present this week at the Angel Capital Expo, hoping to secure the capital that will help them scale in the coming year.

Find out more about Cruzin on their website.

LA-Based MemberPlanet Simplifies Group Management

In his time as a volunteer, Rob Hammond noticed something:

It’s a big pain to lead a group.

Group leaders are expected to use a variety of tools to get the job done. There’s one product for email lists, another for invitations, and a third for collecting payment. Only the most tech savvy (and bored) group leader could keep up with it all.

So, he founded MemberPlanet, an online platform that organizes all the group management tasks in one place. Interestingly, the company credits Facebook with their success. Before Facebook, people were used to having their group memberships scattered everywhere. After Facebook, it was normal to have all of our connections in one place.

That new normal, according to MemberPlanet, paved the way for their success.

Our Q&A with CEO Rob Hammond is below:

What is your startup called?

MemberPlanet. Everyone on the planet is a member of one or more groups, so we felt MemberPlanet was the perfect fit.

What is the product story? Where did the idea come from?

The inspiration for MemberPlanet was gradual and built over several years as both a volunteer and technology entrepreneur. As a volunteer, I was continually asked how we could use technology to assist various groups. The best available tools only provided a single feature, and thus multiple accounts across the web were needed. This was fine for someone who was tech-savvy and had a lot of free time; however I knew there had to be a better way to involve more group leaders and be more productive.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds? The founders are Rob Hammond and Binu Thekinedath. Rob is CEO and also founded GreekBill.com, an online financial tools and communication platform for universities and fraternal organizations. Greekbill is now used by organizations at over 400 universities. Our CTO Binu was the Senior Director of Information Technology at CB Richard Ellis Investors. There he developed deep experience in building innovative new products, large-scale systems and strategic platforms.

What problem do you solve?

MemberPlanet makes the tasks associated with managing a group and communicating with its members simple. We have created a functional network that solves the problem of group leaders having to use multiple online tools all over the web that do not work well together. MemberPlanet becomes the single place group leaders go to manage their groups and communicate with their members. At the same time members now have a single place where they can stay connected with their groups, update their information, pay membership dues and buy tickets to the next group event. MemberPlanet becomes a replacement for groups currently using Constant Contact, Survey Monkey, PayPal, Eventbrite, Shutterfly, Google Docs and other online tools groups often use.

Why now?

Social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have connected people in ways we never thought possible at a social level. While all of these people have been connected and see the power of a social network, they cannot perform most of the tasks that are critical to running a group on these networks. MemberPlanet’s functional network is the perfect complement for any sized group’s social network.

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

We have celebrated a number of milestones over the past year. Some of the more exciting were crossing the 1 Million user threshold, bringing on our 4000^th group and passing 5M in payments processed.

What are your next milestones?

We are launching our new app that is built for groups and essentially provides every group with their own group branded app for all of their members. In addition we are launching an enhanced events and ticketing module that our early adopters have been very excited about.

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

www.memberplanet.com

Duck Dynasty, Getting Lost, & Startups

Tyler Matthews, a twenty-something whose beard is worthy of its own spot on Duck Dynasty, and I first bonded over the fact that we shared the same first name.

The second thing we found we had in common, though, was that, on occasion, we both had an extremely difficult time trying to physically find or meet people we were trying to find or meet up with.

Say your friend says something like, “Yeah! Meet me ________ at 7:00pm” before she hangs up the phone, but you couldn’t make out what she said because of the motorcycle engines in the background.

Or what if, on a trip to New York City, you wander through Central Park to feed your new pet pigeons? You need your boyfriend, who’s halfway across the city in his hotel room, to come pick you up. But how do you tell him where to meet you?

Tyler and his brother-in-law Ian Zink got to thinking: “There’s gotta be an app for that.” But there wasn’t – or, at least, not one that could actually do what they wanted it to do well.

Yougy was born.

If there was an ‘aha moment’ for Tyler and Ian with Yougy, it happened at the St. Louis Zoo.

“All we were trying to do was meet up with each other’s families. We were in one part and they were in another, so we were trying to describe to each other where we were. It’s super hot outside and we’re sweating; I’m waving my hands in the air. We’re sharing screenshots and pictures of what’s in front of us. Nothing was working.”

Tyler, who was finishing his MBA at the time of the zoo episode, was presented with a bit of a fork in the road. Tyler and Ian both had full time jobs, so the question became: “Are we going to do this or are we not?”

They had talked about a location-sharing app before the zoo, but that half hour of trying to find each other cemented the question of venturing into the world of startups or not.

So they dove in headfirst. Did they really know what they were getting themselves into? “I had no idea there was a full-blown startup scene out there,” Matthews said. So he started meeting with anybody and everybody he could meet with.

From there, Matthews says the ‘aha moments’ happened fairly regularly.

“At first, we would see other startups coming out of places like San Francisco and think, ‘These guys are going to do exactly what we want to do or they’re going to do it better because they’re in the Valley.”

But that wasn’t the case. “Every time we see one of our competitors add some kind of new feature onto their existing product we know we’re on the right track. At first, we might have been a little scared, but now we see how complicated and bloated these other products are becoming. We’re simple. None of them are solving the problem the way we think it should be solved.”

Learn more about and sign up for Yougy online http://signup.yougy.co/ and follow them on Twitter: @yougyapp.

Tyler Sondag is a startup connoisseur with a hand in anything and everything you could imagine. Hailing from the ever-developing Northwest Mississippi, an alum of Saint Louis University and currently a transplant to St. Louis, Missouri, one of his main missions in life is to get and keep young people engaged in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Follow him on Twitter: @MrSondag.

Photo Credit

ProtoExchange Brings 3D Printing To Anyone

There’s nothing like procrastination to spark a startup idea.

In college, Jonathan Placa waited too long to get started on a project, and when he needed something manufactured through Shapeways, they had a 4-6 week lead time. With the project due in 3 days, Placa obviously missed the deadline.

Nonetheless, one bad grade is a small price to pay for the next great idea. After he missed his deadline, Placa talked the problem out with his roommate Orie Steele.

What if there was a whole network of 3D printers that could manufacture any project in a day’s time?

What would the platform look like and how would it work?

How awesome would it be for all engineering procrastinators in the years to come?!

(Now, I wasn’t there, but in my head this conversation sounds a lot like the “We should buy a BAR!” episode of How I Met Your Mother. Puzzles, anyone?)

Anyway, there’s a good chance it was less effusive than that, and the guys behind ProtoExchange actually thought through their business idea. They brought on Placa’s brother Jimmy to run the financial side of things. Jimmy had a background in finance, but he also ran a traditional manufacturing company, which gave the team a little bit of market insight.

They also moved from New York to Texas to participate in the first cohort of Techstars Austin.

Basically, ProtoExchange connects smaller manufacturers onto a national platform, giving them a wider network with which to compete against bigger manufacturers. For the consumer, it means they can access a large network of 3D printers and shorten the time it takes to receive their product.

The first working 3D printer was created in 1984, but in the last few years the idea has taken off. The rise of cloud computing now makes it simple to download and share any documents or plans, so 3D printing is becoming even more accessible to the average user.

Techstars Austin gave the ProtoExchange team a great start, and they are now working hard to build the network and platform, which should be available publicly soon. Placa assured me they currently have all the major 3D printing technologies and materials and are ready to compete with more established, centralized services.

The accelerator even introduced them to some current housemates who also moved to Austin to start up. Currently, they earn revenue on transaction fees, but they are also experimenting with other financial models.

ProtoExchange will soon be available to procrastinating students everywhere. You can follow them on Twitter for all the updates.

Keep Track Of Your Stuff With My Things App

Have you ever moved? Boxes and boxes of stuff, and only the most organized person can really remember where everything is.

That’s just one use case for the new My Things–Where Are They? app. Users can also catalog what they have in storage, their valuables for insurance reasons, and keep track of details during a house or car search. Small business owners can even use the app to keep track of inventory.

Founder Dhanush Balachandran didn’t exactly mean to start up. He was working full time at Intel when he launched the app in June. He launched, but then left it alone for awhile. To his surprise the app cracked the top 15 productivity apps in the App Store, and it was soon featured alongside apps like Evernote and Mint in women’s magazines.

Realizing that he had something on his hands, Balachandran quit his job in September and is focusing all his attention on the My Things app. Since then he’s launched the My Things Cloud, which offers secure cloud storage of user data.

The big question Balachandran asked was, “Are consumers ready to give personal data about their possessions?” With downloads growing month to month, it would appear so, but it will be interesting to see how many people continue to use the app after initial download. There are plenty of organizational apps available for every facet of life. Getting people excited about continuing to use it can be an uphill battle.

User experience is key, and the company is constantly iterating the app to make it user-friendly.

Corporations are making big investments in the “Internet of Things.” See the Evernote fridge and the Nest thermostat. During his time at Intel, Balachandran saw the rising tide of investment and is betting the My Things Cloud–and the data it holds–could become a valuable asset in the Internet of Things.

So far Balachandran has completely bootstrapped, but next week he is hoping to raise money at the Angel Capital Expo. With that capital he can bring someone else onto the team and develop web and Android versions of the product.

Check out the My Things–Where Are They? app on their website or in the App Store.

Crowdsource Your Next Concert With Rabbl

One of my favorite things about covering startups is that I often discover problems I didn’t even know existed.

For example, I didn’t know what musicians went through to book concerts. It seems easy to me: call a venue, come play when they’re open anyway, go home.

It turns out I was pretty naive. Booking is actually a cumbersome process that puts a lot of financial pressure on artists who are already strapped. And that’s when they can get in touch with venues, which is hard to manage without connections. With hundreds of emails a day, venues are likely to just default to who they know, even when there isn’t as much demand for the artists.

Besides the issues with booking, there’s a disconnect between a music industry that says “it’s all about the fans” and the reality that fans rarely have a say in when or where their favorite bands play.

Rabbl–a concert crowdsourcing platform–looks to solve all these problems.

CEO and cofounder Wade Lagrone put it this way: “We are taking a marketplace that works on handshakes and back room deals and making it transparent and efficient.”

Here’s how it works:

A band sets up a “rabbl” asking fans if they should play a certain town during a certain week at a certain ticket price. Fans vote YES with their credit card, to be charged only if the show gets booked. If the rabbl reaches its goal, bands look around for a venue, using the already-sold tickets as proof that they will draw a crowd. After the show happens, the band gets the ticket money from the rabbl.

As Lagrone explained, it helps touring artists and fans, but it also takes a lot of risk for the venues out of the process. These venues need to book shows, but whether or not the band will sell tickets can be pure guesswork.

Angel Capital Expo

Along with the consumer-facing portion, the platform signs up partner venues. These venues publish their guidelines for getting booked. For example, they can say an artist needs to sell 30 tickets through Rabbl at $8 a ticket. When a musician reaches that goal, they know they’ll be booked. Clear standards make a true marketplace, replacing the unclear booking process of yesteryear.

On-demand entertainment is the norm in our culture. Books, movies, TV shows–all of these we consume pretty much on our own terms now. Live shows are a holdout, and Rabbl is looking to change that.

Lagrone and cofounder Erik Needham are presenting at the Angel Capital Expo next Thursday. Check out Rabbl online and see if you can get your favorite band to come to your town.

BarTrendr Shows Off The Vibe Before You Get There

Let’s say you’re out one night, and you’re looking for the next good place to go. You could go to any number of bars, but at most of them, the atmosphere can be hit or miss. How do you decide where to go next?

Now, you can open up the Bartrendr app and look over the shoulder of people at the various bars in town. Bartrendr users will check in to a bar and tag a particular vibe to give an idea of the atmosphere that night. Is it loud and fun or more laid back and mellow? Through the Bartrendr app, you can know before you go.

Cofounder Devon Bergman described it almost like a chat room for each bar. A friend across the country can even pop into the app and ask what you’re drinking and how the night’s going. A stranger across the room notices you’re drinking the same thing, and there’s suddenly common ground.

Personally, what I love about Bartrendr is that it’s not just the next fun consumer app. To put it in Bergman’s words, “We’re not just young techies building a cool consumer product.”

Don’t get me wrong. Bartrendr IS a fun consumer app, and I definitely wanted to know when it’ll be available on Android. But, baked into the consumer side is a business model that offers a lot of benefit to everyone involved.

Alcoholic beverage companies spend more money marketing than any other industry in the world. Also, bars are the most checked-into (is that a word?!) places on Foursquare and Facebook. So, it makes a lot of sense to combine those two things and give beer, wine, and liquor companies access to the mood and vibe of any given bar at any given time.

Bergman assured me we’re not talking about obnoxious banner ads. Let’s say you’re meeting friends for drinks and you start with a martini. You mean to stop there, but soon more friends arrive and you order a second. As the night goes on, it’s probably wise to switch to something else.

At this point, a beer company can pop into the app with a fun quiz or trivia fact. Ideally, it’s unobtrusive, a fun addition to the night. But, it will also suggest the perfect beer to switch to, now that the time has come.

Bartrendr has a great team working on it, too. Bergman and his cofounder Francois Modarresse both worked at Dolby before leaving for their startup, and they’ve recruited a former design director from Facebook and a CTO whose previous accomplishments include building several major cloud-based music services.

Bartrendr soft launched in San Francisco over the summer and saw quick adoption rates. They’ve signed on some huge names in the beverage industry and are bringing more in.

Bartrendr is presenting at this year’s Angel Capital Expo. They will use those funds to finish building out their Android app and a few other engineering tasks.

They’re already adding zip codes, so check them out online or in the App Store.

Fetchnotes Makes Note-taking Social

With 3 kids, a husband, and a website to run, it’s safe to say my thoughts are pretty scattered. In any moment I could be thinking about a book to read to my kids, the startup I can’t wait to write about, or what’s for dinner. And, just as quickly as I think about those things, I forget them. Pen and paper are my normal note-taking tools, but after awhile it becomes hard to locate the notes I need to remember.

I am Fetchnotes’ perfect user.

We’ve talked about Fetchnotes before. The note-taking app uses hashtags to allow you to build a system that works for you, instead of forcing you into a one-size-fits-all program. (Here’s looking at you, Evernote.) The whole interface is really simple and clean. In my case, I can open the app and hashtag #kidsbook, #startup, and #dinner in 3 different notes and go on about my day.

Since their launch last year, Fetchnotes has attracted 80,000 users who have used the app to keep over 1 million notes. As the product grew, the team realized that people needed a system that was both productive and social. Sometimes, you just need to share a note with someone.

So, Fetchnotes set to work on a product update that will do just that. Launching today, the new update (iOS only at this time) will allow users to @-tag someone in order to

send them a note. The person you need to communicate with not a Fetchnotes user? No problem! The new update also incorporates your address book, so a non-user will get a text with the note’s details.

“I can literally add something to my husband Chuck’s to do list, by mentioning his name in a note and adding #todo,” board member Lucy McQuilken said in the press release.

The new update is a big step for the note-taking app. They are reaching to become more than just a productivity app. Fetchnotes wants to become your default note-taking and social app.

“Fetchnotes always starts with keeping track of what you need to do and what you want to remember,” CEO Alex Schiff said. “But this release finally bridges the gap to the people those things actually involve. Who you recommend music to, who you share shopping lists with, who you delegate tasks to, and so on.”

The update is iOS only today, but the team plans to roll out web and Android versions soon.

Check out the Fetchnotes website for more information.

Set Me Up Proves That Dating Apps Are Still A Thing

I know what you’re thinking. “Another dating startup? Why?!”

The guys at Set Me Up already know how you feel. Cofounder Abhishek Jain told me there are already 1300-1500 dating apps or websites out there. You can find dating apps that help you hook up, arrange a marriage, or even meet people who love horses as much as you do. So, why do we need another one?

“We’re different!” Abhishek told me. Of course.

But, as I learned more about Set Me Up, I have to admit I was pretty intrigued. Jain and his cofounder Jay Wadhwani see a fundamental flaw in online dating as it currently is. Most sites look to match complete strangers around common interests, regions, or demographics. That method completely ignores the traditional way of meeting someone–through friends and family.

“Online dating today stands sharply in contrast to the fundamental values people believe in as they’re building relationships. People don’t fall in love with online dating profiles or ‘resumes,’ Jain told me. “What’s important is the experiences you share with your partner. Our goal is to kickstart those experiences in the most basic way possible–an introduction through a friend.”

How does it work?

As a user of Set Me Up, you can click on a friend’s Facebook profile and search through their connections. If someone catches your eye, one click will send a message to your friend asking to be introduced.

Besides utilizing social media to make connections, Set Me Up is proud of their privacy screens. Even though the app uses Facebook, the company promises to never post on your wall or otherwise use your profile to market the company. They are also committed to never sharing who is on the app. Despite the ubiquity of dating apps, there can often be a stigma around them, and Set Me Up wants to make the process as seamless as possible.

I wondered if the app was more of a hookup app a la Tinder or if marriage was the ultimate goal of most users.

“In the middle,” Jain said. It’s mostly a dating app, which in theory falls somewhere between hooking up and getting hitched.

So, how’s Set Me Up doing in a world full of dating apps? The company launched out of private beta on November 1 and claim to already have 3 million profiles signed up. Jain credits their integration with Facebook for the fast ramp up. The connection to social media speeds up the process of signing up, which makes it easier for people to try out.

Angel Capital Expo

The company also plans to launch a mobile app in January, and with more people using mobile for more things, they expect to see Set Me Up grow even more.

Set Me Up will be a presenting startup at this year’s Angel Capital Expo, put on by the Keiretsu Forum.

You can connect with the Set Me Up app over at their website and watch for a mobile app in 2014.

bringhub Makes Brick & Mortar As Easy As Ecommerce

As if startup life isn’t crazy enough. The Pantelides brothers decided to build the alpha product of their social marketplace from 3 different cities in 2 different countries.

Now they’re all in the same city–LA–and looking forward to the launch of bringhub, a platform that allows shoppers to discover local shops while enjoying the ease of online shopping and same day delivery. They will be launching a private beta later this month in LA, but they have ambitious expansion plans after they prove their model.

bringhub could be the bridge between the local movement and the “now economy.”

Check out our Q&A with cofounder and COO Philip Pantelides:

What does your company do?

Discover, Shop, Deliver

bringhub is a social marketplace that enables people to discover the best shops in their city, share with communities they trust and purchase products, delivered conveniently on the same day.

We connect shops in cities with their interest groups through a unique social networking experience. Our platform is developed around a social interest graph built specifically for shopping, so users & shops can make recommendations to people who are the most interested. Shops can have closer interaction with their customers, who have a more immersive online purchasing experience. Our beautiful SHOP WINDOWS marketplace lets users experience the store in the next best way to a real visit & gives retailers a new distribution channel to showcase their store.

Our positioning as an aggregator for courier partners both offline (Local courier companies) & online (e.g. postmates, deliv, Uber, Lyft…) allows us to offer same day delivery at an affordable price to customers (starting at just $6.99). We utilize existing infrastructures & improve the productivity of individual retail locations, making them more profitable & therefore bringing back revenues to the region. Our approach allows these local retailers to compete with national e-commerce companies due to the effective use of a location-based distribution tool, negating the need for high warehousing overheads. The supply chain becomes more efficient, resulting in the acceleration of delivery times for customers.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

We are the Pantelides brothers: Dominik, Oliver & Philip.

As brothers we have naturally known each other for a long time & as a result work exceptionally well together. Previously, each of us took a separate path, gathering extensive experience in different areas. Now with bringhub our combined and complementary skill sets, passion and love for creativeness are our driving force to success.

We bootstrapped bringhub & built an alpha version of our product from three different cities and two different countries, all with the power of online collaboration tools – proving our team dynamics & productivity.

Where are you based?

We are based in and will be launching bringhub in Los Angeles, CA. Due to the lack of public transportation, a spread out & diverse population, & a large number of great shops, LA is the perfect starting point for bringhub. We hope to bring revenue back to regional retail through the convenience of same day delivery, a more immersive online shopping experience, & the social discovery of shops in the city.

What problem do you solve?

It is difficult to discover great shops around us – current platforms such as yelp are ineffective at showcasing stores in a way that is satisfactory to retailers & ratings can be easily swayed by paid for or fake reviews. People want an emotional online shopping experience, convenience & faster product delivery – people expect convenience & a great product experience as standard with the development of the “Now Economy”. Social e-commerce is still not a personal experience and does not represent real life buying behaviors. City retailers are looking for new distribution channels to compete with e-commerce & need a better way to communicate with their customers online. The courier industry is in need of new business revenues, with the decline of document delivery.

Why now?

Shopping promenades, malls and high streets have steadily decreasing revenues due to e-commerce becoming simple and comfortable. We are bringing back business to our cities through a new kind of social marketplace combining community and convenience.

Currently, people have limited options for shopping and sharing stores & products with people they trust in their cities. Although there is a current focus on location-based online shopping, flash sales or discount models are proving to be unsustainable & no one has quite found the secret sauce to represent stores online. Price value is the key & great physical stores always offer a more personal buying experience than traditional e-commerce.

There are two facets of localized retail: Customer service values & high quality products. Social e-commerce is the solution to transfer this experience from brick & mortar to the web. Retail marketing through current social media channels does not have a good ROI due to the message being lost in the noise. With bringhub stores & brands can target marketing to the people who are most interested in purchasing products to achieve better conversions. Same day delivery has been dubbed the savior of brick & mortar. However current models based on high courier commissions or in-house delivery fleets are unsustainable. bringhub makes same day delivery affordable, scalable & sustainable.

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

bringhub is proud to partner with laedc.org & the Los Angeles Chambers of Commerce who endorse our vision of bringing revenue back to local retail. We have recently partnered with on of LA’s largest couriers Now Courier Services. bringhub now has access to over 300 couriers to execute same day delivery in the Los Angeles area ready for launch. bringhub is currently selecting & partnering with the best stores in LA. If you have a recommendation for a store you love please tweet us @bringhub or email us at hello@bringhub.com. If your store would like to be showcased on bringhub for free please visit http://bringhub.com/Partner/ for further details.

What are your next milestones? Where can people find out more? Any social media links you want to share?

bringhub will be launching in Los Angeles this Fall please sign up at http://bringhub.com/ to be the first to #shopyourcity.

In the mean time connect with us on fb.com/bringhub or tweet us@bringhub and tell us how much you #loveyourcity. To follow the bringhub journey please check out http://blog.bringhub.com/.

bringhub is currently raising a seed round for details please visit https://angel.co/bringhub & spread the word.

Melbourne-Based Investorist Takes Real Estate B2B

As more people move into cities, apartment living is becoming the norm. In cities around the world, apartment buildings are going up, and tenants are lining up to buy or rent.

What most people don’t realize is that 70% of apartment sales are “off-the-plan” and are bought by investors. Off-the-plan property sales simply mean the apartment is sold before it is built, often a year or more before. Most of these deals are investors advised by accountants or financial planners.

It’s those professionals–accountants and financial planners–that the new platform Investorist is targeting.

Founder Jon Ellis has a lot of experience with off the plan sales, as he was a marketing executive for several companies dealing in these properties.

“I wish I could say it was a light bulb moment, but the truth is I just set out to fix a problem everyone in development has the world over,” Ellis told us. “There was no central location for aggregating off the plan property, no place for sellers and network partners to connect directly, no place for developers to share and expose their projects, and no place for network partners to compare and manage stock.”

Of course, there are other websites that offer off the plan listings. In Australia, realestate.com.au is one such site. Investorist is unique, though, because they are built specifically as a B2B platform. They cater not to the investor, but to the accountant, financial planner, or real estate agent who advises the investor.

They are also proud of the how the platform helps developers market their property. Because the site offers an experience similar to online shopping, properties look great, increasing the chances of a sale.

Investorist is growing fast. After just two months, they have $2.7 billion of stock listed on the site and 1,300 members. By the end of 2013, they expect to have the largest aggregation of off the plan property in Australia. Next year they will consider expansion overseas, namely Europe and the United States.

Find out more about Investorist on their website.