Whoa! SXSW Is Next Month! Are You Ready?

Don’t worry. The entrepreneur’s spring break is still happening in Austin next March. The fine folks at SXSW didn’t change the date.

But we are excited about the newest SXSW event called SXSW V2V. This new SXSW festival in Las Vegas will run August 11th-14th at the luxurious Cosmopolitan Resort on the heart of the strip in Las Vegas.

While most people instinctively think Austin, March, bands, and startups when they hear the name, the the festival we all just call SXSW is actually 3 separate events all in one. The March event is the SXSW music festival, movie festival, and interactive festival. The interactive part is the “startup” one. Interactive and film run concurrently while music starts as Interactive ends.

SXSW also has SXSWeco, held in the fall in Austin, Texas, and SXSWedu which is the week before the main event in March. So that makes SXSW V2V the 6th event that SXSW produces, and this one is startup focused as well.

The theme surrounding SXSW V2V is “Vegas is For Entrepreneurs.” With that in mind two of the biggest promoters of building startups everywhere else, Tony Hsieh and Steve Case are the main keynote speakers. Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos and founder of the Downtown Project in Las Vegas, talks about the cultural impact of startups on August 12th at 2pm.

Case, the founder of AOL, Revolution, and the founding chairman of Startup America, will talk about starting up everywhere as well as business development and strategy.

SXSW has assembled over 140 recognizable entrepreneurial and startup speakers from across the country. Names we know here very wel like Speek’s CTO Danny Boice, a>m ventures Managing Partner Patrick Woods, oDesk CEO Gary Swart, TechCocktail CEO and Founder Frank Gruber and many more will all take part in mentor sessions, panel discussions, 20/20 vision discussions and more.

The entire event is happening at the Cosmopolitan, one of the newest and nicest hotel and casinos on the infamous strip and badges are still available at this link.

Chicago Startups Raise $146 Million In Q2 2013

Wow! Builtinchicago.com has published their latest Digital Startup Report for Q2 2013. As expected the Chicago startup community has performed extremely well. 37 startups raised $146 million dollars in the second quarter of 2013.

If you’ve ever been to visit Chicago’s startup and technology scene you would see for yourself the creators, the innovators and the synergy that surrounds the third largest city in the United States. Two weeks ago we were in Chicago for Chicago TechWeek 2013 where over 100 different startups were showing off their stuff. In addition they hosted a job fair, where over 1000 engineers, developers and designers pined for jobs from over 100 Chicago based technology companies.

Chicago being a focal point for technology in the midwest is nothing new. Big Marker published this infographic in celebration of Chicago TechWeek highlighting some technology companies like CDW, Cars.com, and Groupon that have become household names.

In the second quarter of 2013 Chicago saw 26 new startups launched, 37 companies funded, and 4 exits to the beat of $396 million dollars.

These Chicago companies raised money in Q2 2013:

AvantCredit
Blitsy
Blue Health Intelligence
Care Team Connect
CareXtend
Civis Analytics
ClaraStream
Fandium
Fooda
GreenPSF
Healthation
Inventables
Narrative Science
Neohapsis
OptionsCity
Optyn
Pangea
Pervasive Health
Project Fixup
Purple Binder
Resultly
Rocketmiles
SimpleRelevance
SocialCrunch
Spare To Share
Supply Vision
Target Data
Total Attorneys
uBid Holdings
walkby
Whittl
Whoozat Inc
YCharts Inc
Purchasing Platform
Zipfit

These are the companies that made an exit in Q2

Textura (IPO)
Acquity Group (Acquired)
Spooky Cool Labs (Acquired)
Cartavi (Aquired)

Source: Builtinchicago.com

500 Startups Is Looking For The Unsexiest Startups, Everywhere

500 Startups the name brand accelerator out in Silicon Valley, that takes great pains to bring cohorts together from around the world, is looking for the “unsexiest startups”. 500 Startups founder Dave McClure is a ninja, renegade and pirate and would take a martian founded startup if they had a good product, a good team and the possibility of growing with one of the best mentor networks in the universe. Now, that startup doesn’t even need to be sexy.

500 Startups knows that even unsexy startups, bring home the bacon. 500 Startup is hosting a conference specifically for those ugly startups, ok not ugly but “unsexy”.

“Even Silicon Valley, the mecca of innovation, sometimes misses the point. While everyone drools over “sexy” consumer verticals that often lack business models, some of the most high-growth, profit-wielding companies are incredibly underrated and overlooked.Covering SMB/Enterprise, financial services, communications, email, data, infrastructure, and more, unSEXY is a 1-day conference about tech startups and companies who are actually doing something incredibly sexy—they’re making money!” 500 startups wrote on their page for the event at unsexy.coTop speakers from some of the most successful unsexy startups in the world are tapped to speak at the one day conference happening August 9th in Mountain View. Isaac Saldana (SendGrid), Rashmi Sinha (SlideShare), Jeff Lawson (Twillio), Ken Gullicksen (Evernote), Doug Wormhoudt (Lovely), Patrick Collion (Stripe), Matt Tucker (Jive), and Kathryn Minshew (The Daily Muse) are all slated to speak at this first of it’s kind startup conference.They’ll be speaking on topics like:

GET UR BLING ON: Strategies for Marketing, Branding, & PR
MAKIN’ BACON: SaaS, Freemium, Subscription, & More
DESIGN THAT CONVERTS: UI & UX for the SMB/Enterprise
CUSTOMER ATTRACTION: Acquisition in Fragmented Markets
BABY GOT BACKEND: New Tools for HR, Finance, Operations, + more
SOFTWARE HEARTTHROB: Building Raving Fans in Non-Consumer Markets
SCALING WITHOUT FAILING: Solutions for Customer Service

and more.

You can register for Unsexy.co right here.

And this huge startup conference is specifically for startups everywhere else!

Cory Booker And Terry McAuliffe Tap St.Louis Startup Givver For Campaign Fundraising

Givver, St.Louis startup, Cory Booker, Terry McAuliffe

(image: salon.com)

We already know that Cory Booker, Newark NJ Mayor and Senate candidate, is one of the most socially connected and startup friendly civil servants. He ranks up there on the Nibletz’ list with DC Mayor Vincent Gray and Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel. To date Booker has over 1.4 million followers on Twitter and uses the social platform daily to keep up with his constituents.

Booker has been looked upon as the next Barack Obama. He’s well loved across New Jersey for his accessible approach to his citizens. He regularly responds to people on social media. It was well documented that during Hurricane Sandy, Booker invited residents into his home to wait out the storm.

Booker is now running for the US Senate in a race many say he has a good shot at winning. He is running for the seat left vacant when Frank Lautenberg died in office earlier this year.

Booker has reportedly raised $5 million dollars to date, and as with any campaign any donation big or small is always welcome. To make it easier, Booker was looking for a platform that would enable his Twitter followers to easily donate to his campaign via Twitter. The platform he chose for this mission was St. Louis startup Givver.

Givver allows Twitter users to donate by tweeting amounts to the service. Users must sign up for Givver first, but once they are signed up, donating via Givver is just as easy as donating to the Red Cross through a text message.

ABC News reports that Booker told his followers about Givver with a tweet on June 14th saying “Help me reach $100k goal by tomorrow. You can tweet to #give $5 to our Senate campaign – sign up at givver.com/cory-booker-for-senate #Booker4Senate.”

“The folks at Givver reached out to us and helped us get set up just to see how it goes,” said Larry Huynh, a member of Booker’s digital team.

“When the idea and the platform was brought to our attention, we said, ‘For sure, let’s give it a go.’ With his huge presence on Twitter, it really made sense that we were providing folks who are supporters of Cory Booker any mechanism to support the campaign in any way they see fit,” Huynh added.

Booker isn’t alone though. Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe has also turned to Givver to let his constituents easily donate via Twitter as well. While progressive with his social media strategy, the McAuliffe campaign pales in comparison to Booker’s. McAuliffe currently has 10,911 followers on his Twitter account.

“We’re honored to have Mayor Booker on because he’s such a … thought leader on social media,’” Givver founder Chris Sommers told ABC News. “The next generation of donors and givers … are not writing checks with frequency and obviously not with the dollar amounts that some older people are. But, at the same time, they’re actually looking for something in return.”

Source

Mark Cuban, NEA And More Back Boston Startup Tivli

Mark Cuban, Tivli, Startup, Boston Startup

Mark Cuban (photo: JD Lasica flickr)

Tivli is a startup that’s bringing college students live TV over the internet. The company streams live TV, including broadcast channels, to students on their web connected devices, no matter where they are on campus.

The Boston Business Journal reports that Tivli was founded by 2009 Harvard engineering graduates Tuan Ho and Nicholas Krasney. They also beta tested the product on Harvard’s campus in 2011. The Tivli service has since expanded to Yale, Texas A&M, The University of Washington, and Wesleyan University.

“Tivli is a fast-growing entertainment service for college campuses that streams live, time-shifted and on-demand TV content to students on their terms — when they want, where they want, and on the devices they want,” said Christopher Thorpe, the company’s CEO in a news release on their website. “Tivli also provides an innovative service to the universities with cost-effective, secure video distribution over their existing data networks. Moreover, students tell us that Tivli makes their on-campus living experience even better. We’re proud to have earned the support of our world-class investors and look forward to working with them as we build a great company.”

On Wednesday the company reported that they had closed a Series A round led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), with participation from Felicis Ventures, Rho Ventures, HBO, Mark Cuban’s Radical Investments, WME, and CBC New Media Group.

Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, ABC Shark Tank shark, and angel investor routinely invests in startups in a wide variety of technologies. Tivli was especially appealing to him because it’s in the video space ,which he is very familiar with. Cuban is also the founder of HDNet which is now AXS TV. He also made his first billion selling broadcast.com to Yahoo.

“I’m excited to be part of Tivli and think they are the future of entertainment on college campuses,” Cuban said in a statement.“Tivli is a great complement for AXS TV and my other entertainment investments.”

You can find out more about Tivli here.

Here’s a way not to get an investment from Mark Cuban.

Mobile App Development Companies Are $262 Million Dollars Hot!

CB Insights has released a new report on mobile app development companies. According to the industry publication, mobile app development companies have taken in $262 million dollars in venture funding since 2012.

The magnitude of that number is all relative to how you view the overall startup world, because many startups are mobile first. In this case CB Insights is reporting on “startups that provide tools and platforms to build mobile applications.” This encompasses startups that are building apps for other companies and clients, internal apps, and web tools and do-it-yourself platforms. 59% of total funding for these startups has come since 2012.

The $262 million dollars is across 36 deals. That 59% is of the $446 million to the mobile app development space overall, reports CB Insights.

Huge acquisition deals like Facebook’s acquisition of Parse in for $85M and IBM’s $70M acquisition of Worklight in January 2012 contributed to the steady growth.

There are also mobile app development companies like Florida’s Appsbar which provides a DIY platform for small businesses and individuals looking to create apps that haven’t taken any venture capital and have already started generating healthy revenues.

Check out CB Insights chart below.

New Orleans Offering Big Tax Incentives To Attract Startups

We already know the New Orleans‘ startup community is growing. Ever since Hurricane Katrina, the people of New Orleans have turned to starting their own businesses, launching tech companies, medical device companies, and other types of startups. They’ve adopted a “fend for yourself” mentality while sewing the fabric of the city back together.

For decades, New Orleans has been known for its music and culture. Mix in the growing startup community, and it’s a great place to relocate to launch that new startup. Sure many people want to flock to Silicon Valley or New York, but New Orleans has a flavor all its own.

If that’s not enough for you, New Orleans is now offering huge tax incentives to startups. Tourism and hospitality are huge industries in New Orleans, but technology, on the other hand, is not. According to The Atlantic, New Orleans still lags behind most of the country in tech workers. According to The Examiner, 1.4% of workers in the Big Easy are in the “computer and mathematical” fields; that number is 2.7% across the nation.

To correct that New Orleans is offering an incentive called the “Digital Interactive Media and Software Incentive.” This incentive offers startups with at least one employee a 35% tax credit on payroll for instate employees. The program also offers a 25% tax credit for development expenses.

“This means that 35% of your payroll for your in-state project managers, developers, testers, designers, and engineering management and 25% of your servers, developer and tester workstations, and development-related software, supplies, and rent are credited back to you at tax time. All of this, with no minimums required and no cap on the amount that you can credit,” The Examiner reported.

Could we see a rise in the Silicon Bayou?

Check out this video interview with New Orleans startup Red Ticket Games.

Chattanooga Startup QuickCue Secures Major Partnership With Mellow Mushroom

We’ve seen quite a few startups that are trying to help improve the restaurant experience. There are a lot of “wait list” startups. We reported on Chicago based NoWait app just last week. The challenge for these startups is the ability to penetrate the restaurant industry, and they have to take care of the entire host stand experience, not just the wait list.

That’s how Chattanooga-based QuickCue was able to secure a deal with Atlanta-based Mellow Mushroom that spans the entire chain and future locations to come.

mellowmushroom

QuickCue is a host stand app that allows the host or hostess at a restaurant to take a guest’s name, add them to the wait list and then notify them by text message that their table is ready. This allows guests to go elsewhere while waiting. They could go to nearby shopping or even run errands. Rather than being tethered to a pager, their phone lets them know when their table is ready.

QuickCue also offers an entire suite of features and analytics for the restaurant itself. According to the Chattanooga Times Free Press, restaurants can even create customer profiles. With these profiles they can make notes on where customers like to sit, what they order, how frequently they visit, and how many people usually dine with them.

The restaurant also has a vital piece of information from every guest in the QuickCue system: their phone number. Now not only can the restaurant notify the customer when their table is ready, they can also market them deals by text message as well. What if the kitchen crashes? Now a restaurant can let the customer know there’s been a slight delay and offer them a coupon instantly for a free drink.

The potential for a restaurant using QuickCue is almost infinite. The startup’s attention to customer service is what made the partnership with Mellow Mushroom a natural fit.
“One of our core values is providing excellent customer service,” David Danowitz, Mellow Mushroom’s director of operations, told the Times Free Press. “Mellow fans often will drive 100 miles to get to the nearest location, so we need to deliver a quality product and an awesome guest experience every time. Quickcue has a similar approach, which made partnering with them as the exclusive provider of our host stand technology an easy decision.”

QuickCue is being installed in all 100 of Mellow Mushroom’s existing locations and will also be integrated into future locations. Mellow Mushroom plans on opening 200 new locations each year for the foreseeable future.

Find out why the inventor of ethernet will be in Chattanooga next month.

CoFoundersLab Goes Global!

Last week, while we were in the nation’s capital celebrating Independence Day, DC’s tech superhub, 1776 announced that they were going global on a number of fronts. 1776 founders Donna Harris and Evan Burfield were ecstatic to report that they are offering virtual memberships, helping other similar centers across the globe, and holding a global contest, bringing founders from across the globe to DC for a huge tournament-style finals. They also announced some pretty big strategic partnerships.

Well it turns out that 1776 wasn’t the only DC-area startup resource to expand outside the borders of the United States. Our friend, Shahab Kaviani announced last Wednesday that CoFoundersLab was opening up its virtual doors to entrepreneurs across the globe.

Kaviani had this to say in the monthly e-newsletter:

“After more than 13,000 entrepreneurs in the United States and Canada joined CoFoundersLab in a short year-and-a-half, we’re proud to announce that membership is now open to any entrepreneur across the globe who is looking for a co-founder, mentor, or advisor.

We have already held numerous Co-Founders Wanted matchmaking events internationally including in Tel Aviv, Mexico, and Chile, and look forward to bringing our very popular Meetups to more cities across the globe throughout 2013.

Allowing international membership was one of our most frequently requested features, and we’re excited to introduce the rest of the world to our community of entrepreneurs!”

We’ve had the chance to meet a bunch of founders that have used CoFoundersLab over other more exclusive platforms, like FounderDating. Last year we got to interview Devin Partlow of Baltimore startup Kithly who found his co-founder, Stacy Weng on CoFoundersLab.

CoFoundersLab was also instrumental in linking the founders of Los Angeles based HaterApp. A startup that’s gained notoriety since launching their platform that lets people say what they hate at SXSW earlier this year.

CoFoundersLab is a valuable online networking tool but they also take it offline with events across the country. People using the platform get more into the nitty gritty and actually get a better glimpse of the people who could possibly be your next cofounder.

Check out CoFoundersLab here.

First Round Capital Shares Their Expertise With First Round Review.

Josh Kopelman, the founder of Half.com and the founding partner at Philly and New York-based First Round Capital, has been a big supporter and encourager of startups. In addition to First Round Capital, he’s been very active in the Philadelphia and New York startup scenes.

Kopelman is active on the Philly Startup Leader’s list, and he’s also the founder of the Dorm Room fund. He’s particularly active in startup events that cater to young entrepreneurs, like nvigor’s student startup summit.

First Round Capital has participated in over 100 funding rounds from seed to series D. They also recently expanded their dorm room fund by $500,000 to spread that fund to Silicon Valley.

Kopelman and the team at First Round Capital have been quietly working over the past four months to take their vast knowledge to the Internet and share it with entrepreneurs and founders everywhere. Their newest product is called “First Round Review,” and it’s dubbed “Actionable Insights for Technology Entreprenerus”

“There is no shortage of media available on startups – every day there are dozens of stories talking about what startups are doing – the funding rounds, product launches and latest tech rumors and trends. Yet there are so few stories talking about how they are doing it, ” Kopelman said in an email to the Philly Startup Leaders listserv.

Startup tips and startup advice are very popular. Some of our best stories here at Nibletz fall into that category. Kopelman takes that notion a few steps further by offering insight that only an angel investor or venture capitalist with over 100 investments could offer.

They’ve already published 30+ articles in a wide range of topics.

Kopelman explained in this First Round Review post how they differ from other startup blogs:

“We know we’re a venture fund — not a publishing company. But many venture capitalists have published amazing content in their personal blogs before. The difference is that while other VCs have done a great job sharing their personal observations of the market and their personal thoughts on how to build and finance companies, we’re going to be primarily focused on sharing actionable knowledge from the best practitioners – those actually in the trenches building. So one day it might be a piece on how to interview product managers and the next featuring how to build high performance teams with the Chief Talent Officer of Netflix.”

The very first article they published was: “How Estsy Grew Their Number of Female Engineers by Almost 500% in One Year”

Check out First Round Review here.

Now sign up for the biggest startup conference in the US dedicated to startups “everywhere else”

Google for Entrepreneurs Backs Manos Accelerator For Latino Founders

It’s no secret that Silicon Valley is full of preppy, white guys. Organizations across the country are trying to improve the startup odds for women, blacks, and–now–Latinos.

On July 1, Manos Accelerator and Google for Entrepreneurs announced a partnership to increase the number of Latinos in the startup ecosystem.

The first program will start in August and run for three months. After the application phase, which ends in July, the accelerator will invite 6-8 teams to join them in San Jose for intensive mentoring and co-working. They are looking for high-tech companies with at least 1 Latino founder.

“For decades, Silicon Valley has been known as the model for entrepreneurship. But there has been an ongoing gap for Latinos to be active participants of this startup ecosystem,” said Dr. Jerry Porras, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, in a press release. “Manos Accelerator has designed a robust program where they identify and mentor aspiring Latino entrepreneurs who are creating innovative solutions to real-world problems.”

Manos, which gets its name from the Spanish word for “hands,” is interested in not only finding the next great tech company, but also in increasing Latino entrepreneurship in the Valley and everywhere else. The slogan is “Dream Big, Believe More, Act Now.” That’s something ever entrepreneur can get behind.

They are accepting applications from across the country, but of course selected teams have to move to San Jose for the duration of the program.

“It made perfect sense to establish Manos Accelerator in the Capital of Silicon Valley. We want to create a vibrant community of Latino entrepreneurs that attracts the brightest and most talented. We want all aspiring Latino entrepreneurs in the US and Latin American countries to know that they now have a place to go for turning their innovative ideas into reality.” said Edward Avila, Co-founder and CEO of Manos Accelerator, in the same press release.

Google for Entrepreneurs, which is also sponsoring the NewMe PopUp Accelerator, is growing a name for itself in the under-represented parts of the tech community. Mary Grove, Director of Global Entrepreneurship Outreach at Google said: “We are excited to be partnering with such a great organization to provide resources to increase the number of Latino entrepreneurs in the global tech community. Our mission with Google for Entrepreneurs is to foster the spirit of entrepreneurship around the world and we believe in supporting the current and future entrepreneurial leaders in our communities.”

Are you a Latino founder with a great idea? You can apply to Manos Accelerator by July 31.

NewME PopUp Finds Some Great Entrepreneurs In Memphis

In February the NewME Accelerator announced a nationwide tour, a series of PopUp Accelerators. The program–which will visit 13 cities by the end of 2013–is sponsored by Google for Entrepreneurs.

Last weekend the PopUp Accelerator camped out in Memphis, TN. They ate a little BBQ, saw a little Beale Street, and met a lot of entrepreneurs.

And Memphis showed its best at the Sunday Demo Day. Whether they are testing for bacterial infections or selling wedding supplies, the founders were passionate and excited. Many of them already had traction and customers.

“There were so many great founders in Memphis that is was such a hard decision picking the winner . . . Additionally, the amount of talented entrepreneurs was exciting to witness, from non-profits to social enterprises to for-profit ventures we were impressed with the talent there and are looking forward to staying in close contact with them,” Angela Benton, CEO of NewME, said in an email.

So, who were those winners, and what did they win?

3rd place, with $22,000 in products and services, went to Brit Fitzpatrick of MentorMe.

2nd place, and $36,000 in products and services, went to Richard Billings of Screwpulp.

And 1st place went to Charleson S. Bell of BioNanovations. 1st prize was $46,000 in products and services and a spot in the August cohort of the full NewME Accelerator in California.

NewME focuses on accelerating businesses founded by minorities and women. Acceptance to the program doesn’t include seed funding, but participants have access to the vast network Benton and her team have cultivated. Besides Google, that network includes Ben Horowitz and several top-ranking Twitter employees. Utilizing this network, almost all of the companies in the last 4 cohorts have raised significant funding.

The PopUp Accelerator in Memphis was sponsored by Start Co and the FedEx Institute of Technology. Start Co also runs the local accelerator the Seed Hatchery, which most recently accelerated both MentorMe and Screwpulp.

“We were happy to partner with NewMe to bring their POPUP Accelerator in Memphis, TN. I was really impressed with all the entrepreneurs that pitched and we hope to work with them going forward at Start Co,” said Eric Mathews, founder and co-president of Start Co.

There’s always something unique about hosting people from out of town. When we look at our world through the eyes of a visitor, we begin to see things differently.

That’s exactly what happened with NewME in Memphis. Seeing the excitement of the NewME team re-energized Memphis founders and pulled the ecosystem a little closer together. New founders mingled with veterans, and everyone walked away with new ideas and new energy.

I also discovered some awesome startups. Look for coverage of those exciting companies in the coming weeks.

This huge conference for startups “everywhere else” is also in Memphis.

1776 Goes Global On Multiple Startup Fronts

1776, Startup News, DC Startups, Donna Harris, Evan Burfield

Donna Harris, co-founder of 1776dc chatting with an entrepreneur (photo: NMI 2013)

1776, the startup, entrepreneurial and tech campus that serves as the epicenter for Washington DC’s tech and startup community, announced new initiatives which take their programming, and core, to a global audience. Founded by two Washington DC entrepreneurs, Donna Harris and Evan Burfield, the co-working, incubator, accelerator, co-working and event space has been packed full with startup activity since they opened. One of 1776’s biggest fans is DC Mayor Vince Gray.\

“We’ve wanted to pursue global initiatives since Day 1,” says Donna Harris, cofounder of 1776. “1776 is a fantastic resource for startups in D.C. It [could also be] a fantastic resource for any startup in the world.”

1776 has announced three main global initiatives; a virtual membership program, similar to the program in DC, and Startup Federation, an initiative that will help other cities, globally, prepare their own 1776 counterparts. The final piece of the global initiatives launched this week is the “Global Challenge Cup”.

The Global Challenge cup is an NCAA final four style tournament. Startups from 16 cities (DC, New York Boston, Chicago, Austin, Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Berlin, Moscow, Capetown, Tel Aviv, Mumbai, Beijing and Sao Paolo. Each city’s startups will compete in one of the following categories; health, education, energy and metropolitan challenges. The finalists from each city and each category will come to Washington DC next May to compete amidst a big week long festival that 1776 is hosting, according to elevationdc.com

The Global Challenge Cup is being backed by $180,000 from The Office of The Deputy Mayor For Planning and Economic Development. Burfield also reported to ElevationDC that they have more strategic partnerships to announce.

The virtual membership program will allow startups located outside Washington DC to have access to the 1776 community. In addition to serving as DC’s tech and startup hub, 1776 can help other startups get access to the Federal Government, the largest “enterprise customer” in the country.

Prior to founding 1776 Burfield was the Washington DC Regional Champion for Startup America and the founder of that region. Harris, was a director with Startup America. They see the virtual membership and federation initiatives as ways to continue sharing and collaborating with similar startup communities across the country and around the world.

You can find out more at 1776dc.com

Source: elevationDC

Startupland: The Movie, Chronicling Real Life In A Top Metropolitan (everywhere else) Accelerator

Justin Gutwein is a film maker and startup junkie who has combined his love of entrepreneurship and startups with his love of filmmaking with a little help from the most recent graduating class at Fortify.vc.

Gutwein has taken to Kickstarter to fund the post production and finishing costs of the Startupland documentary series. Startupland chronicles the lives of LegCyte, RidePost, SnobSwap, TrendPro, and TripTribe, who were all part of the spring cohort at Washington, DC’s “The Fort” accelerator, led by Jonathon Perrelli.

There have been a few spins on a “startup series.” Techstars did a series with Bloomberg that was great for entrepreneurs, but it looked more at the program and the program’s founders. Then there was that Randi Zuckerberg mess that didn’t really relate to any startup founders. What makes Startupland different, and necessary, is all the raw footage that Gutwein shot. None of it was scripted or orchestrated, aside from editing each episode for time, and to capture the story. It’s a real look at what an accelerator is like.

“JP [Jonathon Perelli] didn’t even want to be in the movie. He let me have full access to the startups and the program, but Startupland is about the startups and the stories are told by the startups themselves,” Gutwein told us in a phone interview.

Gutwein has a goal to have the post production done by the fall, just in time for–oh wait you’ll have to find out about that later this month! To get there he’s looking to raise $75,000 on Kickstarter. At the time this article was written, Gutwein had already had $25,000 pledged.

Startupland is going to be good for anyone involved in startups. For the beginner it will provide a good look into what it really takes to get into an accelerator program. For a startup in acceleration to seed or series A, it will show that every startup goes through similar issues. For the hardened veteran it will be both entertaining and educational.

Check out the rest of our interview with Gutwein below:

What is your startup called?

Startupland

What does your company do?

Startupland is a documentary series that weaves together the stories of five early stage companies in an accelerator together with interviews and advice from seasoned, veteran entrepreneurs.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

Justin Gutwein is the Producer / Director. He is the founder of ShineOn Storytelling and has produced numerous documentary projects including The Entrepreneurial Spirt and the video content for Creating Innovators.

Where are you based?

DC

What’s the startup scene like where you are based?

It’s energized, growing and supportive…you’ll have to watch to find out the rest!

What problem are you hoping to solve by releasing Startup Land?

The vision is to inspire and educate entrepreneurs globally on the ins and outs, ups and downs, successes and failures of starting and building a company and provide an accelerator-like experience to those who may not have access to an accelerator.

Why now?

With new accelerators sprouting up all over the world, it seemed the right time to capture what happens at an experienced one to teach those that may not have access.

How much have you completed already?

Five companies have been documented going through an entire accelerator course. Hundreds of hours of footage have been shot. The storylines that will be the backbone of the series are being developed and fleshed out.

What are your next steps?

We are in the final stages of confirming some legends of tech and venture capital to be interviewed for the series. We are also working on developing graphics and animations to help breakdown some of the more complicated topics, like the ins and outs of cap tables, the many methods for leveraging stock as a currency and sourcing tech talent.

Where can people find out more?

Back StartupLand on Kickstarter here. find out more at startupland.tv

This is an absolute must attend startup conference for any startup everywhere else.