StartupAmerica Archives - Page 5 of 5

June Is California Month At Startup America

If you’re a startup and you’re not already taking advantage of the benefits from a free Startup America membership you’re cheating yourself.

Startup America is a nationwide cooperative partnership that helps support startups through their national organization and 22 (current) partnerships across the country. The organization, led by CEO Scott Case, who was the founding CTO of Priceline.com, holds lectures, seminars, webinars, events, summits and much more. They also give away stuff that’s useful to companies just starting up.

Startup America has three main goals; to provide valuable resources and connections to help companies grow, support regional startup ecosystems throughout the country, and to recognize startups as the drivers of our economy and their founders as American Heroes.

They’ve assembled over $1 billion dollars in commitments from partners to support the growth of startups.

Startup America holds national events, like the event they held at South By Southwest, Regional leader summits and more. They also hold big kickoff events for each regional partnership and then they also partner with other events as they did with Capital Connection/ TechBUZZ in Washington DC and as they are doing with the We Own It Summit June 28th and 29th in New York City.

They’ve been rapidly deploying regional partnerships across the country. They have 22 regions already and by the end of this month they will have 25. Three new partnerships are kicking off in California this month.

San Diego on June 9, 2012

Orange County on June 13, 2012

Los Angeles June 16, 2012

If you’re in any of those areas, click on the links above to find out more about the kick off events for those regions.

For more information on Startup America visit their extremely easy to remember website at s.co

Milwaukee Startup: The Good Jobs Wins Startup Wisconsin Contest On Kick-Off Day

Startup Wisconsin launched last Thursday as part of the Startup America Partnership. They didn’t waste anytime either, and kicked off their kickoff party with a quick pitch contest with a quick $1750 in prizes. The prize money was furnished by the law firm of Michael Best & Friedrich.

A new employment website startup called The Good Jobs, was victorious in the quick pitch competition. The woman owned startup from Milwaukee is creating a jobs site that will launch this summer. Their spin though is that they are matching people up to jobs based on lifestyle badges.

For example, companies that are hiring use proprietary badges to identify things like their commitment to the environment and the planet, or flexible scheduling. All of the things that an employment candidate would be looking for as far as “lifestyle” or “quality of life” are concerned in a new job.

Too often you go into a job interview because you really need a job and forget to ask the important questions. That cruise you have scheduled in two months with your 90 year old grandparents could be in jeopardy if you don’t know ahead of time how a company is about prior family appointments. The office closes at 5pm, does that mean you can still make your sons soccer practice at 6:00? Quality employers know these things are important.

More after the break
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Startup America Spotlight: Woman Owned, Mytab.co INTERVIEW

Last week Cameron and I attended a TechCocktail event that was keynoted by Startup America CEO Scott Case. We challenged ourselves to get more involved so we decided to start featuring Startup America startups as part of our interview/feature series. If you’re a Startup America member at any of their now 22 partnerships across the country email us at startup@nibletz.com and we’ll see if we can get you into our coverage schedule. (Hint it’s one of the only ways we’ll cover a Valley startup)

For our first Startup America member spotlight we talk with Heddi Cundle the founder of woman owned startup mytab.co. Mytab.co is a unique travel gift card.

The card serves two purposes, it allows you to crowdsource funds for your trip. Take a honeymoon for instance, your friends and family can add to your mytab.co account and you’ll have money for your travels.

The second purpose of the card is discounts and rewards from travel partners. Cundle is working with travel partners all over the world to offer mytab.co members exclusive discounts and deals on travel related costs.

Check out our interview with Cundle after the break

Startup America CEO Scott Case Offers 7 Tips For Relationships At TechCocktail Event in DC

Today was the big day of two Cases for Startups in Washington DC. It was day two of Capital Connection/TechBUZZ at the Omnin Shoreham Hotel. The 35 hour private investor conference highlighted 28 great Startups on Wednesday and equally as many later stage companies today.

Capital Connection features AOL Co-Founder and CEO of Revolution, Steve Case. He offered a great talk highlighting what he’s been working on as an entrepreneur and the strength of Washington DCs thriving tech and startup community.

Later in the evening we went just two miles down the road to TechCocktails Sessions event focusing on relationships and networking. The featured keynote speaker was Scott Case the CEO of the Startup America partnership and the founding CTO of Priceline.com.

Case opened up his talk by making sure everyone knew he wasn’t there to talk about dating. He did however talk about sex, gambling and getting lucky. In short that portion of his talk was about meeting his wife and having four kids (the sex). He then shifted to a story about his father in law who is a horse handicapper. He also talked about one of his friends, and their father, Ira, was also into horse racing (gambling). Then he explained how he was considering a move to the west coast and he got a call from Ira right before he left. Ira wanted to introduce Case to another one of his friends, who was ultimately the founder of Priceline.com (getting lucky).

With Case’s vast experience and the fact that he’s trying to become the most traveled man in the United States as CEO of Startup America, he’s met and networked with thousands of people.

Case brought up the fact that so many startups that he meets are so focused on product development that they forget about customer development. Customer development is totally different from customer acquisition. The roots of customer development lie in relationships and networking.

Case offered these 7 great tips for networking, specifically aimed at startups who sometimes forget about things like this:

1. Everybody has a story, understand what their story’s about.

2. It’s not about you it’s about them. Figure out more about the other person.

3. Find a way to say yes when people ask you for something. All the most interesting things in Cases life started by saying yes. You’ll find yourself falling forward and creates an opportunity for someone else to help you.

It’s very hard to say no to something when they’ve said yes to you

4. There are relationships when you won’t have something in common

5. Social networks aren’t a replacement for in person hand to hand make a relationship with them.

6. Use these tools to keep your relationships current. It’s not enough to go back 6 months. Use social networks to keep current between face to face interactions.

7. You have to be intentional about all of this. Allocate time and energy to networking. You can meet people almost anywhere.

This Thursday: A Day Of Two Cases, Capital Connection & Tech Cocktail

Thursday (May 24) Is a day of two cases first Steve Case (L) then Scott Case (R) (not related)

This week on the nibletz startup road trip we will be in New York for Disrupt and DC for Capital Connection and an event with TechCocktail.

Capital Connection is a one and a half day convention/conference being held in Washington DC Wednesday May 23rd and Thursday May 24th. It’s one of the nation’s most respected industry conferences and showcases emerging, growing companies (startups).

“For 25 years, Capital Connection and now TechBUZZ, have brought together a high-powered cross section of the nation’s technology-based, high-growth ecosystem. Attendees include senior players from across the industry – investors across the continuum of capital, professional advisors, technology product and service firms, and, at the center of it all, innovative entrepreneurs.” source

The conference is divided into two tracks one on Wednesday afternoon and the other on Thursday. Wednesday afternoon is “TechBuzz” and features early stage startup companies. The TechBuzz companies will square off in a familiar quick pitch setting. Each company will have 4 minutes to present and two companies will present simultaneously, according to their website.

Later on Wednesday afternoon the best of the TechBuzz presenters will square off again in a “semi final” type round called “Best of the Buzz”.

The Capital Connection presentations involve early, expansion and growth companies that have been vigorously vetted prior to their presentation. During the application process, the companies presenting in the Capital Connection presentations are scrubbed for “the soundness of their financial model as well as the innovation and potential of their ideas”.

Over the 25 years of the Capital Connection conference it’s been a virtual who’s who of the best tech in the region has to offer.

The Thursday afternoon festivities will be capped with a keynote by AOL founder and Chairman and CEO of Revolution, Steve Case.

Later on Thursday evening we’ll move over to the TechCocktail sessions event with Startup America CEO and Priceline Founding CTO T. Scott Case. The other case (Scott) gives great, almost guy next door presentations on startups, the startup ecosystem and Startup America.

Thursday will be a fun filled day of two cases.

Linkage:

More on Capital Connection here (tickets still available)

Pennsylvania Startup: PrizeMonkey Lets You Win Free Snacks From Vending Machines

Wait free snacks? Yes free snacks!!!! Brad Thorne, the founder of PrizeMonkey is a true startup entrepreneur and founder. He told an awesome story to the StartupAmerica partnership website.

But first lets dive into what PrizeMonkey is. As we just said, Thorne is a true #startup founder and entrepreneur, in otherwords he’s poured his heart and soul into an excellent idea and for the time being he can’t even afford snacks in a vending machine, so he created a platform that solves that problem.

PrizeMokey gamifies the vending machine. Through Thorne’s innovative technology your wi-fi enabled smartphone connects with the wi-fi enabled, and PrizeMonkey enabled snack machine. Now, instead of paying for snacks, you can play sponsored games for your chance to win free snacks. Again, for emphasis, you play games on your smartphone and instead of racking up virtual points, you can win free snacks.

You’ll be able to pick from your choice of Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, Lays Potato Chips, heck even rice cakes if their in the machine. Whatever’s in the machine that’s Prize Monkey enabled can be yours for winning these games.

It’s a win-win for the end user and the game sponsor. The sponsor wants to engage the end user and what better way then with candy and snacks.

More after the break
Read More…

Two Startup Founders Selected To Attend The Kentucky Derby With Scott Case

Scott Case, Startup America, Kentucky Derby, Nibletz, Contest

Two lucky startup founders will join Startup America CEO Scott Case this weekend for the Kentucky Derby

The Startup America partnership recently held a video pitch challenge contest where member company founders could pitch for their chance to win a trip to the world famous Kentucky Derby. The derby is this weekend in Louisville Kentucky and kicks off the coveted Triple Crown of horse racing.

Once in Kentucky the two winners will enjoy spending time with the startup world’s most traveled man, Startup America CEO Scott Case. Ralph Acosta the founder of LA based SkuRun and Andrew Sell, the founder of Ocean NJ based HipCycle were chosen as the winners.

SkuRun delivers sales and marketing content to road warriors in real time. HipCycle offers upcycled home furnishings.

The tickets to the derby were provided by Nucleus: Kentucky’s Life Science and Innovation Center.

In addition to spending time with Scott Case, who was the founding CTO of Priceline.com, they will also spend some time with the Mayor of Louisville, Greg Fischer. The two winners will also participate in mentoring time with leading entrepreneurs.

The Startup America Partnership is an initiative of the Obama administration. They just recently added their 20th region. Startup Kentucky is just two weeks old. The most recent launch was Startup Indiana, last week.

Nibletz.com is a proud member of Startup America

Linkage:

For more information on Startup America visit here

Source: Bizjournals.com

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” get your startup featured email us here

We’re on a nationwide sneaker-strapped startup road show, for more on that and to help click here

Startup Indiana Launches To A Packed House

(photo: startupamerica)

If the packed house at Wednesday nights Startup Indiana kickoff is any indication of things to come, we’ll be reporting a lot on Indiana. 350 entrepreneurs, founders, community members, supporters and investors turned out for the party celebrating the latest Startup America partnership.

“Entrepreneurs in Indiana are diverse and dynamic, and we all come from different backgrounds–with unique experiences and expertise,” said Matt Hunckler, Startup Indiana champion. “Startup Indiana will serve a crucial role in connecting the dots between industries, redefining business models, and disrupting the status quo.”

Startup America CEO, who’s trying to beat the nibletz team in travel miles, Scott Case was on hand for the festivities:

“I had the pleasure of experiencing first-hand Indiana’s amazing startup scene when I came out for the Super Bowl,” said Case. “I’m incredibly excited to see the local startups, large companies and entrepreneurial leaders come together though Startup Indiana to make it an even better place to start and grow a company and encourage all startups in the state to join today.”

Startup America and Startup Indiana urge entrepreneurs, startup founders, and investors to join Startup America. It’s a free nationwide resource. This year Startup America is committed to bringing as many localities across the country with a startup scene into the partnership. Down the road Startup America will be able to offer benefits to startups and entrepreneurs across the country with the clout of America’s largest startup organization behind it.

Linkage:

To Join Startup Indiana click here

For More on Startup America click here

Nibletz is the voice of startups everywhere else, see what we mean here

We’re on a nationwide sneaker strapped startup road trip working hard, learn more and support us here.