Comments Off on Vegas Tech Brings The Heat To Austin Texas For SXSW0LikeLike 4,972
Tony Hsieh, the founder of Zappos and the Downtown project in Las Vegas has been all over the SXSW Interactive festival talking about startup communities. The Vegas Tech community, which according to Hsieh is a bi-product of not just his but the entire community, had a major presence throughout the festival as well. They hosted a lounge event, and had a party bus with bull horns on the front.
All of their SXSW goodness was celebrated at a very well attended party on Monday night. The Vegas Tech party celebrated all of the Las Vegas startups that have helped build the community in downtown Vegas.
But it wasn’t just Las Vegas tech companies in attendance. Startup Chile, Startup Weekend, Startup America, Silicon Valley Bank and countless others were at the big event. Check out some of the photos below.
Comments Off on 10 South By Southwest Stories You May Have Missed [sxsw]0LikeLike 2,602
We’ve been on the ground covering South by Southwest since Monday. Why Monday? Because that’s when sxswedu started. The educational portion of SXSW is growing at almost the same rate SXSW Interactive grew at in it’s earliest years. This years education fest featured some great panels and discussions along with a Google classroom, great speakers and awesome parties.
After that we kicked it into high gear where we still have two days left in the SXSW Interactive festival. Here are 10 stories you may have missed if you were away from the internet this weekend:
Meet this spitfire female founder, Shari Wynne, founder, CEO and director at Austin’s Incubation Station incubator for consumer packaged goods, video interview here
Jason Cohen, founder of WPengine and angel investor talks about Angel List in this video
The Startup Bus teams from New York, Chicago and Mexico built a bonus startup, Drunkspotting, on the shuttle from San Antonio, more on that here.
Comments Off on Bad Ass Startup Chicks: Denver Hutt, Executive Director Speak Easy Indy.0LikeLike 3,597
We first met Denver Hutt in person when the first leg of the nibletz nationwide startup roadtrip went through Indiana. We were at Verge Indy that particular night and the co-working space for startups was packed. That’s because Executive Director Denver Hutt plays an integral role in the Indianapolis startup community.
Hutt oversees the SpeakEasy coworking space, plans events and mentors startup. She is also working on developing the first ever nationwide network for coworking spaces.
Hutt is in tune with the startup community in Indianapolis and wears many hats. She also loves to check out what works and doesn’t work for co-working spaces and like any true founder, she knows that iteration gets to perfection.
One of the main reasons she’s a bad ass startup chick is because she doesn’t just stay in Indianapolis, she likes to go to where the action is and help startups wherever she can. She was one of over 1200 attendees at Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, 2013.
Check out our video interview with Hutt below and for more info on SpeakEasy, visit speakeasyindy.com
Comments Off on Austin Startup Sentient Labs Hopes To Set The Record Straight On Home Automation [video][sxsw]0LikeLike 3,339
Today’s perception on home automation is flawed, says Sentient Labs co-founder Joss Scholten. That is of course, except for Nest, the thermostat that learns your lifestyle and adjusts the temperature accordingly.
Scholten and his team at Sentient Labs, an Austin startup, hopes to take that machine learning found in the Nest thermostat and extend it’s reach to other automation products in your home.
“Nowadays home automation means you use a control panel, remote, tablet or smart phone to push a button..” Scholten told us at SXSW 2013. He believes that for the system to be truly automated it would require no button pushing at all.
The Sentient Labs team is working on technology that would learn your behaviors and then automate accordingly. They want you to be able to sit down on the couch, have the lights illuminate at the right level, your favorite tv program turn on and the temperature to adjust accordingly.
They want to take it even further and compensate automatically as ambient light starts to fade, or outside, or indoor temperatures increase or decrease. Imagine if your house knew when to turn the dishwasher on, or that you were the one at the front door and unlocked it, without using your smartphone or pressing a button.
The components to drive these futuristic technologies are already available. Sentient hopes to be the first company that takes advantage of them and incorporates them into the most automated of home automation systems.
Check out our video interview with Scholten below. For more information visit sentient.io
Comments Off on Dave McClure Does The Harlem Shake At SXSW 20130LikeLike 3,058
SXSW 2013 wouldn’t be complete without a bunch of epic Harlem Shake videos, but to the startup community this is the most epic of all. Sith Lord at 500 startups, Dave McClure led a panel discussion that in true form, began with a harlem shake.
Comments Off on Interview With Sheboygan Brand Engagement Startup: Yappem [SXSW]0LikeLike 3,498
Yappem is a social platform that allows users to engage with the brands they love and get rewarded for it. Sure there are other social networks that have brand sections. Facebook and Twitter both have heavy brand presence but they weren’t designed to talk about brands they were designed to talk about you. That’s the fundamental problem that Yappem has set out to solve.
Founded by Dave Sachse and Justin Webb, Yappem has already raised $2.5 million dollars in seed funding from private investors. They’ve also inked a partnership with McDonald’s to help with the relaunch of the Big Mac.
The startup just came out of beta and is using SXSW to launch their exciting new startup. While startup communities are growing extremely fast in cities like Madison Wisconsin and Milwaukee Wisconsin, Yappem was quick to point out that they were the startup scene in Sheboygan, but both founders are hopeful that their success will encourage others.
Yappem was a sponsor for TechCocktail’s SXSW celebration, TechCocktail’s SXSW video series, Mashable’s Mash Bash, and their own free events at SXSW. They were also giving Yappem coins away that can be used for $5.00 gift cards. They are giving away $150,000 worth of gift cards for the launch. They are also giving away gift cards redeemable for a free Big Mac.
Check out our video with Sachse and Webb below. For more info on Yappem visit yappem.com
We’ve got you covered for startup news at SXSW 2013, find more here
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Comments Off on Atlanta Startup Medicast Is Uber For HealthCare [video][sxsw]0LikeLike 5,025
Even though it’s 2013, Obamacare is kicking in and people are clamoring for insurance, there is a wave of “old school” healthcare sweeping the nation. It’s not about going retro to the olden days, but more about convenience in the hustle bustle, no time to stop lifestyles that plenty of American’s have grown accustom too.
What is it you ask? House calls, and doctors are starting to make them again. That’s where Atlanta startup Medicast comes in.
Medicast is an on-demand, doctor hailing application, similar to Uber for black cars.
Using the app, a patient would say what kind of doctor they need, order the doctor and then the doctor would come to their home or office to administer care. Doctors on the system will have another version of the app, designed for the medical provider. They can respond to requests by type of service, distance or what the patient is ready to pay.
Medicast founder Sam Zebarjadi came all the way down from Atlanta to Austin for TechCocktail’s celebration of startups event. It was there that he got to pitch Medicast during the Pitch Jam session and where we caught up with him.
Check out the video interview with Zebarjadi below and for more information visit medicast.co
Check out over 30 stories we’ve already filed for SXSW 2013, here
This is a two man show bringing all this coverage, sneaker strapped, help us out here.
Comments Off on You’re Not Going To Believe That Market For This Startup We Saw At TechCocktail’s SXSW Pitch Jam0LikeLike 2,718
30 startups pitched on Saturday night at SXSW as part of TechCocktails startup pitch jam. They were competing for several prizes including startup services and free flights from American Airlines.
We saw some great startups in a wide range of categories but we can honestly say we’ve never seen anything that pertained to this specific market. How about you watch the video below, and lets just say this is like Fred and Barney meet the Jetsons.
Comments Off on Meet BriefSkate The First Team To Build A Product On The Startup Bus, And It Kicks Ass [SXSW]0LikeLike 4,597
Briefskate team pitches at The Startup Bus Finals (photo: NMI 2013)
On Friday night at SXSW we attended the Startup Bus finals at the Rackspace lounge on 4th street in downtown Austin. We saw the best of the best from the teams that competed while traveling 60mph across the country, and from Mexico.
The teams competing in the finals came from the semi-finals when The Startup Bus busses parked in San Antonio on Thursday night. A Startup Bus alumni team also competed in Friday night’s finals.
They competed in front of a panel of judges which included Robert Scoble and Dave McClure.
One of the teams really impressed the judges and the nibletz team as well. In fact, Dave McClure immediately started taking pictures of the BriefSkate, skateboard with his iPhone as soon as the team put the skateboard on the stage.
BriefSkate is tackling a new issue. More and more people are resorting to skateboards, not just as a form of recreation, or to impress a bunch of hipster chicks with their skills, but for actual commuting. Turn to New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami, Baltimore and of course Austin and you’ll see people actually commuting to work on a skateboard.
The BriefSkate Skateboard was created and prototyped in 72 hours (photo: NMI 2013)
So what has this team done to revolutionize skating? They had a skateboard built with a compartment to hold your laptop, papers, cell phones and chargers. The BriefSkate even has a handle so you can carry through the lobby at your Madison Avenue building like a brief case.
Every team had 4 minutes to pitch and 4 minutes for feedback but Scoble was so curious he gave the team an extra 30 seconds to explain just how they were able to get a product actually created in 72 hours.
The Briefskate team said on the first night they drew up the CAD drawings and emailed them off to a 3d printer. The 3D printer had to overnight the 3d mock up to the busses next overnight stop. With the 3D printed mock up in hand the team tweaked the design and shipped that off to a manufacturer in Florida, who returned the prototype via Fedex to the Rackspace headquarters so the team actually had a product.
The prototype is a little rough, it’s admittedly a little bit bigger than the team would like and the hinges are exposed as they would be on a cabinet, but nonetheless it is still a great idea that will most likely see the light of day.
Check out the video of The Startup Bus’ first product produced in three years below. And of course with a product built they already have a website up, you can find out more about BriefSkate here at briefskate.com
Comments Off on Move Over Mailbox, Taskbox Is Better For Us Working Folks [video][SXSW]0LikeLike 4,366
I’ve been pretty hard on the “Mailbox” app, and for good reason. In my opinion they had the best marketing I’ve ever seen (in 1 year with nibletz and 4 as thedroidguy) for any app release, ever. At the end though, the cute, hipster email sensation left me with email blue balls.
Low and behold, a messiah rose out of the email heavens on Friday afternoon at SXSW when Andrew Eye, the CEO at Taskbox pitched a new form of email, blending your email with your tasks in a way that’s natural for business. My only regret so far is not spending time with him on Thursday night on the ATX startup crawl, so I could have started to use Taskbox even earlier.
So in his pitch Eye reveals some interesting information that makes sense. With the rise in smartphones and the mobile first experience, people are checking their email 40% more by mobile than on a computer. My hand is raised on that one for sure. On the computer there are plenty of ways to delegate your email flow, on mobile not so much. On the Mailbox app, delegation just sucks.
Eye is no stranger to technology, he’s been a software architect for NASA and the U.S. Marines. Taskbox is also a Capital Factory startup, which just happens to be run by email startup king Joshua Baer.
So after using Taskbox for the last 18 hours or so and driving the crap out of it, here’s what I like.
deleting: even though its swipe deleting it doesn’t require that long press that Mailbox does, just swipe to the left real fast and it’s gone. It leaves a second ask up on the screen but if you’re deleting quickly once you swipe the next message the first is gone
calendar priority assignment. If you want to delegate an email for later in the day or week you can do it easily. You’re not just throwing it in a “later” bucket, you can assign a date. For example, I’ve gotten a bunch of emails during SXSW that I want to return when I get home, I just assign them for the day I’m home. They don’t sit in a later bucket with 100 other emails they go to the date I want. (it makes you look more punctual)
Folders, all of my gmail labels are in Taskbox, where Mailbox only had three labels and labels I didn’t use.
So if you fell for the Mailbox app like I did, I highly suggest you check out the right box, task box. Check out Eye’s pitch below from the SXSW panel “Startups Immune To The Series A Crunch”, and for more visit taskbox.co
Comments Off on We Caught Up With Fetchnotes At SXSW INTERVIEW0LikeLike 3,802
Last April we first started reporting on Ann Arbor Michigan startup Fetchnotes. This startup was born out of the University of Michigan which is where Co-Founders Alex Schiff and Chase Lee met.
While they are tons of note taking apps available, Fetchnotes secret sauce is that the app is based on how the user takes notes rather than having the app dictate how notes will be taken.
Fetchnotes allows the user to organize their notes by hashtag. The user can use any hashtag methodology they want and they can categorize notes with multiple hashtags. For instance Schiff explained that if he wanted to write a note on me he could code it email, nibletz, SXSW and I would be on his list of people he met at SXSW, he would know I’m from nibletz and that he should email me.
Fetchnotes is no longer a Michigan based startup. They relocated to Cambridge Massachusetts after going through the last session at TechStars Boston.
We got the lowdown on what’s new and exciting with Fetchnotes from Schiff. Check out the video interview below.
Comments Off on Startups Immune To The Series A Crunch, Capital Factory Startup StormPulse [SXSW]0LikeLike 3,065
On Friday at SXSWi, Capital Factory hosted a pitch off featuring 6 startups that are “immune to the Series A crunch”. Despite the fact that all of the startups talked about raising a Series A round, the concept behind the pitch contest was that these 6 startups didn’t need a Series A to get to profitability.
Getting startups to profitability, rather than rolling the fundraising dice, is the backbone behind The Capital Factory, the biggest accelerator in Austin Texas and one of the driving forces behind the Austin startup community.
Capital Factory Managing Director, Joshua Baer, hosted and emceed the pitch contest, highlighting the fact that when startups can’t raise a series A they often times find themselves closing their doors.
While all accelerators would love to see their cohort startups raise additional funds, get to profitability and create jobs, Capital Factory hones in on what it will take to get them to profitability from the onset of the program.
Getting to profitability is actually a theme for Austin’s startup community, one that’s echoes from multiple points. In a panel earlier in the day, Austin angel Rick Timmons said “I ask each and every startup how they are going to get their first customer and get them to keep coming back”.
Storm Pulse was one of the six startups to pitch in this “Startups Immune To The Series A Crunch” pitch off. Their idea is great and could save companies hundreds of millions of dollars.
They take historical weather data, predictive weather data and a company’s supply chain data and put it all on a map. This shows their client companies the impact a natural disaster or other huge supply chain disruption, could have on their business and their bottom line.
Co-Founder and CEO Matt Wensing had some startling remaks in his presentation. One of those being, that 2012 was the worst year for natural disasters disrupting business since the 1970s.
Check out the pitch for this very interesting startup below and for more information visit stormpulse.com
Comments Off on Chicago Startup Tackling Childhood Obesity Catches The First Lady’s Eye [SXSW]0LikeLike 3,557
Chicago entrepreneur, investor, community leader and organizer of Startup Grind, Tom Denison, had his biz dev hat on at the Interact Expo at SXSWi on Friday. Denison is also the VP of Marketing and Development for Chicago based Jive Health.
Jive Health is the developer of the game Jungo which aims to help prevent childhood obesity. According to the CDC approximately 12.5 million children are obese, and when there’s a problem, there’s a startup for that.
Jungo is a really cool interactive game where the child playing needs to make recipes in order to win. For instance, one of the recipes is peanut butter and apples. The game may already have virtual peanut butter, the child would then have to find an apple in their home and take a picture of it.
Jive Health’s founder, Dennis Ai, couldn’t make it to the IneractExpo at SXSW, despite the fact the event was co-sponsored by Andreessen Horowitz. He had an even more important audience on Friday, First Lady Michelle Obama. She is talking to technologists, entrepreneurs and founders who are tackling children’s health issues.
While they are attacking a nationwide problem of childhood obesity, Ai and Denison are also very active in the Chicago startup community. Denison is a startup community leader and the Chicago area organizer for Startup Grind.
In the video below we talk about Jungo, Jive Health, Chicago Startups and Startup Grind Chicago. Check out the video below and for more information on Jive Health click here and for Startup Grind Chicago click here.
Comments Off on Interact Expo At Capital Factory: Crowdery Interview [video][sxsw]0LikeLike 2,877
It’s standing room only, for the second time in the last 12 hours, here at the capital factory in downtown Austin Texas. Last night The Capital Factory was one of the hosts for the ATX Startup Crawl. Today, they’ve teamed up with Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) to host the InteractExpo.
This event is showcasing the best of the best in early stage startups, really from across the country.
The first startup we caught up with is Crowdery.
Crowdery is a Dallas based startup that is big data disguised as what the cofounder Aditya Viswanathan calls “Hot or Not meets Groupon”.
His innovative platform allows ordinary customers of brands to engage with them by helping to select the next product. If the consumer votes for the product that actually gets released they get to purchase it at a discount.
The retailers and manufacturers get access to mountains of useful customer data that would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in focus groups.
Check out the video interview with Viswanathan below and for more info visit Crowdery.com
Kyle
Tony Hsieh, the founder of Zappos and the Downtown project in Las Vegas has been all over the SXSW Interactive festival talking about startup communities. The Vegas Tech community, which according to Hsieh is a bi-product of not just his but the entire community, had a major presence throughout the festival as well. They hosted a lounge event, and had a party bus with bull horns on the front.
