Atlanta Startup Archives - Page 2 of 3

Atlanta Startup Vir2o Sharing Everything In Real Time Improves In Person Relationships

Atlanta startup Vir2o, promises to be a whole new social experience. That’s quite a lofty statement, but after checking them out and talking with them, if executed correctly it will work.

Vir20 shares just about everything there is to share in real time, which improves actual in person relationships. You can go shopping with your friends on Vir2o. You can go to the movies with your friends on Vir2o. You can share photos with your friends on Vir2o. You can listen to and share music on Vir2o.

Anytime an entrepreneur wants to create a new social network or new social media outlet it’s immediately compared to Facebook. When Facebook burst onto the college scene and then opened up their doors to anyone over 13, no one believed they would overtake Myspace, but they did.

In an interview we did with Vir2o’s Founder,Kayode Aladesuyi, he mentioned sharing a lot. When we think of sharing and social media we naturally think of Facebook. Spaulding explains how Vir20 is different than Facebook “…doesn’t necessarily enhance social interaction between people, especially if there is physical distance between them. We wanted to bridge the gap between people who live in different parts of the world and provide them with a real-time interactive tool to bring them closer together”

Since Vir20 is all about live sharing, in real time, they consider themselves a “Live Community” versus a social network.

Check out the rest of our interview with Spaulding below.

Atlanta Startup LaunchTable Launches Connect, Communicate, Collaborate

Back in May we got a chance to interview Atlanta based entrepreneur Ian Jones about his exciting new startup called LaunchTable. While there are several startups out there competing in the collaboration space, Jones has created LaunchTable to make it easier to not just collaborate but to communicate and connect as well.

Most of the other collaboration startups out there allow users to collaborate based on teams that they already have in place. Take Facebook Founder Dustin Muskovitz’s startup Asana. Asana is a great tool that allows users to collaborate in a way very similar to Google Wave. Of course with Asana you have the team in place already.

When you sign up for a user account at LaunchTable here, you immediately receive recommendations on other people that you should collaborate with. If the automagical recommendations don’t suit your needs you’re welcome to browse the entire community for the right match without limits.

Once you’ve synced up with a new team LaunchTable makes it easy to keep track of your projects. Everything is saved on your groups “Launch Table” to make it easier to continue working and collaborating. You can also send “LaunchMail” to your teammates ask questions and interact in their forums.

LaunchTable also baked in the collaboration platform that allows you to hold virtual meetings within your LaunchTable. As with everything else in LaunchTable your meetings are saved for later as well.

LaunchTable also wants to be a resource to entrepreneurs and startups around the globe. They’ve opened up their “blog” for any LaunchTable user to contribute their own content to the site.

“Launch Table is for anyone working on any project that could use the help of another individual or a multi-person team. We’ve heard from people seeking startup partnerships, business owners looking to converse on best practices, and even teachers wanting to know what works well in other classrooms. Launch Table tears down geographic and social barriers.” Jones told nibletz.com in an interview.

Whether you’re looking for startup co-founders, someone to do a school project with or a team to launch a community initiative, or really anything else that requires collaboration, check out LaunchTable.

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Georgia Startup: FameTube Hopes To Help The Truly Talented With Video Platform

Imagine if YouTube was stripped of all the wannabe’s, all the crappy singers and all the kids who’s parents don’t have the heart to tell them their voices sound like nails on a chalkboard. Imagine if YouTube actually showed the videos from up and coming stars that were truly talented. Well that’s the mission for Georgia startup FameTube.

FameTube’s founders Bryan Cornelius and Brad Buttimer hail from Atlanta and Savannah Georgia respectively. Both entrepreneurs love music, people, and media and bring great experience to the table.

Their new startup actually vets videos from people who claim to be artists and musicians and sometimes they don’t make the cut. Only those people who get past the FameTube team actually get their videos posted. As Cornelius explains in the interview below, once a video makes it onto FameTube artists are encouraged to drive traffic to the site. The community, outside of the artist and their friends and family are more inclined to check out the other artists and interact.

Check out our interview with this exciting startup from “everywhere else” here:

Atlanta Startup: TRAINlete Enters Into The Athlete/Private Coach Market

Over the past two years there’s been an explosion in startups looking to connect people with other professional services that they may need. Just this year alone we’ve seen Florida startup Coach Crowd along with Boston startup Coach Up offer a connection market place for parents of student athletes to connect with private coaches.

Prior to this new wave of services on the internet, it’s been tough for athletes and their parents to connect to coaches. Often times they would have to go by word of mouth recommendation from their normal team coach, high school coach or fellow athlete. There was also the bulletin board at the local Y and even the supermarket. Now there are a variety of online social networks and marketplaces to connect athletes with coaches.

Coming out of the gate Atlanta startup Trainlete knew that the space was just starting up but heating up quick. Although the team started working on the idea 15 months ago they elected not to open up shop until they were truly ready.

Even as a non athlete I was able to find the features that stand out on Trainlete. First off, Trainlete doesn’t take cut of the transaction between athlete and coach. They’re working off other revenue models such as advertising and sponsorship.

Trainlete also offers the opportunity to talk to correspond with the coach directly on or off their network. While Trainlete is far from a non-profit or charity organization, co-founders Jeremy Clouse, Eric Blumenthal and Blake Sandberg put the safety of their athlete clients as a top priority. It’s also important to them to connect coaches and athletes because of the great life building that can be involved in coaching.

That’s why they open up direct connection avenues and allow payment to be exchanged directly between the two parties. With those two options as key competitive advantages they should have no trouble building their community quickly and with that growth and scaling comes other revenue opportunities.

We got a chance to talk with Blumenthal in the interview below:

Interview With Atlanta Startup: B2CGrid Crowdsourcing To Build Bigger Brands

Branding is a difficult task. Once you decide on a concept, build it out, and test it’s viability, it’s time to turn to branding. Branding is very important. When you consider that most startups are competing in a similar space with another startup, the strength of your brand is vital to your survival.

The problem most startups face, is regardless of whether they’re bootstrapping or funded, branding is something they don’t typically have enough money left over to make a significant impact.

An Atlanta based startup B2CGrid is looking to help crowdsource branding and bridge together a community of likeminded people that can help create and boost brands. B2CGrid looks to connect companies and creatives globally to build strong brands and ultimately sell more stuff.

In short B2CGrid is a market place for freelancers, designers, creatives and even agencies to connect to the companies, small, large and startups, that need their services.

We got a chance to talk with founder and CEO Michael B Moore in the interview below about this exciting new way to help get companies that wouldn’t think they could afford good branding, afford to take their brands to the next level.

Interview With Atlanta Slacktivist Startup: SocialVest

Before we dive into a great interview with an awesome Atlanta based startup, I get applause and a lot of flack from the term slacktivist. It’s definitely not a bad thing, and actually I’m hoping the term gets picked up. As busy as people are in 2012 “slacktivist” are the things that people can do without any additional, trying to actually contribute back to the community. Tom’s shoes for instance is a great example of slacktivism. Pubslush is also another great example of slacktivism.

I certainly don’t have the time to get out there and participate in relay for life races anymore or bake sales, although I am looking forward to selling girl scout cookies with my daughter. In the meantime though I am definitely a proud slacktivist and I love platforms like SocialVest. I’m that guy that always rounds up at GoDaddy and at Petco, why because it’s super easy and it helps. So check out this awesome Atlanta startup.

SocialVest is probably the easiest platform for a slacktivist or ok you don’t want to be a slacktivist, how about it’s the easiest platform for anyone who wants to make sizable contributions to a cause through shopping. After all you can only buy so many Live Strong bracelets at Radio Shack (are people still doing that these days?).

Once you register for an account at Slacktivist you accrue cash back awards from the 100s of retailers that are partnered with SocialVest. Then you take that reward money and select one or as many causes as you would like, out of over 1.5 million causes, to receive that bonus. Socialvest calls it “Purchase On Purpose” and it’s really really easy.

As they explain in the interview below, partner retailers give back up to 35% of a purchase (based on the retailer and their agreement with Socialvest) that money than goes into your reward account and is given to the causes of your choice at the intervals and amounts you choose. The more you shop online the more you contribute to the causes that matter most to you. Without doing an extra thing, period.

Pretty awesome right?

Check out the interview below and don’t kid yourself if you don’t have time to get out and do the volunteer things you want or write that check to the cause you love, sign up for Socialvest. It’s easy.

Interview With Atlanta Startup StoryMark, A Novel Idea For Photo Sharing

I was just telling StoryMark founder Dana McIntyre the story about when my mom turned 60 five years ago how all the kids got her one of those groovy digital photo frames that allowed 30 second narration on each photo. It was a cute idea and we were able to get photos from each couple in our family and the grandkids. We were then able to narrate what the photo was about.

Well, the reason we are writing about another photo sharing app is because StoryMark does virtually the same thing, but now instead of a clunky novelty digital photo frame, it’s on your iPhone or Android device where it will be way better utilized. In fact this year in September we are getting my mom an iPhone (yes she’s ready) and StoryMark will definitely have a place on her phone.

StoryMark allows you to take photos and then add up to 30 seconds of audio to send with the photo. It’s great for pictures that tell a story. Say you go on vacation you can send those loved ones back home a great photo and an audible description. Maybe your son or daughter is just laughing away, now with StoryMark you can audibly annotate the photo for years to come.

StoryMark has so many use cases it’s absolutely ridiculous (in a good way) McIntyre tells us in the interview below you can use it for those family moments, doctors can use it to get advice and collaborate with other doctors, even the know it all leader of your neighborhood organization can use it to audibly talk about how your grass is a smidgeon too high. Teenagers could use it to pitch their parents on that must have shirt, sweater, or video game at the mall. Again this is one of those ideas so good you think, “why didn’t I think of that” well that’s because McIntyre did.

Check out the interview below

22 Year Old Nick Tippmann’s Party Leads To Cuban Investment In Atlanta Statup Bad.gy

bad.gy,Badgy,Atlanta startup,Nick Tippmann, Mark Cuban,SuperBowl

22 year old Nick Tippmann With Mavs Owner Mark Cuban (photo: IU Kelly School Of Business)

It was SuperBowl weekend in Indianapolis and 22 year old startup evangelist Nick Tippmann was charged with a task by his mentor Larry Chiang. The task, organize a viewing party for the season premiere of ABC’s Shark Tank. To make the task even more stressful, ABC Shark Tank Shark and Dallas Maverick’s Owner Mark Cuban would actually come to the party.

With less than 10 hours lead time from speaking with Chiang until the premiere of Shark Tank season 3 the whirlwind of startup energy went into motion. Tippmann booked the venue, took care of the menu and started formulating a guest list which of course included Startup America CEO (who I’ve now got beat in travel miles) Scott Case. Both Chiang and Tippmann said that the Westin was very accommodating and that the infamous Don Shula was gracious in accommodating the party in his restaurant. Tippmann pointed out that Cuban hadn’t had a chance to meet Shula until then either.

Somewhere in Indianapolis, Atlanta startup Badgy founder Rob Kischuck was preparing for the Super Bowl. He knew there would be a Startup America event that Friday night and heard about the party that Chiang and Tippmann were hosting later on that afternoon.

Tippmann tells Nibletz exclusively that there were 23 IU students at the party and over 50 entrepreneurs. “My mentor Larry Chiang and I were talking about startups and entrepreneurs at a table with Cuban when Kischuck came up and told us about his startup. Badgy sounded like a great idea…”

Tippmann was shocked at the turnout for the party thrown together with just a moments notice. “It was good for all of the students and entrepreneurs that came out” as to Cuban, Tippmann said “Mark was very approachable, and he gets energized talking to most entrepreneurs. It was a rather intimate setting and a lot of the entrepreneurs were able to get face time with Mark”

As for Badgy, the Atlanta startup’s booth was non-stop at Monday’s TechCrunch Atlanta meet up. Kischuk was pitching from just about 6pm-10pm straight.

Thursday his company announced a $600,000 round led by Cuban.

Badgy helps increase visibility to Facebook marketers with “badges”. The innovative marketing idea also caught the eye of super Angel Sig Mosley who recently came out of retirement with a $25 million dollar venture fund. Bad.gy is also a graduate of Georgia Tech’s accelerator FlashPoint.

Linkage:

Find Bad.gy here at Bad.Gy

Check out Tippmann’s own blog here

Here’s a story about Tippmann here

And our Crowdfunding page, please help us out

Interview With Aaron Gray Founder Of Atlanta Startup The Legacy Movement

As a youngster growing up almost Asian (Hawaiian) I sort of fell into a minority category. As my career in media, first in radio and then later in tech media, flourished I was no longer in the minority. Especially in the tech scene. However in our plight to cover startups “everywhere else” we also try and highlight those startups that are women owned, black owned and latino owned, because those entrepreneurs are underserved.

In fact, when we did office hours a little over a week ago in Memphis Tennessee we met the co-founders of BioNannovation a startup currently participating in the zeroto510 incubator in Memphis. The companies co-founders, Charleson Bell and Andre T Stevenson are both in their twenties and black. Both of them appeared similar to any of the other young black guys I have hung out with near my home in Baltimore. However they may both have been the smartest two guys I have ever had the chance of meeting. Bell, a Phd candidate, had discovered a nanoparticle that could change the way doctors find, track and treat virus’ and infection and Stevenson had discovered the biomarkers for cancer, before it manifests. (see what I mean BRILLIANT). Now these two on smarts alone should have no problem bringing their ideas to market, but that’s not the case for everyone.

Take another good new friend of ours, Harold, his startup Yadoog is one of the best photo-sharing ideas we’ve seen in years. Harold is really friendly, outgoing and has ideas pouring out of his brain at a mile a minute. He’s also in his twenties and black, and admittedly a little rough around the edges. He’s got another great startup as well.

This is where Aaron Gray and his Atlanta based startup “The Legacy Movement” comes into play. Gray, like many

Aaron Gray founder of Atlanta based Legacy Movement

entrepreneurs, fell into the world of corporate America early in life but had an itch that needed to be fixed. Actually, two itches, that Gray is hoping to solve with one startup.

The Legacy Movement, he hopes, will become the Linked In for anyone who wants to do deals. Anyone who wants to buy or sell a company, or launch a new company will come to the Legacy Movement they way you go to LinkedIN for talent.

His second itch, helping the underserved entrepreneur ecosystem in America, will also be solved by the same startup.

Gray filled us in on The Legacy Movement, check out the interview below:

Atlanta Startup Creates App To Make People Hate Work Less INTERVIEW

WorkityWork,Atlanta startup,startup,startups,woman owned startup,black owned startup,workplace moral,Ashli Norton

A new startup in Atlanta called WorkityWork has set out on an ambitious goal of making people hate work less. While many actually like their jobs, there are equally as many who don’t like their jobs. This is what WorkityWork is hoping to do.

While we’ve reported on a couple of startups that allow people to give feedback about their workplace and job conditions both by name and anonymously, WorkityWork is about your co-workers. Work Place moral has become a hot space for new startups. We really like the ones that are taking advantage of front facing social media like Kebuki and this one. Although it has equally as silly a name as Kebuki, the idea behind using social media to recognize co-workers can be uplifting.

In fact, while Kebuki is a management tool, one of the key elements is a pat on the back from the manager. WorkityWork’s key element is a pat on the back from co-workers.

When you got that promotion, or came in under budget, your co-workers can send you Kudos. If the entire team hit a sales goal, you or your manager can recognize the entire team. You can even set your mood on WorkityWork using what they call Vibes.

Check out how WorkityWork works, in this video below.

We got a chance to talk with Ashli Norton co-founder of WorkityWork in this interview below the break. And yeah, after watching the video WorkityWork is more of a fun name than a silly one.

Atlanta Startup: NearbyThis Launched Last Week At Virginia Highland Summerfest

NearbyThis is exactly what you think it would be, a new “discovery” mobile app for iPhone. Ray Abram CEO of NearbyThis and lead developer Glenn Martin, say that their app is different though because it drills down and geo targets advertising.

“NearbyThis helps consumers see what’s going on around them in real time and save money with daily deals by leveraging social media,” Abram said. “For retailers, NearbyThis offers the power to have two-way conversations with mobile customers. Advertisers, meanwhile, can take advantage of innovative geo-targeted technology by placing ads on users’ phones when they’re nearby places that sell their products.”

“Imagine going to a mall and having all coupons for nearby stores on hand, having the ability to receive realtime communications from the stores, as well as promotions from advertisers selling goods in those stores,” Martin said to the Examiner. “Other advertising models target users by behavior. We do it by proximity, which is more efficient and cost-effective.”

They recently launched NearbyThis at the popular Virginia Highland Summerfest in Atlanta last weekend. It was a great opportunity for them to launch the app in front of tens of thousands of people in an outdoor environment with plenty around to find and discover using NearbyThis.

NearbyThis also aggregates daily deals. We all know about Groupon and Living Social. We also know about the countless emails you can get for daily deals. NearbyThis pulls all that info into their app as well.

We’ve solved the problem with daily deal spam,” Abram said. “You get these emails every day, but you don’t want to unsubscribe because occasionally you find ones you like. We put all deals for nearby places on one page so you can just scroll through the list to see what you like.”

Another key advantage to NearbyThis is that Martin is no stranger to technology, mobile apps and big data. He holds the patents that power the widely popular Kayak.com travel site.

NearbyThis is combining the power of daily deals apps,social networking apps and geo-location or LBS (location based services apps) into one easy to use app and interface.

Linkage:

Find out more about NearbyThis at their website here

Here’s the iTunes page for NearbyThis

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” check out these stories from “everywhere else”

Atlanta Startup: LaunchTable, Find & Collaborate With The Ultimate Team

One of our favorite startups is Cleveland based Foundersync which links founders with each other without the stuffy, snobbery of sites like Founderdating. Foundersync has an excellent back end that will continue to grow over the next few months with an intelligence layer that will yield great results connecting likeminded co-founder teams.

Atlanta startup Launch Table takes over and helps find the rest of the team. Whether you’re a coder with a great idea and you’re looking for a marketing guru, an entrepreneur, and a mobile expert, LaunchTable is a place to find them all.

LaunchTable is obviously a play on lunch table, can you remember the conversations you had about taking over the world at the school lunch table? The best practical jokes, collaborative assignments and parties were planned around the lunch table. One person had all the friends, the other had the parents going out of town, while one person new where to get the extra-curriculars. Little did you know, those collaboration skills would come in handy down the road.

In fact, LaunchTable founder Ian Jones told us in an interview that LaunchTable is for startups looking for that next great business idea or students working on a project. When we attended the Duke University startup challenge earlier this spring we found that several of the startups in the contest had just one or two co-founders based at Duke, others were at Stanford, Princeton, M.I.T., UT and other schools across the country. Had LaunchTable been around earlier they could have taken advantage of it.

LaunchTable shouldn’t be confused with a social network. You’re not there to pick up as many friends as you can. The purpose is to build, create and innovate together. If you’re familiar with Dustin Moskovitz’ new startup Asana, Launch Table is more similar to Asana then Facebook. Now for a minute imagine that you don’t necessarily know the people you’re collaborating with yet. Say you want to meet them and then dive into a project. That’s the back bone to LaunchTable.

We’re really excited for Ian and what he’s building in Atlanta. Like the Nibletz team he’s out running all over the east coast getting people excited about creating at the LaunchTable.

Check out our interview after the break
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Atlanta Startup: SherpaDesk Wants To Be Your Support Desk INTERVIEW

Jon Vickers and Patrick Clements, the guys behind Atlanta based BigWebApps have designed a help/support desk product aimed at small businesses. While BigWebApps has been around since 2001, Sherpadesk is just now launching.

BigWebApps is part of Vickers and Clements company called Micajah ITS which is a network integration and development firm. Their BigWebApps application is aimed at government and large enterprise. Sherpadesk is aimed at smaller businesses and startups that need to bring customer support online early on.

We got a chance to interview Sherpadesk

What is Sherpadesk?

SherpaDesk is a client support solution designed to assist small to medium size businesses and independent contractors with managing client service requests, projects estimations and billable time in one easy to use interface.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Jon Vickers – CTO – Started Micajah ITS a network integration and application development firm while attending the University of Georgia. Later sold the managed service side of the Micajah to concentrate on custom web development with concentration of .NET technologies. Launched bigWebApps in 2001 as a way to license some of their multitenant solutions.

Patrick Clements – CEO – Joined Micajah ITS post-graduation after spending a year and half getting a Colorado education in skiing. Launched bigWebApps in the Spring of 2001 to be the marketing and application solution of Micajah ITS solutions. It’s first solution was a web based help desk application called bigWebApps HelpDesk

How did you come up with Sherpa Desk?

bigWebApps launched its first support solution bigWebApps HelpDesk in 2001. It was focused on government and mid-market support teams providing internal support to their employees. SherpaDesk is a repurpose of the bigWebApps HelpDesk solution targeting small (1-2 man shops) to medium size businesses needing an integrated help desk system with a time and billing solution.

More after the break
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Atlanta Startup: ViaCycle Powering Next Generation Bike Sharing

I’ve been to the Google campus quite a bit over the years. One of the coolest things about the campus of the all mighty Google is their bike share program. I don’t even know if you could call it a program. There are Google colored bicycles all over the campus and you just pick one up and ride it to your next destination. The next person that wants to use the bicycle just picks it up and goes.

Unfortunately, our average American culture doesn’t allow it to be that easy outside a place like the Google Campus. Sure if we were in Switzerland perhaps or some other country we may just be able to have a municipality provide bikes and pick them up and drop them off at our leisure and convenience.

That’s why cities all over the country offer bike share programs. Most cities right now are using the first or possibly second generation of bike sharing technology. In that instance there are a bunch of bikes at a bike rack. To unlock the bike you either call, text or use an app to get a pin that unlocks the bike. It’s reminiscent of your days at school and picking up a bike from a crowded bike rack.

The technology is great. Take Washington DC for instance, bike docks and kiosks are strategically placed around the city and people can execute the bike rental. After they enter their payment information and get the “code” they unlock the bike, use it and they can return the bike at any other like kiosk/dock throughout the city.

More after the break
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