We Talk Starting Up At CES With Ian Bernstein CoFounder Of Sphero

Imagine you want to create something. In the case of Ian Bernstein and Adam Wilson, that thing was a platform to create robotics controlled by smartphones. It was that initial idea that set Bernstein and Wilson out on a mission to get into an accelerator program. They tried for most of the big programs but really wanted Techstars “primarily because of the mentorship”. Bernstein and Wilson are both techie software and hardware guys, and knew they needed help.

That was three years ago, and yes they got into Techstars. Back in August we brought you the story of how a brow beaten Wilson and Bernstein turned to startup community leader, mentor and investor Brad Feld. It was that meeting with Feld where they decided to create the Sphero ball.

I was first exposed to Sphero at the International CES in 2011. Wilson and Bernstein barely had a couple of prototypes but they were determined to show Sphero off to the world at an annual CES event called “Show Stoppers”. At that time I was still working on Thedroidguy and was amazed at how cool the Sphero ball was. Wilson and Bernstein were talking about freaking out cats and creating apps. That was 3 CES’s ago.

At last years CES (2012), Wilson and Bernstein were back, they had a product, and they had started selling it. Talks turned to apps and games that you could play with Sphero. Sphero had also been the center of attention at the previous years Google IO conference. Sphero had a section of the official Google after party where amidst pulsating music party goers could control Sphero around an obstacle course of sorts.

2012 was the year they really broke through though. Sphero attracted one of it’s biggest fans in President of the United States Barack Obama. Bernstein talks about that story in our video interview below.

Not only did they get the Presidential seal of approval on the Sphero ball, they had other big news just before the holidays. Back in October, it was announced that Sphero would be available in Target stores across the country.

It’s been a whirlwind three years for Orbotix and the Sphero ball. After covering the fun and cool factor of controlling a robotic ball with your smartphone, we got a chance to interview Bernstein on video about starting up. Check out the interview video below.

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Boulder Startup: Seamless Toys, Creates Atoms, Things To Build Things That Do Things, For Kids

Boulder Colorado startup Seamless Toys, is one of the coolest startups we’ve heard about all year (and we’ve reported on over 1500), they’ve created Atoms, essentially toys that help kids build things that do cool things. Think erector sets, legos and blocks but for kids living in today’s times.

ATOMs were built to work in conjunction with the stuff kids already have like LEGOs, stuffed animals, Barbies, even those good ole erector sets. Seamless Toys boasts that within five minutes of taking ATOMS out of the box, kids can be creating things. Not only that but kids as young as five can create toys that interact with smart phones, move around, explode and more.

There are 13 unique modules that include a motor, light sensor, sound module, knob module, battery brick, splitter, IR laser, IR target, LED, Flip Flop, accelerometer, iOS control brick and our favorite the exploding brick (parents no worries there are no pyrotechnics involved).

Last year at CES 2012 we saw Cubelets which are robotic construction kids for kids. While those are cool, what the folks at Seamless Toys have been able to do is integrate and make their ATOMS Express toy sets something that compliments existing toys and makes them do whatever a kids’ imagination can come up with.

Imagine creating a lego house with lights that turn on and off by iPhone, or a garage door that opens. Imagine a dinosaur that rolls across the floor and has a mouth that opens. You could even build lego villages that explode.

All of this is why ATOMS were able to meet their $100,000 Kickstarter goal in just 22 days.

We got a chance to catch up with the team behind ATOMS, check out our interview below.

Boulder Startup Mobiplug Gets $2.7M Series A Putting Home Control In Your iPhone

When a startup lands itself in the Boulder flagship Techstars program and then catches the eye of startup evangelist and venture capitalist Brad Feld it’s typically a recipe for greatness. Just check out how well Orbotix, the creators of the “Sphero Ball” have done since their time at Techstars.

Another recent Techstars Boulder graduate is following in the robotic balls footsteps by landing an impressive Series A round and a top level executive. Mobiplug, a company that brings home monitoring, control and automation to the palm of your hand via an iOS app, just landed the capital it needs to accelerate development. They also landed the leader they need to take the startup to the next level.

Feld’s Foundry Group led the $2.7 million dollar round. TechCrunch reports that Bullet Time Ventures, SK Ventures, Social Leverage, and Clarion Direct Investment, among others, participated in the round as well.

Mobiplug also announced that serial entrepreneur Tim Enwall, most recently CEO of Tendril, is now at the helm at Mobiplug.

Mobiplug consists of a small black box, that serves as a control hub, and an iOS app. Through the combination of the hub and the app, the user/home owner, can control everything from the lights, to the thermostat, electrical outlets, sprinklers and more. This can be done in the home or remotely, providing an extra element of security to the user’s home.

New CEO Enwall said in a statement:

“Getting wirelessly-enabled household items like locks, thermostats, lights, outlets and shades made by different manufacturers and based on different protocols to talk to each other is an enormous problem to solve, which is keeping this market from exploding. We’re fixing that.”

The Foundry Group’s Ryan McIntyre is joining Mobiplug’s board of directors. He also served as Mobiplug’s mentor during the Techstars program.

“I was really impressed by the co-founders and their ability to solve the thorny technical and interoperability problems that are currently holding back the home monitoring and control and Internet of Things (IoT) industry from mass adoption,” McIntyre said in a statement. “And when Tim Enwall decided to join Mobiplug, we felt confident that the addition of his experience and leadership to this already talented core team could really disrupt the market and lead this growing space.”

Linkage:

Source: TechCrunch, DailyCamera

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Boulder Startup Orbotix Hits Target With Sphero Ball

We’ve covered Boulder startup Orbotix since the beginning. We began covering them at our previous Android website when we saw the Sphero ball at a Show Stoppers event during CES 2011. We also covered their Techstars pivot, which came about when working with their mentor Brad Feld, and we covered their biggest fan, President Barack Obama.

Orbotix is the startup behind the Sphero ball. Sphero is a smartphone controlled ball. The concept in itself can bring tons of fun, maneuvering the ball throughout the house, teasing the dog and cat can be hours of fun. However, Sphero isn’t just about the ball. They’ve built some great interactive apps (games) like golf. The control the user has with their Android phone or iPhone, over the ball, is world’s apart from other smartphone controlled toys.

While the company launched in 2011 after going through the TechStars program in Boulder, Chief Executive Paul Berberian feels like this distribution deal with Target is their big consumer launch.

“The name of the game in consumer electronics and gaming is getting in front of customers,” Berberian said to the Boulder County Business Report. “We feel like we’ve been out there for a long time telling our story, but most people have never seen a Sphero. This is essentially our launch.”

The Sphero ball has limited distribution in some Apple stores as well as some Brookstone stores but of course Target means they’ll reach the masses. It’s also a great time to get into a retail stores shelves as Americans prepare for the busy holiday shopping season.

Target already has a good selection of interactive smartphone accessories. Their toy section is filled with iPhone and iPad games that have a physical component like fishing, and even an Angry Birds game where you move the bird across the screen. Target’s smartphone accessories section, located within their electronics department, stocks the iCade mini arcade machine accessory as well as some of the “cooler” music accessories.

Sphero will be stocked among the smartphone app accessories section and available online at Target.com as well.

Linkage:

Check out Sphero here

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Interview With Techstars Boulder Startup: Birdbox One Place For All Your Photos & Video

A few years back I had stored all of my digital photos on the sonystyle photo sharing website. At some point in the last part of the 2000s Sony decided to shut the site down. Unfortunately, I had used an older email address when signing up for the Sony photo sharing site and missed their 20 or so warnings that the site was shutting down. My photos from that time, were gone forever.

Because of this experience I was reluctant to try any of the newer services like Flickr or even Photobucket. I stored most of my photos (and still to this day) using iPhoto. The problem with iPhoto is if you take a ton of photos the space is eaten up quickly. I love what Apple has done with Photostream but that’s only good for your 1000 most recent photos. As you import more and more photos to Photostream the older ones get pushed out.

These are some major pain points for me personally that TechStars graduate, and Boulder startup, Birdbox will solve. BirdBox is a service that aggregates all of your photos and videos from over a dozen services both local and in the cloud. Once BirdBox imports all of your photos it keeps them in “nests” for you. Birdbox claims to do all the “heavy lifting” for you and they do. What’s even better is they make it a cinch to recall a photo later based on event, hashtag or whatever other cataloging you put into it.

All these features came about after founder Ben Nunez tried to find one single photo to send to his mom on his phone. Unfortunately the photo was tucked away on an external hard drive and he had to wait. Between SD cards, USB flash drives, external hard drives, iPhoto, Picassa (Google+) and now even Flickr, it’s sometimes a pain in the ass to try and find that one photo. Birdbox will make it easy for you.

We got a chance to interview the guys from Birdbox. Check out the interview with this exciting TechStars Boulder grad below:

Kick Ass Boulder Startup: “Startup The Game” Yes An Actual Mobile Game For Startups

There’s not a lot of downtime in the startup life, in fact there’s virtually none at all. But we all know that at some point there needs to be some release. You need to free your mind from coding, pitching and business developing so your brain doesn’t just totally fry. Some turn to Angry Birds, others turn to SongPop but now, thanks to a Boulder Startup there’s “Startup The Game”.

Startup The Game is a classic video game. You have to capture as many good characters as you can before something bad happens. Good characters in Startup The Game include research,good press,users and venture capital. Bad characters include bugs,bad press, and competition.

The soundtrack for the game is fittingly, “dub step” music which is perfect for startups.

The scrolling game has you jump and crouch to get the things you need and avoid the things that you don’t.

Now the game is about as fun and mind relaxing as that helicopter game or even Temple Run, but that’s just the beginning. Robert Reichs, the founder of “Startup The Game”, has actually added a way for startups to create traction in a fun and competitive way through “Startup The Game”.

When you finish the game you can donate your points to one of the popular startups that’s trending within the game. If your favorite startup isn’t available you can add it, and hopefully your startup will shoot up the ladder and other players will start donating their points to you. Reichs tells us there are already 500 startups signed up within the game.

We wanted to find out just how does someone come up with a game like this. Reichs told us:

“I teach a couse at the university of colorado (CU) Called Startup (http://vimeo.com/32882215) as part of the class i wanted to make sure the basic curriculum being taught allowed the students to create awesome products quickly. So i took the class I was teaching. Startup the game was the outcome.”

Reichs is no stranger to the startup scene. In addition to teaching a class on startups his other credits include; being an entrepreneurial executive with over 15 years experience directing product life cycles from concept, development and launch, to feedback and refinement. Unique blend of creativity, design, strategy and senior executive management skills.He is also the Founder / CEO Openspace Store – social discovery of apps, Founder / moderator boulder denver new tech, Founder / VP Product OneRiot – real time search (sold to Walmart labs),Founder / CEO of Ecosystems – content management software (sold to Me.dium). Reichs is also the Adjunct Professor on Media and Business Design at University of Colorado (CU), named inventor and contributor on 6 patents, advisory board member of Silicon Flatirons, board member Boulder Digital Works at CU, Openspace Store and OneRiot.

While for the most part this is a fun project for Reichs he does plan on adding a store for users to actually buy things with those points.

We’ve been playing “Startup The Game” for a little while and it is a nice break from the big startup game we’re all playing everyday. Check it out at the links below.

Linkage:

Interview With The Co-Founder Of Boulder Startup: MobileDay, Just About Effortless Conference Calling

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I’m not typically about the sexiest apps. I rarely play games, although Songpop has me hooked right now, and I’m not looking for the coolest way to share anything most of the time, because I’m too busy on conference calls.

I could scream at the top of my lungs that email and texting work better for me. I could put an outgoing voicemail message that says email and texting works better for me (and I have) but each and everyday there are three to five people that insist on having conference calls. What irritates me even more is when the conference call, using a bridge, is with just one person… yo dude just call me directly.

So when I came across MobileDay a sigh of relief was let out. You see when nibletz took on the responsibility of being the voice of startups “everywhere else” and then we got some help from a research analyst at Kauffman, we found out that there are hundreds of thousands of startups “everywhere else”. There are a lot of people in the world who want to talk and tell their story, and above everything I really want to listen.

My conference calls aren’t so bad, I’ve actually learned a lot and planned some great things via conference call. But anyone who takes conference calls on a regular basis (Read just about any strartup founder’s daily routine), knows how cumbersome setting the call up can be.

First off there are hundreds of different conference call services, and without a doubt every single person who wants a conference call with me uses a different one.

Next, they typically have some 7-11 digit number that you need to call into to connect to “your party”. Well it doesn’t matter if I’m calling from my iPhone or my Android phone du jour, no smartphone has been able to allow you to dial into a number, press one number than automatically dial in another number, like the conference calls ID.

So whether I’m sitting in the office (yes we have an office), or sitting at home (got one of those too) or on the road (which is 90% of the time) I have to fumble through my calendar, emails or heck even text messages to get all the necessary information to “hop on the call” listen people since the most conventional conference call applications have been out there’s been know such thing as just “hopping on” a conference call… until now (wow 400+ words to get to that part)

Boulder startup MobileDay is that conference call participants dream app. Once the conference call is loaded into the app it reminds you of your call and than voila one touch of the screen and you’re not just on the conference calls service, you’ve dialed the “bridge” number too. They’ve got even more features on the way that will make attending, postponing or notifying conference participants easier too.

This comes in particularly handy on the nibletz sneaker-strapped nationwide startup roadtrip because taking a conference call driving through Indiana (sorry Nick), Arkansas, or even up and down 95 can be a pain in the ass with call drops (and I’m on Verizon). So if you get disconnected it’s the same simple easy process to get back on the call. All you have to do is touch the button, and then wait to “say your name to enter the conference”.

So what’s even better than MobileDay is that we got a few minutes to interview MobileDay co-founder Brad Dupee and I must say Brad with Steve Jobs gone you may be the next person to make my life easier.

Interview below

Boulder Startup: LinkSmart Comes Out Of Stealth Mode, Reports $4.7M In Funding

A Boulder startup that promises online publishers a better, smarter way to handle link management, has emerged from the secrecy of “stealth mode”.

LinkSmart announced their concept and product to the yesterday along with the fact that the startup has raised $4.7 million since starting the company in 2009.

LinkSmart’s venture backing comes from Boulder’s The Foundry Group as well as two Silicon Valley area venture groups, Sutter Hill and Costanoa.

Founder and CEO Pete Sheinbaum comes from an online publishing background. He was previously the founder and publisher of DailyCandy.

Text link advertising can be a lucrative source of income, especially for independent online publishers.

Companies like Kontera offer publishers link based advertising that serves up a mini popup hover ad over keywords. One of the pain points with services like these are that readers click out of a website to the ad supported content.

This is just one of the examples of the many things Sheinbaum and the LinkSmart team have been working on since 2009.

“I wanted to build a system for publishers, by a publisher, that satisfies the real business problems” they have with traffic management, user engagement and advertising, Sheinbaum said to the DailyCamera

LinkSmart’s Total Link Management is a SaaS (software as a service) that analyzes readers behavior on websites to serve and suggest more relevant links and keyword suggestions.

This is just the beginning for LinkSmart though they’ve moved into larger office space and plan on working on more publisher centric products and features.

Linkage:

Check out LinkSmart on their website here

Source: DailyCamera

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else”

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Boulder Startup: Mocavo Announces $4 Million Dollar Round

Boulder startup Mocavo has announced a $4 million dollar funding round to expand their business of helping people find their ancestors. Yes the site competes with Utah genealogy giant Ancestry.com but in playing with the site for just a few minutes, the search function was much easier and the results were much more precise.

Mocavo offers a great search engine for free, that will even let you access records, newspapers and other citations for free. They let you drill down if you become a premium member which is free for the first week.

Mocavo was part of the TechStars program last year, graduating out of their 2011 class.

Mocavo’s COO Ryan Hunter thanked Boulder and TechStars in the Wednesday announcement. He reconfirmed their commitment as part of Boulder’s startup scene and even announced some job openings they plan on filling with the funds from this round.

“As a Techstars 2011 team, we want to say how thankful we are for Boulder’s startup community, and that we will continue to support our town. With Foundry’s investment, we now have the resources to rapidly grow our technology with a talented team of product engineers and developers. We have immediate openings for front-end developers, back-end developers and interface designers”. Hunter said on Mocavo’s Blog.

The $4 million dollar round came from the Foundry Group. Seth Levine, Foundry’s Managing director will get a seat on Mocavo’s board.

Our friend Sean Ludwig at VentureBeat reports that Mocavo’s previously raised $1 million dollars in an Angel round “from a long roster of angel investors (most of them named Dave) including Dave McClure, David Cohen, David Bonderman, David Calone, Dave Carlson, and others.”

source: VentureBeat

Boulder Startup: Orbotix Has A Fan In President Obama

Boulder Colorado based startup Orbotix Has been working on their smartphone controlled ball called Sphero for the better part of the last two years.

The company had a working prototype at the International Consumer Electronics Show in 2011. Last Fall they started filling their preorders. These days they are continuing to support their developers in bringing fun interactive apps to the ball.

An iPhone or Android can control the $130 ball. Through a smartphone app you can drive the ball, rotate the ball and play games like golf, and drive the cat absolutely crazy.

One of the most fun things to do with the ball is drive it down the sidewalk and watch the people’s reaction.

That’s exactly what President Obama did with the ball. He had originally noticed someone else controlling the ball. Obama remarked how cool the ball was and of course they let him try it.

“Excuse me — give me some space to drive my ball,” Obama said to the crowd of onlookers before taking control of the ball via iPhone, reports the DenverPost.

Sphero joins a host of other smartphone controlled toys. Orbotix may have hit the big time with their latest fan.

Check out the video here at the source: DenverPost

Boulder Mobile Food Startup: Splick-It Adds Meal Ticket For Charity

Splick-it a mobile app startup based in Boulder Colorado has added a community minded touch to its app that allows customers to skip long lines and order ahead at area restaurants.

Customers who use the Splick-it app to order their favorite food can now round their order up to the nearest dollar which will in turn benefit Community Food Share. It’s a very easy process. Customers using the Splick-it app can change their donation settings in the settings menu and then forget about it. It’s that easy.

Splick-it is available on Android and iOS.

“Community Food Share can distribute four meals for every dollar donated,” said Jim Baldwin, chief executive officer for the 31-year-old charity. It distributes more than 7.5 million meals annually through a network of more than 50 member agencies and two direct service programs which target specific at-risk populations in Boulder and Broomfield counties.

Splick-It was founded by Trish Groom and Rob Taylor after Groom, who at the time owned a coffee shop, found that there was a giant obstruction in the form of a 10 foot beam that blocked the entrance to her shop and the counter. Groom found that she was missing customers. Taylor, a regular at Groom’s establishment, suggesting taking text-based orders and allowing those people to fly past the line and just pick up their order.

After the all too familiar bad experience with outsourcing development for their new app to Indian developers, Taylor and Groom happened into Adam Rosenthal from New York who eventually became their third co-founder and co-CTO. Today Splick-it has an Android app, iOS app and hundreds of area businesses participating in their community. It’s only fitting that they are trying to make giving back to the Boulder community an easy experience for their users.

source: Boulder County Business Report