Arc Mobile Makes Paying for Dinner So Much Easier

In our line of work, dinners, drinks, and happy hours are where we do business. It’s common knowledge that deals really happen after hours, and the Nibletz team likes to be where the deals are.

But have you ever noticed that when it’s time get the check, the server is never around? Or maybe you get one of those servers that bring the check way too early, making sure everyone knows he or she is waiting to flip the table.

It’s even more annoying when the restaurant “can’t” split the check multiple ways. Calculator apps are great and all, but who wants to do math at dinner?

Arc Mobile is a new Chicago company with some interesting solutions. Their mobile app sends the check right to your phone. You can split the check (if needed) and pay, right from your phone. The payment goes through the restaurant’s POS system, no extra pens needed.

Check out Kyle’s interview with Arc Mobile.

See more of our Startup City coverage from Chicago Techweek here at nibletz.com

The Need To Get His School Life Organized Sparks Young Entrepreneur’s Semester Planner

Marcell Purham always knew he wanted to start something. He started coding and developing a little over 7 years ago when he was just 13 years old. His love of developing started with easy stuff like helping his friends code their MySpace pages. As time went on he got more and more into design and learning every language he could. Purham is the kind of guy that soaks up knowledge from wherever he can get it, so he attends as many startup events in Chicago as he can and spends his freetime reading up on everything in the tech and startup world.

Now a college student, Purham quickly realized that his brain was overflowing with information, which made it really hard for him to stay focused and organized in school. That’s why he created Semester Planner. “Think Online Trapper Keeper,” Purham told Nibletz in an interview. (Is he even old enough to remember the Trapper Keeper?)

Semester Planner is a student planning app that captures everything in a student’s academic life, including notes, class schedule, calendar, and more. It organizes all the information in an easy-to-recall platform that keeps everything by semester. It also makes it really easy to find things later.

We got a chance to talk with Purham. Check out our text and video interviews with Purham below.

What is your startup called?

Semester Planner.

What does your company do?

Semester Planner is a free online planner that helps students keep track of their notes, classes, assignments, and documents.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

There is only one founder and his name is Marcell Purham. Marcell is a software developer with 7+ years of developing for web. He started out at 13 learning to code and writing code for friends on myspace then took it to the next level by moving onto design and finally programming.

Where are you based?

We are based in Chicago, IL.

What problem do you solve?

The problem we’re solve are allowing students to access their notes, assignments, documents, and classes on the go or while they’re in school.

Why now?

Honestly as a student myself I needed something to help me keep track of all my semester classes, notes, assignments etc. So as I took on more classes I did not want to carry around all those heavy textbooks and finally decided to solve that problem, for not only myself but also for other students.

What are some of the milestones your startup has already reached?

We’ve achieved a lot within the first 6 months(Launched in January 2013). Over 100 students from my community college signed up and used it for their semester and also some kids from others schools. We’ve had over 2,000 chrome downloads for semester planner and our likes on Facebook are constantly going up.

What are your next milestones?

Right now I am working on the Android version of the application and hope to release it sometime this year to students and I am talking with a friend on getting this developed for iOS also so that what we’re up to for now. Also we’re getting feedback from users and seeing if they’re things they love about the site and hate so that becomes very useful to us.

Where can people find out more? Any social media links you want to share?

If you would like to learn more about semester planner check it out on our website, Facebook or twitter.

Twitter – http://twitter.com/semesterplanner

facebook – https://www.facebook.com/semesterplanner

Semester Planner – https://semesterplanner.com

Now check out our video interview with Purham

We’ve got more Chicago TechWeek coverage than any other source, check it out here.

I’m Up All Night To GetLusty, Check Out This Chicago Startup

“End Boring Sex”

That’s the motto of Chicago startup GetLusty. GetLusty is an online platform geared towards married couples and couples in long term relationships. “Sometimes the lust just runs out, and you’re still very much in love,” founder Erica Grigg told us at Chicago TechWeek.

Grigg, who previously founded a digital agency, started GetLusty after the lust in her marriage died out. She’s not ashamed to let people know that her and her husband’s sex life had become repetitive and it was the same thing every time.

The Ladies Home Journal reports that Grigg’s sex life dried up because she and her husband couldn’t communicate properly about it. “She was too nervous to explore what turned her on, and her husband was equally dudly (not studly) in his inability to reassure and encourage her,” wrote Amy Keyishian writer for the Ladies Home Journal.

GetLusty is a well thought out, professional web platform. It features over 800 articles on how to improve your sex life. They also have a marketplace with hand selected merchants and a guide to curated, safe events. Nothing about the GetLusty website screams PORN. The content focuses on areas like: getting better sexual technique, improving communication, date more and date better, increasing adventure and staying healthy.

Grigg is adamant about GetLusty being about couples, to help couples improve their sex lives.

The company launched into beta just in time for Valentine’s Day this year. They were one of 70 startups featured in StarutpCity at Chicago TechWeek. Check out our video interview with Grigg below. Ready to end boring sex? Go to getlusty.com

Check out some more startups from Chicago TechWeek

Former Groupon Employee’s Startup Scalpr Is The Uber of Ticket Sales

Get this: Sometimes startups actually LEAVE Silicon Valley and move to “everywhere else.”

That’s what Scalpr did. They quickly found that the market for last minute ticket sales wasn’t hot in San Francisco. So, rather than finding an idea that fit the city, they up and moved to where they knew they’re idea was viable.

So, what does the Chicago-based company do? Basically, they make it easy to buy last minute tickets from other fans. For example, let’s say I had tickets to a Memphis Grizzlies game, but then my boss tells me I have to work late (jerk). Rather than letting the tickets go to waste, I can throw them up on Scalpr and let someone else enjoy the game instead.

Check out Kyle’s interview to see how it works.

We’ve got even more great startup coverage from Chicago TechWeek here.

Impatience Fuels Another Wait List Startup In Chicago

Impatience is one of the biggest problems that entrepreneurs try to solve with their startups. Last year at Chicago TechWeek, we saw two different startups tackling the problem of waiting in line: NoWait and LineChop.

The problem is very simple, especially in large cities like Chicago. Come Friday or Saturday night, the last thing you want to do is wait in line for hours for your favorite restaurant. This happens in almost any town in the country, and until now it’s just been something you dealt with.

NextMe is the latest startup from Chicago to tackle the wait list problem. A restaurant signs up for the service, and a patron checks in at the host stand. Then their name goes on the wait list, and when the table becomes available, bam, you get a text message.

This comes in handy when you’re eating at a restaurant in a large shopping center, or there’s a bookstore across the street you want to check out. Previously you would either have to wait for your name to get called over a loud speaker or carry around a pager with a very limited radius. Sure people would ask for an approximate wait time and try and go somewhere and come back, but that could be thwarted by an uptick in table turns or other patrons deciding to leave the queue.

NextMe wants to help you enjoy your wait. Check out our interview below and for more info visit them on the web at nextmeapp.com

There’s a whole lot more startup coverage from Chicago TechWeek Here.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel Praises Chicago Tech & Startups At Chicago TechWeek

For the second year in a row Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed out day two of Chicago TechWeek, congratulating We Deliver, the winner of the TechWeek Launch startup contest.

At the beginning of his remarks Emanuel congratulated TechWeek on improving the attendance and excitement of the conference, now in it’s third year. The mayor also had the chance to recognize the two people in the audience wearing Chicago Blackhawk’s jerseys. It was also “Black Hawk Day” where over 1 million Chicago area residents were in downtown Chicago for a parade to celebrate the Black Hawk’s Stanley Cup victory over the Boston Bruins.

Mayor Emanuel took a minute to recognize the new Google Motorola headquarters. The company is now an anchor tenant at the Merchandise Mart building, which houses TechWeek and over 200 startups in the 1871 co-working, incubation, and acceleration space on the 12th floor. The Google Motorola headquarters is the largest build out in Chicago history since 2005 with a total of 600,000 square feet within the walls of the Merchandise Mart.

When you put together the startups in the neighborhood along with the new Google Motorola headquarters there will be 8,000 employees in what Emanuel calls “the digital alley” which runs alongside the river. “8,000 employees that didn’t exist just four years ago,” Mayor Emanuel told the audience.

“I think the city of Chicago will become the mecca of startups in the midwest,” Mayor Emanuel said. “Just last year, worldwide, we went from 15th to 10th in startups.”

Mayor Emanuel praised 1871, calling it a startup itself because it just turned a year old. The mayor stressed the fact that Chicago has been known for the diversity in its economy, and he feels that the digital economy is becoming a pillar in the Chicago economy.

After his speech Mayor Emanuel toured the exhibit hall and even had time to play defense in a game of beer pong (with cups of water) on a C5 Beer Pong table. C5 is a Chicago startup.

Check out Mayor Emanuel’s remarks in the video.

Even more Chicago TechWeek Startup Coverage here.

What A Beer Pong Startup Part Deux [VIDEO]

Startups are synonymous with Ping Pong, Beer Pong, and Fooseball right? As a right of passage, many startups that move into a new office, get some kind of funding, or start generating revenue add a table game (or 3) to their office. Heck some startup offices have full arcades.

Back when we were at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 we met New York startup PaddleYou. They make custom affordable custom Ping Pong paddles. They actually made us one as well that you can see in this story.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel stops by to play defense on a C5 beer pong table (photo: C5 Beer Pong/Chicago)

So it shouldn’t surprise you that we found a Beer Pong startup at Chicago TechWeek. Actually, we discovered the Beer Pong startup last May when we interviewed them as Chippewa Five. Since then, cofounders Daniel Manriquez and Joe Mollo have shortened the name, improved the tables, and picked up some new customers.

They’ve shortened the name of the company to the much trendier C5 Beer Pong. They had several of their Beer Pong tables on display at Bar TechWeek throughout the three day conference.

The custom made Beer Pong tables aren’t just for frat guys. Zynga was their first customer, and Facebook has purchased a table from them as well. Cab hailing startup Hailo also has a C5 table which was on display at TechWeek.

Last year when we interviewed them we didn’t get to see their tables up close. After seeing them at TechWeek, we may just have to get one in the Nibletz office and for the everywhereelse conference.

Check out our video interiew with Mollo below and for more info visit c5beerpong.com

A lot more TechWeek startup coverage is here.

Know Who’s Around You At Events With 1871 Startup WeaveThePeople

Here are Nibletz we get out into the community and go to a lot (and we mean A LOT) of startup conferences and events. Sure, after spending the last 7 or so years in tech media there are a lot of faces I remember, but there are also a lot that I don’t know. Yes, I would love to know who’s around me at an event that I am at.

This is a problem that several big named startups have been trying to solve. At SXSW 2012 people discovery was the “big thing”: Banjo, Highlight, and several others wanted to help people know who was at SXSW. The problem was they were all GPS, location, and proximity based. The problem manifested itself when people would look for other people they knew who were right on top of them according to the app but could still be in the next building. When you’re in a building or an event with 1000s if not 10s of thousands of people, this is still a daunting task.

WeaveThePeople, a startup incubating at 1871 in Chicago, is solving the problem with a beautifully rich and graphical platform. Using pictures and profiles, you can easily see who’s at the event. It doesn’t drill down to who’s standing next to you, but with the big and bold visual aspect of WeaveThePeople, dusting off your glasses should make it easier to connect.

Paul Caswell, the founder of Weave The People, is from East Chicago where he’s lived for 15 years. (He’s a native of Manchester though; that’s where he gets the cool accent). He grew up coding, developing his first games at age 13. In 2000 Application Development Trends honored him with an Innovator Award. Most of his career he was developing for other people.

WeaveThePeople combines his love of coding and technology with solving a problem that he found first hand in the corporate world, the exact same problem I described above.

Check out our video interview with Caswell below and for more information visit weavethepeople.com

We’ve got a lot more startup coverage from Chicago TechWeek here at nibletz.com

CentUp Comes to Nibletz, See What It Does

Have you ever read a great blog post and wished there was some way to show your support? Sure, you could leave a comment or tweet a link. That stuff’s great. But you know what content creators really need?

Cash. Just like the rest of us.

There’s been a slowly growing trend of micropayment companies in the last few years. The deal is that you, the reader, give a very small amount–even a few pennies–to your favorite bloggers or content companies when they create something you like. It’s another way of showing your gratitude and helping them stay in business. Win-win.

Now, though, Chicago company CentUp is upping the ante even more. Instead of transactions straight from consumer to content company, there’s a third party benefiting from your pennies: charities.

CentUp will take 10% of all donations, and the other 90% will be split evenly between 1 of 6 charities and the content provider. The charities include national nonprofits such as Love146 and The Fender Music Foundation. As the company grows, they plan to add more charities.

Nibletz is proud to be a CentUp publisher. Our button is right there at the top of each post. All you have to do is sign up with CentUp, then start clicking. Besides designating how much you want to give, you can also use the button to Tweet about your donation. It’s similar to a Facebook “like” button, but benefits a couple of great organizations.

For our part, we will use our portion to continue our Sneaker-Strapped Road Trip. This enables us to travel the country, get in the trenches with great startups, and talk to amazing investors. It’s also when we cover awesome events like SXSW and Southland, which starts tomorrow. In fact, the majority of our content (which we know you love!) comes from our Sneaker-Strapped Road Trip. Love Nibletz? Every little bit helps us continue to be the voice of startups everywhere else.

Window Shop Through Your Friends’ Lives With Chicago Startup flik

Chicago-based husband and wife team Chris and Tracy Hayes have launched flik, a new startup that promises to bring the best of Vine, Pinterest, and Yelp into one unique experience.

Using your iOS device’s camera, flik captures short video clips between 5-8 seconds. Then they are instantly shared across your social channels. But unlike Vine, the clips are full clips rather than snippets of video looped together. Flik is designed for users to create original content around the products and places they love. Nothing says review better than a quick video.

While the company is just now launching, flik had a very interesting set of beta testers. Hayes used his network of professional baseball players in both the minor leagues and Major League Baseball (MLB) and their wives to test out the new app. They all reportedly loved it.

Hayes has been a career baseball player since graduating college from Northwestern University. Hayes started his minor league career with the Burlington Bees, an A league affiliate of the Kansas City Royals in 2005. At age 29 in 2012 he played with the Long Island Ducks in the Atlantic League.

While other players talk shop, watch tape, and goof off while traveling, Hayes took it upon himself to learn how to code.

He handled all of the coding for flik, while the business operations, marketing, and “everything else” was done by Tracy. Tracy also attended Northwestern, but a few years earlier than her husband.

What does your company do?

flik is an iPhone app that allows users to upload short videos showing products and places they love.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

The co-founders of flik are a married couple, Chris and Tracy Hayes. Chris is a professional baseball player who has a degree in Computer Science from Northwestern University who coded several web and iOS apps during his days as a ball player. He was the weirdo sitting at his locker, working on his computer in the clubhouse and on buses and planes. He is self-taught in iOS, but incredibly anal retentive when it comes to coding. His engineering brain is a nice complement to his wife, Tracy, who is much more of a big picture, out of the box thinker. Tracy also went to Northwestern, but she robbed the cradle a little bit, so they never met in college. Tracy has worked in Research & Information at McKinsey & Company and ran a successful consulting business before launching flik. Tracy and Chris equally came up with the idea for flik (but when asked separately, they would each tell you that they came up with the idea on their own and the other person had nothing to do with it), but Chris does all the coding, Tracy does everything else (including writing this Q&A … in the third person, of course).

Where are you based?

flik is based out of Chicago, but has been lucky enough to have a team of people all over the country (West Coast, Midwest and East Coast — with a special shout out to the app’s beta users in the South. Thanks y’all!).

What problem do you solve?

flik solves a problem for both consumers and for businesses. Oprah isn’t the only one who has a list of favorite things and, until flik, there hasn’t been an appropriate place for regular people to share the things they actually have and love with their social network. For businesses, there really hasn’t been a great way to get truthful, real-time feedback from their customers.

Why does it matter?

The video space is hot right now and users are craving purposeful videos that are also easy to create. There are a lot of really amazing apps out there that allow people to share aspirational things they love, but users aren’t posting their own stuff on those platforms because it can be intimidating to create professional-looking content. The awesome thing about flik is it’s not asking its users for artsy-fartsy, it’s looking for REAL. flik is an app for real people who use real stuff in their real lives and that’s what sets it apart. It’s a jeans and t-shirt kind of app — casual and laid-back, allowing people to connect through things they love and places they go. At the same time, flik is your favorite jeans and t-shirt kind of app — not some crappy t-shirt you got when you signed up for that airline rewards credit card. So the content on flik is real and its real-ness invites users to post original content, AND at the same time, it’s all cool stuff–stuff flik users love. Don’t care who you are, that matters, right there.

What are some of the milestones your startup has already reached?

The flik team has been lucky enough to beta launch within the Major League Baseball community of players and wives and get key feedback from people who travel a ton, have cool stuff, and are on social media all the time. flik’s users have viewed fliks over 20,000 times (the flik team thinks that’s pretty impressive for a small beta group!) and flik has just launched a pretty awesome new website and cool video. Also, within a day of our public announcement, we began receiving emails about being pre-approved to become Nigerian millionaires if we just send a small check to some random address. So, it looks like things are moving along smoothly.

What are your next milestones?

flik is looking to build out its website to be a fully functional web platform and release an Android version of the app as well as bring on a few pretty awesome fliksperts, (experts in a particular area) to share their favorite things. There may be a trip to Nigeria in there as well.

Where can people find out more?

flik’s new website is pretty awesome – the video is worth watching, especially the hair dryer who says, “Tell them how hot I get”. Here’s flik’s website: flikapp.com, our social media: @flikketyflik and facebook.com/flikapp.

When you say Jump, this Florida startup literally asks you, how high?

Crowdfunding For Charity Gone Wild With Chicago Startup VideoJuice

The latest innovative startup coming out of the windy city is a video startup focused on crowdfunding for charity. The company, called VideoJuice, is helping people raise money for their favorite charities through “challenges” or “stunts”.

With videojuice, if you’ve got an idea and a cause you can make a quick “video juice” video to encourage people to donate money on behalf of your cause. If you raise the money you set out to raise, you fulfill the challenge and your charity gets the money.

For example, Startup Grind Chicago organizer Tom Denison was one of the first to upload a “video juice” for his he wants to raise $1,000 for the Susan G Komen foundation. If he raises that money, through crowdfunding on the videojuice.co website, Denison will have to color his hair pink for a month.

Their hilarious promotional video shows people running in a Leukemia benefit in skin tight orange suits. Another one of the challenges in the video is a young man who picks up trash in a park wearing a french maid’s uniform.

Videojuice encourages users to be as creative and daring as possible. Presumably, the more interesting, or crazy, your stunt is the more likely it is to raise more money. There’s even a videojuice posted right now where the person who created has pledged to play golf in a dress and high heels if he can raise $1000 for the Jimmy V cancer foundation.

So what’s your cause and what are you willing to do for it? Head over to videojuice.co

VideoJuice and Startup Grind Chicago were major sponsors for our TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 Coverage.

Chicago Startup Project Travel Launches Peerfunding For Students For Educational Travel

It seems that more and more things we did as younger students are making their way to online platforms. Memphis startup Boosterville is disrupting the school fundraiser and bringing it online and to the mobile phone. Gradfly is helping students manage their online portfolio. Boston startup Abroad101 is the trip advisor for students studying abroad, and that’s just a few.

Now, a Chicago startup called ProjectTravel has launched their crowdfunding platform to the public.

ProjectTravel allows students that are going on educational trips to crowdfund that trip well beyond their tiny network of local family members who have been left holding the boot.

“We help students take an active role in affording their program when financial aid and scholarships aren’t enough,” said Jennifer Thomas, Project Travel Founder & CEO. “Financial barriers should not block a motivated person from having an educational travel experience.”

Project Travel partners with academic institutions, non-profit and third-party program providers to help more students and program participants go abroad, while directly advising them on how to successfully peer-fund and offering online international education resources. The fundraising platform launched its private beta in January 2013 and has been honing the online experience for travelers in preparation for its public launch. Taking advantage of current web design trends and online crowd-funding best practices, the platform offers a user-friendly way for Project Starters to connect with potential donors and supporters.

Thomas has just completed an extensive beta test of the platform and sure enough there is wide interest. Now the “peer funding” site is launched and anyone who is raising money and support for educational travel experience through a school or organization can use the platform. To Project Travel, educational travel includes: studying abroad, volunteering, interning, teaching, service language, language and cultural exchanges and much more.

Project Travel vets all of the applicants before their projects show up on the site but they’ve left the criteria incredibly open ended so almost anyone can take advantage of it that has a legitimate educational travel mission planned.

You can find out more about Project Travel here.

Check out this other recently launches Chicago travel startup BTSocial, the social network for business travelers.

Chicago’s GrubHub And New York’s Seamless Merging To Dominate Food Ordering Market

Chicago based food ordering startup GrubHub and New York based food ordering startup Seamless have announced that the two companies will merge, pending regulatory approval.

GrubHub’s co-founder Matt Maloney will become the combined company’s CEO while Seamless’ CEO Jonathan Zabusky will serve as the new company’s President. A new name for the combined entity has not been announced. Both companies have said they don’t plan on reducing staff. GrubHub employs around 350 people while Seamless employs 300 people.

GrubHub hosted Startup America Regional Champion’s during last October’s Startup America Summit. During that event we enjoyed breakfast, a tour of the company’s new offices and keynote sessions by Maloney, Scott Case and later in the day Brad Keywell of Groupon and LightBank fame.

While rivals GrubHub and Seamless were responsible fora reported $875 million dollars in food sales to local restaurants bringing in over $100 million dollars in revenue.

“We have the luxury of having two amazing brands right now. Honestly, we don’t have plans to consolidate brands at this time,” Matt Maloney, CEO and co-founder of GrubHub, told ABC News. “We are looking to position ourselves as a combined unit within this massive industry.”

Maloney acknowledged that Seamless has a great iPad app. 30% of each company’s business is currently coming from mobile an area where Maloney sees the need for improvement with GrubHub. GrubHub offers in-restaurant tablet technology which could (and probably will) combine with the tablet offerings for Seamless.

The combined company will have a stable of over 500 cities and 20,000 local takeout locations.

The GrubHub Seamless merger lost some of it’s thunder once Yahoo announced the acquisition of Tumblr.

Shark Tank’s Daymond John Invests Time & Money In Chicago Startup Resultly

It’s gotta be exciting for Resultly founder Ilya Beyrak who just two months ago penned a blog post on the companies blog about what “I’m Out” means on the hit reality series Shark Tank. Now, Beyrak and the team at Resultly are celebrating bringing Fubu Founder and Shark Tank Shark, Daymond John on board as an investor.

More importantly though, John is excited about the product and part of his investment is a partnership where he will help the team grow their product that allows people to search for something and then get updated on it.

“Kim Kardashian sent a tweet last year stating how she keeps checking eBay for a pair of shoes everyday that’s sold out,” Beyrak said, . “If even Kim can’t find a pair of shoes and keeps repeatedly checking online, imagine how many others suffer the same fate,”

Resultly provides users with a mobile app to stay on top of all their interests. Tapping into the web’s largest ecommerce, travel, news, and social sites lets Resultly bring users items exactly matching their interest the second they hit the web. Resultly aims to eliminate the need for users to continue checking the Internet for updates on the things they care most about.

“When I first tried Resultly, I was blown away by the product in the first couple seconds of playing with it. It easily solves one of the biggest problems with search in a way that all of the big competitors aren’t addressing,” said John. “It was hard not to get excited about the product and additional value that I could bring.” Resultly realized there was a real world problem of users repeating search behavior online to get the freshest content: the need for constantly checking if something has been added or updated online. Thru its service, once a specific interest is added to a users’ account, Resultly stays on the lookout for things matching that interest automatically. Users then receive detailed alerts to their mobile device with the key information around those items. Products receive key information like images, price, color, and condition, while Job alerts show salary, location, and position.

John invested in Resultly throgh his “shark branding” investment arm. Sharkbranding scours the country to find interesting startups and companies that would compliment John’s current portfolio of companies or that would make great partners. We met SharkBranding’s, Jared Nixon, at the GigTank Investor Day in Chattanooga Tennessee last August.

Shark Tank’s Mark Cuban leads $1 million dollar round for Florida startup.