Chicago Startup BTSocial Launches The Social Network For Business Travelers

At Chicago Techweek 2012 we met Tim Hines the founder of BT Social. BT Social is “The Business Traveler’s Social Meeting Place”. It’s geared towards business travelers that travel a lot. Whether they travel by plane,train or automobile, as long as they stay in hotels and “travel” this is a place for them.

Think about that George Clooney Movie Up In The Air, where Clooney plays the role of a man who travels all over the country firing people. He lives a very disconnected life, he is rarely home and then meets a woman who travels just about as much as him. They spend the night they meet each other comparing loyalty cards and loyalty status for airlines and hotels.

Although it’s just a movie there are people out there in the world that travel as much as Clooney does in the movie.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could make travel buddies. You could find out if one of your travel buddies is in the hotel lounge that you’re staying at or maybe picking up a bite down the road. You could share travel itineraries with friends a lot and get alerts when you and one of your travel buddies is in the same city/state as you.

Well now you can as BTSocial has finally launched to the public.

The BTSocial team is solving the traveler’s problem of drinking alone at hotel bars or reading the same tired newspapers during airport layovers. The new app puts the power of networking in the hands of business travelers while on their trips. “Business travelers can now find current friends and colleagues and meet new ones through the app,” said Tim Hines, President. “The app is for business travelers looking to get out of their hotel rooms and create a social experience by meeting other travelers in real life,” he continued.

Built for the mobile web, the BTSocial Travel App is accessible on web-enabled phones, tablets and traditional web browsers. “We built a responsive app so that it works on any device business travelers prefer,” said Karl Jackson, CTO. “All of our features, including check-ins, function on any device. Plus users can avoid the clutter of a multitude of apps on their devices,” Karl continued.

The app’s features are what really set it apart from other travel tools. Users can check-in to any location around the world, whether it is a specific venue or an entire city. Once checked-in, users are visible to other users within the vicinity. “Checking-in is our way of raising your hand and saying ‘Hi. I’m here and I’d like to network,’” said Hines. “Check-ins are what truly drive the social experience of the app.”

Users can also use the Trips feature to plan to network during their travel downtime. Unlike other travel apps, it doesn’t ask for your itinerary, but focuses on the gaps of time during trips. When users create a trip, they can enter gaps like layovers or time between meetings to meet other travelers. The Trips feature also allows users to see other travelers that share similar gaps of time to entice meeting up.

The most unique feature of the app is Socials, where users can plan their own social events during their trips. Whether hanging out in the hotel bar or airport lounge, users can create a Meetup using the simple feature and invite other travelers. In addition, the events are visible to users that check-in in the vicinity.

In addition to the social features, users can also store their loyalty account numbers to avoid carrying those pesky cards. That’s not all, BTSocial even packed in a stats tracker so users can see how active they are on the app.

For more information on the BTSocial Travel App and to access it today, visit app.BTSocial.com.

Check out this Chicago startup that’s caught first lady Michelle Obama’s eye.

If You Lose It, Chicago Startup Crowdfynd Wants To Help You Find It

Lost and found is pretty boring and in a lot of respects, un-effective says Pinaki Saha CTO and co-founder of Chicago startup Crowdfynd. Currently, the traditional vehicles for lost and found are not nearly as effective as they could be using the broad scope and reach of the internet.

Unfortunately too many of us know the ritual of printing out signs for a lost dog or cat and stapling them to every tree and lamp post in the neighborhood. We also know too well that losing something of value can prove fruitless unless you happen to stumble upon some very honest people. In other cases, items that some people have lost are extremely valuable to them, and could be perceived as junk to others.

Sure there is a lost and found section on Craigslist but even the most regular of Craigslist users don’t check that section everyday. So why not create an app for that.

That’s what Crowdfynd is all about. It’s a social platform and community using the crowd to help locate the things you lose or find. It can also be used for crime reporting.

How it works.

Using your iPhone or Android device you can report things you’ve lost or found. You can upload pictures of the lost item if you have them, or pictures of where you think you may have lost an item. You can also upload pictures of things you find. Crowdfynd connects the finders and the losers to make a match and get things back to where they belong.

Saha says that Crowdfynd offers social, local, mobile and 3.0 components to make it stick. They also have a reward platform as well. People who lose items can offer a reward and collect it through the system insuring the safe return of the item. Saha has found people are offering rewards in the hundreds of dollars. He says that cat owners are offering rewards in the thousands of dollars.

They also have an offline hybrid where someone who loses something can print out signs to hang up in the neighborhood that directs them back to their Crowdfynd page.

People are chiming in because there’s a “Goodwill” factor about helping people. Crowdfynd is also hoping to partner with businesses too like cab companies, airports, hotels and restaurants where people are known to lose things. They hope by building up their network that they can be the one destination for people who lose and find things.

In order to do this though, Crowdfynd is going to need to build tremendous scale, very quickly. Saha says they’re prepared for that and have a lot of money they are going to invest in marketing and getting the name out there. They plan on unveiling the service in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco to compliment their first market, and their home market, Chicago.

Check out our video interview with Saha below and for more information visit crowdfynd.com

You can find more of our startup coverage from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 here.

Chicago Startup Birdfeud Is Building Debates (Feuds) Around Brands [interview]

It’s no secret that debates that fill up a comment section on any blog, tech site, journal or review site, provide a very high level engagement. Not only are the debaters engaging but more and more viewers hone in on the best debates and watch them grow.

A Chicago startup, called Birdfeud is taking advantage of that instinctive behavior, and turning it in such a way that brands and agency’s benefit from the engagement. The company is targeting any brand that wants to target users with high engagement topics. In essence they are marketing brands in a very deliberate way that appears absolutely non deliberate.

It seems to be a method that’s creating success for the Chicago startup based at 1871.

All of the founders previously worked together at Spartz Media, a social media agency that served over 160 million pageviews per month. It was there that they observed first hand how arguments, debates and feuds sparked engagement that was off the richter scale.

Now, through their own startup, users can join into hot button discussions and debate while simultaneously being exposed and engaging with brands. While the concept may seem unorthodox in the social media space, when you take a look back at what they’re doing it’s actually genius.

We got a chance to interview Andrew Parnell, co-founder and CEO of Birdfeud. Check out the interview below.

What is BirdFeud?

Birdfeud is a social marketing company with a B2B focus. Our products help brands and agencies connect with and engage end users.

In layman’s terms, how does it work? (In other words how would you explain it to your grandmother)

A lot of people use social networks like Facebook and Twitter. They discuss, argue with each other, and have passionate conversations about all sorts of different topics, including brands and companies. We let those brands and companies gain value from these conversations by bringing the conversation to their web site while still maintaining the social element.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

The founders previously worked at Spartz Media, where we cut our teeth on social media and the internet startup climate. We helped grow the business to 25 employees serving 160 million pageviews per month to an engaged audience of millions.

Andrew Parnell (CEO) has a background in business administration, consulting, and project management. Working at the Acquity Group he advised companies like General Motors and the New York Philharmonic.

Andrew Weber (Director of Technology) has a deep development and technical architecture background, heading up the development team at his previous business as well as running the Midwest Sports Car Club.

Vladimir Jornitski (Director of Information) has an educational background in economics and an operational background in project management at Thomson Reuters, data analysis, and research management.

Henry Vasquez (Director of Marketing) has a background in operations and political science, and is the Vice President of Operations at Spartz Media.

Where are you based?

We’re based out of the startup coworking space 1871 in Chicago, IL.

What’s the startup scene/culture like where you’re based?

Through enthusiastic public and private development Chicago is advancing itself substantially as a startup center. Working at 1871 allows us to be in the locus of activity for this development, meeting a lot of people working in adjacent or similar problem spaces that we can learn from and help out in turn.

How did you come up with the idea for BirdFeud?

We’ve been working in both the social space and with companies and brands for some time. Initially, we began by looking at the current limitations of social networks like Twitter from a user perspective- difficulty seeing the best content, lack of managing ongoing conversations- and then unified it with our understanding of the limitations of social media from a brand management perspective, following on from conversations that we had with companies having difficulty getting social to work for them.

How did you come up with the name?

Birdfeud’s name was settled on fairly quickly as a catchy conflation of the ideas of debating and group participation that are core to the use of the tool.

What problem does BirdFeud solve?

Companies and brands, even those with a strong social focus, have trouble actually making social media generate value for their business. Follower counts grow but most of the audience that brands reach never come back, and certainly don’t engage with the brand on a consistent basis. Birdfeud solves this problem by engaging end users in topics relevant to both their interests and the brand that gets the ball rolling on the conversation.

What’s your secret sauce?

Birdfeud leverages the open access Twitter and Facebook APIs to embed social content (Twitter tweets and Facebook posts) into an embeddable iframe. This allows for a business or brand to embed that social content, algorithmically sort it, and manage it, right on their website. The conversation will continue in social channels- with links pointing back to the website, Facebook page, or other promotional vehicle for the brand.

Are you bootstrapped or funded?

Birdfeud is currently on bootstrapped funding, although we’re currently looking to raise about $200,000 for a round of funding. We’d be more than happy to talk to any potential investors for part or all of our funding request; let us know at parnell@birdfeud.com .

What are some milestones you’ve achieved?

August 2012: We had a fully functional beta of Birdfeud live on our website, http://www.birdfeud.com/ .

September 2012: We started onboarding ‘case study’ clients to prove out the ability to engage users.

February 2013: We ‘go to market’ to start finding paying clients.

Present Day: We have 4 signed contracts for paying clients and are beginning conversations with enterprise level customers for larger campaigns.

What’s your next milestone?

We’re looking to have 10 paying clients launched by the end of March and are currently on pace to do so. Past that, we’re looking to be a profitable company by EOY 2013 with 50+ paying clients on-boarded.

What’s one challenge you’ve overcome in the startup process?

We initially began with a more B2C focus: “let’s fix what we don’t like about social media.” Pivoting to our current B2B focus was a choice that took us out of the realm of areas that we were, with our business experience, fully familiar with. In the end we had to make an analysis of what the best opportunity for our product was and what the correct alignment was between our solution and the actual problems out there in the market. A rational examination and the willingness to potentially venture into a business own paid off, with our business now much more clearly milestoned.

Who are some of your mentors and business role models?

We’ve been able to draw upon a fantastic support and advice network while building our business out in Chicago. David Culver at VentureSHOT has given us invaluable advice for getting the business sustainable and taking it to market. We’ve also been able to draw upon the experience of other mentors like Robert Jordan of InterimCEO, Corey Angst at Notre Dame University, Mike Moyer, Jay Lindgren, and Kevin Willer.

What’s next for BirdFeud?

As stated above, we’re currently in the sales phase for Birdfeud, really proving the model out with clients across our target range (from bloggers to small businesses to larger enterprise clients). We’ll continue to garner data and feedback from clients as we look to develop the tool further. We’re also looking towards our current funding round to really be able to scale the model out and reach more agencies and enterprise clients at the top end.

Where can people find out more?

There’s a lot of information about Birdfeud available at our website, http://www.birdfeud.com . Those interested in contacting us as potential clients can also look at http://www.birdfeud.com/partners or email our CEO at parnell@birdfeud.com . Finally, Birdfeud can (of course) be found on Twitter: @birdfeud .

Check out Briefskate the first startup to build a physical product on the startup bus.

Chicago Reviews Startup G2Crowd Taking On Gartner Not Yelp

The Chicago based team behind Big Machines, a company that specializes in cloud based product configuration, and sold to Vista Equity Partners and JMI Equity at a valuation of more than $100 million dollars is back. This time they’ve attacked a problem that IT professionals and companies around the world are having every day; finding great reviews on software.

Their video explains it best, you’re not going to ask a car dealer for his “honest opinion” on the vehicle you’re looking at. If you do, you’re going to get whatever it takes to sell the product. You’re not going to look to tech review magazines and online sites because they’re riddled with “product placement” and paid for reviews.

So G2Crowd decided to create a community of crowdsourced reviews from actual users. Today they have over 2500 members and 10,000 ratings on various software packages, mostly aimed at enterprise companies.

A company with 500-10,000 employees is looking at a pretty big capital expenditure when it comes to CRM software, or other productivity software. Licenses can run in the tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.

G2Crowd offers users, or readers, a much more rounded picture of the products they may end up purchasing.

You would think that a startup like this was coming directly at Yelp, however TechCrunch reports that’s not the case at all. While serving the needs of software purchasers with reviews, they’ll also provide a paid for research service, much like Gartner and other companies like it. With their broad range of reviews, and user base they plan on offering these research reports at a much lower cost, like $99.

After their first successful exit with BigMachines, when CEO and co-founder Godard Abel launched G2Crowd they naturally decided to remain in Chicago. We talk with the G2Crowd team about Chicago’s startup scene and what they’re doing differently in the reviews space with G2Crowd. Check out the interview below:

What is your startup, what does it do?

G2 Crowd is a site for trusted reviews of business software. We are changing the game by creating a motivated community of real users sharing real reviews in real time so companies can select software in much the same way that we use reviews on Yelp or Amazon to pick a restaurant or hotel. New insights based on authentic reviews encourage informed decisions and collective learning; companies can use G2 Crowd to compare software and find the one that’s right for them based on the experiences of actual users.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Godard Abel, cofounder/CEO

Matt Gorniak, cofounder/COO

Tim Handorf, cofounder/Products

Mark Myers, cofounder/Design

Mike Wheeler, cofounder/Engineering

The cofounders all worked together at another company, BigMachines, which was founded by Godard. After the successful sale of BigMachines, they were looking for a new project and started G2 Crowd. More info on the team can be found here.

What is the startup culture like in Chicago?

Overall, it’s enthusiastic and supportive. We know we’re not Silicon Valley or New York, but the startups here embrace the underdog role and make the best of it. There are lots of events and resources for entrepreneurs to connect with each other.

What problem does your startup solve?

The current approach to buying business technology is broken. Buyers spend too much time sifting through spin, reading outdated analyst reports, and sitting through endless meetings. After all this, buyers still lack the confidence in their choice of technology, and most projects fail to meet their expectations. Because most companies choose new systems only every few years, they lack the expertise to efficiently select the best software, and most have nowhere to turn for input from peers implementing similar systems for similar companies. Also, traditional technology analysts such as Gartner rely on a legacy model of highly paid experts publishing their opinions only every two years or so, with a focus on products from large vendors that are typically also clients of the same analysts. This process delays the emergence of more innovative solutions, and buyers might miss newer technologies that could be a better fit.

What is one challenge that you’ve overcome in the startup process?

The initial process of getting our site live. Putting together a site that we were ready to show off was a ton of work, but we also had to balance that with just getting something out there. It’s very tempting to wait until the site is as close to perfect as possible before standing it up, but it was important to us to approach this from the lean startup perspective and get something out there. Since the first version of our site went live, we’re continuously getting feedback and making changes and improvements based on what our users tell us.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

We now have nearly 2,500 users and more than 10,000 ratings and reviews of business software.

We decided on, pursued and launched our first product that would bring in revenue.

We’ve grown the team to 9 full-time employees.

What are your next milestones?

Our next milestones revolve around our premium research. We also always have goals with regard to the size of our user base and the number of reviews we have. We’re constantly focused on growing the community and gathering a critical mass of data.

Who are your mentors and role models?

We look to entrepreneurs like Richard Branson and Marc Benioff for inspiration on innovation and developing and sustaining a successful company. All of us have read Peak by Chip Conley and The Lean Startup by Eric Ries; in fact, those two are required reading for anyone who joins our team. The concepts in those books help shape our company.

What are some of the advantages/disadvantages growing your startup outside of Silicon Valley?

The startup environment here is so much more supportive than Silicon Valley. Instead of intense competition and scrutiny, startups here tend to work together and root for each other, which is encouraging. The Chicago area provides a large pool, and we also like being in the midst of thousands of companies that use business software and represent prospective customers and users of our site. There aren’t too many disadvantages, but one would be that most of the major tech events happen out there, so we have to travel to get to them.

What’s next for your startup?

We’ll be broadening our focus into other categories in addition to CRM. We’re also going to be rolling out more tools to help companies with the software selection process, and we’ll be exploring ways for our users to connect with each other and more directly share their expertise.

Where can people find out more?

People can head to www.g2crowd.com to find out more. Follow them on Twitter @G2Crowd.

Sir Richard Branson offers these 4 tips on avoiding startup mistakes.

Chicago Startup Tackling Childhood Obesity Catches The First Lady’s Eye [SXSW]

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.

No really we have a TON of SXSW 2013 coverage here

Chicago EdTech Startup ThinkCerca Pitches At SXSWedu

ThinkCerca,Chicago startup,EdTech,startup,startups,starup video

ThinkCera founder Eileen Murphy Buckley pitches at SXSWedu (photo: NMI 2013)

50 years ago, a student challenging a teacher would be cause for a good paddle beating or wrapping on the students fingers with a ruler. Today, not so much.

Argumentation is now at the core of the new Common Core State Standards, and distinguished Chicago educator, Eileen Murphy Buckley, understands that with a passion. As the former Director of Curriculum and Instruction for over 100 Chicago Public Schools, Buckley oversaw the implementation of this kind of curriculum system wide.

Now she’s turned these important fundamentals into ThinkCerca a platform that helps build students critical thinking ability.

With argumentation we’re not talking abut back talking the teacher, Buckley and progressive educators worldwide are teaching students how to create valid arguments about everything built on five principles; claim, evidence, reasoning, counter argument and audience.

“ThinkCERCA is harnessing the unique combination of deep subject area knowledge, hard-earned, pedagogical design skill, and research-based expertise to build a marketplace that will give school districts economic access to the world’s largest selection of high quality literacy lessons. Unlike a the limited selection available in a static textbook, our dynamic marketplace will offer a distribution channel for expert teachers to refresh and deepen the lesson library in ways that both students and teachers find valuable.” Buckley wrote in a guest post to Chicago based Technori.

ThinkCera made it to the final round in the LAUNCHedu startup showdown as part of SXSWedu in the K-12 category.

Check out their pitch below:

SXSW team coverage from nibletz.com can be found here.

Chicago Startup Hummingbird Is The Rotten Tomatos For Anime

Chicago startup Hummingbird has created a platform that anime fans have been looking for for years. The startup, founded by Josh Fabian and Vikhyat Korrapati is the first database and recommendation engine just for anime. “Think Rotten Tomatoes had a baby with Netflix’s recommendation engine, and that baby is a huge anime fan.” Fabian told nibletz.com in an interview.

“Users rate the titles they’ve seen in the past and, based on their tastes, Hummingbird gradually ‘learns’ what you like and don’t like, enabling it to make extremely accurate suggestions on what to watch next. Users are able to properly determine if the anime suggested is something they’d like to watch by making use of our comprehensive database featuring trailers, screenshots, plot summaries and much, much more for every anime you could imagine. Because some users lead very busy lives, we’ve also integrated a simple to use episode tracker to help keep you organized, no matter how many titles you may be watching at a time.” Fabian explained.

Fabian is based in Chicago while Korrapati is based in Hyderabad, India. Fabian says he loves the Chicago startup scene and has found that it’s extremely easy to get the help he needs in Chicago.

“It’s seems no matter where you turn in this city, there’s a community of designers, developers and entrepreneurs learning from each other, encouraging each other and giving a helping hand when you need it most. I can’t think of a better place to launch a business.” He said.

Hummingbird came to life after Fabian, a huge anime fan, found himself without something to watch next. “I hit a roadblock.. I had no idea what to watch next. All of the ‘popular’ choices that come to mind I had already seen, in some cases, multiple times. I did a lot of googling but after a lot of searching, I couldn’t find anything to completely solve my problem. ” So he created it.

Korrapati, a developer, saw Fabian’s first landing page for Hummingbird and reached out to help. “I can honestly say that without Vikhyat joining the team, Hummingbird wouldn’t be nearly as great of an idea as it is now”, Fabian said of his cofounder.

Fabian is bootstrapping it for now but has ambitious plans to try and get into YC or 500 startups. With Hummingbirds unique platform that may not be as difficult as it sounds.

They’ve been launched for about a month and have already picked up nearly 10,000 users. Their next goal is getting to a critical mass of at least 50,000 users but with no other recommendation engine for anime that shouldn’t be so tough. They were also named by TNW as a startup to watch.

You can find out more about Hummingbird here at humminbird.ly

Excelerate Labs Becomes Techstars Chicago

Today in a blog post penned by Techstars founder David Cohen, he announced that Excelerate Labs, the startup accelerator located at 1871 has become Techstars Chicago.

Excelerate Labs was founded by Troy Henikoff and Sam Yagan (OKCupid, SparkNotes and Match.com) in partnership with Sandbox Industries and New World Ventures.

We’ve covered several of the Excelerate Labs startups and have managed to make a few trips to 1871 over the last year. Their classes work hard, play hard and innovate. It’s one of the finest accelerators in the country, which has prompted Cohen and Brad Feld to invest in multiple Excelerate Labs graduates including: SpotHero, GiveForward and Tap.Me

Techstars has always started their programs from scratch. At one point they began endorsing a number of accelerators that applied their same methodology. That network was once known as the Techstars Network and has since spun out of the Techstars brand and into “Global Accelerator Network”.

For the first time ever Cohen is now turning to an existing accelerator, Excelerate Labs, to open Techstars Chicago.

“We were so impressed with what they’ve built that we asked them to join forces with us and turn Excelerate Labs into TechStars Chicago. TechStars and Excelerate have always been kindred spirits: we both put entrepreneurs first and believe in the power of mentorship.” Cohen said on the Techstars blog.

Troy Henikoff says, “We are excited to combine Excelerate’s deep roots in Chicago with TechStars’ vast alumni and mentor networks. TechStars Chicago will be an even stronger force in Chicago and will add incredible firepower to the TechStars platform.”

“I congratulate Excelerate Labs and I am pleased that TechStars has identified Chicago as one of the best places to start a technology business. This advancement is a huge step forward for the city’s technology economy and will fit hand-in-glove with the other efforts being made to promote entrepreneurship and create new jobs around Chicago.” – Mayor Rahm Emanuel

Applications for Techstars Chicago are open now. The first early bird deadline is March 1st, the final deadline is March 15th. The program will begin May 29th and end on August 29th. To apply click here

Join Pat Riley, Managing Director of the Global Accelerator Network, along with several of their accelerators at the biggest startup conference in the U.S. everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

Hundreds of Broken Headsets Lead To Chicago Startup RockRah CES 2013 Interview

If you’ve been a smartphone user for the past few years than you probably have something in common with me, and that is a junk drawer filled with earbuds. Some earbuds are frayed. Some don’t work in the right ear. Some don’t work in the right ear. Some have cords that are too short. Then there’s the other problem of losing ear buds. I’ve lost plenty of pairs of $30 Apple earbuds in my time.

A Chicago startup called RockRah is trying to solve that problem.

While there were plenty of iPhone cases and plenty of earbuds and headphones at CES 2013, in fact enough to bring reporters to near nauseam, they didn’t combine the two like RockRah does.

RockRah has fashioned a smartphone case that has retractable earbuds built into the back of the case. The housing for the case houses the earbuds so they don’t get lost, or tangled up. You have your earbuds right there when you need them and then when you don’t need them they retract right into the case. Kinda smart huh?

RockRah has been in development for about a year now, and it looks like they’ll actually make it to market in the next few months.

Check out our video interview below:

Plenty of startups from Chicago are going to be in the startup village at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, is yours?

TDC Games Shows Off America’s Funniest Home Videos Hybrid Board/Tablet Game At CES 2013

A startup from the suburbs of Chicago called TDC games showed off an exciting new way to play board games. Combining the power of QR codes, along with video playback, the company has created a hybrid America’s Funniest Home Videos game.

A Hybrid Game?

We’ve seen the app interactive toys at toy stores and department stores everywhere, we’ve even seen games like Life that have taken to the iPad for the “spinner” experience, however TDC Games utilizes the iPad in the game in different ways. For the America’s Funniest Home Videos Game, when the player selects an action card, they scan it with their tablet or smartphone (iPhone, iPad and Android devices) a video pops up with a decision box.

In the demo we watched it was a video clip of a kid kicking a soccer ball in the gym. The player would have had to decide what was going to happen next in multiple choice. That would dictate the next move on the actual game board.

TDC Games has licensed an entire library of proprietary America’s Funniest Home Video clips for this game which makes it interactive.

The Illinois based startup has several games in the works that will utilize several different technologies found in mobile devices to enhance the family game night.

Check out our video interview below:

Several startups from Chicago’s startup community are in the Startup Village at the largest startup conference in the U.S. it’s not too late to exhibit at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

Kauzu Targets Entry Level Job Seekers With Smartphone And Basic Phone Apps

With all this innovation and startups targeting the job market there’s one job market that still remains horribly under served. The entry level or basic jobs market hasn’t had its own app or platform until now.

Chicago startup Kauzu, is taking advantage of the open space in the entry level jobs market. Grocery stores, retail jobs, call center jobs, fast food, crew work and other types of jobs can connect to local employees using one of two apps created by Kauzu.

Kauzu offers a smartphone app that allows users to view jobs on a map and find jobs in close proximity to their homes. They’ve also created a basic phone app that allows job seekers wuthout smart phones to text their zip code and get job listings close to them as we’ll.

We got a chance to interview Mitch Schneider, the founder and CEO of Kauzu. Check out our interview below:
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Chicago Startup: ParkWhiz Raises $2 Million, Parking Startups Are Hot In Chicago

Monday we reported that Chicago parking startup SpotHero had raised $2.5 million in funding. That was big news for the ExcelerateLabs alumni that’s currently working out of 1871. Now, we’ve heard that another Chicago parking startup called ParkWhiz has raised $2 million dollars.

ParkWhiz’ funding round was led by Hyde Park Venture Partners. Hyde Park Angels, Amicus Capital, Alexis Ohanian, Garry Tan, Henry J Feinberg, and Amreesh Modi also participated in the investment, according to builtinchicago.com. Ohanian is the co-founder of Reddit and Tan is a partner at Y Combinator.

ParkWhiz has been around a little longer than Chicago rival SpotHero. They originally came on the scene in 2006 and in the past 6 years have generated over $10 million in parking revenue to operators. They also have access to over 3 million parking spaces.

One of ParkWhiz’ major success stories is the partnerships they’ve formed with organizations that are key in the big event space. ParkWhiz is partnered with StubHub, Ticketsnow, several NFL and NCAA teams and other sports and entertainment venues.

“This financing allows us to realize our next stage of growth, beginning with the hiring of 20 additional employees,” said Aashish Dalal, CEO and co-founder of ParkWhiz said in a statement. “The wealth of knowledge and experience of our new board members will help us aggressively deliver unique capabilities to our customers and further solidify our position as the market leader.”

More than 1 million people have used ParkWhiz.com, the largest, fastest growing, online parking reservation company in the U.S. ParkWhiz allows users to compare price, location and amenities. Drivers may reserve special event parking and purchase discounted downtown parking at up to 80% off drive-up rates. The company works with over 2,000 parking lots nationwide, giving customers access to over 3 million parking spaces. ParkWhiz’s national footprint has enabled them to provide parking spot inventory that far exceeds their closest competition.

Joining co-founder Aashish Dalal on the company’s board will be Ira Weiss of Hyde Park Venture Partners and Henry J. Feinberg, former partner at Technology Crossover Ventures, the world’s largest technology oriented Venture Capital firm. Mr. Feinberg is currently the Chairman of Maxim Revenue Management Solutions.

“ParkWhiz offers a transformational service for finding optimal automobile parking,” said Henry J. Feinberg. “ParkWhiz will change how consumers and parking lot owners and operators do business similar to how Expedia changed travel, Netflix changed entertainment and Zillow changed real estate.”

Linkage:

Find ParkWhiz Here

BuiltinChicago Here

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Chicago Startup: SpotHero Raises $2.5 Million

A Chicago startup that was developed after the cofounders had received over $3,000 in parking tickets, has now raised $2.5 million dollars. SpotHero, an app that allows users to find parking spots on their smartphone, was well received by the city of Chicago.

At first sight the startup seems very similar to Baltimore startup ParkingPanda, however SpotHero boasts 24 hour customer support and touts that they are superserving Chicago first and building a loyal customer base before eventually branching out. Chicago seems to love SpotHero as well. Since their launch in 2011 the company reports that more than 10,000 people have used their iPhone app and website platform to find parking spots.

SpotHero’s iPhone app allows drivers to reserve parking spots on the go, something that ParkingPanda is just now having developed through MindGrub. ParkingPanda is a web based platform that allows people to book parking spots from either individuals like driveways and curbside spaces, or public lots that have extra spots to rent. Both services allow the user to pick how long and when they want to start the parking spot rental.

SportHero was part of the most recent class at Excelerate Labs one of Chicago’s thriving startup accelerators. SpotHero just recently presented at Excelerate Labs’ August demo day.

“How many times have you been frustrated by parking? We created SpotHero to solve this problem by helping drivers get the right spot with just a few clicks” says SpotHero CEO and Founder Mark Lawrence.

Battery Ventures, 500 startups, David Cohen’s Bullet Time, e.Ventures, OCA Ventuers, New World Ventures, Light Bank and Draper VC all participated in the round led by Battery.

Part of the attraction to investors is that SpotHero has already brought in over $2,000,000 in revenue to parking operators at some of the largest national parking companies. “Our parking partners know that their customers are online and looking for convenience, that is what we deliver – while helping the lots fill their unused spaces with paying customers ” says Lawrence

Linkage:

Check out Spothero here

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Chicago Startup: Barandwaitstaff.com A Jobs Network For The Service Industry

While some consider waiting tables stepping stone jobs, there are plenty of career minded people in the field. Perhaps you want a job that doesn’t require a lot of thinking so that you can pay the bills and work on a side startup. Perhaps you actually make really good money waiting tables and so no reason for change. Possibly, you like working with people and feel most comfortable helping customers.

For whatever reason there are thousands of people who are perfectly fine, if not extremely happy, in the service industry. A new Chicago startup, barandwaitstaff.com is going to make it easier for professional service industry folks to find the best service industry jobs. In fact, even though there are thousands of restaurants in every state, the service industry has gone rather unnoticed in the recruitment space.

Barandwaitstaff.com promises to make it easy for anyone looking for work in the service industry to find it, and vice versa.

The startup is led by two brothers Len and Jim Kazmierczak. Both brothers hold history degrees. At one point they had bought a small live music bar in the area. However with the economic downturn it became harder and harder to keep the doors open and eventually closed it down. After closing the business down they decided they reflected on what they could have done differently in their business. Staffing was one of those things. With that Barandwaistaff.com was born.

We got a chance to talk to Len Kazmierczak. Check out the interview below.