DC Startup Archives - Page 6 of 7

Washington DC Startup: Contactually Manages Your Relationships Contextually In Your Inbox INTERVIEW

Washington DC startup Contactually launched their contact relationship management tool for email back in January. Contactually is backed by Dave McClure’s 500 startups and has also raised over $200,000 in angel funds.

Contactually’s tool works right in your inbox and connects you and your contacts through email and LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Klout, Quora, Flickr, and more social networks. The service syncs all your contacts relevant data into your new online address book that works seamlessly with GMail and Google Apps.

Contactually provides an easy to navigate contact dashboard which highlights your weekly activity along with your action items. It also sends reminders to you via email based on your action items with your contacts. It’s an extremely useful tool for business professionals, prosumers and even startups who often have a hard time keeping tabs on all the balls they are juggling.

We met some of the nice folks at Contactually when we were in DC for Capital Connection, TechBuzz and the TechCocktail Startup America events last month. Check out our interview below:

DC Startup: Veteran Central Shows Off Their Stuff At TechWeek Chicago

Chicago Techweek attracted a fair amount of startups form outside the windy city. VeteranCentral was one of those startups.

Veteran Central is a massive resource for veterans who are looking to get back into the work force the site includes job boards, resources for veterans getting jobs in civilian life, and places for jobs that hire veterans to source new employees.

We spoke with Daniel Weissharr who handles jobs and resumes for the Washington DC based startup, about Veteran Central. He told us that some of the key elements to Veteran Central are the resources. For example, if a veteran needs help creating a resume they can find help on Veteran Central.

Veteran Central goes beyond just jobs and also offers resources for health, benefits, housing, and money management.

Check out our video interview below with Weissharr and see what Veteran Central is all about:

DC HealthTech Startup MedClimate Presents At TechBUZZ

MedClimate, a DC area startup in the HealthTech field, presented last week at TechBUZZ as part of Capital Connection 2012.

MedClimate is looking to take a problem that many new and expectant parents face with doctors and that is, getting questions answered without increasing wait times in already packed waiting rooms. As Tim Barnes, Founder of MedClimate, points out in his pitch, everyone has experienced long waits at doctors offices.

What you may not have considered is that as information has become more and more available to patients, including new parents and expectant parents, wait times in waiting rooms are increasing because more patients are asking more questions. This definitely makes sense when you’re the parent, or patient, but never in the waiting room itself.

Through a disruptive approach to appointment management and using things like videos, video messaging, and making web and mobile appointments, medclimate hopes t o streamline care and make wait times less painful. They plan on doing this all and still allowing for an increase in patient/parent care questioning.

MedClimate plans to use video conferencing to allow patients to ask questions and get immediate feedback from their doctors from the comfort of their own home, or office, while still allowing the practitioner to collect payment via insurance.

The ultimate goal is to not affect everyones already busy schedule with unnecessary appointments.

Check out Barnes pitch below:

Washington DC Startup: KikScore Aquired By Google

Google has Acquired a Wahington DC startup called KikScore. KikScore is an online reputation startup that helps smaller online businesses build reputations and become more trusted for consumers.

CEO and co-founder Rajeev Malik created KikScore after his wife noticed that people would fill up their shopping carts on her furniture website and then abandon them. Malik and his wife did some research and discovered that most incomplete shopping cart purchases were partially based on the customers trust, or lack thereof, of the merchant.

Malik describes KikScore on their blog as:
a patent-pending online reputation score and interactive report card for small businesses around the world. KikScore enables online small businesses to take information and reputational data about themselves, their track record of responsibility and dependability and show their website visitors that their business can be trusted. Small businesses do this by placing the interactive KikScore Confidence Badge, real-time merchant report card and comment platform on their website so they can close more leads and sell more.

KikScore’s other co-founders are Travis Valentine CTO, Mike Collins Head of Product, Mike Mauseth Board of Advisors member, and Tom Lewis another Board Of Advisors member.

This article from SocialMatchbox positions the acquisition as a straight up acquisition without acquihire. Malik told SocialMatchbox that he aimed to spend more time with his budding family and work on his next startup.

Google will most likely fold KikScore into their current Trusted Stores product that falls under the Google Checkout/Google Wallet department.

Linkage:

Source: socialmatchbox.com

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E-vite founder John Bracken Shows Off HIs New Startup Speek VIDEO

Before “Startup” was one word, before Facebook and Google alumni were the “in crowd” in the startup scene, and before everyone had cable internet, a new revolution was happening in the Washington DC area. That revolution was AOL alumni founding startups.

John Bracken is one of those AOL alumni. At the time, the largest consumer online service was based in Northern Virginia. We call it a consumer online service because Steve Case said last week at an event that it wasn’t before AOL turned six years old that the service could actually access the internet. Commercial companies were banned until then.

If you think you’ve heard Bracken’s name before you might have. He was a co-founder for e-vite which was the original online invitation and event service. This was years before Eventbrite.

Well Bracken is back and just like e-vite, Bracken’s new startup self serves a problem that he has had with conference calls. A problem that he knows others have. In fact a startup in the conference call space, UberConference, won the TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield Cup last week in New York.

Bracken’s startup is called Speek and it allows people to initiate conference calls much easier than they could with traditional conference calling methods. With Speek, long gone are the days of tedious 800 numbers to remember, and unusually long codes to remember.

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DC Startup: Naaya Great For Kids, Great For Parents VIDEO

Washington DC area serial entrepreneur Amir Hudda is at it again. This time though, he’s created a new startup for his kids. Hudda has had several successful exits bringing tens of millions of dollars in profit to his investors.

The story goes a bit like this. As busy as Hudda is, he and his wife still noticed that his children spend a great deal of time on the computer. Furthermore they spend even more time on iPods,iPads,iPhones and as Hudda puts it “i-everything”. With his background in technology he wanted to do something about this problem but he didn’t want to strip his children of technology.

That’s we he founded Naaya. Naaya is a web and mobile based learning platform that provides a lot more than simple coloring games and match the picture games. The World Of Naaya takes kids through a fully immersive experience where they explore worlds, while learning robust curriculum targeting reading, social studies and 21st century skills.

While there are a lot of companies offering e-learning through the web and mobile Naaya is the first that isn’t targeting just kids and students. Hudda wants parents, teachers and schools to get involved as well.

Naaya features an entire parent portal that will offer reporting to the parent on what the child has been learning, messages they have been sending and receiving, and target areas where the child may need help.

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DC Startup: Hitch An Uber Alternative To Taxicabs VIDEO

We were asked several times at the TechCocktail event Thursday night who our favorite startup was at TechBUZZ earlier in the week. In my opinion it was a three way tie between Syllabuster, Cont3nt and Hitchrides.com

Hitchrides.com is another alternative source for transportation in the form of an app. It blends crowdsourcing, social networks and transportation. Hitch is good for the environment and for the user.

David H Miller the founder of Hitch says that Hitch is a way for drivers to make money whether they are driving to or from work, down the street, around town or a long ways away. It’s like the ride-share section of Craigslist but safer, more efficient and for money.

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We Interview DC Startup Barrel Of Jobs At Capital Connection 2012

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(photo: nibletz syndicate)

While at the Capital Connection/TechBUZZ conference in Washington DC this week we got to meet Chris Hertz and Craig Zingerline, the co-founders of Washington DC based startup Barrel Of Jobs. They were one of 28 new startups that presented their business in a four minute presentation on Wednesday at the conference.

Of course by the name, Barrel of Jobs, you already know it has something to do with jobs and careers. With Barrel of Jobs though, we’re not talking bout the next monster.com or Career Builder. Barrel of Jobs is a social recruiting platform to connect employers to the best candidates. Barrel of Jobs is using the social web to help recruiters, employers and even startups, find the best talent.

As the baby boomer generation starts to retire, recruiters and HR Departments are looking to find the best young talent possible. With the current generation in the talent pool we’re all accustomed to the traditional online tools for jobs. Tools like monster.com, Career Builder and other job websites are getting crowded with jobs and applicants. Because of this, more and more talent seekers are turning to the social web to find the best applicants.

Their is a problem with the way recruiters are using the social web right now though, and that is that they really can’t penetrate past the first node in terms of finding applicants. Another problem is the fact that some of the best candidates are already employed, and they’re passive job seekers. This means that they’re employed but may consider changing employers if the best opportunity was presented to them.

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Startup America CEO Scott Case Offers 7 Tips For Relationships At TechCocktail Event in DC

Today was the big day of two Cases for Startups in Washington DC. It was day two of Capital Connection/TechBUZZ at the Omnin Shoreham Hotel. The 35 hour private investor conference highlighted 28 great Startups on Wednesday and equally as many later stage companies today.

Capital Connection features AOL Co-Founder and CEO of Revolution, Steve Case. He offered a great talk highlighting what he’s been working on as an entrepreneur and the strength of Washington DCs thriving tech and startup community.

Later in the evening we went just two miles down the road to TechCocktails Sessions event focusing on relationships and networking. The featured keynote speaker was Scott Case the CEO of the Startup America partnership and the founding CTO of Priceline.com.

Case opened up his talk by making sure everyone knew he wasn’t there to talk about dating. He did however talk about sex, gambling and getting lucky. In short that portion of his talk was about meeting his wife and having four kids (the sex). He then shifted to a story about his father in law who is a horse handicapper. He also talked about one of his friends, and their father, Ira, was also into horse racing (gambling). Then he explained how he was considering a move to the west coast and he got a call from Ira right before he left. Ira wanted to introduce Case to another one of his friends, who was ultimately the founder of Priceline.com (getting lucky).

With Case’s vast experience and the fact that he’s trying to become the most traveled man in the United States as CEO of Startup America, he’s met and networked with thousands of people.

Case brought up the fact that so many startups that he meets are so focused on product development that they forget about customer development. Customer development is totally different from customer acquisition. The roots of customer development lie in relationships and networking.

Case offered these 7 great tips for networking, specifically aimed at startups who sometimes forget about things like this:

1. Everybody has a story, understand what their story’s about.

2. It’s not about you it’s about them. Figure out more about the other person.

3. Find a way to say yes when people ask you for something. All the most interesting things in Cases life started by saying yes. You’ll find yourself falling forward and creates an opportunity for someone else to help you.

It’s very hard to say no to something when they’ve said yes to you

4. There are relationships when you won’t have something in common

5. Social networks aren’t a replacement for in person hand to hand make a relationship with them.

6. Use these tools to keep your relationships current. It’s not enough to go back 6 months. Use social networks to keep current between face to face interactions.

7. You have to be intentional about all of this. Allocate time and energy to networking. You can meet people almost anywhere.

DC Startup Syllabuster Is A Life Saver For College Students: Capital Connection 2012 Interview Video

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Georgetown student Carlos Cheung pitches his startup "Syllabuster" at Capital Connection/TechBUZZ (photo: nibletz inc)

At Capital Connection 2012/TechBUZZ we got to hear Carlos Cheung pitch startup Syllabuster. During the pitch he kicked off his four minute pitch session immediately diving into the problem that Syllabuster solves.

College students party hard and study harder, but sometimes the partying takes over. Now Syllabuster isn’t just an app for partying college students, a lot of college students have busier lives now than they ever had in the past, and may ever have in the future.

Syllabuster is an innovative new academic management platform, designed by college students for college students. It has a user friendly UI and unlike other academic management apps a student actually designed it. Cheung is a student at Georgetown so you know that it’s solid.

We talk with Cheung came up with the idea of Syllabuster at Startup Weekend DC and was able to attract three rock star cofounders including co-founder and CEO Minh Nguyen who sold his startup Plaxo to Comcast for $150 million dollars. Brad Birdsall and Matt Gaidica also joined Syllabuster as co-founders. Birdsall and Gaidica’s startup Lander.com is being acquired by scan.com

Cheung is hoping to move Syllabuster to a public beta in the coming weeks and launch officially in the fall when students are preparing for yet another busy and hectic year. Syllabuster currently have a working prototype and a Launch Rock set up on their website for people to sign up for the beta, and for news about this innovative platform.

Here have some video:

Linkage:

Find out about Syllabuster and sign up for their beta here

More stories from Capital Connection 2012/TechBUZZ here

What’s this sneaker strapped, startup road trip? Find out here

Baltimore Black Owned Startup: Point Click Switch Presents At TechBUZZ DC

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Point Click Switch CEO & Co-Founder Phil Croskey Speaks At TechBUZZ DC (photo: Nibletz inc)

Phil Croskey,, CEO and Co-Founder of Black Owned Baltimore Startup, Point Click Switch took the stage today for four minutes to talk about his business which has a solid foundation to stand on because “everyone needs electricity”.

Point Click Switch is a web based application that helps people who live in de-regulated states discover, compare and sign up for utilities. The deregulated states are: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida,Georgia, Illinois, Indiana,Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan,Montana,Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington DC, and West Virginia.

Point Click Switch is like an Expedia or Hotels.com for your energy choices. The site aggregates 7-10 of the most competitive offers and allows the user to compare rates and offers side by side from the comfort of their computer.

When the user is done making their selection, Point Click Switch allows them to initiate service through their site. They will still be billed by the utility itself and they will also still call the utility directly with outages and problems.

Croskey told us that he thinks the rest of the country will eventually adopt the deregulation of energy and electricity which will add an even larger base for Point Click Switch.

Here’s the video:

Linkage:

Check out Point Click Switch here

Check out more coverage from this event here

We’re on a sneaker strapped, nationwide startup road trip, find out more about that, here

Disrupt Is Like Shark Tank, Capital Connection & TechBUZZ Are Like Pitching To Trump

We saw some of the best and brightest new startups from primarily the greater Washington DC area, at TechBUZZ today. TechBUZZ kicks off the annual CapitalConnection conference which focuses on private equity, startups, growth companies and emerging trends.

Capital Connection is celebrating its 25th anniversary super serving the private investment community in the greater Washington DC area. When Capital Connection first started out most of the investors invested in companies within 100 miles of their homes here. Nowadays with the global change in startup climate, angel funding and venture funding, the hundreds of investors at the conference represent a global community.

Although we’ve been to Launch, DEMO and TechCrunch Disrupt (even yesterday), Capital Connection feels different. It’s a more seasoned crowd of investors ranging from angel investors, venture capitalists, private equity firms and more. Where you get the feeling that the angel and VC firms we read about in TechCrunch and PandoDaily every day, are great people but even fairly new themselves, the Capital Connection conference feels like more seasoned, and dare I even say “old money”.

A better analogy may be, that where pitching at TechCrunch Disrupt, DEMO or Launch would be like pitching to Shark Tank, Capital Connection feels more like pitching to Donald Trump.

Where we wore shots and nibletz t-shirts yesterday we’re in slacks and polos today and possibly a bit underdressed. If you’ve ever been to a startup conference it’s typically shorts, crocs and your startups t-shirt. Presenters today are in long sleeves, some with their startup t-shirt hanging out and some in ties and jackets.

All of this atmosphere makes the pitch seem a little more formal and probably a little tougher on the startup.

We’ll be bringing you coverage over the next couple of days from this amazing conference.

DC Startup: GrandStand Takes Social Engagement To A Whole New Level VIDEO INTERVIEW

We found a DC startup called Grandstand on #startup alley at TechCrunch Disrupt. What they’re doing will blow some businesses away. Watch the video for some great use cases and the technical explanation. I’m going to describe it in layman’s terms. If you’re a business looking to get real engagement out of social media pay attention.

What Grandstand does is takes aggregated social media data, pulls it and applies it to real world engagements. Think of the Twitter wall concept that burst into popularity around two years ago. Every conference you went to and even some company headquarters would show a hashtag or a Twitter ID on a big television screen for the world to see.

If you’ve ever been to a GDGT event they’re known for their Twitter walls where you’ll find people staring in awe at the Twitter wall waiting for their tweet to show up. The Twitter wall concept is all well and good but in the end you’re just looking at Tweets.

Grandstand takes the Twitter wall concept along with other social networks and for lack of better terminology at 1am while writing this story, makes the tweets, likes, check-ins, statuses and mentions do stuff.

For instance Grandstand has a display at Volkswagon’s headquarters in Germany that shows tweets, and checkins on a map of the globe, and in other unique ways on multiple floor to ceiling screens (check it out it’s in the video).

At South By Southwest in Austin Texas this year Grandstand had a lot of people talking about a refrigerator stocked full of beer. When 10 people checked into the venue the refrigerator unlocked and automagically opened. How cool is that.

Forget text to win, Twitter walls and “like us for a smoothie”, if you’re a company or brand looking to get the most out of your social media you need to check out this video and contact them… NOW!

Linkage:

Get more info on Grandstand here at get grandstand.com

Here’s more of our great TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012 coverage

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DC Startup: Stitchtagram; Design Your Own Instagram Pillows

Earlier this month we reported on Social Print Studio’s latest venture, printstagr.am. Social Print Studio, a San Francisco company, lets you print your Instagr.am pics on just about anything printable. Today we’re reporting on a DC area startup that actually lets you print your Instagr.am pictures on pillows.

This story comes to us by way of our good friends at Inthecapital.com (check that site out). Stitchtagram was started by the brother and sister team, Doug and Rachel Pfeffer. Of course with Instagram’s rising popularity, their new Android app and their $1 billion dollar purchase by Facebook, everyone is looking to get a cut of the pie. Stitchtagram is probably one of the most innovative ideas to come as a result of the photo sharing phenomenon.

Doug Pfeffer told Inthecapital.com that the idea came about because he and his sister love taking digital things and making them physical. Doug has a background in digital advertising. His sister, Rachel, has a background in selling jewelry online. They wanted to find something to do together. After tinkering with an Instagram slide show screen saver they decided on pillows. They began selling pillows in November of 2011 and the rest has been history.

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