Houston Startup: Mrked Buy A Cell Phone Case, Teach A Girl To Read

I technically got out of the cell phone accessories writing business last year when we sold Thedroidguy, however in Austin at SXSW we met Akil Momin the founder of Mrked.

Mrked offers 5 stylish and protective collections of iPhone cases; Crayon Box, Double Dutch, Honor Roll, Classroom and Jungle Gym. Their protective cases have an element of style that you don’t find in run of the mill cases.

What makes Mrked worthy of the pages at nibletz.com the voice of startups everywhere else, is the social spin they put on their company.

The young Houston based startup set out when they built their accessory company to do something social with it. That’s why they partnered with Room To Read an organization that provides education to girls in Asian and African countries.

“We believe in investing in the future, this is why we are supporting the works of Room to Read to help provide access to quality education to girls in Asian and African countries. Education empowers and enlightens people of all genders, and this brings about positive changes in many areas. Statistics show that educated parents raise educated children and that mothers are especially influential in this process. Educated women are able to live productive and enjoyable lives and raise families that do the same. This means that providing girls with proper education is the single most vital tool in eradicating inequality and poverty in the short and long term.” Momin says on the company’s website.

All three founders of Mrked have parents that migrated from South Asia to provide their sons with a better education. Mrked is their way of giving back.

You can check out the cases at Mrked here.

Check out these other 60 startup stories from SXSW 2013

BargainAdsPlus Is A Curated Smorgasboard Of Video Ads For Every Business

If your business needs to get a video online, one place you may want to try is Sugar Land startup Bargainadsplus. This startup even describes themselves as “no business quite like us”. That’s because they offer video ads, video classifieds, ratings and more. Business owners benefit from having a place to put a variety of video ad content. Consumers benefit because theres no cost to peruse the listings on bargainadsplus.com or connect with service providers.

Bargainadsplus also connects customers with daily deals without having to pay a middle man.

We got a chance to talk with Geoffrey Marlin, founder of Bargainadsplus. Check out our interview below.

Houston Startup: Sports Tradex, The Fantasy Stock Exchange For Sports INTERVIEW

For those of you old enough to remember, back before 9/11 Cantor Fitzgerald was the outfit behind a virtual stock exchange called HSX. HSX stood for Hollywood Stock Exchange and it was one of the first virtual stock exchanges that allowed users to buy and sell celebrities, movies and movie options. Unfortunately after 9/11 and the loss that Cantor Fitzgerald had in the tragedy, HSX faded. It was revived for a short time but not the same way.

Houston Startup Sports Tradex has revived the model except instead of Hollywood it’s all about sports. Sports Tradex gets to the core of the fantasy sports lover with a financial background. It’s the ultimate place to go if you like to armchair quarterback sports and the stock market.

Sports Tradex really heats up when it’s game time. The market stays open throughout a sporting event so traders can trade in real time.

Sports Tradex is the brain child of co-founders Ben Lipson and Omri Buzi, both entrepreneurs. Lipson’s first entrepreneurial experience was actually a root beer company while Buzi has a more traditional background in web development.

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

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Houston Startup: GoodDeedsGlobal Hopes To Make A Difference

Self proclaimed “Modern Day Renaissance Man” and entrepreneur Corey S. Davis of Las Vegas has teamed up with co-founder Ken Melancon of Houston Texas to create a new social startup called GoodDeedsGlobal network. GoodDeedsGlobal is a cause driven social business that intends to help put money in the hands of those that need “good deeds”.

GoodDeedsGlobal has a request a good deed page which is designed for those with needs to contact the organization. It’s unclear as to what specifically constitutes a need but the site says it can be anything. So if you’re in need, go for it here.

Davis gave us this example of how the platform is designed to work:

“Maybe someone like a single mom who is really struggling to make ends meet and can’t afford to pay all the bills on a particular month, plus on top of that feed and take care of the kids and everything else. If she wrote into our site asking for something like $150 to maybe $300 dollars to help make it through the month and pay a few bills (maybe help to keep the lights on or something like that). Then what we would do is contact her back as soon as possible and verify her situation as best we can, and then simply help her out by fulfilling that request (essentially sending a money order for her to pick up in her local area and/or city)”

Davis says that the GoodDeedsGlobal network is designed to touch one person at a time and is a change agent to promote doing good deeds for each other. He is hopeful that people will use the GoodDeedsGlobal platform to “pay it forward”.

Davis equates it to the “Make A Wish Foundation” for people that are over 17 and not going through the hardship of a life threatening illness.

Perhaps our interview with Davis, below, will provide my clarity.

Interview With Houston Startup: TheSquareFoot A Resource For Other Startups

You know here at nibletz.com, the voice of startups “everywhere else” we love writing about startups. What we love even more is when we can write about startups who in some way or another, are a resource for other startups. Such is the case with Houston startup TheSquareFoot.

Now on the surface you may think that TheSquareFoot is just another commercial leasing site, but it’s ten times more than that. When your startup grows out of that co-working space, incubator, or graduates from that accelerator, the last place you want to move is back into your parents basement. Truth be told, unless you undergo a major round of financing (and hopefully you will) companies like CBRE may be useless to you. Only a company the size of AirBnB needs 8 bajillion square feet. Having owned a medium to small sized business I know that large commercial realtors don’t take the time to talk to small businesses. The problem is there is plenty of small business real estate available for rent in just about everytown USA.

That’s where Thesquarefoot.com comes in handy.

TheSquareFoot is a startup themselves. They recently had a brainstorming session with Startup America Partnership CEO Scott

TheSquareFoot Team (photo: Startup America Partnership)

Case, we know how those sessions go and in that time with Case the team at TheSuareFoot was able to work on their value offering. They told the Startup America Partnership: “Our meeting with Scott Case at DEMO was extremely helpful in crystallizing our value offering. In addition, the Startup America network has been great as well as the webinars.”

Being that they are a startup themselves they built TheSquareFoot with all kinds of possible tenant scenarios in mind, from a company looking for huge warehouse space, to a team of two looking for 300 square feet. You can find that all at TheSquareFoot.com

Once you’ve found the perfect spot on the site then TheSquareFoot hooks you up with the resources that you need to actually move in and start using your new space.

We got a chance to talk with Aron Susman, co-founder of TheSquareFoot in the interview below:

Houston Startup: JobPlotter Geographic Job Searching INTERVIEW

If you live in a big metro area or one of those areas like Hampton Roads Virginia that’s like nine cities built into one, than a job search can be painful based on the geography alone. Take Houston for example, a quick internet search revealed hundreds of jobs in Houston, most of the ads without addresses. Hmmm, what is someone to do, especially someone that doesn’t drive.

Never fear, a Houston entrepreneur has set out to solve that problem with a very interesting startup that meshes job searching and Google Maps. The startup, called JobPlotter, does exactly what you’d imagine with the background info we’ve provided, it plots available jobs on a Google Map.

Why didn’t you think of that? That’s easy because Paul Chittenden did. After experiencing the pain of looking for a job and then locating the job prospects on a map, in Houston.

In the interview below the break, Chittenden explains how he came about the idea for JobPlotter and how they are integrating job data into a Google Map. Now, JobPlotter users can find jobs, and then find where the job actually is.

Houston Startup WhimseyBox To Take Up Residence At Excelerate Labs Chicago

Alicia DiRago, a Houston based entrepreneur is packing her bags for the windy city. Thank goodness it’s the spring and soon to be the summer as we’re not sure how well the climate change would effect a Texan. DiRago’s startup is Whimseybox. You’re probably thinking it’s another subscription box club. You are absolutely right, however the subscription box club keeps taking on different spins, this time the theme is crafts.

Every month Whimseybox (well Alicia) sends out a box of great craft samples. The box costs $15. Now she is careful to mention that the boxes aren’t “kits” in other words there are no instructions, just the samples and your imagination.

Now if you aren’t as creative as you’d like to be DiRago posts craft ideas on Whimseybox’s blog and at least 4 full tutorials every month in the project gallery.

But now it’s time for DiRago to focus on business and take Whimseybox to the next level. Admittedly she can’t send out as many boxes as she would like. Hopefully after her experience at the Excelerate Lab in Chicago she’ll have not only some capital but more know how to turn this great idea around.

DiRago and Whimseybox will join 9 other companies in this 2012 class. She will give up a small equity stake (last year it was 6%) in exchange for cash, working space, and mentorship. She will also get a convertible note from Chicago’s New World Ventures (last year candidates got a $50,000 note).

All of this will culminate with a DEMO day on August 29th where all the participants will show off their startups to Chicago’s thriving tech community.

Excelerate is moving this year to the swanky new 1871 startup center.

Linkage:

Find out more about Whimseybox here

Find out more about Excelerate Lab here

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Source: ChicagoBusiness.com