interview Archives - Page 6 of 6

Toledo Startup: Buyvite Launches Group Payment Platform INTERVIEW

Do you have a big family? Have you ever pulled money together from your entire family to buy grandma and grandpa a cruise, a vacation or other gift? Well pulling all the money together, checking off the payments and then writing one big check or paying by credit card can be a huge hassle. Sure these days you can have most of your family Paypal you but there’s still those few that don’t have a Paypal account. This is just one of the scenarios that Toledo OH based startup Buyvite is looking to solve.

Another easy scenario is times when maybe you and a bunch of friends have wanted to pull together money to buy tickets to a concert or a basketball game. One person typically shells out all the money and waits to get paid back. No more of that thanks to Buyvite.

Buyvite members will have the ability to create a Buyvite by inviting friends and family to a group purchase. Once the requested amount is achieved, the group purchase organizer has the ability to trigger a Buyvite Code, that functions like a gift card code, that is worth the requested amount and can be used to make the purchase on any site that integrates the Buyvite API. Group purchase organizers also have the flexibility of sending the collected funds directly to any U.S. bank account for free.

We got a chance to talk to Brandi Wimberly the woman entrepreneur behind Buyvite

Interview after the break
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Toronto Startup: IppinKa Is A Crowd Buy Store For Beautiful Products

A new startup out of Toronto called IppinKa is recruiting tastemakers and lovers of beautiful products. In the tech world these people are commonly referred to as early adopters. However if you have a keen eye for beautiful things than you should pay attention to what this startup is doing in the crowdbuying space.

IppinKa is also recruiting designers of great products. Are you a sculptor? Have you made a unique home accessory? Are you a contemporary furniture designer? IppinKa is looking for you. They hope to match those tastemakers with designers of fine quality products.

As their website suggests they are starting a movement for functional and well made products.

We got a chance to talk with one of the co-founders of IppinKa before their upcoming launch.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Jerry Chang is a sucker for Japanese products. Educated in Engineering and Product Design, his role model is Dieter Rams.

Fran Rawlings is a social media maven and a world traveller who loves finding great products from different corners of the world.

Alan Soong, with an education in Engineering, is a product designer by day and seasoned online shopper by night.

Where are you located?

We are located in Toronto, Ontario.

Where does the name IppinKa come from?

“Ippin” is the Japanese word for great products. “Ka” means house. We came up with the name after seeing a picture of a house with beautiful products displayed in it.

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Atlanta Startup: SherpaDesk Wants To Be Your Support Desk INTERVIEW

Jon Vickers and Patrick Clements, the guys behind Atlanta based BigWebApps have designed a help/support desk product aimed at small businesses. While BigWebApps has been around since 2001, Sherpadesk is just now launching.

BigWebApps is part of Vickers and Clements company called Micajah ITS which is a network integration and development firm. Their BigWebApps application is aimed at government and large enterprise. Sherpadesk is aimed at smaller businesses and startups that need to bring customer support online early on.

We got a chance to interview Sherpadesk

What is Sherpadesk?

SherpaDesk is a client support solution designed to assist small to medium size businesses and independent contractors with managing client service requests, projects estimations and billable time in one easy to use interface.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Jon Vickers – CTO – Started Micajah ITS a network integration and application development firm while attending the University of Georgia. Later sold the managed service side of the Micajah to concentrate on custom web development with concentration of .NET technologies. Launched bigWebApps in 2001 as a way to license some of their multitenant solutions.

Patrick Clements – CEO – Joined Micajah ITS post-graduation after spending a year and half getting a Colorado education in skiing. Launched bigWebApps in the Spring of 2001 to be the marketing and application solution of Micajah ITS solutions. It’s first solution was a web based help desk application called bigWebApps HelpDesk

How did you come up with Sherpa Desk?

bigWebApps launched its first support solution bigWebApps HelpDesk in 2001. It was focused on government and mid-market support teams providing internal support to their employees. SherpaDesk is a repurpose of the bigWebApps HelpDesk solution targeting small (1-2 man shops) to medium size businesses needing an integrated help desk system with a time and billing solution.

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Nashville Startup: Interview With Rentstuff CEO Chris Jaeger

If you’ve got nice stuff that sits around a bit you can make money by renting. Say you have a mountain bike that you never use or perhaps a lawnmower that only gets a work out very two weeks? Well with rentstuff.com, a Nashville startup, your stuff can make money for you.

Rentstuff.com is a localized marketplace set up to help local people rent stuff to each other. Everything from dome tents to Dyson vacuum cleaners can be found for rent on rentstuff.com at a decent rate. The site even offers a quick calculator to show you an idea of what your stuff should rent for by the day.

The company protects your stuff by allowing you to charge a security deposit that puts the deposit amount on an authorization hold on the renters credit card. Provided everything goes well, the user gets their stuff back and the renter gets their deposit back. Rentstuff also has a community feedback system for renters and users. This way the renter knows that the person renting the property is trusted and vice versa.

We got a chance to interview the CEO of Rent Stuff, Chris Jaeger.

Who are the founders for rentstuff.com and what is your/are their backgrounds before starting rentstuff.com?

I founded RentStuff.com back in January 2010 along with my twin brother Robert Jaege (COO) and Adam Albright (CTO). Prior to starting the company, Robert and I were both working in Finance in New York City, and Adam was completing the first year of his MBA at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. Robert and I connected with Adam through mutual friends.

How did you come up with the idea because it’s brilliant?

Robert and I came up with the initial concept back in 2008. We were both frustrated after spending countless hours trying to track down kayaks and bikes to rent for weekend trips from small rental shops all over New York City. At the time, we were both living in a high rise building and knew there was a good chance that someone in our building or at least in our neighborhood had what we needed. However, there was no organized system to easily connect people who had stuff with people who wanted access to that stuff on a temporary basis. Our company solves the need to connect renters and lenders in a better way.

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NY Startup: MOWA Launching Today, We Find Out What It Is In This Interview

A new startup in New York City is launching today. The startup called MOWA tells Nibletz.com that they are producing the ultimate social game to win unique and exclusive prizes. Sure the social gaming space is a bit crowded but with a unique name and a unique plan we’re hoping MOWA has a successful launch.

Now just as a quick note this isn’t the full launch but it’s a start. We got a chance to interview MOWA on this momentous day for them. Here’s that interview:

What is Mowa?

MOWA is the ultimate social game to win unique and exclusive products.

MOWA is mobile social game with challenging daily missions about fashion, beauty, food, sports and events. It is played by sharing pictures that respond to the challenge of the daily mission. The most voted picture of the day wins coveted prizes sponsored by trendy and high-end brands.

“So, you wake up in the morning and before anything else you grab your phone, just like most of us do. You read MOWA’s mission of the day which might read something like: ‘Who doesn’t love a lazy Sunday? We sure love kicking back and making the most out of the day off. Show us your lazy Sunday pajama and we just might hook you up with some PJs that are even more comfortable.‘ And the mission will show you what is the final prize. After that you snap a picture of your lazy Sunday PJs, and post it up on MOWA. You can promote your pic as much as you want, because in the end it’s all about other people voting for your picture. The picture that receives the most votes wins.”

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

The founder of MOWA is Matteo Franceschetti. He’s an Italian serial entrepreneur, passionate about conceiving and developing business opportunities and always focused on what’s next.

He’s most recent venture, before entering the tech industry, was GIR, an international group operating in the renewable energy industry with a main focus on solar energy.

Matteo’s passion for business and start-ups has motivated him to keep developing projects and mentoring young talents, which is a key element for him when putting teams together.

(you can read more information about Matteo on his site:www.matteofranceschetti.com)

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NY Startup: GiftSimple Wins Best Social Startup At NY Tech Day INTERVIEW

New York startup GiftSimple won the Best Social Startup award at the recent New York Tech Day. The woman owned startup is a crowdfunding gift registry startup.

Now, instead of collecting a bunch of regiftable gifts that you either don’t like, won’t wear or are way too small, you can use GiftSimple to tell people what you really want. The best part is, when the item is too much for one person, multiple people can team up to crowd fund that gift.

GiftSimple is fully integrated with Facebook so that you can easily share your gift list and friends can contribute whenever they want. GiftSimple also reminds you of your friends birthdays and easily allows you to see their gift lists as well.

We got a chance to speak with Jess Lachs the founder of GiftSimple about GiftSimple and winning the “Best Social Startup” at New York Tech Day.

Interview after the break
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Florida Startup: LokalMuzik Proximity Based Local Music Aggregator INTERVIEW

A Jacksonville entrepreneur, Jason Belanger, has just launched a new mobile app for discovering new local music by proximity to your device. The app called LokalMusik is available for Android phones in the Google Play store.

Basically you open up the app and based on your GPS coordinates you can find new music and artists of multiple genres. New unsigned artists create profile pages which allow you to learn more about them, hear their music, even find out when and where they are playing next.

This is great for people who love to find new music and artists a lot or even if you want to keep up with your local music scene. Since the app is proximity based, if you’re in New Orleans you’re going to get an entire different set of artists then you would n New York, LA or even Florida.

Now if you’re attending a big music festival like SXSW, the New Orleans Jazz Festival, or even Bonaroo you can check out the national acts coming to the stages and the home brewed talent in whichever genre you like. Whether you want to support up and coming hip hop artists or a local string quartet LokalMuzik will offer it all.

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Chicago Startup: Woman Owned SpaSircle Connects You With Medical Spa Treatments

A new woman owned startup in Chicago is taking on the task of educating women about medical spa treatments and then connecting them to carefully curated providers with discounts. SpaSircle offers women discounts on laser hair removal, Botox, dermal filters, chemical peels and more.

While some may be skeptical of finding information on a discount driven site online, Jessica Wiser the founder of SpaSircle has taken every precaution to make sure that SpaSircle isn’t just offering discounts and information, but that it’s a safe marketplace as well. As Wiser explains later in our interview, her and her physician advisory board make sure that SpaSircle keeps out the “riff raff”.

We caught up with Jessica for a quick startup interview.

Briefly describe SpaSircle

SpaSircle is a website designed to educate women on medical spa treatments, such as Botox, laser hair removal, dermal fillers, and chemical peels, while also providing great discounts on these procedures! Physicians want to be listed on SpaSircle, because it is an exclusive group of physicians that can only be invited to join. We have a board of physicians who have screened all medical spas and physicians in the Chicago area who do these procedures, to make sure that the provider we send our members to is well trained, and will give their patients the very best results. We are the only website with discounted procedures and Chicago’s premiere physicians that people can trust, so we feel we’re poised to take this business from GroupOn and other daily deal sites.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

I am the founder of SpaSircle, but do have some employees that have been crucial to the success of the company. Amy Phillips, in particular, has been head of sales and just like a partner to me.

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Start Up Interview: Patrick Ambron CEO Of The SXSW Award Winning Brandyourself.com

Have you ever looked yourself up on Google to find something less desirable? Maybe Google has you confused with someone else with a similar name? Maybe there was that incident at that frat party 10 years ago that just won’t go away?

Typically with these types of scenarios there are reputation clean up companies out there that are more than happy to take thousands of dollars from you to help clean up your Google results. Now there’s a new game in town and it’s free. Brandyourself.com is a do it yourself utility that allows you to take control of your Google results.

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