LA Startup Roometrics Wants To Be The GoTo Place For Roomates

Finding a bad roommate sucks. The sites out there to find the perfect roommate are far from perfect. Of course there’s also the newspaper and Craigslist, but you’re opening up yourself to a whole world of trouble. Often times when you find and interview a potential roommate from the classifieds or Craigslist, it’s much like a job interview. You get someone showing off their best, and when they move in the worst can kick in.

A Los Angeles startup called Roometrics is trying to create that perfect platform for finding a roommate. Call it the “match.com” for roommates.

And that’s exactly what they do. Roometrics allows users to create a roommate profile that encompasses many facets of living with someone. The answers users give to the profile questions are then securely saved and can be shared with potential roommates and compatibility scores.

We got a chance to interview the team behind Roometrics. Check out the interview below.

What is Roometrics?

Roometrics is a web app that lets users find roommates that match their lifestyle based on over 50 specialized criteria. Think of it as an eHarmony meets Craigslist meets Carfax, but for roommates. The company has spent over a year developing the algorithm that shows users how well they would get along with a potential roommate. The idea is to get rid of the guesswork that often comes along with roommate finding through the current services.

In layman’s terms, how does it work?

To put it simply, users fill out a series of questions that will be used to calculate a “roommate profile”. We ask questions regarding current lifestyle and personality. Users are given a link which they can share with potential roommates they find on services like Craigslist. On the site, users can see how well they match overall with a person as well lifestyle and personality. The answers users give for questions are NOT shared with anyone and are simply used to generate compatibility scores.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Founders are Ardy Rahman and William Tran. Both are 26 and from Los Angeles, CA.

Ardy has an MSc in Developmental Neuroscience from University College London and completed a graduate fellowship focusing on addiction psychiatry at Yale University. He’s taken his experiences with neuroscience, psychiatry, and programming to develop the core personality metrics used in Roometrics.

Will has his BA from Pomona College and has spent his career in education as a high school English teacher and admission counselor. He’s mentored students at different stages of their development and has seen how the social dynamics of high school and college can impact that development. He and Ardy work together on developing the technology that drives Roometrics as well as marketing the service to befit our target demographic.

Where are you based?

We are located in Los Angeles, CA

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

Relatively small (compared to SV), but hugely passionate. We have some strong tech startups out here and with a growing enthusiasm, we are moving closer to the tech renaissance that has graced places like Palo Alto, Austin, and Cambridge. There is tremendous talent in SoCal, it just needs to be given the opportunity to express itself.

How did you come up with the idea for Roometrics?

Through a mixture of bad roommate experiences and even worse roommate searching experiences. There has never been a “go to” place for people that need roommates. The services are all disjointed and our market research shows that many still rely on word of mouth. We decided that needed to change.

What problem does Roometrics solve?

Currently, to find a roommate, one can use a handful of services with Craigslist being the most used resource. But what about the intangibles; the things a CL posting doesn’t tell you. Like what kind of person they are, if you have similar living styles, or if you have similar outlooks on life, etc. Our research shows that even if you don’t know it, these are all important factors to consider when living with someone and will directly affect how comfortable you are at home. Roometrics gives you that extra tool when trying to find a roommate. A bit like when you ask for the Carfax, roommates can ask for the “roometrics” from people they meet on craigslist to see if they are compatible before ever signing a long term lease.

What’s your secret sauce?

We’ve developed both a unique assessment and algorithm which is used to specifically assess roommate compatibility. It’s based of empirical research that others have conducted as well as our own novel research on roommate dyads/triads. We’ve collected and analyzed data on over 200 roommates to construct the foundation of our technology. Combined with our user interface, we’ve created an easy to use system for roommate matching.

Why Now?

Our market analysis shows the 2008 economic crisis has had a horrendous effect on the housing market. The age at which people buy their first house has shifted to the right, resulting in a larger amount of the population renting apartments for longer periods of time. Moreover, because the economy had tanked, more people are looking for roommates to split costs of living in order to save some money. The process to find roommates is lackluster and the process to find GOOD roommates is even more discouraging. That needed to be changed and that’s what we’re doing.

Who are some of your mentors and business role models?

Ardy: I profoundly respect Bill Gates. If you want to talk about a man who had the brains and the tenacity to take an idea and change the world, he’s your guy. But what sets him apart from other insanely successful individuals is his compassion and down-to-earth personality. Both he and Warren Buffet’s insistence on social responsibility are commendable. In a time when we need to restore faith in the practice of business, they are setting amazing examples for their students and peers.

Will: I am a fan of education technology. Even though it’s not a longstanding crowd, individuals pushing the envelope with products like Khan Academy, Udacity, and Coursera are my biggest fans (hope I can join them). I may not wholly agree with the internet classroom but I think this innovation is integral to ed reform. I’ve taught classic novels written ages ago but I recognize that we can’t continue to teach students the same way we have in the last 100 years.

What’s next for Roometrics?

Launching our beta. We have a few key collaborations that we are developing and hope to introduce our technology to the public shortly. After that, growth!

Where can people find out more?

You can check us out at http://www.roometrics.com where you can sign up with your email. Or you can read up on us at http://blog.roometrics.com.

Celebrities Love The Startup The World Has Been Waiting For: Hater App

There are haters everywhere, or at least that’s how the song goes. Lord knows I have a bunch. That’s why Jake Banks created Los Angeles startup Hater. It’s the world’s first social network surrounded by things people hate.

The social network is alive and growing at a very quick rate. People are finding lots of commonalities over the things they hate. It can be anything from hating the New York Yankees to hating pickles on a Big Mac. It can even be hating your ex-girlfriend. But, co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer Andrew Batey says “It’s not about bullying”.

Hater App works on your mobile device. Download it from the app store and you can immediately start identifying the things you hate and identifying with the people who hate similar things. If a person becomes the subject of too much hate, or things get inappropriate (to a degree) they will get filtered out.

To date there’s been nothing available like Hater, and it’s caught the eye of celebrities like Teyana Taylor, Wiz Khalifa and Fat Joe who will feature the app in his next show. “Fat Joe’s people found out about Hater and reached out to us” Batey explained to nibletz.com at TechCrunch Disrupt NY.

Hate isn’t always used as a bad thing though. Batey explains that there are celebrities that are getting together over issues like global warming and getting users to say why they hate global warming. “Users may say things like I hate global warming because I can’t breathe” Batey said. It’s a great awareness tool and it’s blowing up.

Hater launched at SXSW and since then Batey and Banks have been hard at work promoting their startup globally. They recently did New York Tech Day, TNW in Amsterdam and now TechCrunch Disrupt 2013.

“You don’t always have to like something, and the option to hate or dislike has been missing out there. Everyone has something they hate; now you can and it’s better than therapy.” Banks said in a statement.

Mashable recently featured Hater in “8 standout apps from March” which is a particularly big honor considering how many apps were released at SXSW which fell during that month. They’ve also been featured on Wall Street Journal live. People are quickly beginning to see that Hater app is a lot deeper than you may think.

Check out our interview with Batey below.

More from TechCrunch Disrupt here at nibletz.

Quick Concise Pitch From Realty Mogul, Eye Catching, And Prize Winning At SXSW [sxsw]

Realty Mogul, a crowdfunded real estate platform and graduate of the TechStars Microsoft Azure accelerator wowed multiple audiences at last weeks SXSW Interactive festival.

We got the chance to see Realty Mogul pitch on the Startup America Live stage before the Hatch Competition. It was the intense coaching they received both in the accelerator and from their Hatch coach, that got their pitch down to almost perfect.

It also resulted in them winning the Hatch Pitch competition, and judges calling the startup “Histrionic”.

The Hatch competition was in it’s second year and narrowed down the field from over 100 applicants. It’s an intense pitch contest with startups selected getting one on one coaching from industry leaders and previous Hatch winners.

“A big piece of what pitches needs to happen is to make the audience relate. What made us successful last year was we told a story about the problem. A lot of the companies don’t engage the audience that well. When you tell a story in four minutes, it’s really hard to be concise with the message. You have to treat it like you have 30 seconds instead of four minutes. That forces you to get the message down.” Distil Inc CEO (and judge for this years Hatch competition) Rami Essaid said to SiliconHills.

When you watch the quick pitch video below you’ll understand how all this work has paid off and how it led to the Realty Mogul team winning the Hatch competition. You can find out more about Realty Mogul, here or here on their Angel List profile.

SocialNightlife, Customer Management, Engagement & Loyalty For Night Clubs

A Los Angeles startup a year in the making has finally launched a product that night club owners and other nightlife venues will get a lot out of. SocialNightlife is a complete platform designed to help nightclubs and other establishments keep track of their VIP’s and loyal customers.

Nightlife professionals will now have the ability to digitally check-in guest-list and VIP customers and track activity by team member, venue, event and client. Venues will also be able to setup custom promotions and reward their loyal guests as a result of the social media features built as a front-end to the professional business tool.

They already have a handful of popular night clubs on board like the famous Marquee nightclub in Las Vegas. Using the SocialNightlife platform VIPs, loyal customers and social media rockstars will be able to get into clubs quicker and their information will be utilized more efficiently providing a service to both the patron and the establishment.

“We’re breaking down physical barriers,” said Artin Nazarian, SocialNightlife’s co-founder and CEO. “Front door staff can finally put a face to the names on their list and send targeted event promotions to fans of a specific DJ or celebrity.”

Patrons have access to key features as well, that were originally released in a public beta at CES 2012 (last year)

· Location based check ins to gain insight on frequent patrons

· Ability to offer loyalty rewards like complimentary tickets, drinks and other VIP services

· Instant reviews of the line queue, music quality, and venue energy level

· Public photo gallery with advanced photo editing and hash-tagging functionality

· Branded social media business pages

· Performance reports for promoters and hosts such as reservations, guest check-in and sales

· Event promotion and direct marketing tools

· Gamification through virtual “bottle” badges

· Customer analytics and automated guest lists

The company has already partnered with strategic advisors and stakeholders in clubs in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Miami.

For more info visit SocialNightlife on the web here

You’ll find an amazing night life experience at the biggest startup conference in the U.S. everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, limited tickets still available.

Styku Has Created An Online Virtual Fitting Room Using Microsoft Kinect VIDEO INTERVIEW

Los Angeles startup Styku has done something rather innovative utilizing the Microsoft Kinect platform. Using four Kinect sensors, Styku has created a way to do a full body scan and create an online fitting room.

According to the company you can actually use just one Kinect at home but to get the most accurate measurements you can go to a retail partner that has their technology installed and have a body scan done. From there the magic happens.

On the back end Styku takes the body scan and matches it to a stores inventory to show you exactly what sizes they recommend for you. In shopping for clothes, size can actually be a mystery. Women and men can go into one clothing store and have one size selected and a different store which has clothing cut a little smaller or a little bigger and have a totally different size recommendation.

Styku combines the inventory and specifications from a stores entire inventory, with the exact measurements garnered from the body scan, to offer the exact fitting size.

Check out the video interview below and for more info you can visit styku.com the smart fitting room.

The grand slam of startup events continues next month in Memphis Tennessee for eveywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

Interview With LA Startup Mobile Roadie, Powering Thousands Of Apps

Los Angeles startup Mobile Roadie is packed with talent and it shows. This mobile app development startup allows anyone to create a mobile app presence in just minutes. They already power over 5,000 apps and mobile websites across 40 countries. Huge brands like Harvard University, Red Bull, Cirque du Sleil, Wynn Las Vegas and even the Staples Center rely on Mobile Roadie to take them to the mobile screen, the hottest screen available in 2012.

Last May the company launched a native iPad creation platform and also a self service mobile website product. Their platform allows creators to integrate Youtube, Brightcove, Flickr, Ustream,Google News, Facebook, Twitter, RSS and more sources to bring content into apps.

The company has a presence in the US, UK, France, Spain, Australia, Italy, Germany, Brazil, Turkey, China and Japan.

We got a chance to interview Mobile Roadie, check out the interview below:

Los Angeles Startup: Upperatus Is Making A Difference With T-Shirts INTERVIEW

Yesterday we brought you the story about Utah based startup HeadCase who is trying to make a social difference with their unique, premium headphones. Today we’re turning to Los Angeles and social entrepreneur Jeff Kudlishevich and his LA startup Upperatus.

Kudlishevich’s startup, with a really cool name, is taking uniquely designed t-shirts, pairing them up for social causes, injecting celebrity spokespeople and donating a portion to charity. We’re not talking about 50 cents or a dollar, no that’s all been done before. Upperatus builds in $11 of each t-shirt sold to the paired up non profit organization.

This month Upperatus has teamed up with classical singer Nathan Pacheco and artist Dan Mccauley to donate $11 per shirt sold to Save The Bay (The Santa Monica Bay for those of you keeping track).

The Upperatus site describes this month’s charity below:

The Santa Monica Bay is the centerpiece of Los Angeles’ beach culture, and the geographic center of the LA region. Stretching from Malibu to Palos Verdes, the bay is where millions of Angelenos relax and work. Because of their economic, ecological and recreational value, our waterways and the ocean are critical resources worth protecting.

Santa Monica Bay beaches average 45 million visits per year

The Bay generates more than $1 billion in visitor spending annually.

Tourism accounts for more than 500,000 jobs in the greater L.A. area

The population of Los Angeles has skyrocketed in the past 100 years and it’s putting a lot of pressure on our environment. In the mid 1980s, improperly treated sewage led to dead zones in the Bay and harmful water quality. Thanks to the efforts of Heal the Bay and its supporters, the EPA mandated stricter sewage treatment processes, resulting in greatly improved water quality.

Despite the amazing gains, your Bay faces ongoing challenges, from marine debris to overfishing. The good news is that you can help protect our beaches and oceans. And remember, watersheds connect you to ocean, no matter if you live on the coast or 60 miles inland.

If you haven’t noticed, with the holidays upon us we’re featuring more social entrepreneurs. Upperatus is another great way for the slacktivists to get involved, and you get a cool shirt in the process. What makes Upperatus even better is that they’re changing the shirts and the causes every month so you aren’t stuck with the same shirt and your money going to the same cause.

We got a chance to interview Kudishevich. Check out the interview below.

Los Angeles Startup: Smarter Stand, Works For iPad Mini Too

Dotan Saguy, the founder of Los Angeles startup Smarter Stand, has just written in to tell us that his unique device works for iPad Mini as well.

We reported about the Smarter Stand over the summer when it had surpassed 10x it’s funding goal on crowdfunding site Kickstarter. When all was said and done Smarter Stand received over 15x the original amount they had hoped for. The best part, the Smarter Stand is one of the simplest little iPad accessories ever produced.

Essentially what Saguy has done, is created a clip that holds Apple’s optional smart covers in place at one of the creases. Without the Smarter Stand, the smart covers fold like an accordion of sorts. With the Smarter Stand in place, the material and hard material under the cover remains in place and the smart cover can be converted into a stand with many different angles.

When Saguy had heard about the release of the iPad Mini he couldn’t want to get his hands on one to see if the Smarter Stand would work on the smaller smart covers. He is happy to report that it does.

If you were lucky enough to get a Smarter Stand from the original Kickstarter campaign and have since bought an iPad Mini go ahead and try it out, it works great. If you just purchased an iPad Mini and a smart cover and want the Smarter Stand all you have to do is go to smarterstand.com

Linkage:

Get a Smarter Stand today at smarterstand.com

Here are more startup stories from “everywhere else”

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LA Startup FindHire Hopes To Be The Next Generation HR Software INTERVIEW

Los Angeles startup FindHire is hoping to be the next generation HR software. The startup, founded by Michael Dennis and Ryan Herman, blends contact management, project management and sourcing software for recruiters. Their web based solution makes it easy to access anywhere, across multiple locations or just one in home office location. The scalability and features give FindHire a serious advantage over other similar platforms.

Dennis and Herman were childhood friends. Dennis went on in recruiting and Herman got into development. They came back together as adults to create FindHire.

We asked Dennis how he came up with the idea for FindHire and he said:

“With my HR industry knowledge, I wanted to make an impact on HR technologies. With so much time-wasting software available, I realized I needed to fix this broken process and help people enjoy recruiting again. This intrigued Ryan who is a programming guru, and with this notion, we started building the next generation of HR software. Our hope is to alter the way companies hire and make the process fun and easier to manage.”

Check out the rest of our interview with Dennis below.

Manage All Your Bookmarks, Logins & Passwords With LA Startup MySocialCloud

Over the years browsers have become much more intuitive. All of the commercially used browsers have a keychain feature which allows you to save your logins and passwords, and even pre-populates them for you when you visit websites frequently. The problem with this current password storage method is it’s a cinch for anyone who gets access to your computer to view all of your passwords. In fact, one of the only real negatives I have with Mac’s is that they keep a similarly unsecure key chain on your hard drive as well.

There are a few startups out there that are tackling this problem with various password vaults. Most of these options keep your passwords in one spot and you need to remember the password to your vault and then look up the password by service.

Los Angeles startup MyScocialCloud is looking to streamline this process for you by storing your logins in the cloud. They make your passwords easily accessible by a browser plugin or bookmarklet. The best part is that they also keep your bookmarks organized as well. You don’t have to go searching through a password vault to find the password. MySocialCloud gives you the simplicity of a browser side or hard drive based keychain, but in the cloud, and more secure.

We got a chance to talk with Stacey Ferreira, the founder of MySocialCloud about her startup. Check out the interview below:

L.A. Entrepreneur Launches Social Network Startup For Film Makers In Post Production

Unless you’re one of those award winning notorious film makers like say Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, or even Aaron Sorkin these days, it can be hard to find others to collaborate with, share feedback and share ideas. As L.A. entrepreneur Cosmo Scharf discovered, it’s even tougher at the post production level. That’s why he created Blosmo.

Scharf, a student at the University of Southern California, decided he wanted to start a social network for film makers. As he tells us in the interview below, after collaborating with his buddy Corey, they narrowed down the social network to those in post production.

Blosmo is as much a collaboration tool as it is a social network. Right now, independent film makers don’t have many avenues for feedback, ideas and suggestions. YouTube comments, when they aren’t spam, are immature and not very helpful. Even though Vimeo has a more professional audience, the comments aren’t very useful either.

Blosmo gives their community members access to a higher level of feedback from likeminded, professional or semi professional film makers. Comments on Blosmo are incentivized through a point system where users can actually receive prizes and rewards sponsored by film companies. The points also give film makers access to discounts on gear and equipment.

Check out our complete interview with Scharf below.

Interview With Mark Cuban Backed LA Startup: Mention Mobile

Shark Tank season 4 kicked off two weeks ago with Indiana University, Kelley School Of Business graduate Derek Pacque’ turning down a $200,000 investment offer from Dallas Maverick’s owner and billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban. Pacque’ turned down the investment because of the equity stake Cuban wanted in exchange.

That wasn’t the case with Mention Mobile founder Ryan Ozonian. Ozonian took a one in a million shot and sent Cuban an email with a two year old blog post. According to Ozonian in just 8 minutes Cuban replied. That single email exchange led to Cuban investing $250,000 back this time last year. Cuban followed that investment up with another undisclosed investment in April of this year.

Mention Mobile is a social gaming company that already has a handful of titles under the belt utilizing the popular Facebook platform. Some of their titles include: Trivia Friends, Doodley, and Zombie Bash: Christmas Attack. Their about to launch a new game, partnering with Chillingo as the publisher, called Word Derby. They expect to get that game out to users later this fall. It will be the first asynchronous word game for Chillingo.

We got a chance to talk with Ozonian about what he and MentionMobile are doing in the interview below:

Los Angeles Startup: myRight Looking To Become the WebMD For Legal Issues INTERVIEW

When you’re not feeling well and have a definitive set of symptoms most people these days take to the internet. Even with health insurance, people seem to find it more convenient to consult with webMD or Dr. Google, before they waste their valuable time at the doctor’s office. WebMD is often credited as one of the big survivors of the first dot com bubble. The site, which has been around since the late 90’s, is a great place to get preliminary information.

While there are a variety of legal websites out there, there isn’t one that mimics what WebMD does. Sure there are a million places to find and complete legal forms, like Legal Zoom, but most of the websites out there for people to bounce legal questions off of, typically go right back to a lawyers office who will give you the information you need to know after a “free” consultation.

myRight is hoping to become the webMD of legal services. The Los Angeles based startup wants to be the preliminary go to place for people with legal questions. Some may even realize they don’t need to see a lawyer while others will jump on the phone with a lawyer right after their search of myRight.me.

Could Nikhil Jhunjhnuwala, Keval Amin and Michael Niu, the founders of myRight be onto something? Frank Monestere, the founder of LegalZoom thinks so. Monestere sits on myRight’s advisory board. To keep things legal myRight has two other lawyers on their advisory board too.

We got a chance to talk to Niu about myRight. Check out the interview below.

Los Angeles Startup: Contur Launches To Turn Your Email Into Tasks!

When this pitch came across our editors box on Friday it was like Eureka. Los Angeles startup Contur has done something amazing with email. They’ve created a platform that beefs up the functionality of email, and the most important part of that, they’ve turned it into tasks.

When we have an idea for a longtail story or a feature story that requires more indepth reporting we typically add it to starred email and then set a reminder in the calendar to go back and work on it. The problem is the important starred email box fills up and the calendar does as well. This is hardly an effective process. Unfortunately with the volume of email we get, we sometimes get a reminder email from the startup we’re working with on the story.

If we could turn email into tasks, projects and add notes to them it would make our work flow go much better. Now thanks to Los Angeles startup Contur we can do that. The Contur app lets users treat any of their emails as tasks, organize them by projects, and add notes and non-email related tasks. Contur makes email more manageable and easier to put into context, manipulate, prioritize and search, moving users closer to “Inbox Zero.”

Contur CEO Justyna Wojick validates the fact that our current method of starring messages and making calendar entries is outdated at best.

“Contur is aimed at the 90 million knowledge workers and professionals in the United States who are experiencing email overload,” said Contur co-founder and CEO Wójcik said in a statement. “Contur takes email beyond such outdated tools as tags and priority inboxes, which have long lost their power to help users not only tackle the ever-growing volume of their incoming email, but to act on that volume as well.”

Monday-Friday we typically receive 300-500 email messages a day, making us power users by Contur standards. Contur was designed for power users and hopes to help get people to “inbox zero” something i haven’t seen in years.

“The demand is high for a solution like Contur to manage email inboxes; 500 people have already signed up on the Contur waitlist. In the United States alone, over a billion dollars are lost each year due to workers having to do necessary, but unproductive, tasks related to email, such as organizing them, keeping track of follow-ups, and other tasks. Contur will help recover some of that lost time and revenue,” added Wójcik.

Contur launched out of Start Engine the LA based accelerator founded by Howard Marks one of the co-founders of Actvision.

We’re on the Contur waitlist and can’t wait to use it. Contur is compatible with pop email and also gmail, or Google apps mail so most business power users can use it.

Linkage:

Check out and sign up for Contur here

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