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Interview With Los Angeles Startup: Teachmeo Learn & Teach Anything, And Everything

Teachmeo is a new startup in Los Angeles, “Silicon Beach”, their mission and purpose is to allow anyone who wants to teach anything, to teach it and allow anyone who needs to learn anything, learn it. They will facilitate this with a community of teachers and learners.

They describe it like this:

Say your son needs help finishing his math homework, it’s 9pm there’s no one around that can help locally, you wouldn’t think of calling his teacher and there’s nowhere else to go. He can go to teachmeo.com and find in just about real time, answers to his math questions.

The same thing goes for Brian who wants to teach guitar to someone, he can teach it via teachmeo. Really with the platform that teachmeo is building you can learn and teach just about anything, as their Rockstar CEO Natalie Novoa tells us in the interview below.

Los Angeles Startup: Smarter Stand Sees 10x Goal On Kickstarter

Dotan Saguy, a Los Angeles entrepreneur figured out that if you add two little clips to either side of an iPad’s Smart Cover or Smart Case you can add several different viewing angles and positions to your iPad which make it more convenient and equally as sturdy.

The magnetic Smart Cover and Smart Case for the iPad currently offer two positions for resting your iPad. One of the positions makes the iPad sit up too straight andouille the other one lays it down too flat. As you an see from the graphic above, Saguy’s Smarter Stand clips allow for several more positions. Most of the positions could be achieved with an additional $40 stand.

Saguy was hoping to raise $10,000 with a Kickstarter campaign. With that money Saguy planned on doing a limited production run for those who were interested in the product. Saguy hit the $10,000 mark on the first day of his campaign and now has 7,120 people interested in the product.

“I can’t thank my Kickstarter supporters enough for their kind words, encouragement, and pledges to make this dream a reality,” says Saguy. “The outpouring of support simply justifies that sometimes the simplest ideas are the most useful, and having forums like Kickstarter is an incredible way to get the word out.”

The Smarter Stand clips can be mixed and matched with 10 different, iPad matching colors available. The clips live on the smart cover or smart case so you always have a stand one stand by.

The Smarter Stand clips will retail for $20 per pair or you can preorder them with a discount by pledging on KickStarter.

Linkage:
Check out the Smarter Stand Kickstarter Page Here

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What The MixTape Is Back? We Interview Los Angeles Startup Mixtaping.FM

Do you remember those late nights you used to sit around your bedroom with your dual cassette deck and make sweet mix tapes for your girlfriend or boyfriend, yeah me neither. (Ok yes I actually do). Well if you were into creating mix tapes for that special someone than Los Angeles based startup mixtaping.fm may be for you.

Mixtaping.fm has taken the concept of making mix tapes and brought them up to date. They offer a cloud based platform that lets you create 30 minute mix tapes, legally.

Edward Chan, the co-founder of Mixtaping.fm realizes that today’s “mix tapes” in the sense we’re talking here, are very similar to playlists but there are problems with playlists. First off everyone’s playlists are on different services. Some services require you to sign up and pay a fee just to listen to the playlist. Other services are so obscure that it’s hard to find anything.

Mixtaping.fm lets you make a custom 30 minute “mix tape” with music that you like, or want to specifically share with someone or a group, and then you can share it easily.

One of the other big things with Mixtaping.fm is that they’ve integrated Facebook and Instagram so not only can you create a “mix tape” but you can also create cover art.

MixTaping integrates with Spotify and has plans to integrate Rdio as well.

We got a chance to talk with Chan in the interview below.

Kansas City Startup: Divshot Wins $25k in crowdfunder’s Crowdstart Contest In LA

Los Angeles based crowdfunding startup crowdfunder just completed their first Crowdstart contest. The seven week contest drew over 700 submissions, 74 contestants and 10 finalists. Kansas City startup Divshot emerged as the winner, taking home the $25,000 prize.

While we all know that the JOBS act was passed earlier this year and crowdfunding for equity won’t be implemented until the end of the year or early next year, Crowdfunder didn’t want to wait to start helping startups raise invaluable funds. For the prize money they teamed with Right Side Capital Management.

Divshot is a company that provides web designers with drag and drop tools for rapidly prototyping websites and designs. The concept was born just 90 days ago at a Startup Weekend event in Kansas City, home to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, who is the major backing behind the Startup Weekend brand of events.

“Opportunities for local fundraising are limited, not just here in Kansas City but everywhere around the country,” said Jake Johnson, Divshot co-founder. “Crowdfunder will enable us to tap into capital, education and resources through their online platform. What’s good for us is good for our local economy. We’re excited to be part of making a positive economic impact here in our own backyard.”

Now that the Los Angeles contest has come to a close, crowdfunder has just kicked off their Crowdstart Las Vegas contest. This time though, half a million dollars is up for grabs. The contest kicks off tonight at Startup Weekend in Vegas.

“We’re thrilled to be able to support entrepreneurs and innovation here and throughout the country,” said crowdfunder CEO Chance Barnett. “Divshot is just the beginning of the kind of nurturing, education and support that crowdfunder intends to provide. That’s why we’re hosting another startup contest, Crowdstart Las Vegas, which kicks off today at Vegas Startup Weekend where $500,000 is up for grabs by the Vegas Tech Fund.”

Linkage:

Check out Crowdfunder here

Check out Divshot here

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California Startup: PrefCity Is A Facebook For Sharing Preferences INTERVIEW

Prefcity considers themselves a “Facebook for sharing preferences”, no not preferences in an app, on a smarphone or on a computer, but consumer preferences regarding retail and restaurants. Yes Prefcity is yet another new loyalty and rewards platform. Prefcity has addressed some of the downfalls to other similar platforms though and that’s what makes this startup different.

Prefcity is targeting businesses loyal customer base. They offer a product called PrefPerks to consumers and they offer a highly customizable, pay as you go format for merchants.

“As we experiment with Prefperks our intention is to create a win-win situation for consumers who want to find good deals at places they love and businesses looking to maintain healthy margins, generally diminished by some of the more mainstream daily deal sites,” said Vic Sosikian co-founder of Prefcity.

On the merchant side they are paid directly by the consumer without a mass redeem cycle like Groupon or LivingSocial. This gives the merchant the flexibility to try out different types of deals and as many deals as they want. In the simplest of terms, a PrefPerk is given to a loyal customer of an establishment. It’s more of a “reservation” card for that specific deal.

Take the Groupon model for instance. When a Groupon deal is sent out, the entire group needs to buy into it by paying Groupon directly. Groupon takes their cut and then distributes the money to the merchant. With PrefCity the PrefPerk is sent out and then if the customer wants to use it they just pay the merchant as they normally would with a regular coupon or discount.

The Southern California based startup is testing in Los Angeles and plans to bring New York, San Francisco and Chicago online later this year. We got a chance to interview Prefcity co-founder Vic Sosikian. Check out the interview below.

Interview With California Startup: At The Pool, Casual People Discovery Platform

People discovery is a hot startup space this year. As you’ve heard time and time again it was the startup space dejour at South By Southwest back in March. Startups like Ban.jo, Glancee, and Highlight ruled the roost on the streets of Austin during the interactive festival.

Now four months later, Glancee has been purchased by Facebook and the others are getting just passive traffic (I know some may disagree). One of the problems with people discovery applications are the in your face constant notifications that occur when you’re logged into one of the services. You get inundated with notifications about people you don’t know and sometimes don’t even want to know. There has to be an easier way.

Enter “At The Pool”

The Los Angeles startup offers you a once a day match based on interests and things you may want to do off line. Are you looking for new rock climbing buddies? Maybe you’re looking for new friends to start some pick up hockey? Maybe you’re looking to talk startups or even build a startup? Well At The Pool says there’s a pool for that.

Just what does that mean? Well we talk with At The Pool’s co-founder Alex Capecelatro to find out about their pool party. Check out the interview below:

Los Angeles Startup: MoonShark Laucnhes, Founded By CAA & Qualcomm

Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and silicon giant Qualcomm have partner to launch a new mobile game development startup called MoonShark.

The new startup is going to leverage the high level celebrity relationships within CAA and the technical prowess of Qualcomm and the studios developers to make great mobile games, tied in with celebrities.

The CAA roster includes hundreds of the most well known celebrities. At launch, MoonShark is working with movie star and recording artist Jennifer Lopez. MoonShark has released their first game, Dance Pad, in a partnership with Lopez. The game is a finger dancing game reminiscent of dance dance revolution, except instead of using your feet and other body parts, players use their fingers to tap to the music. The game packs over 100 levels featuring a soundtrack with over 30 top artists.

“Moonshark was formed to connect uniquely talented artists with the best independent mobile developers to bring amazing ideas to life as mobile games,” said Matt Kozlov, CEO of Moonshark. “Our mission is to keep the Moonshark pipeline full of creative, addictive titles and give talent the means to share their creativity with fans on cutting edge mobile platforms.”

MoonShark’s second title is being developed in conjunction with LA based developer Mention Mobile and YouTube superstar Philip DeFranco. The company is also partnering for a future title with Hollywood director John Woo and his production company Tiger Hill.

“The collaborative development process at Moonshark has been an outstanding experience,” said Woo. “We worked with Moonshark to find just the right development team to bring these characters and concepts to life in an immersive, engaging game. The early versions of the title look absolutely amazing; I can’t wait until I can share more.”
Source: PR Newswire (http://s.tt/1gc2v)

Linkage:

Checkout MoonShark here

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LA Startup: Lovvvit Video Interview With Founder Max Gotlieb At TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012

Hollywood producer turned startup founder Max Gotlieb had a genius idea in his head and started developing it into what is now known as Lovvvit. We reported on Lovvvit earlier this year. It’s a video review/recommendation platform for people to pronounce their love for their favorite things.

After a few minutes with Gottlieb I quickly grabbed hold of the concept and it’s indeed genius. I thought back on the past seven years (the youtube years) and how many videos I’ve taken and shared from my favorite places. The number is quite large, but none of them ever talked about the places I actually love.

Sure there are birthday party videos, bachelor party videos, playing around videos and other funny stuff at my favorite haunts but not once did I walk in and do a video saying, “I love this place”. Imagine how cool it would be to have crowd sourced video reviews of peoples’ favorite places. It would be genuine, and engaging for both the loyal customer and the merchant.

Right now merchants are growing tired of the group-coupon (Groupon) deal space. Merchants are finding that they are losing their ass in margin to attract one time customers. Now they want better tools to target their frequent customers. Lovvvit provides a platform for just that, and it’s engaging, innovative and fun.

There’s a reward benefit on both sides of the platform as well. If you’re the customer and you do a video review of your favorite places you can earn Lovvvit dollars and upgrade to a premium status. As with any site the more reviews you do of your favorite places, the more trusted you become in the Lovvvit community.

On the side of the merchant, they are granted access to the videos in Lovvvit. They can share them across their own websites and their other social media channels. They can also add coupons and deals to the videos as well.

All of that makes Lovvvit a three fold community of reviewers, people looking to discover places and the merchants.

Check out our video interview with Gottlieb below:

Check out more of our TechCrunch Disrupt NY coverage here

L.A. Startup: BuzzMob Is First Company In MWW Ventures

MWW is one of the largest PR firms in the country with a global presence. Their client list includes some of the top tier companies in their industries. Nikon and Samsung Mobile are both represented by MWW among a long list of familiar brands.

MWW just announced a new venture capital project spearheaded by their global head of technology and digital content, Ephraim Cohen. MWW ventures is incubating startups that advance media, marketing and public relations industries by investing firm resources in exchange for equity.

Cohen told Nibletz.com that MWW Ventures was developed by he and MWW Group CEO Michael Kempner who is a serial entrepreneur. With the verticals that the MWW Group is involved with Cohen says they come across great startups all the time. With MWW Ventures, the MWW Group will invest and incubate companies that will help them stay on “…the cutting edge of technology”.

Buzzmob, a Los Angeles startup was announced as MWW Ventures first portfolio company last week. Buzzmob is a mobile app for live events that forms location based social networks in real time and on the fly.

More after the break

L.A. Startup: Hereon.biz Discover Business Professionals Around You INTERVIEW

The past year has been a big one for discovery apps. We all know about the hype surrounding Highlight, Glancee, and countless other social discovery apps at south by southwest this year. Discovery apps are great for discovering people around you.

Most of the discovery apps are using Facebook and Foursquare as their backbone. This is great for finding people with like minded interests or in the same place but sometimes you want more out of a discovery app. Take conventions for instance. Big conventions like South By Southwest and CES have hundreds of thousands of people around. With everyone checking in somewhere or another it can be kind of noisy.

Hereon.biz solves the noise problem for people that are looking to meet people in their same profession or field. In most cases you’re paying hundreds if not thousands of dollars to participate in a work or professional conference. You don’t need to meet the barista from Starbucks that happens to be a block away jamming with friends.

Hereon.biz uses LinkedIn API’s to connect people in like minded professions. Ultimately events like conferences and conventions or being in major hubs on business are the ideal place where Hereon.biz really comes in handy, but you may be surprised at the people that are around you at home, in your same profession.

I know that when I signed up for Google+ and discovered the nearby feature it showed a lot more Google+ users in my hometown than I thought. However, after perusing their streams and profiles most of them really didn’t have much in common with me, outside the fact that they used Google+.

More after the break
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