Memphis startup Archives - Page 4 of 5

Memphis Entrepreneur Aaron Prather Launching New Startup This Weekend During 48 Hour Launch

It’s 48 Hour Launch time in Memphis Tennessee. This weekend entrepreneurs from across the state (and some neighboring states as well) have assembled for a weekend of launching new startups, hackathon style.

Nearly 50 entrepreneurs, developers, marketers and support people are working on three great startup ideas. The three selected ideas will work to develop those ideas over the next two days and turn them into actual viable startups. Sunday they’ll show off their new startups to the toughest judges of them all, a room full of their peers.

48 Hour Launch is a unique concept in the weekend startup hackathon. As a product of Launch Memphis, the 48 Hour Launch teams have access to continuing resources to develop their ideas, way beyond Sunday.

As a testament to that concept, Richard Billings, the founder of Memphis startup ScrewPulp, spoke to the crowd before the Friday evening pitches. Billings alternative independent publishing platform was hatched in June at Launch Memphis’ last 48 Hour Launch event. Today, Billings has staffed up and even moved the company to office space downtown. Their designer is working on the front end, a developer is working on the back end and Billings is working on developing the business and laying roots in the publishing community.

Aaron Prather, the founder of Memphis startup Stiqrd, was on hand for 48 Hour Launch. Prather is no stranger to Launch Memphis or their cohort based accelerator, Seed Hatchery. Pranther’s startup Stiqrd accelerated at Seed Hatchery two years ago.

This weekend though Prather had a great idea. He’s building a tool where online news consumers can use a widget, or browser plugin to let publishers, bloggers and writers know that they want follow up to the stories they read online.

If you’re familiar with how sites like Reddit and the hub at Startup Revolution work, you can get notified every time someone does anything with your message. Pranther wants it to be that easy, but in reverse, to let writers and publishers know, “Hey I’ll read a follow up on that”.

The idea is great for publishers, because as Prather put it, there’s guaranteed eyeballs on stories not even published yet.

Check out Pranther’s Friday pitch below:

Linkage:

FedEx Announces $50,000 Startup/Small Business Competition

Nothing screams crazy startup entrepreneur like FedEx and Fred Smith. In fact business folklore says that when Smith wrote about his idea, that eventually became the largest logistics company in the world, for a paper at Yale he got a C. Think about how crazy the idea would be in the early 70’s to connect trucks and jets to deliver packages overnight.

In recent years FedEx has begun to pay homage to Smith’s entrepreneurial roots by opening up their own FedEx labs, and sponsoring the FedEx institute of Technology at the University of Memphis, among other things.

Now the company has followed in the foot steps of other companies like Pitney Bowes, and developed a small business (read: startups) contest.

Our good friend James Dowd at Startup Memphis reports that FedEx will award a total of 6 small businesses cash prizes totaling $50,000. There’s one $25,000 grand prize and the five other businesses will receive a $5,000 prize.

The business must have less than 100 employees and crowd voting will be done through Facebook. The voting started October 1st and runs through November 24th, and it’s not too late to enter. The winners will be announced in January.

“FedEx has long recognized that small businesses are incredibly vital to the health of both the global economy and local communities,” said T. Michael Glenn, executive vice president of Market Development at FedEx. “Providing these grants is yet another way for FedEx to show our support for small businesses as we continue to create programs to help give them a head start and access to new opportunities.”

Linkage:

Enter the contest here

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Memphis Startup: WorkForPie Prepares For TechCrunch Disrupt

If their name means anything at all than Memphis startup WorkForPie should have several walk in freezers worth of pie because they’ve been working really hard… for pie. WorkForPie was a member of the first class at Memphis’ accelerator SeedHatchery. They were also the first startup out of SeedHatchery to raise significant follow on funding.

After graduating from SeedHatchery co-founders Cliff McKinney and Brad Montgomery were able to attract a $300,000 investment round from Solidus in Nashville and a>m ventures.

They’ve been doing a number of things right and have a tireless work ethic. Montgomery and McKinney are also passionate about Memphis and the startup ecosystem brewing there. McKinney and Montgomery are very vocal about what they think matters, especially when you’re growing a startup outside Silicon Valley or New York City.

All of this leads to the reason why they are the first startup from Memphis Tennessee that will appear in Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco next week.

We got a chance to catch up with WorkForPie and talk about TechCrunch Disrupt, brewing startups outside the confines of the valley and product, product, product. Check out our short interview below:

Memphis Startup: BioNanovations Shows Off Amazing TestQuick Technology

BioNanovations CEO/Co-Founder Charleson Bell Presenting at Demo Day (photo: nibletz llc)

It was Demo Day at the Memphis based ZeroTo510 startup accelerator this past Thursday. ZeroTo510 is the first cohort based medical device accelerator and was created with a partnership between Seed Hatchery and Memphis BioWorks.

We were really excited when Charleson Bell, the CEO and co-founder of BioNanovations presented their TestQuick technology on Thursday. First off, Bell and his partner Andre T Stevenson had spent some time with us a few weeks back during office hours. It was then that we learned how BioNanovations was preparing to really change the world. We all know that most startups say they’re going to change the world, the ZeroTo510 class is really going to do it.

Bell and Stevenson gave us a crash course in nano particles when we first met for office hours. Bell has done a great job of “dumbing down” the science behind their technology for laymen like myself.

We were fascinated by the BioNanovations team when we first met them. While Bell had been working on using nano particles to find bacterial infections early on and Stevenson had discovered the biomarkers for cancer before they had become cancer.

The BioNanovations team will most likely bring many great products to market but their debut product “TestQuick” will have a huge impact for millions of people suffering from bacterial infections.

Bacterial infections kill more people than AIDS, breast cancer and automobile accidents combined, every year. What’s even more troubling than that is the fact that over 1.7 million bacterial infections are hospital born. That means that people who have gone into the hospital for something else, incur some kind of bacterial infection. These hospital borne infections cost over $40 billion dollars.

That’s not all though. One of the most alarming facts in all of this is that these bacterial infections can claim a life or a limb in less than 48 hours, however the traditional diagnostic testing can take 4-5 days. Yes, unfortunately, the traditional way means that several people lose their lives before getting the diagnosis back on the infection.

What BioNanovations TestQuick product offers is a testing platform and reader that can confirm the type of infection and the level of the infection in under 30 minutes and patient side.

Bell was quick to point out his competition. That’s actually key in an investor pitch day.

BioNanovations main competition is a company called Nanosphere. They offer a diagnostic testing platform that comes back in three hours. Nanosphere received FDA approval and has 200 orders already. Their testing cassettes are $75 a piece and the machine to scan them is $100,000.

Compare that to BioNanovations TestQuick cassettes that sell for $100 a piece but the reader costs just $1000.

But that’s not all. Nanosphere’s technology has a three-hour turn around time, post culture. That means after the initial diagnosis. BioNanovations, TestQuick platform is the first pre-culture diagnostic tool, saving critical time and lives.

Check out Bell’s ZeroTo510 Demo Day pitch video below:

Linkage:

Check out BioNannovations here at their website

Investors, reach bell at charleson.s.bell@bionanovations.com

Here’s more Demo Day coverage from Nibletz

Memphis Startup: EcoSurg Pitches At Zero To 510 Demo Day

Every startup that has participated in an accelerator program wants to change the world. Some founders verbalize that they wantto change the world while others just think it. Well the six startups that participated in the inaugural class at Zero To 510, a cohort based medical device accelerator in Memphis Tennessee, are doing it.

Every startup that presented at Zero To 510’s demo day has developed to solve problems in the medical space. EcoSurg is one of those startups.

There is an environmental problem that stems from just about every surgical procedure, every day. Most surgeries use medical positioners which are foam devices that are designed to position patients in ways that are both safe, and the most convenient for doctors. These foam positioners keep legs propped up, arms propped up, patients on their side and other positions so that the surgeons have better access to the surgery site.

According to EcoSurg CEO Ray Randall, over 20 million surgical procedures per year use these foam positioners. This of course creates tons of non biodegradable waste. Specifically these foam positioners contain petroleum-based derivatives. Not only are these medical positioners harmful for the environment, but because of that, they cost more in disposal which is passed down to the customer/patient.

Randall’s company EcoSurg has developed a new line of patient positioners which are manufactured using alternative foam comprised of soybean-based composites.

With Obama Care coming into play in 2014, the amount of surgeries is going to increase significantly. EcoSurg’s medical positioners will help hospitals cut down on costs and help the environment in the process.

Check our Randall’s pitch video from Zero To 510 Demo Day below:

Linkage:

Find EcoSurg on the web here

See more of our Zero To 510 Demo Day Coverage Here

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Memphis Startup: Restore Medical Kicks Off Demo Day With A $3.75M Purchase Order

We have no problem admitting that ninety percent of the ideas, and startups that are showing off today at Zeroto510’s demo day fly way over our head. There’s one thing we know real well though and that’s millions of dollars.

Today in Memphis Tennessee, Zeroto510, the first cohort based medical device accelerator in the country graduated their first class. For an overview of the accelerator and the startups presenting today, click here.

One of the startups we’ve gotten a chance to know here in Memphis is Restore Medical. We met co-founders Ryan Ramkhelawan and Shawn Flynn at an office hours event we held in Memphis in June. That’s where we first heard about there new and innovative way to sterilize surgical instruments.

Traditional methods of sterilizing surgical instruments have been in place since Flynn was a surgical assistant in the US Army 20 years ago. Yes, with all the innovation we’ve experienced in the country in the last two decades, the sterilization of surgical instruments still resembles the way a high volume chain restaurant washes their silverware for a dinner rush. Instruments are piled into a basket with no regard for blades, needles, pins and of course accidents.

Restore Medical has two key elements to their business; protecting patients from infections from dirty instruments and saving hospitals money. Restore Medical’s new sterilization process does both. Restore Medical’s process keeps the surgical instruments separated, or rather organized and spread out in a way that every instrument is equally sterilized throughout the process.

When we met at office hours the duo explained that there are a lot of faults in the current system. They should know this as both have had surgery support career paths for over 20 years. One of the faults is the fact that if one tool is missing from a set of tools for a procedure the operating room needs to call down for a brand new set. This can take up to two hours, on a rush. Doctors are faced with whether they are going to keep a patient under anesthesia for the wait or wake them up and put them back under. Of course both of those options can be costly and risky.

During the presentation today Flynn highlighted the fact that with Obama Care taking effect in 2014, there will be 30 million more patients in the system. Now is the time that hospitals need to streamline processes, cut down costs and maximize their certifications. Hospitals need to make sure that their infection rates are low so that they can be reimbursed for patients they take without traditional insurance.

Restore Medical can increase revenue for hospitals by $14.5 million dollars per year (each) and save $500,000 in hard costs.

Their technology, coupled with the revenue by changing to Restore Medical’s system has attracted 5 Wellstar hospitals to already putting in a purchase order. The purchase order hinges on Restore Medical getting their 510K. If their 510K is approved that purchase order is $3.75 million dollars.

Linkage:

Check out Restore Medical Here

Check out Zero to 510 here

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Memphis Startup: Cloud For Good And Apsona To Get You Over The Edge

Cloud For Good, A Memphis based startup, that works with mission driven organizations to create and implement strategic soultions based on cloud technology, with a strong focus on Salesforce, has teamed up with Apsona. The two companies have released a new product called “Over The Edge”.

Over The Edge helps non-profit and educational organizations who have been using Raiser’s Edge for CRM and business management solutions, to migrate to the more powerful and more robust SalesForce platform. While that looks like a task any decent sized IT department could easily handle, it wouldn’t be with the ease nor the speed that “Over The Edge” brings to the table.

Cloud For Good’s Founder Tal Frankfurt, told us in an in person interview Wednesday night that the Over The Edge products takes under 30 minutes and just 4 clicks to have a non-profit, or educational organization migrated to Sales Force. Frankfurt has found, and many others have agreed, that migration and actually executing the switch-over from something else to SalesForce is the most painful part. Once companies are running on SalesForce it’s smooth Sailing.

While most non-profits and educational organizations know the benefits of switching to SalesForce, theyv’e also heard war stories that kept them from switching. A big data loss for a non-profit could amount in hundreds of hours of paid computer labor to get back up and running, and unfortunately the fees for that kind of service are often not within their reach. That’s one of the driving reasons behind the creation of “Over the edge”.

Cloudforgood has helped a number of non profit organizations and educational organizations with their data and cloud storage needs. While their big focus is on SalesForce they’ve also helped implement CRM systems, teach and implement Google Docs and a variety of other things for non-profits.

Linkage:

Check out Cloudforgood here

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Startup Weekend Memphis: And The Winner Is…. CoachSpeak

Startup Weekend Memphis saw some great ideas formulated from the Friday pitches. The four finalist teams were: BuyersUnite, Capta Vita (Legacy Interview), RightNowPal (Event Czar) and CoachSpeak. After Saturday evenings gut check all four finalist teams and the three individual entrepreneurs that would pitch on Sunday started to hunker down and focus on the prize at the end of the weekend. Three startups would walk away with $1000 cash, 9 hours of legal services and 9 hours of accounting services. One team would walk away victorious as the winners of Startup Weekend Memphis 2012.

By 10pm Saturday night the 7 presenting startups had pivoted a total of 24 times (seriously). The mentors had been in for hours on Saturday and everyone was scrambling. Around nine PM I checked in with Derek Chapman and Joseph Dees the two guys behind CoachSpeak and they were in an intense debate on several different key issues. We put in a call to a good friend of Nibletz.com Gabe Lozana the founder of St. Louis startup LockerDome who agreed to a quick by phone mentoring session.

That late night phone call sure paid off as CoachSpeak came in first place with the judges on Sunday evening.

Chapman walked the judges through the concept, the revenue and the execution of CoachSpeak which is a social network for professional coaches and athletic personnel from the high school level on up.

Chapman, who is the founder of CoachSpeak, demonstrated a great use case for when coaches change jobs and cities and need to fill coaching team positions very quickly. Startup Weekend Memphis judge, and entrepreneur, Ekundayo Bandele threw Chapman a curve ball asking what happens if a collegiate coach moves his whole team from one school to another, doesn’t that make the service irrelevant.

Simple answer, that never ever happens, but more so Chapman was able to explain how if that did happen that would leave openings to fill at the school the coach came from. More important than that though is that CoachSpeak is already up and running and has 120 professional coaches in their network.

The network isn’t just about filling jobs, it’s about sharing information, camaraderie between coaches, sharing scouting information, job hunting, vendor placement and more.

Dees, who is a financial advisor at Regions Bank in Birmingham Alabama had come into Memphis for his first Startup Weekend. Since graduating from UAB Dees had always had a knack for creating business plans and has actually consulted on several successful business plan. He was the perfect partner for Chapman who had ironed out the entire concept except for the revenue streams and subscriber base.

Obviously the judges liked the collaborative effort between the two!

Chapman plans on continuing to build out CoachSpeak and will probably go to some of the judges who are local entrepreneurs eager to invest in the latest tech startups brewing from Memphis.

LaunchMemphis/SeedHatchery’s Elizabeth Lemmonds was on-site Sunday evening for the final pitches and actually enjoying attending an event that she didn’t have to organize. Prior to her taking a position with Launch Your City (Launch Memphis/Seed Hatcher’s parent) Lemmonds would attend entrepreneurial events in Memphis.

As we reported on Friday, this Startup Weekend was organized by local entrepreneurs James Ruffer and Chris Przybyszewski who are not affiliated with any other organization. The two of them organized this Startup Weekend as a fun and laid back way to spur more startups and entrepreneurship in Memphis. Ruffer, Przybszewski and Lemmonds let all of the finalists know along with any attendees that the resources of Launch Your City, Launch Memphis (and if they apply) Seed Hatchery are all available to these new startups and entrepreneurs at Emerge Memphis.

The LaunchPad free drop in co-working space and Launch Memphis were sponsors of Nibletz coverage of this Startup Weekend.

Here’s yo links:

Check out the winning team’s startup at CoachSpeak.com

For more information on LaunchMemphis, Seed Hatchery, and the LaunchPad Click here

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Buyer’s Unite Pitches Reverse Groupon Concept At Startup Weekend Memphis

Chicago startup Groupon has confirmed to the world the power of the group. LivingSocial and countless other startups compete in the same group daily deal model as Groupon with great success.

Joe Kennedy, a self proclaimed serial entrepreneur, has decided to flip that group daily deal model on it’s head. Instead of coming up with the group deal, and having a buy in, his startup puts the group together to form an adhoc buyers group. If you’re not familiar with the buyers group concept the best comparison would be to a food or grocery co-op. This is where communities are able to force a discount by joining together for a group buy.

Kennedy presented the idea at Startup Weekend in Memphis on Friday evening and got more interest from the group in attendance than he thought. Local young entrepreneur Harold Strong from Yadoog, a startup birthed at 48 Hour Launch in June, dove head first into assisting Kennedy and leading the team of 6 into product development.

Kennedy confirmed at press time that they will definitely be ready to show off proof of concept if not more Sunday evening during the Startup Weekend Memphis finals. In addition to reserving their intellectual property, and hashing out the technical infrastructure they also had to come up with the first vertical that Buyer’s Unite would tackle. The concept itself can work on any vertical but the team chose health insurance to insure (see what we did there), easy quick scalability.

Buyer’s Unite will offer several buying groups that their users can join but for the first group they hope to go to insurance carriers with thousands of people in the group ready to buy. That would in effect force the carrier to offer a sizable discount to guarantee that much business.

There are several monetization options and revenue models but Kennedy likes the idea of a very small fee on the transaction once the deal is complete. Paying $3.50-$5.00 for the ability to save over $100 on health insurance is a win win for everyone. We’ll see tomorrow if it’s a win for the judges.

Check out the video pitch below:

Linkage:

More nibletz.com Startup Weekend Coverage here

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Nashville Startup: ClockOut Gamifying Taking Off From Work, Small Business Will Love This

The Startup Weekend Memphis team has taken a few solo entrepreneur projects and given them a spot to present in tomorrow’s finals for $1000 a piece. One of those solo entrepreneurs Brandon Heller from Long Island NY by way of Nashville.

Heller is working on ClockOut. When pitched Friday night it was a simple app to take the process of asking off a shift at work and making it social. Through the ClockOut app smaller restaurants, franchisees, bars and small businesses, with shift type work, would have the ability to let their employees take ownership of swapping shifts.

With the app, integrated through Facebook, two employees could swap shifts, or get a shift covered, have a historic log of it on a private Facebook network, and then inform the manager. This way the manager knows the shift is covered, and everything goes on like a well oiled machine.

To take any need for fees away from the small business Heller also decided (with the help of one of the Startup Weekend coaches) to ganmify the process. Now employee A who needs a shift covered pays $5.00 to ClockOut. ClockOut holds onto the $5.00 less their fee. Now employee B who picks up the shift gets a point for every shift they covered. When employee B has covered 10 shifts they get all the remaining money in that pot of $5.00 payments.

For some shift workers $5.00 may be a little steep but it also may be worth it for whatever reason they are calling out. The $5.00 shift covering game encourages people to pick up shifts, knowing that when they’ve covered enough shifts they’ll get the money they earned plus an incentive from ClockOut.

Definitely an interesting concept. Check out the initial pitch video from Friday below:

Linkage:

Check out more from Startup Weekend here

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Startup Weekend Memphis: Legacy Interview (Friday Pitch Video)

This is the first time we’ve seen an idea quite like this presented at a startup hackathon. Legacy Interview works off the concept of chronicling a friend of loved ones life through interviews with mini-questions and video interviews. The idea comes after the founder realized that his father may not live forever.

As we get older we get into more in more in-depth conversations with our closest loved ones, as they get older though those conversations get harder and harder to have. The sad realization is that the friend of loved one won’t be here forever and you want them to share their lives with you as long as they can. Hold onto those moments with Legacy Interview and save them down the road for generations to come.

I’m in mid 30’s and I constantly wonder what would life have been like if all of these resources were available since my childhood.

Time capsuling our digital lives is becoming quite popular. My grandchildren, and yours as well will have way more access to our lives and legacies than ever before. Legacy Interview will contribute to that by providing a very easy mobile platform.

Legacy Interview will present on Sunday in the Startup Weekend Memphis finals. We’ll see where this idea goes after Startup Weekend. It would be a shoe in for integration with ancestry.com and even deadsoci.al

Check out the video interview below:

Linkage:

Check out more of our coverage from Startup Weekend

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Startup Weekend Memphis: CoachSpeak (Friday Pitch Video)

Startup Weekend Memphis produced some great ideas. Sunday we’ll get to see how they did with the important part, execution.

One of those ideas is a new startup called CoachSpeak. Coach Speak is a new professional social network aimed specifically at higher level coaches, for example college football coaches. Now that most everyone has a social media account on one of the mainstream social networks like Facebook,Twitter, Google+ or LinkedIn, it’s time to branch back out with niche networks.

Yesterday we brought you the story about Florida startup PitchShark which is a social network specifically for those producing independent films.

CoachSpeak will link coaches together in new ways.

Here’s how the concept was explained and why it makes sense. Let’s say we’re back in December of 2008 and Auburn University has just released Tommy Tuberville. Once they announced Gene Chizik he needed to get moving, he needed to get to Auburn and immediately work on building his staff up.

Now lets say Chizik has a LinkedIn page. Now, after the announcement that he’s headed to Auburn, he is going to be flooded with people who even on LnkedIn’s professional network, are only linking in because he’s the coach at Auburn. He has a lot of people to wade through in order to get straight to other coaches like an offensive line coach, defensive line coach or special teams coach.

If Chizik was part of a closed, professional social network of coaches he could easily access the coaches he knew or had met personally and even coaches that he didn’t know. A niche social network in this case is abetter alternative.

Over the past few weeks I find myself in more and more conversations about niche social networks. Are they over-saturating the social landscape or are they needed?

If you look at professional social networks like CoachSpeak or PitchShark, while they are online and social they are more like professional organizations. So there is a clear advantage to something like CoachSpeak.

Check out the pitch video below.

Linkage:

See more of our Startup Weekend coverage here

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Startup Weekend Memphis: Event Czar Pitch Video

Sure I’ll go ahead and acknowledge the elephant in the room right now, event apps are becoming a dime a dozen. However it looks like Event Czar has a different idea in the event space.

Event Czar wants to be your event aggregator and discovery engine on a local level wherever and whenever you’re going out looking for anything to do. Event Czar plans to do this by leveraging big data, data mining and an algorithm that will match your interests up with events that may appeal to you.

Say you’re not in the mood for your “normal” time event, you’ll be able to see all the events in the area as well.

Event Czar is also going to cut out some of the noise associated with more traditional platforms for finding events, for example when conversations start diluting the results, and when there is chatter coming from a future event. Event Czar wants to be you’re right now app (although you will be able to see events in the future to plan accordingly).

This was by far the biggest team at the end of Friday night and they hope to have a proof of concept if not an MVP by the end of the weekend.

Check out the original idea pitch for Event Czar below:

Linkage:

Check out more of our Startup Weekend coverage here

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Interview With Chris West Founder of Memphis Startup: NeedRegistry

NeedRegistry is an original new idea for a startup based in Memphis TN. As you may have guessed it involves a registry, but not like any registry you may have seen before.

When someone goes through a major life changing event, like a bad illness, death in the family member, cancer, or even birth of a newborn, friends and family members inherently want to help. It’s part of human nature. Often times, the person going through the life changing event is too proud to say that they need help or to accept help. Friends and family don’t know what that person’s needs are so they resort to what Chris West, the founder of NeedRegistry, calls “death by casserole”. Friends and family members bring food, and lots of it.

Typically after the initial life changing event occurs, the person that had that event in their lives starts realizing that they do need help with even the basic and simplest of necessities. Perhaps they need someone to cut the grass, clean the house, or even clean the pool. Maybe that life changing event was a long term sickness like cancer, or an injury that has the person off their feet. These easy tasks can mount up quick.

Enter NeedRegistry.

NeedRegistry connects friends of that person with vendors of the services they need. The person that has had the life changing event happen to them can select things like lawn care, then the size of their lawn, the frequency of the lawn maintenance, and then a local service provider.

Friends can then fund the lawn maintenance and when the maintenance is performed the vendor gets paid.

It’s this direct vendor to friend connection that sets NeedRegistry apart from other crowdfunding startups that allow you to collect money for health reasons. With those types of sites you would still have to source out the work itself, get estimates and pay.

As West explains in the video interview, for the vendor its an easy sale and a no-brainer,once the service is ordered they go do the job and get paid.

West is excited about a beta launch in the coming weeks and plans on expanding the platform piece by piece over the next six months.

After the initial NeedRegistry rollout this year, he’ll expand the startup to cover two more markets and then by the end of 2013 he hopes to have a decent sized footprint across the country with a robust network of service providers.

Check out the video interview with West below:

Linakge:

Check out NeedRegistry here

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