New Orleans Startup Archives - Serious Startups

New Orleans Food Ordering Startup: Couchster, Set To Debut Dec 17th

After a long day at work, school or even at the gym, a lot of people just want to chill on the couch and order in. That’s the idea that’s driving New Orleans entrepreneur Sean O’Neill and his food ordering startup Couchster.

The New Orleans startup is an online food ordering site, optimized for mobile, but O’Neill is hoping to add native mobile apps in the not so distant future. While mobile food ordering isn’t necessarily new, it is new to New Orleans. According to our friends at Silicon Bayou News, O’Neill is aiming to make ordering food easy and more accessible.

Couchster serves up online menu’s so that ordering from your computer, mobile device or tablet can be a cinch. In a city known for it’s delicious food and variety at that, Couchster is a welcomed addition. O’Neill already has over 125 restaurant locations on board. While he’s not officially launching until December 17th, the menus for all of Couchster’s restaurant partners are already posted for users to view.

Couchster is bootstrapped to the hilt. O’Neill believes he shouldn’t try and raise money until he has proven his concept. So after having this idea for over a year, he went out and worked 8-5 everyday and saved every dime he could so that this past June he could quit his day job and work on Couchster full time.

As long as the rollout in New Orleans goes well O’Neill plans to expand to other cities in Louisiana like Shreveport and Baton Rouge, and then after that he wants to take Couchster outside of the state.

Linkage:

Couchster can be found here

Source: Silicon Bayou News

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New Orleans EdTech Startup Dash Technologies Releasing Dash For Teachers App Interview

Three educators in New Orleans have teamed up to form Dash Technologies a new startup focusing on educational apps for teachers. Their first app “Dash For Teachers” will hit the Apple iTunes app store on Wednesday.

Dash4Teachers is almost like a CRM app for teachers to keep tabs on students performance, log that performance and than generate a quick speed dial list so that teachers can make those ever important calls to parents. With the Dash4Teachers app, when the student’s performance is logged the app knows what parameters are set that distinguish parents that need to be called over parents of students who’s performance is up to par.

This is a valuable tool for busy teachers and busy parents. It also increases the communication between teacher and parent for the students benefit.

We had a chance to interview Dash Technologies about their exciting new app. Check out the interview below and look for the app in the iTunes app store tomorrow.

New Orleans Startup: Red Ticket Games Shows Off Extreme Trivia At TechCrunch Disrupt VIDEO INTERVIEW

Here at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012 we got a chance to meet Barrett Conrad, CEO and PlayerOne at Red Ticket Games. Red Ticket Games is based in the Silicon Bayou, New Orleans to be exact.

We talked with him a bit about their innovative trivia game called Extreme Trivia where you can become an expert on anything, especially because the user creates the questions.

The game is a break from traditional trivia games. One of it’s mean differentiators is the fact that the users create the questions. To conceptualize that idea, think of a it like this: You’ve got a group of friends and you probably have some common interests. Well most trivia games will have the generalized questions based on your topic, but with Extreme Trivia you can do relevant questions based on your knowledge.

Imagine if the guys from Big Bang Theory played a game like this. Obviously their intellectual ability far outshines the game writers at Parker Brothers, but with creating your own questions you have a better chance at stumping your friends, or helping them out.

As a special part of this interview our managing editor Cameron Wright talked to Conrad a bit about the thriving startup scene in New Orleans and what it’s been like to rebuild after the storm. Admittedly there wasn’t much of a startup scene in New Orleans prior to Hurricane Katrina. After the storm New Orleans was like an open canvas in their rebuild.

While New Orleans hip hop scene migrated to Atlanta, Houston and Dallas, their tech scene started to bubble. In fact there was just a launchpad event earlier this month right smack dab in the middle of Jazz Fest.

Whether you want to know more about Red Ticket Games, Extreme Trivia or the New Orleans startup scene, you should definitely check out this video.

Linkage:

Find out more about Red Ticket Games and Extreme Trivia Here

Check out more of our TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012 coverage here

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New Orleans Startup: Bioceptive Raises $385,000 For Safer Birth Control

A New Orleans biotech startup called Bioceptive has just raised $385,000 in seed money today.

The startup, which is based at the New Orleans BioInnovation Center downtown, is developing the idea of a young Tulane graduate which will hopefully lead to safer intrauterine birth control. This type of birth control, called IUD’s, currently requires to use multiple tools to insert the birth control device into a woman’s uterus.

While the procedure is relatively safe and performed thousands of times a day, the more tools involved the more likely there is a risk for puncturing the uterine wall. With Bioceptives insertion method it reduces the number of tools needed to insert the birth control.

The $385,000 in seed money came from private investors, venture capital funds, physicians and Tamara Kreinin. Kreinin is the former executive director of women and population with the United Nations Foundation in Washington DC.

The BioInnovation Center opened last fell. Bioceptive is the latest center tenant to receive funding. The center is an incubator for Biotech startups in the region.

Linkage:

Source: New Orleans City Business

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New Orleans Startup: Neighborland Offers Social Networking For Neighborhoods

One of the fastest growing segments in mobile and web life these days is the social network. Of course MySpace and then Facbeook put the social network on the map but now there have been slices of the social networking pie, carved out in unimaginable ways, that work.

Earlier today we featured a social networking app for pets. There are social networks for picture takers, business people and crafters. Now that people have stopped sitting out on the stoop and grilling in the front yard, a social network is a great way to connect.

Speaking of that stoop and grilling in the front yard, that’s the foundation behind New Orleans’ startup Neighborland.

One thing that makes Neighborland especially intriguing is the fact that co-founder Candy Chang actually took something physical and made it digital. There have been a lot of startups launched to do the opposite, take printstagram and stitchtagram for instance.

Chang came up with the idea after doing two, almost installation art projects, one in New Orleans and one in Fairbanks Alaska. In New Orleans she stuck stickers to structures that said “I Wish This Was________”. In Alaska she draped an abandoned apartment building in a sign that said “Looking for Love” she also installed chalk boards all over the place around the building and encouraged passerby’s to write things down.

More after the break
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