ny startup Archives - Page 2 of 4

Eh You Need My Guy, Rochester Startup Takes On Angie’s List INTERVIEW

Nothing says recommendation like when your good buddy says “eh you need my guy”. Whether you’re looking for a plumber, deck builder, photographer, heck even a birth coach. Whatever independent contracting service you need, a new Rochester startup called You Need My Guy has someone for you.

When we first heard about You Need My Guy we immediately drew a comparison to top ranking, publicly traded Indianapolis startup Angie’s List. You Need My Guy’s founder Joe Cassara says that YNMG is different because Angie’s List is a paid model with mostly blue collar providers. They also offer no accountability to insure the identity of users. While Angie’s List is a great resource for some, they are plagued with stories about bad experiences sprinkled all over the internet.

You Need My Guy is the hybrid in the middle. You can find accountants and carpenters on the startups site at youneedmyguy.com

YNMG integrates social networks by allowing perspective clients with links to their perspective service providers Facebook, LinkedIN and Twitter profiles. This way users can vet out their service providers, going a little deeper than traditional reviews and referrals. Review systems can be plagued with fake reviews, created by service providers to “push down” any bad reviews. Of course in the case of referrals most service providers only provide referrals from people who have had the best experiences.

One of the best assets for this New York startup is Cassara himself. He’s thoroughly entrenched in the up state New York startup ecosystem. He has a background in strategic consulting. But what’s more important is that Cassara is also the managing partner of Harvest Ventures an early stage venture-funding firm as well as a mentor at New York accelerator StartFast.

We got a chance to interview Cassara about You Need My Guy. Check out the interview below:

Tackle Your Student Loan Debt With New York Startup: Student Loan Hero

New York startup, and recent Startup Chile graduate, Student Loan Hero is looking to help college students after graduation. Student Loan Hero is the latest startup to join the growing student loan management space. Startups like Tuition.io, AllTuition and So Fi are also battling for the same college graduate users.

With a whopping $870 billion dollars in unpaid student loans in the United States alone, there probably won’t be a shortage of student loan startups.

While it was big business back in the late 90’s and the early part of the decade to enable websites with affiliate programs for low interest credit cards

New York Startup: Cheek’d Brings Back The Actual Calling Card For Romance

New York startup Cheek’d is bridging the online dating world with old school real world romance and bringing back the physical calling card. In an time where everyone knows the now infamous line:

“Hey I just met you, and this is crazy, here’s my number, call me maybe”

Lori Cheek and her innovative startup are bringing back traditional calling cards for people to hand out to people while at the gym, the club, the bar, a restaurant or even walking down the street. From the calling card the person given the card can engage with the person who handed out the card via the web portal.

The explosive hit by female pop sensation Carly Rae Jepsen actually brings back memories for the parents of the teeny boppers listening to the song ever so loudly in the car. In fact, even in my 30’s I remember jotting my number down on a piece of paper and giving it to a cute girl or two at the ice rink in the 8th grade.

Sure back then all we could do was leave a phone number. Now through Cheek’d you can create a profile online and point people to it via the Cheek’d card. Some singles have resorted to having their facebook profile links on their business card or personal cards. Some even jot their Facebook profile down on that slip of paper they hand to a potential love interest. We all know that Facebook may not be the place we want someone we’re interested in to check us out.

Cheek is actually an architect by trade and now she’s designing new architecture for the dating space. Check out our interview with her below:

New York Startup: Greatist The Go To Place For Health & Wellness Info INTERVIEW

I’m one of those people that thinks in order to be the best you need to think like you are the best, it’s a motivational mantra that’s driven me since my childhood. Such is the case with Derek Flanzraich and his health and wellness, socially driven info startup Greatist. This New York based startup is a destination site for original, amazingly good health and wellness content. It must be because they’re currently seeing 1.5 million uniques a month, which according to Flanzraich makes Greatist the fastest growing site in the health space.

Whether you’re looking for great healthy recipes, workout tips or even how to get over a hangover, Greatist offers a great variety of wellness and health related content.

While the content on Greatist.com is overflowing, the team at Greatist encourages their users to take it slow, one week at a time. The startups mission is to inspire and inform the world to make at least one healthier decision per week. Whether you want to lose weight, eat better, get stronger, get motivated, relieve stress, or just start working out, greatist.com offers the content you need, in an easy to read format for all of their users.

Flanzraich has been an entrepreneur since his first “lemonade stand” startup dog walking business. All the while friends, family members and new acquaintances would ask him what drove him and one of those main ingredients was health and wellness. That’s why he created Greatist.

We got a chance to talk to Flanzraich. Check out the interview below:

JustDecide Startup Dilemma Of The Week: When To Pivot

Every week we team up with New York startup Justdecide.com to bring you the Startup Dilemma Of The Week. In this feature we take dilemmas that real startups are facing and put them to the crowd using the justdecide platform to crowdsource advice for that startup.

This week’s dilemma is one that comes about naturally to startups everywhere. It can also be one of the most uncomfortable events a startup has to go through. Our startup dilemma of the week this week is “When to pivot”.

The startup that submitted this dilemma has been slowly, but steadily gaining users with their startup but they’re finding that users aren’t actively using their service. The user count goes up, and the clock ticks. A pivot is inevitable but the question that then comes in to play is when.

Pivots happen all the time, they happen in accelerators, before startups go live, in beta, in alpha, even after a startup has been established for a year or two. Facing the pivot is one of the hardest things cofounders go through. Many don’t want to abandon their original idea. Others know it’s the right thing to do but are scared about when to actually do it.

One of the biggest concerns when pivoting is will the startup lose their current user base while pivoting. Sure in the pivot you’re hopeful that you’ll gain more users but it’s scary as hell.

This week’s startup dilemma of the week offers three options:

Pivot Now

Wait a few months and make a decision

Don’t pivot for the foreseeable future.

What would you do? You can weigh in here.

Linkage:

Weigh in on this week’s Startup Dilemma of the Week

Check out previous dilemmas.

submit your own, email startups@nibletz.com

Have you seen this yet?

I Have An Idea For A Startup Now What: Just Decide Dilemma Of The Week

We’re back with another JustDecide.com startup dilemma of the week. We’re sure that a lot of you reading this today, had this exact same dilemma at one time or another.

” I have an idea for a startup, now what”

There are a lot of answers to this question. In the case of this startup dilemma of the week, it’s specifically about co-founders. What happens when someone has a great idea for a startup and no technical expertise. This exact dilemma can be the make it or break it point for a good idea.

In this week’s dilemma of the week there are a few good options:

Find a technical co-founder
Raise money to outsource development
teach myself to code and become my own technical co-founder.

Finding a technical co-founder can be tough. With a technical co-founder, most founders and entrepreneurs are looking for someone to work for equity. This can be a risky proposition to the designer, developer or coder that you’re considering as a co-founder. They may worry that, regardless of the great idea and their technical skills, the startup may never see revenue, or worse, funding.

On the flip side to that of course, is a proposition which could mean millions of dollars to the technical co-founder, should your startup take off.

Raising money without an actual product can be a tricky thing. It gets even harder when you’re trying to do it without an actual product, or a working demo. Outsourcing development can be an entirely separate headache as well. Who knows what you’re going to get when ou outsource and in most cases it’s hard to manage outsourced developers

The final suggestion, teaching myself to code, may seem like a great way to go, after all knowledge is power. The downside to that is regardless of who does the technical work, there will be a ton of other things for the original founder to do, outside of coding.

This startup dilemma of the week turns out to be a lot tougher than you might imagine.

Linkage:

Click here to weigh in now

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” here are more startup stories from “everywhere else”

Are you in? You should be.

NY Startup Moment.Me Launches All Your Moments In One Easy To Use Platform

A lot of startups have tried to attack the event space. Some are concentrating on ticketing, others are concentrating on sharing the experience. Moment.me wants to be the destination for capturing the overall experience through media, in one big hub. Moment.me is looking for everyone who attends an event to have one centralized place for photos, videos and tweets of an event.

As an example, say you were attending the iHeartRadio festival in Las Vegas this weekend. If you were part of the moment.me community you could share every photo, video and tweet from the iHeartRadio festival with everyone else who was at the festival and a member of moment.me. Then, the public has one big place to see all the content that everyone has created.

“People want to see more points-of-view from their experiences and love to share because in essence, we’re social creatures,” said Ronny Elkayam, CEO and Co-Founder of Moment.me. “When we share photos, what we really intend to share are experiences, but traditional photo sharing only captures one piece of a larger puzzle. Moment.me’s mission is to enhance shared experiences with context, social connection and real-time viewing to become a window to the world’s trending moments.”

Moment.me is taking this beta launch to Singapore for the SingTel 2012 Formula 1™ Singapore Grand Prix. In addition to moments being uploaded onto the moment.me platform, they have teamed up with SingTel to show all the moments on gigantic screens in the paddock area of the race. This will be a great way to show off the platform and app and also show brands the power of such a platform.

“The mobile app will transform the way people experience popular events all over the world like the Singtel Formula 1™ Singapore Grand Prix, as well as concerts, parties and political rallies by providing simultaneous multiple perspectives of the dozens, hundreds and even thousands of others in the crowd who are tweeting, taking pictures and shooting videos. It will also allow users to find personally relevant, interesting and trending moments materializing nearby, bringing an element of social discovery to the app and a new way for marketers to connect with fans and followers.” Elkayam added.

“At Singtel, we have a constant finger on the pulse of emerging consumer technologies and understand how mobile broadband, smart phones and tablets continue to transform the way people connect with each other and the world around them,” said Mr. Loo Cheng Chuan, Head of Local L!fe, Group Digital L!fe at SingTel. “We are interested in finding a platform that could automatically fetch, match and present multiple points-of-view of this exciting event in real time. Our partnership with Moment.me will provide Formula 1™ enthusiasts a new way to view the experience that was never possible before.”

Signing up for moment.me is a breeze anyone with a valid Facebook, Google+ or Twitter account can sign up and use the service right away.

Linkage:

Check out Moment.me here at moment.me

nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” here are more startup stories from “everywhere else”

Are you in? You better make sure.

Boston Startup: Energy Harvesters Is Putting Recharging Power In Your Feet INTERVIEW

A startup based in Boston and Rochester is tackling the personal energy harvesting market with gusto. This new way of generating energy for the purpose of recharging your personal electronics has taken many forms. With Energy Harvesters the form is the “Walking Charger”.

The Walking Charger allows the user to charge their mobile electronics anytime and anywhere just by walking.

Energy Harvesters is building their charging products into OEM branded footwear and to insoles for shoes that allow the energy from walking to be converted into real power for dead phones. As they tell us in the interview below their technology is also able to power things like foot warmers and GPS locators without the need for traditional batteries.

A while back we brought you the story of some South Carolina engineers who were working on a way to charge your cell phone via your t-shirt. While that technology is still some time away, we could see the ability to charge your phone through your shoes in the next year or so.

Check out this interesting Boston Green (but possibly not so clean since it’s shoes) startup below.

Just Decide Startup Dilemma Of The Week: Should I Fire My Outsourced Developer?

If you haven’t been keeping up with the JustDecide.com/Nibletz startup dilemma of the week, you should be. This valuable feature from both justdecide.com and Nibletz, provides insight into issues that a lot of startups are facing. In addition to checking out this week’s Justdecide.com/Niblets startup dilemma of the week, you can also submit your own dilemma for consideration at startups@nibletz.com. Now you can crowdsource your problems and dilemmas that could be quite costly for the average founder.

This week’s startup dilemma of the week is undoubtedly something that hundreds, if not thousands of startups have faced.

“Should I fire my outsourced developers”. The situation is this, a startup has outsourced their development work. They went through elance.com which typically has a good developer base. However the project is taking a lot longer than expected and it’s costing a lot more as it drags on.

While everyone wants to believe the best in people, when startups are faced with this exact issue you can’t help but wonder if the outsourced developer is just trying to milk you for more non-existent funds or if they’re really having a hard time with the concept and project you gave them. Either way, your marketing is in place and you’ve been grilling your team for months to make sure they’re ready for even the most alpha-ist of beta launches.

Without the work of the outsourced developer you have no product to sell. In some cases the outsourced developer may think that they have you between a rock and a hard place. Because they do.

The Details:I outsourced the web development work for my startup and it is taking longer than expected and getting more expensive. I had a great idea for a social gaming startup, but couldn’t find a technical co-founder. I decided to raise some FFF money (family, friends and fools), and found someone through elance to build my gaming app. The developer said that it was going to be more complicated than he originally thought and it has been over the 6 months timetable he originally gave me. He is charging me for the hours that he is still working on it, and I don’t know if I am getting ripped off, or if the development work was more complicated than I thought.

What do you think this startup should do?

Continue on to justdecide.com and weigh in on this week’s startup dilemma of the week.

Buy,Sell,Swap Your Clothes With NY Startup ClosetDash INTERVIEW

Just yesterday we brought you the story of a new social e-commerce platform centered around the newest and latest fashions. With Ann Arbor startup HangTrend you can see the latest styles, talk about them with your friends and even purchase them direct from the designer. HangTrend is about the hot new clothes.

NY startup ClosetDash is about the buying, selling and swapping of gently used clothes. Face it there are tons of clothes in most people’s closets that they’ll never actually wear out in public again. For whatever reason, that great dress, or pair of slacks is hanging in the closet .Wouldn’t it be great if you could easily sell them, or swap them?

What if you’re looking for a way to affordably outfit a new wardrobe. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could go through someone else’s closet and find your next great outfit? Well with ClosetDash you can.

ClosetDash was created by Jennifer Lee, for exactly those things. The concept sounds a lot like Australian Y-Combinator startup 99dresses sans the virtual currency model (which in most cases is actually better).

Jennifer Lee goes into detail about how ClosetDash works in the interview below, but it’s basically this, you upload your closet and open it up to the ClosetDash community. You can sell clothes, swap clothes and buy clothes to put in your virtual ClosetDash closet and your actual closet at home.

Check out our interview with Lee below:

Startup Interview With New York Startup: tipspring

More and more social startups are beginning to harness the power of the social web to replace traditional “word of mouth” advertising. It’s always been said that “word of mouth” advertising is the best way to advertise a product, service, brand, store or restaurant. In fact, we reported earlier this week on Barrel of Jobs, a Washington DC startup using the social web for “word of mouth” connecting jobs to good quality candidates.

New York startup tipspring is using the power of the social web and it’s “word of mouth” advertising to promote major brands. On their website they call tipspring a marketplace for sharing and saving, and who doesn’t like sharing and saving. Not only that but tipspring allows users to accumulate points to win some really great gifts.

tipspring’s founder Greg Doran has said that users have won prizes like $1,000 gift cards and VIP invites to top fashion shows in New York City. What Doran has essentially done is taken many of the most popular brands who offer their own loyalty and reward programs and put them together in one central marketplace. Gone are the days that you have to sign up for twenty different reward clubs and then remember to go back and check them.

We got a chance to interview Doran about tipspring. Check out the interview below:

Yes Great Ideas Do Happen In The Shower, Interview With NY Startup Room Hints

If you like nice things, beautiful things, picturesque things but just need a little help with you’re interior design project, no worries there’s an app for that (soon). While there may be a few apps and platforms coming up in the interior design space that doesn’t worry Tiff Wilson and the team behind New York based Room Hints. In fact, they label themselves as weird, extreme and fearless, a combination that can only lead to impeccable style.

Room Hints iPhone app is currently in a private beta and you can sign up here to try it out. The app provides a host of ways to get recommendations on the latest fashions and trends in your homes. You can see what other Room Hints users are doing, you can share your ideas and designs with friends, and the app itself will suggest great design pieces as well.

Room Hints also has professional designers on board that can help you complete that interior design product. Imagine having a teen tiny interior designer at your beck and call on your smartphone. It’s like a private shopper but for interior design.

We got a chance to check in with Tiff as the team prepares for a more grand-scale launch.

New York Startup: PubSlush Crowdfunding Book Publishing For Good

Writers and authors take heed we found an awesome startup in New York called Pubslush. Not only do they have an uber cool name but what they do is fantastic. We actually get amped up when we find a startup that has a unique idea that doesn’t fall under one of the normal categories like SoLoMo or discovery.

Pubslush is a publishing platform for authors to crowdsource the funds that they need to actually publish their works. Pubslush is building up a healthy following of people who love to read, write and check out new books from new authors. Sure there are authors out there crowdfunding their books on KickStarter and Indiegogo but with PubSlush there’s another great incentive.

With every book sold through Pubslush they donate a book to a child in need. This is perfect for the slacktivist set. You know the type, the people who buy Tom’s because they donate a pair of shoes to charity. Well PubSlush is even better. They’re putting more physical books in the world. Needy children are reading books and passing them along to the other children around them. Great idea right?

Pubslush has a trifecta of problem solving. New authors are getting their works read. Authors are also getting their works funded and books are going to people in need. Add in the fact that Pubslush is putting more books out there in the world at a time when print publishing is down thanks to the advent of e-readers, tablets, Amazon and iPads.

We got a chance to talk with Amanda Barbara the development director at Pubslush in the interview below:

NY Startup Moovio Offers A Really Easy Way To Discover Movies, Interview

If you’ve felt like the current movie discovery platforms aren’t quite getting it you my be in luck. A new New York startup called Moovio promises to offer the fastest way to find a movie either in the theaters or for at home. They do this by offering a graphic intensive list of movies that looks reminiscent of the screen on a redbox. They couple that with some quick preferential questions and voila, you’re off to the movies.

If you find a movie you like on moovio than the site takes you right to where you can buy tickets. If you’re looking to watch a movie at home it points you to where you can rent the movie either on or offline.

Moovio says that they’re discovery platform isn’t just simple, they call it “ridiculously easy”. We noticed that after a brief tutorial coming back to the site is pretty easy and extremely fast.

We got a chance to talk with Erik Linde, Co-Founder of Moovio. Check out the interview below: