Whoa! Jeff Hoffman The Real “Negotiator” To Keynote Everywhere Else Cincinnati

Earlier this year at Everywhere Else Memphis, Priceline founding CTO and Starutp America CEO Scott Case took to the stage to spread the important gospel of startup communities and culture. Case has spoken at events across the country and in a lot of “flyover” states, focusing especially on the earlier stage startups.

This time around we are honored to have Jeff Hoffman as one of our main keynote speakers at Everywhere Else Cincinnati. Hoffman is best known as the co-founder of the Priceline.com family of companies. He’s also been the CEO of uBid and Color Jar. He’s a regular mentor for startups and pens a great column on innovation and entrepreneurship for Inc Magazine.

While he’s a very esteemed and successful entrepreneur, back in May at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Rio de Janeiro he proudly announced “I don’t spend time launching business plans anymore, I launch entrepreneurs.” That’s why he is one of the co-founders, founding advisors, and founding mentors for Indianapolis based VentureCamp. Hoffman calls it a “fully immersive startup ecosystem.”

After launching 7 successful companies (including Priceline and another travel company that was acquired by American Express), Hoffman has decided his life’s work from here on out is launching entrepreneurs. He’s been speaking for years on entrepreneurship but really enjoys getting into the nitty gritty with the young, vibrant, and disruptive crowd.

While speaking at that conference in Rio, Hoffman passionately spoke about the entrepreneur and how if the entrepreneur has a bad experience upfront “we could lose that entrepreneur.”

When Nibletz Co-Founder Nick Tippmann attended Venture Camp’s demo day earlier this summer, he noticed that the founders were talking about how VentureCamp focused on teaching them entrepreneurial skills, critical thinking, and decision making and not just how to put your plan on a business model canvas and make a Power Point. This focus came directly from Hoffman.

If you were at Everywhere Else in Memphis and saw Scott Case speak, you know he does an amazing job talking about startup communities and the value the community brings to the table. During Hoffman’s keynote we will hear about something equally as important: the entrepreneur.

For Hoffman’s full bio click here.

Get your tickets or Startup Avenue booth below.

Event registration for Everywhere Else Cincinnati – “Start Where U Are” powered by Eventbrite

Jeff Hoffman image, UnerasonableGroup Youtube.

Scott Case: “If You Build It They Will Come, BULL SH!T”

Scott Case, Startup America, Startup Arkansas, Startup Tip,startup communities

Scott Case, CEO of Startup America addresses the audience at Think Big Arkansas, Startup Arkansas Kick Off (photo: NMI 2013)

If you’ve ever heard Scott Case, the CEO of Startup America and founding CTO of priceline.com speak than you are very familiar with the subject of the headline. Case often talks about the movie Field of Dreams and it’s most popular line, “If you build it they will come.”

A lot of startup founders have the same philosophy, they think that no matter what they do as long as they build it people will come. It goes along the same lines as growing organically, or magically.

Sure there are huge grand slams every now and then but most of them either come from founders with long pedigrees in startups or because they caught the backing of name brand venture capitalists and angel investors early on. For others, gaining traction requires marketing. For bootstrapped (or sneaker strapped) startups that often times means grass roots marketing, crowdfunding, and good ole donations.

When speaking, Case follows the Field of Dreams example with, “if you market it they will come” a valuable lesson.

In the video below he talks about his first big venture into entrepreneurship. He built a product in 1994 that was packaged software and still available to this day. He talks about buying a full page advertisement in the biggest industry publication for his product. The problem though, the phone never rang. That’s when he set out to learn marketing.

This is a valuable lesson for all startup founders and the video is worth watching. Case was delivering the keynote at the recent Think Big Arkansas event in Conway Arkansas, a similar message to the one he delivered the week before that in Atlanta and the week before that in Memphis at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference.

In talking with Case we discussed “canned speeches” and how I’ve personally seen Case speak over 30 times in the last year. The thing about him though, is that he doesn’t do the same canned speech at every event, but he often resorts to the Field of Dreams story, because it’s not a valuable lesson, but the most valuable lesson.

Now go watch this hilarious video from the Startup Arkansas kick off.

We’re on the sneaker strapped nationwide startup roadtrip part deux, find out how you can help here

The Eve Of The Startup Arkansas Kickoff With Startup America & Company

Startup America, Nibletz, Work For Pie, and the Startup Arkansas crew really hammed it up on the eve of Startup Arkansas’s kick off and Think Big Arkansas. This video really needs no introduction.

The event kicks off bright and early at 9:00am with check-in starting at 8:30am. It’s being held at the Hendrix College Student Life & Technology Center.

Think Big Arkansas has a whole day of programming lined up including a startup alley exhibition area, a parade of startup ecosystem startups and partners, several sessions and of course Scott Case and Brad Feld. Case will be speaking at noon during lunch (bring $$ for Food Trucks and guided by Truckily) and Feld will be speaking at 6:30. He’ll also be signing copies of his book “Startup Communities”.

15 startups will be featured during the event in a startup alley, and demoing throughout. Kenny Tomlin from Rockfish and John James from Acumen will be speaking on starting up and the importance of serial entrepreneurship.

It’s not too late to register for this great event, click here.

We’re on the nibletz sneaker strapped nationwide startup road trip

Startup Arkansas Launching Friday March 1st With Scott Case & Brad Feld

Tis the season to launch Startup America Partnership regions. Monday we were in Atlanta for the kickoff of Startup Georgia with Scott Case and So So Def CEO & Founder Jermaine Dupri. Now Case along with Startup Community activist, investor and author Brad Feld are preparing for Startup Arkansas’ big launch on March 1st.

While Startup Bus regions across the country are double checking their busses, and checking their manifests, entrepreneurs throughout Arkansas will come together in Conway for an event called “Think Big Arkansas”.

The event kicks off bright and early at 9:00am with check-in starting at 8:30am. It’s being held at the Hendrix College Student Life & Technology Center.

It’s not too late to register for this great event, click here.

Jermaine Dupri And Scott Case To Kick Off Startup Rally And Startup Georgia

Monday afternoon in Atlanta Georgia promises to bring the largest gathering of startups in the city since 1895 when it hosted the Cotton and International Exposition.

Jermaine Dupri, entrepreneur and CEO of SoSoDef Recordings, is set to keynote Startup Rally which will showcase 100 regional startups at the Biltmore Hotel.

The exposition and summer internship fair will kick off at 3:00pm and run until 7:00pm. At 5:00pm Scott Case, the founding CTO of Priceline.com and the CEO of the Startup America Partnership will take the stage to officially launch Startup Georgia.

Dupri is no stranger to startup and entrepreneurship. His homegrown record label has spawned several Grammy award winning artists, and remains in Atlanta to this day. Dupri I also the founder of Global 14, a social network he launched in 2011 because he wanted a real social network vs “social notifying” which he says other social network are riddled with.

Dupri was also one of many top tier keynote speakers at Startup Grind, earlier this month.

”My roots are in Atlanta, and so is my future,” explains Dupri, “I am excited to share the story about So So Def Recordings and Global 14 at Startup Rally and to support the growth of fresh ideas emerging from Atlanta.”

Case continues his cross country evangelism for promoting startups and entrepreneurism. Last week Case kicked off everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

“Focusing on high-growth startups is a smart strategy for Georgia to grow its economy,” Case said. “Startup Georgia will provide a state-wide network to help the local entrepreneurs building the next great success story to access the opportunities and resources unique to the state.”

Ticketing information can be found here.

Tony Hsieh Talks ROC, Culture & 10 Hour Phone Calls At Eureka Park CES 2013

Tony Hsieh, Scott Case, Eureka Park, CES 2013,

Zappos CEO and Downtown Project founder Tony Hsieh speaks during a fireside chat with Startup America CEO Scott Case (photo: nibletz.com)

The Startup America stage as part of Eureka Park at the International CES started off with a bang this morning. Startup America CEO and technical co-founder of Priceline.com, Scott Case got a chance to have a fireside chat with Tony Hsieh. Hsieh is the CEO of Zappos, the founder of Link Exchange and the founder of the downtown project.

Their intimate fireside chat gave the standing room only crowd a peak into Hsieh’s mind. Hsieh founded his first company, Link Exchange, with his college roomate in 1996. They exited from Link Exchange by selling it to Microsoft just two years later. Early in the discussion Hsieh discussed the real reason that they sold Link Exchange. It wasn’t about the money, an enormous exit or even getting bored with the company. Hsieh and his partners decided to sell Link Exchange because the culture went bad.

” I was dreading waking up and going to work at my own company” Hsieh said during the fire side chat. From that point forward culture has played a crucial role in everything Hsieh does, from the companies he invests in to the employees Zappos hires. To one end culture is a condition of being around people you like “I try to be around people I like being around”, pretty simple concept, but it transcends across just your friends and personal circles. ” companies that have strong cultures out perform companies that don’t” Hsieh said about several studies that have been done on the subject.

Numerous articles have been written about Zappos and the community of employees that work there. Even though the company famous for their “return it for any reason” shoe return policy, is part of Amazon.com now, Hsieh said that it was a prerequisite to selling to Jeff Bezos that Zappos still functions independently. Zappos recently moved their warehouse operations to the Amazon umbrella because warehousing is something Amazon exceeds at. Hsieh and his other Zappos executives still handle customer service, marketing and every other part of the business.

Zappos is always mentioned alongside companies like Google when it comes to culture, and lifestyle within the Zappos campus, which is moving to the old Las Vegas City Hall next year. It’s the company’s culture that drives their employee base. When Zappos has a new hire they go through a traditional interview, once they pass that interview, the next interview is entirely based on how that person will fit in the company culture.

Case commented that when they were growing Priceline.com that culture was important as well. Like Zappos, at one point Priceline went from a company of 10 employees to over 100. In the early stages one person accounted for 10% of the culture.

“10% changes the culture if you’re not careful about it” Case warned to startup founders in the room.

Culture is just as important to Hsieh in his Downtown Project/Las Vegas Tech Fund companies. He wants to know that startups and their founders will fit in the culture in Las Vegas.

Hsieh committed to investing $350 million dollars in growing downtown Las Vegas (not the strip). He wants to make it the biggest and best city for coworking in the world. Startups and entrepreneurs in the downtown Las Vegas community, and Hsieh’s employees for that matter, live by the Three C’s, collisions, community and co-learning.

Hsieh has $50 million dollars set aside for investing in startups and small businesses. To be the recipient of part of that money though, Hsieh looks at the possibility of ROC (return on community) verse traditional ROI (return on investment). Hsieh just invested in a building at a prominent intersection in downtown Las Vegas. They are using that building for a community speaking theater where distinguished entrepreneurial and startup speakers will speak to community members. Hsieh admits that any other real estate investor could make a lot of money with the same location for a bar, restaurant or even a McDonald’s franchise.

From all the different parts of Hsieh’s business life, everyone in the room benefit from Hsieh’s discussion with Case. He even let on to a milestone Zappos recently had, their longest continuous customer service phone call. The length, 10 hours.

See Scott Case and several other startup and entrepreneurial leaders at the largest startup conference in the U.S. everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, click here

Boom I’ve Got Health Insurance, Thank You Startup America And Cigna

Back in July during one of Tech Cocktail’s legendary mixers in Washington DC, my good friend Scott Case, the founding CTO at Priceline.com and the current CEO of Startup America was speaking. As normal, at the end of his great speech which I remember involved gambling, women and priceline.com, he had a little Q&A.

I have been a Startup America supporter and Champion since the beginning and am always on listservs, chat rooms, and even here preaching the gospel about Startup America. Well that didn’t sit too well with one woman from Pennsylvania. We were on the Philly Startup ListServ and I was writing someone about Startup America. Now before Startup PA even opened it’s doors she was all over me about how Startup America gave her no benefit what so ever. Then, she kept on bringing up healthcare like we were talking about Startupacare or Obamacare.

I relayed this conversation during the Q&A with Case and brought the room to great laughter since I did a great impression of the whiney woman on the Philly list serv. But as a Type II diabetic and an entrepreneur since 2003 I was actually curious about the health insurance. Case admitted that while building out regions was Startup America’s focus for the immediate future, there were talks going on about health insurance.

Entrepreneurs, freelancers, and the self employed account for a huge uninsured segment. Truth be told I was looking forward to next year when Obamacare takes over since I couldn’t afford healthcare on my own and 90% of everyone (even Cigna at the time) was either too much or refused me altogether because of the diabetes.

Well low and behold just moments ago I received an email from Donna Harris at the Startup America Partnership announcing an exciting partnership with Cigna for mentorship, education and of course health insurance.

So I quickly glanced over the mentorship and education part, great stuff by the way, and I clickity clicked through to the health insurance part. I filled out the form and within nano seconds I was talking with Shelly from Cigna on the phone. She knew I was signing up via Startup America and BOOM! It’s done** (disclaimer part: of course health insurance is underwritten but I was informed that even with the Type II diabetes the rate she quoted was good). So alas if all goes well Shelly tells me I can go to the doctor for a mere $25 starting next month vs the $85 I have been paying!

In a statement this morning Case said:

“We know how important mentoring, education, and health insurance benefits are to startups, and we’re excited to bring Cigna on board as a new partner to help our members,” said Scott Case, CEO of the Startup America Partnership. “Cigna believes, as we do, that entrepreneurship is a core American value and critical to the country’s long-term economic success.”

The real deal here is that health care, education and insurance is one of the biggest things that hold entrepreneurs back. Healthy entrepreneurs make healthy startups and healthy startups mean more jobs. Really it’s that simple.

Linkage:

Go check out the new partnership with Cigna and sign up for your own insurance here

More Startup America coverage from us here

Come to everywhereelse.co

North Carolina Startup: BuyStand Introduces Name Your Price Goods Buying

Name your price was a concept introduced and revolutionized by the negotiator, William Shatner, in his ever so popular commercials for Priceline.com. Typically when talking about Priceline.com these days in regards to startups, it’s mentioning Scott Case the founding CTO of Priceline.com, and now the CEO of Startup America. Well we’re talking about Priceline.com because of that infamous name your price concept and a new startup in the Raleigh area of North Carolina called BuyStand.

BuyStand is the latest startup from North Carolina serial entrepreneur Joe Davy. His most recent startup EvoApp failed, of course as any good founder and entrepreneur knows failure leads to success. Failing fast is just one of the methodologies entrepreneurs in 2012 live by.

BuyStand is completely different than Davy’s previous startup.

For concept demonstration purposes Davy used one vertical market, outdoors. Obviously the platform will work for any retail good but outdoors was a great place to start.

As you can probably imagine, reading this far, BuyStand takes the “name your price” concept and applies it to outdoor goods. Whether you’re looking for the latest running shoes or the best all terrain jacket or back pack, you’ll find it at BuyStand. But you won’t find a typical priced out click through e-commerce portal.

With BuyStand the user selects the item that they want, names the price they’re willing to pay and then BuyStand sets that payment aside. Once a buyer has named a price, the BuyStand system lets the buyer know they have a taker and from there the “bid” is either accepted or rejected. If the “bid” (price) is accepted than BuyStand pays the vendor and the buyers product is shipped to their home.

It’s a two click process, name your price and click.

Davy says the need for BuyStand arises from the fact that buyers waiting for items and buying them second hand, used or “off the truck” at sites like e-Bay and Craigslist account for $200 billion dollars in lost profit.

“BUYSTAND solves this problem by eliminating the price and creating an open, efficient, free market.” Davy told the CED Start Something blog.

BuyStand is open in an limited Beta at the moment and you can sign up for a beta invite by visiting the link below.

Linkage:

Source: CED Start Something Blog

Here are more startups from “everywhere else”

Here’s where every good startup from “everywhere else” will be

The Case Triple Threat Steve Case, Jean Case, Scott Case Speak At Startup America Summit

Startup America is holding their fourth quarterly “regions summit” in Chicago Illinois at 1871. The summit brings together nearly 150 regional Startup America influencers, commonly known around these parts as “Champions”.

Startup America champions from as far away as Puerto Rico arrived in the windy city last night for this three day conference meant to bring together regional startup leaders to share best practices, triumphs and even failures that each region can learn from.

To kick off the summit attendees were treated with a Case Triple Threat. Startup America CEO (and founding CTO of Priceline.com), Scott Case, kicked off the festivities. Case and Startup America’s Donna Harris have been busy over the last year flying around the country helping to launch Startup America regions. Scott Case (not related to the other two Cases) spoke briefly welcoming everyone to the event.

The first talk of the morning was a fireside chat between Harris and Startup America Chairman, and AOL Founder, Steve Case .Case has been traveling the country on his own talking to startup and entrepreneur communities throughout the United States. At one point Case pointed out, if you make great products no one cares where you’re from.

Case is no stranger to starting a company and raising money outside Silicon Valley. He’s started companies in Detroit Michigan before, but of course he’s most known for his little internet startup that launched out of Tyson’s Corner Virginia (a DC suburb) before anyone even knew what the internet was. Case told the familiar story of how no one really understood the internet back than and how it was just for a “bunch of geeks”.

Steve also brought home the point that Startup America, in it’s current form, is on a SWAT team mission to launch regions across the country over the next three years, and build growth within the organization. However the mission for Startup America is to have the regions function independently during that time. After that, the Startup America national office will function more as a support piece rather than a mouth piece.

The work the team at Startup America has done is nothing short of greatness though. With the addition of Startup Utah, just yesterday there are now 30 Startup America regional partners.

The third case of the morning was just before lunch. That’s when Case Foundation CEO and Steve’s wife, Jean Case came and spoke about her fearless movement within the Case foundation. The foundation just launched an initiative across the country looking for fearless people who will be the cornerstone of startups, and the economy to come.

Check out our video of Steve Case wrapping up his fireside chat with Harris below:

Linkage:

Check out Startup America here

Here’s nibletz’ coverage of Startup America here

You should be here, Scott Case will!

Maryland Startup: EasyWebContent Is Startup America’s 10,000th Member

We knew that the Startup America partnership was getting really close to it’s 10,000th member. We’ve been tracking that progress since the beginning and when the member counter hit 9700 last week we knew they were close.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, or are brand new to nibletz.com “the voice of startups everywhere else”, Startup America is an organization spearheaded by the Case Foundation and blessed with a billion dollars in funding from the federal government under the Obama administration.

Startup America has multiple benefits for entrepreneurs and startups. It’s free to join, and at the last count there were over 93 benefits to members, ranging from a pretty snazzy mileage perk on American Airlines, to substantial savings on Dell computers and a libraries worth of free e-books. All of the “perks” are related to starting a startup or resources a startup would need as they grow.

Startup America is very inline with the mission here at nibletz.com. In fact, Scott Case, the CEO of Startup America (and no relation to Steve Case), will be speaking at the upcoming “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference”.

As for their 10,000th member EasyWeb Content, they come from neighboring StartupMD. Founder Payman Taei explained to Startup America in a blog post, that they were running a web design business. What they found was that there were a lot of companies that wanted to get online but didn’t have the budget to do so.

There are a bunch of “DIY” website builders, for instance GoDaddy has a product called “Website Tonight” that allows users to create websites in minutes. But remember, at the core GoDaddy is a domain name registrant, and not a design firm.

With EasyWebContent’s background in design, they’ve built a tool that gives small business owners the ability to build their own, sharply designed websites and content.

Check out the video below with Taei who talks about Maryland and Startup America. Links below:

Linkage:

EasyWebContent is here

While you’re at it go here too

Startup America To Help Curb Sliding Startup Job Creation

Startup America is working with high growth potential startups to fuel the nations job market (CEO Scott Case photo: nibletz LLC)

An alarming study was released yesterday by the Hudson Institute entitled “The Collapse Of Startups In Job Creation”. Many startup enthusiasts, founders, and entrepreneurs were shocked to hear that with all of the national talk about “startups”, job creation has slipped 22% since 1977 (according to the study).

It’s important to understand that with this study “startup” is used to describe not only traditional entrepreneurial driven tech startups but small businesses as well. Regardless, the data has some scratching their heads.

Since 1977 new firms have combined to create an average of 3 million jobs per year. The most recent data available from 2010 showed that the 1977 figure was off by 22%, all the while most thought jobs created via small business and startups were improving, not declining. Going back to the George HW Bush and Clinton years close to 11.3 million Americans per thousand worked in startup jobs.

Conversely, the Kauffman Institute has said numerous times that since 1980 companies less than five years old have accounted for nearly all the job growth. The Kauffman Institute, The Hudson Institute and many government socio economic advisors have said that startups are needed to fuel job growth.

Startup America, the organization spearheaded by AOL founder Steve Case in conjunction with the Obama Administration, is working day in and day out to continue to support and fuel high growth potential startups, in hopes to quickly re-invigorate the U.S. jobs market and curb the slide.

Recent data from Startup America’s optimism survey reveals that the partnership and it’s nearly 10,000 member startups, founders and entrepreneurs are on the right track. The survey, published last week, says that 85% of the Startup America members plan on adding jobs in the next year. 44.6% of members plan on adding more than 3 jobs.

Startup America CEO, Scott Case, told nibletz.com today “America’s economic heroes are young high-growth startups and the founders that lead them. Over the last 18 months amazing startup communities have rallied around these companies all around the country. I’m in LA today and the energy is palpable – we see the same in places like Iowa, Tennessee, Colorado, and Illinois. No doubt every region needs to go all-in to support America’s startups.”

Linkage:

Read the CNBC Story here

Here’s more Startup America coverage from nibletz.com

Have you heard?

LiveBlog: Startup America Panel At The DNC 2012: How Government Can Foster Startups

1:22pm: Igor Jablokov: startups are becoming the R&D cauldron for big established businesses now. Rather than keeping in house R&D and upsetting Wall Street big companies are vetting startups that they could acquire with the new technologies they want/need

1:20pm: Chopra: Obama challenged America to double their exports. EdTech startups are having more success overseas. Other countries are hungry for education and EdTech. “We are more accustomed to selling Boeing overseas rather than having entrepreneurs sell EdTech overseas”

1:15pm: What role does government play in demand: Polis: Sound economic stewardship, restoring our fiscal integrity, getting rid of the special interest loopholes, new trade policies

1:09PM Scott Case: Tells Chopra he is only the second elected official he has ever spoken to as the CEO of Startup America Partnership, that has said “why don’t we build our own companies” rather than “what factories can we get to come here”

1:06PM: Martinsville is going to invest in entrepreneurship locally stemming from Startup America. Chopra visited Martinsville, a community with double digit unemployment and found that entrepreneurship and talent is all about making a job just as much as it is about getting a job.

12:59pm: Dan Roselli: The stimulus act isn’t the government rolling up a dumpster full of cash. He and his business partner used the Stimulus Act to help buy and revitalize the building that now houses the PPL. When it’s not home to bloggers and online media for DNC 2012, Packard Place is the incubator for incubators and 5 floors of startups, entrepreneurs and founders.

12:56pm: Cowell on the innovation fund in North Carolina. Policies like founders tax credits can help founders and spur entrepreneurship. NC is the the 20th state in the US that is offering an “innovation” type fund. Government isnt typically good with these kinds of funds, so they want to outsource and have a public/private partnership. NC uses Credit Suisse as a third party officiant of their fund and gives them an “arms length” distance from the fund itself.

12:54pm: Scott Case question “Where do you see the line” in regards to where government is part of startups. Chopra is talking about policy barriers that make it harder for startups to break into markets. Healthcare data ecosystem counts over 200 new products or services that utilize health data.

North Carolina Is So Bad Ass They’re Having Two Startup North Carolina Launch Parties August 20th

North Carolina is a great state with three thriving areas for startups, business and commerce as a whole. They are “The Triangle” in Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, “The Triad” Greensboro/Winston Salem/High Point and Charlotte “The Queen City”. The Triangle has a thriving startup community anchored by their biotech corridor and Research Park. The Triad is an area built on old money and Tobacco and has seen a recent up-tick in startups and entrepreneurship. Charlotte is booming thanks to mainstays like Bank Of America and Wells Fargo (previously Wachovia). Charlotte has great startups, like our friends at RawPorter.

So if you’ve been wondering, like I have, what’s taking them so long to sync up with Startup America, well that wait is over.

Startup North Carolina, the Startup America Partnership region for NC, will officially fire up on August 20th with not one but two launch parties. The Triangle region will be spearheaded by Triangle Startup Weekend’s founder Mital Patel. Patel was actually referred to Startup America by ExitEvent’s Joe Procipio. Procipio had been interested in developing the Startup North Carolina region but timing constraints made it impossible to give as much as he wanted to. Procipio explains how he helped lay the groundwork for Startup North Carolin and for Patel in this blog post.

The Charlotte are will kick off on August 20th with their own launch party. That area will be led by Adam Hill of Packard Place.

According to Procipio, both Hill and Patel will run the Startup North Carolina region similar to the way Startup DC is run.

Startup America lets each regional partnership run itself and each partnership gets out of it what they put into it. Startup North Carolina will take an approach much like Ignite and Startup Weekend. We’re sure that it will be a very active regional partnership. In fact Procipio reports that Patel is already setting up a Uservoice automated system so that participants from across the state can help vote for things that Startup North Carolina will focus on.

While we’re sure that their will be some competition between both sides of the chapter (by design most likely) together they will solidify North Carolina’s position in the startup eco-system in the US. As they say when the tide rises, all the ships sale.

Startup America offers great benefits to their member base across the country. They focus on growth potential startups that will eventually lead to more job creation, commerce and a positive contribution to the American economy. Did we mention it’s free to join?

Linkage:

Check out Procipio’s post here

Here’s a link to Startup America

Did you know Startup America and American Airlines are holding a contest for 80 free flights?

Did you know we’re on a nationwide, sneaker-strapped startup road trip?

Follow Friday: The Startup America Partnership

Here at nibletz.com as the voice of startups “everywhere else” we are very proud and active members in the Startup America partnership. The organization was set up under the Obama administration and is spearheaded by Chairman Steve Case the founder of America Online and Revolution along with CEO Scott Case (no relation) who was the founding CTO of Priceline.com

In addition to setting up networks, and events, the Startup America partnership provides tons of resources to forward thinking startup founders who’s ultimate goal is to contribute to the fabric of America by adding more companies and more jobs across the country.

Each of Startup America’s regional partners holds their own events and the organization itself sponsors national events, webinars, conferences and meet ups. In fact Startup America is partnering with Startup Rockon for events at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions later this summer to promote startups and entrepreneurship.

As for benefits, there are literally thousands of dollars in benefits available to Startup America members, and joining Startup America is absolutely free with no strings attached. Everything from free books, discounted books, to legal services and even airline tickets from American Airlines are offered at deep discounts exclusively for Startup America members.

We wanted to start something up for Follow Friday. As someone who speaks on the ins and outs of Twitter regularly, traditional #FF follow Friday is really not that effective, so we’ll feature startups, entrepreneurs, startup founders and startup resources every Friday. To kick that feature off here is the complete list of Startup America regions to follow on Twitter.

Startup America
Startup California
Startup New Hampshire
Startup Virginia
Startup Colorado
Startup Connecticut
Startup Florida
Startup Hawaii
Startup Illinois
Startup Iowa
Startup Kentucky
Startup Kansas
Startup Massachusetts
Startup Maryland
Startup Michigan
Startup Missouri
Startup Montana
Startup Nebraska
Startup Rhode Island
Startup Texas
Startup Tennessee
Startup Vermont
Startup Washington
Startup Puerto Rico
Startup DC
Startup Indiana

Linkage:

Join the Startup America partnership here, it’s free

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

We’re on a nationwide sneaker-strapped startup roadtrip help us out here