Startup Interview Archives - Page 15 of 34

Charlotte Startup: Womadz Is A Crowdsourced Video Advertising Platform

Have you ever watched tv and thought that you could create a better commercial for something than the one you just watched? Well that’s exactly what Diek Minkhorst and Sam Reitman were thinking one night while they were just chilling in college. Most advertising is boring and while advertisers want to attract buyers with hot models, and beautiful pictures, these ads don’t resonate well because they aren’t the actual users.

That’s why Minkhorst and Reitman created Charlotte startup Womadz (they have a presence in New York as well).

Womadz hosts online video contests for their brand partners encouraging film makers and those people that just make silly videos for fun, to make videos about products and advertisers. The video makers have an opportunity to win prizes and the advertisers have the option to have great content provided to them by a variety of people. That’s where the crowdsourced part comes in.

Once the video contest is initiated Womadz encourages the general public to check out the videos and vote on the ones they like the best. That’s where the winning and the prizes come in.

We got a chance to talk with Minkhorst about Womadz. Check out our interview below.

How Are People, Places & Things Connected? Portland Startup Wikisway Shows You

Most people believe that everyone is connected somehow and some way. Like six degrees of separation, when you start looking at who yo know and how you know them you typically find connections. Portland startup Wikisway believes that people are connected to more than just other people. That’s why Wikisway is the ultimate way to find out how people, places and things are connected.

Did you meet a new friend at the mall? Then the two of you are connected to the mall. Did you meet your wife at a restaurant? That’s your place now. What things are you connected to? What things are your friends connected to? All of that is intertwined in this very different spin on a social/event discovery app hybrid.

With Wikisway they hope to show you how everything is connected. You could even use Wikisway to find out what startups are connected to what investors and vice versa. Wikisway promises to be a very robust platform, specifically for showing connections.

We got a chance to talk with the Wikisway team. Check out the interview below.

Interview With LA Startup Mobile Roadie, Powering Thousands Of Apps

Los Angeles startup Mobile Roadie is packed with talent and it shows. This mobile app development startup allows anyone to create a mobile app presence in just minutes. They already power over 5,000 apps and mobile websites across 40 countries. Huge brands like Harvard University, Red Bull, Cirque du Sleil, Wynn Las Vegas and even the Staples Center rely on Mobile Roadie to take them to the mobile screen, the hottest screen available in 2012.

Last May the company launched a native iPad creation platform and also a self service mobile website product. Their platform allows creators to integrate Youtube, Brightcove, Flickr, Ustream,Google News, Facebook, Twitter, RSS and more sources to bring content into apps.

The company has a presence in the US, UK, France, Spain, Australia, Italy, Germany, Brazil, Turkey, China and Japan.

We got a chance to interview Mobile Roadie, check out the interview below:

Helsinki Startup: Playmysong The Social, Mobile & Physical Jukebox

Last May we brought you the story about Austin startup BeDj that brings turntable.fm into real life. When bars and restaurants use the platform you can control the audio in the establishment with your smartphone, in essence bringing being the dj from turntable.fm into a brick and mortar establishment.

We love innovative startups that bridge clicks and mortar. A Helskink startup is doing something similar. The startup, called Playmysong. Playmysong is the mobile, social jukebox. Basically in restaurants equipped with a Playmysong enabled jukebox, give up control of the jukebox from the traditional person with quarters to fill it up all night, to those with smartphones.

Playmysong has two main functionality partners in Spotify and Winamp. A user can create their own social jukebox for their own party, powered by Spotify. The in venue mechanism is powered by Winamp.

We got a chance to talk with the team behind Playmysong. Check out the interview below.

Portland Startup: Househappy, Pinterest For Real Estate?

Real estate entrepreneur Kevin McCloskey thinks that shopping for houses online is still very clunky. The current online destinations for house hunters are still very agent driven and confusing for the general consumer who could find themselves on either end of the real estate transaction spectrum, the buyer or the seller.

That’s why he created his Portland Oregon based startup Househappy.org. Rather than looking at sites filled with numbers, charts and graphs, pictures, pictures and more pictures, along with social features and information presented in a much more consumer friendly way should drive people to Househappy.org.

McCloskey plans on rolling Househappy.org out to 60 major markets across the U.S. immediately after launch, with a goal in mind of making real estate on the web friendlier. His mission is “to simplify property search and make information accessible to everyone.”

“We believe Househappy represents the future of real estate search,” said Kevin McCloskey, CEO and founder. “While other real estate sites restrict the user’s experience and are loaded with charts and graphs, our design makes it easy for users to find what they’re looking for.”

While McCloskey never actually said he expects to be the Pinterest for Real Estate, it’s this kind of graphic and photo intensive site that shot Pinterest into popularity.

We got a chance to talk with McCloskey about Househappy. Check out the interview below:

Boise Startup: Klowd Lets Attendees See The Presentation On Their Smartphone

Imagine if you could see all the presentations at the largest startup conference in the US “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference“, not just on the screen but on your smartphone too. No more squinting at presentations thanks to a new app from Boise startup Klowd. Every seat in the house is great when you can see the slides on your phone (and with over 1500 tickets already sold keynote presentations will be packed)

SlideKlowd is the first product from the startup founded by Ken Holsinger, Justin Foster and Casey McMullen. Together this Boise Idaho based team has solved three major problems for presentations.

First off, when audience members can’t see the actual presentation they become distracted and bored. Some even fall asleep. Secondly, they wanted to develop a way to get more data back from the audience to the presenter. Finally, they spark engagement between the audience and the presenter through their smartphone based solution.

The team is also admittedly trying to help curb the “death by PowerPoint” backlash. As more and more presenters become aware of SlideKlowd they will realize that the presentation and the value will change based on the fact that they will have a more captive audience.

We got a chance to interview the SlideKlowd team, check out the interview below.

Charlotte Startup: Worksnaps Helps You Monitor Your Remote Workforce

As the internet gets faster and faster more and more remote work opportunities have opened up at companies both large and small. Sure gigantic Fortune 500 companies with a telecommuting workforce have monitoring tools in place, but for small companies like startups and even blogs can’t afford the same luxury.

Sure you can see output but how can you tell if a delayed assignment is a legitimate issue in the workflow or perhaps your telecommuter decided to take a three hour lunch?

Charlotte startup Worksnaps, founded by Waley Zhang, hopes to solve the problem of monitoring remote workers. They employ technology similar to the kind you may find monitoring children using the internet. Spyware would be an unfair term for the type of service Worksnaps offers because ultimately it’s meant to benefit the business owner or entrepreneur but essentially that’s what it is.

Worksnaps technology is based on screen shots that are taken while the remote worker is “on the clock”. A service like Worksnaps may draw harsh criticism from privacy advocates. The easiest way around that would be to supply the remote worker with a company owned computer. As Zhang told us in an interview, it’s about monitoring work flow and making sure that remote workers are actually working, not what they may be doing in their free time.

Worksnaps has already attracted 3000 clients with over one million hours tracked, and with that, productivity improves.

Check out the rest of our interview with Zhang below.

Swiss Startup Nearbors, Let Your Neighbors Pick Up Your Shopping List

In reading the pitch from Swiss startup Nearbors I immediately started thinking about Zaarly. The pitch talks about being too busy to go out shopping for groceries or food and having someone else do it for you. Zaarly has done well in some big city markets and is deploying across other medium markets in the United States, so why not have a similar startup in Switzerland?

Well after watching the video below, I quickly realized that Nearbors has taken part of the Zaarly concept a lot further and they’ve combined mobile payments.

Here’s how it works:

Say you’re on deadline either working from home or the office. It’s lunch time and you need some groceries or a decent salad and sandwich. With Zaarly you put the request out there and hope that someone responds.

With Nearbors, there is a community of folks out there waiting for your Nearbor requests. Nearbors, neighbor couriers sign up for the service, have GPS enabled on their phone and receive “jobs” while they are enroute.

So now say Sally is passing by Panera and they are networked into the Nearbors program. I can order a half sandwich and macaroni and cheese and have Sally bring it to me on her way back to her office.

The best part is that through Nearbors they already have my payment information. When Sally gets to checkout she shares a QR code unique to my payment information order and voila it’s paid for. I can see where Sally is enroute to my home or office in the app and then when she arrives I can click the app one more time to pay her a “commission”.

This idea is very well thought out and according to co-founder Ryan Vannin they hope for global expansion. We got a chance to talk with Vannin who’s native tongue is Italian, so please look past his English and onto this great idea.

Twin Cities Startup: Peerparazzi Tagging Photos At A Whole New Level

Photo apps are now just about a dime a dozen. Many startups think they’re innovating in the photo space, but come to find that another six startups have had the same idea. Tagging photos for social reasons isn’t a new idea. In fact we just reported on Brooklyn startup Kapture that allows you to take pictures, on assignment, tag them and become a “brand ambassador” for rewards.

A new startup in St.Paul Minnesota is looking to maximize tagging in a social photo app. The startup is called Peerparazzi.

Peerparazzi says they provide an exciting new picture taking and social experience. Everything in the photo can be tagged, the people, places and things. Tagging photos within Peerparazzi allows you to automatically send the photos to the people that are in them.

On the business side, businesses can claim themselves in photos so that tags become interactive. A tag for a Wendy’s or McDonald’s could send a user to an interactive promotion. A tag for a shopping mall could send out a daily deal. A tag for a museum could send a user to a website.

Peerparazzi founder Damen Johnson believes that people are more likely to interact with product photos shot by their friends and family rather than just regular advertising.

We got a chance to talk with Johnson about Peerparazzi. Check out the interview below:

We Talk With 500 Startups, Madrid Startup, Traity: Recruitment With Trust & Personality

We’ve reported on countless startups that are striving to re-invent the interview and recruitment process. It seems that recruitment may be one of the hottest startup spaces in 2012. How can you separate the good and the bad? Well one way is by knowing that Dave McClure’s 500 startups is backing this Madrid startup, Traity.

Traity is attacking the recruitment space with analytics, data, and endorsement. When you look up a book or something that may be a bit new to you on Amazon.com, you’re a lot more comfortable knowing that the book has 100+ positive reviews right? If you’re like me and willing to take a chance on a book, having 100 reviews either positive or negative is typically an indicator that it’s at least worth a look.

Well that’s where Traity starts. Their recruitment platform reports are made up of endorsements from several people.

The other place where Traity is making a difference is in personality. Traity positions themselves as a personality based engine, personality test or as it suggests on their website, personality game. Traity is measuring the personality strengths in people like perseverance or how proactive they will be. A candidate could look perfect on paper but they could be a bump on a log in real life. These are all factors you need to know when hiring a candidate, that you may not get to see until the interview.

Speaking of interviews, here’s an interview with Juan Cartagena, co-founder of 500 startups, startup Traity

Chicago Startup: Barandwaitstaff.com A Jobs Network For The Service Industry

While some consider waiting tables stepping stone jobs, there are plenty of career minded people in the field. Perhaps you want a job that doesn’t require a lot of thinking so that you can pay the bills and work on a side startup. Perhaps you actually make really good money waiting tables and so no reason for change. Possibly, you like working with people and feel most comfortable helping customers.

For whatever reason there are thousands of people who are perfectly fine, if not extremely happy, in the service industry. A new Chicago startup, barandwaitstaff.com is going to make it easier for professional service industry folks to find the best service industry jobs. In fact, even though there are thousands of restaurants in every state, the service industry has gone rather unnoticed in the recruitment space.

Barandwaitstaff.com promises to make it easy for anyone looking for work in the service industry to find it, and vice versa.

The startup is led by two brothers Len and Jim Kazmierczak. Both brothers hold history degrees. At one point they had bought a small live music bar in the area. However with the economic downturn it became harder and harder to keep the doors open and eventually closed it down. After closing the business down they decided they reflected on what they could have done differently in their business. Staffing was one of those things. With that Barandwaistaff.com was born.

We got a chance to talk to Len Kazmierczak. Check out the interview below.

Columbus Startup: AboutOurWork Disrupting The Chamber’s Networking Events

I’m going to go out on a limb here. I’ve been to several Chamber of Commerce events at cities across the country and for the most part their networking mixers suck. Not much real networking actually happens at business after hours events, business before hours events and holiday parties. Most Chamber of Commerce network events are a huge circle jerk and ego strokes for people that already know each other. In fact in most cases you’ll find more cliques at a Chamber of Commerce mixer than you will in the cafeteria of your favorite middle school.

With everyone being so deeply entrenched in the internet, we’ve been waiting for a startup to come along and offer what most Chamber’s of Commerce charge hundreds of dollars for, real networking, real introductions. Sure LinkedIn is great, but again most of LinkedIn is built on who you already know. Even when you might kind of know someone or you want to meet someone you heard about but “didn’t do business with”, LinkedIn discourages it.

Well a Columbus startup called AboutOurWork has created a new network connections platform that promises to link small businesses (and startups) with other small businesses (and startups).

Co-founders David Hungenaw and Brooke Paul are serial entrepreneurs, both with successful exits. Now they are setting out to solve a problem no one wants to talk about (but I just did), finding a way for small businesses (and startups) to actually network.

We got a chance to talk to Hungenaw about his startup that’s disrupting the Chamber of Commerce mixer.

Austin Startup Cinsay A Video Based e-tailing Platform INTERVIEW

An Austin startup called Cinsay has a new way for merchants big and small to sell their wares on the internet. At first glance you may find yourself saying, not another e-commerce platform, however the team behind Cinsay has done a great job of blending video with e-commerce.

It’s pretty straight forward. Companies of any size, either one man shops, or stores the size of Neiman Marcus can sign up for a Cinsay account. From there users can upload a video that features their products. Within the video photos are extracted to the top of the viewing pane and end users can click on those products to share, get more info or complete a purchase.

So after getting the preliminary interview back from Cinsay we weren’t yet sold on the idea of using video quite this way. What’s wrong with going somewhere like Bestbuy.com, Amazon.com or even ebay searching for what you want and buying it. Well NeimanMarcus’ Cinsay page is what sold us on the concept. And then we couldn’t stop looking at stores on Cinsay.

Now mind you guys that nibletz, the voice of startups everywhere else, is still just a budding startup. We’ve only raised an angel round to date so Neiman Marcus is really the last place we’d ever shop, top that off with the fact that the video was on women’s clothes, but the concept intrigued us.

It looks like part commercial, part product video but every outfit the models showed off would pop up into the top of the window and you could easily purchase by clicking the picture of the item and going to that items page. $695 was way too much for a plaid blazer I would never wear but nevertheless it was intrguing.

So I did what you would probably do and I clicked the technology category. I quickly realized that the 360 degree view you get from a video is much more enticing than a normal picture. Sold!

We got a chance to talk with the guys behind Cinsay, check out the interview below.

Brooklyn Startup Kapture Turns You Into A Brand Ambassador

A startup in Brooklyn New York, called Kapture is turning people everywhere into brand ambassadors based on the photos they take with their smartphone cameras. Everyone loves sharing pictures over social media, now, when you’re snapping away, and you catch a brand, you could be rewarded. Kapture is allowing new ways for retail brands, consumer goods, and other businesses to capitalize on pictures being taken of their products, services and businesses already.

When a user shares a Kapture moment with a social network like Facebook, or Twitter they can be instantly rewarded with items that range from discounts to physical goods. Rewards can be redeemed immediately or stock piled for a later date.

Michael Szewcyk, the co-founder and President of Kapture is no stranger to startups. In fact, he was working for a Silicon Valley based startup, Qwiki when he had the idea for Kapture. He quickly moved back to New York and began the launch process.

Kapture started last December with 25 businesses on board in the greater New York area. Rewards including things like a free glass of champagne for users who took a picture at Gansevoort Park’s rooftop Bar. Legendary ping pong club spin, offered a free drink to people who posted pictures of their game.

Kapture also makes it easy for people to find opportunities to earn rewards, which the startup conveniently calls “Photo Ops”. Within the iPhone app, users can find photo ops and then partake in the ones they want to get the prizes for.

We got a chance to talk with the Kapture team. Check out the interview below.