Startup Interview Archives - Page 17 of 34

Denmark Startup: MindTeacher Brings Daily Deals To Online Courses

Now that Groupon and LivingSocial have cornered the market for generalized, localized daily deals, we’re starting to see siloed startups across the globe create daily deals sites for other verticals. For example Paris startup LimeApp is a daily deals site specifically for online services.

A new Denmark startup, MindTeacher, is bringing the daily deals platform to online course offerings.

MindTeacher is connecting their users to classes for personal development. Whether you want to learn a language, a computer skill or even how to cook, you know you can find those classes online. However, there are 100s of websites to look towards for every different type of class. Also, there isn’t a site out there, yet, that’s offering classes at discounted rates. That’s what MindTeacher does.

MindTeacher is serving both the teachers and the students. For the teachers, MindTeacher is available to help them sell, or sell out online courses that need a little extra push. For students, it helps them find classes at more affordable rates. Using MindTeacher’s deal platform a student that could only afford one class may now be able to afford more.

We got a chance to talk with the people behind MindTeacher. Check out our interview below:

Utah Startup: HeadCase Fighting Global Poverty With Head Phones?

Joshua Fairbairn and his team of co-founders at Utah startup HeadCase have a lofty goal. They are going to contribute to the fight against world poverty by selling headphones. Of course selling products and tying them into charities is nothing new, however Fairbairn is trying to put a new spin on the concept, launching their “premium” headphones with a direct tie in to a different charity with each model.

The company is calling their philanthropic headphone campaign #MoreThanMusic.

On the social side of things HeadCase is using the slacktivist model to donate health kits to children in need, shoes, aftercare for victims of human trafficking, vaccinations for Polio and pumps for farmers in Kenya.

On the headphone side of things, the HeadCase headphones come in a variety of colors. The company also boasts that they are durable, stylish and lightweight. Best of all the 50mm speaker drivers used in every pair of headphones are built at the same factory as Senheiser and Dre Beats.

Combine the two and you have a recipe for sound social entrepreneurship.

The charities that HeadCase has aligned themselves with are; One Day’s Wages, Soles4Souls, The Global Poverty Project, Free The Children and The Adventure Project.

Elyakim Samuel (CEO), and Samantha Bruandet (CFO) round out the founding team of socially conscious entrepreneurs.

We got a chance to interview Fairbairn, check out our interview below.

Louisville Startup: Kodable Teaching Kids 5 And Up How To Code

When you start talking to technical co-founders of today’s startups, most of them talk about how they’ve been coding in some form or another since they were little kids. Such is the case for Jon Mattingly the co-founder of Louisville startup SurfScore and their newest product Kodable. Mattingly started “fiddling” with computers at the age of 6, and now he and cofounder Grechen Huebner are setting out to teach a new breed of grade school kids how to code.

Kodable is a new iPad game that teaches kids aged five and up how to code. This is taught by teaching the fundamentals of programming and problem solving in a fun way. Kids are learning these fundamentals without even realizing it.

“It introduces the basic concepts of programming, including conditionals, loops and functions, in an abstract way simple enough for young children to understand. Kids give the characters, called fuzzes, commands that guide them through a maze. This challenges children to think through a problem in multiple ways before deciding on a solution, then rewards them for choosing the most efficient path.” Huebner told us in an interview.

There’s a variety of software out there now that teaches even younger children the fundamentals of reading. Huebner and Mattingly thought that if those skills could be learned at an early age, programming could be taught the same way. Mattingly credits Hubener’s artistic ability with actually making these skills fun to learn and easy to understand.

Check out the rest of our interview with the SurfScore/Kodable team below.

Vancouver Startup: Perch Turns iOS Devices Into Hands Free Cameras and More

Being on the road as much as we are here at nibletz.com the voice of startups everywhere else, we’ve come to realize how useful the iPhone and iPad have become to stay intune with what’s going on at home. For instance, FaceTime with my five year old daughter is something we do multiple times per day, every day. FaceTime is perhaps one of the easiest to use video chat apps ever created. A startup in Vancouver Canada, called Perch, has made it even easier.

Perch allows you to set up stationary iOS devices throughout your home or office. This unique app builds in video along with motion detection. Your iOS device becomes a Perch camera. All you have to do is walk up to the stationary iOS device and start talking, Perch knows to start rolling audio and video. The Perch app then uploads the video to the cloud making it easy for the recipient to get it.

Perch cameras can be used for surveillance and security, or as a great interactive tool for the whole family. Perch calls this hands free video operation, “ambient video”. In addition to those features you can also text and video chat with anyone in your Perch family.

The app was born out of a previous startup called Redhand which turned iOS devices into sophisticated security cameras.

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

New York Startup: Unpakt Brings The Expedia Model To Moving

The Expedia model of comparison shopping and booking online for the best discounted prices is a proven model that’s being used for several new verticals. Earlier this week we reported on Tennessee startup MDSave which applies a similar model to finding low cost health care for self pay patients. We’ve also reported on Nashville startup Rentstuff which applies a similar model to the merchandise rental industry.

As a testimony to the success of the Expedia model in other verticals, MDSave just raised $1 million dollars for their startup while Rentstuff was recently acquired.

Today we’ve found New York startup Unpakt which is applying the same type model to moving.

Sharone Ben-Harosh is the founder of Unpakt and a 20 year veteran in the moving industry. His first moving startup is FlatRate moving which he founded in 1991. FlatRate Moving takes away the uncertainty associated with hourly moving in exchange for a more honest flat rate move.

Unpakt works on the same principals, but on a larger scale. Users simply put in where they are moving from and to, how much stuff they have and what, if any, special services they need. Unpakt than brings back several real time quotes of movers that can do your move on the date requested and an actual flat rate quote so you know what you’re getting into. You also book the move online which takes a major part of the headache of moving, out of the picture.

We got a chance to talk with Ben-Harosh about Unpakt. Check out the interview below.

Washington DC Startup: MBA Project Search Connects MBA’s & Businesses For Short And Long Term Projects

We’ve reported on several job and recruitment based startups. Most of these startups are attacking problems with hiring and recruiting with technology like video and social media. Some employment based startups, like Memphis startup Work For Pie, are honed in on specific markets like developers. A new Washington DC startup, MBA Project Search, is connecting businesses of any size with MBA students or alumni.

MBA Project Search is getting it’s start out of the Washington DC area and is tapped into the MBA scene at Georgetown University. They’ve also secured relationships with every Ivy institution as well as MBA equivalents internationally.

On the startup side, MBA Project Search is great for startups that need MBA caliber talent but don’t want to hire someone on full time or do some kind of equity for work scenario. With MBA Project Search startups can hire MBAs for short term projects at an affordable rate.

Currently MBA Project Search is free for both businesses that need to hire an MBA and for MBAs to apply for projects and positions. There are no other hidden costs involved either.

The MBA Project Search team says that for students, it gives them the kind of hands on experience a doctor would get from a $100/hr residency or a lawyer would get from a $50,000 internship. They’re giving MBA students and graduates another resource to find post graduate work that encompasses the degree they studied long and hard for.

We got a chance to talk with MBA Project Search co-founder Rasheen Carbin, check out our interview below.

Startups Need A Product Model Rendered? Try Romanian Startup Renderstreet

If you’re a startup, or any company, looking to have a 3d product rendered than Romanian startup Renderstreet may be just what you’re looking for. This is the latest startup for Romanian startup serial entrepreneur Sorin Vinatoru who was also behind the Romanian startup Pagepeeker, that we profiled back in August.

RenderStreet is an easy and affordable render farm for 3D projects. The startup is also priding itself on great customer support so when you turn to RenderStreet for a project, they will hold your hand through the development.

Vinatoru has already had some success raising money for RenderStreet. He’s looking to announce a seed round in the coming weeks.

3D rendering requires immense amounts of computing power that isn’t often available to just anyone. That’s where render farms like RenderStreet come in handy.

We got a chance to talk with Vinatoru about RenderStreet. Check out the interview below.

Black Friday’s Over, Continue To Save Money With Philly Startup Snip Snap App

Back in May we brought you the story about Philadelphia startup Snip Snap App. We were so intrigued with the concept behind Snip Snap, that we actually posted this story, before founder Ted Mann got off the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC.

Snip Snap App has saved me over $400 personally since last May. The concept is simple, it’s a wallet for your print coupons that allows you to crowdsource print coupons from other users. Now if you’re a real coupon king, or coupon queen, then you know that different regions have different coupons. With internet coupons on the rise, and more and more stores accepting coupons on phones, Snip Snap App is poised to save consumers hundreds of dollars.

Snip Snap App allows you to take photos of the coupons out of your local inserts, post them to the app and the community and then report on their success rate in usage. Gigantic nationally known chains like Kohl’s, Best Buy, Target, Old Navy, Aeropastle, Toys R Us and several fast food chains honor electronically stored coupons from just about anywhere, even if they say “some restrictions apply”.

If you’ve snipped a coupon that doesn’t work on redemption you simply report that in the app for others to know. Users can search coupons by name, location and more and they can see how successful those coupons have been by others that have actually used them.

With the biggest shopping day of the year behind us, we thought it was a great time to check in with Mann about Snip Snap and see what, if any, surge he saw in Black Friday.

Swedish Startup Truecaller Global Directory App For Anyone In The World

A startup based in Stockholm Sweden, called Truecaller, says they are the global phone directory linking you to anyone in the world. If you get a call from a number you don’t know you should be able to tap into Truecaller and find out who is actually calling you. In addition to traditional reverse directory information, Truecaller also says they have millions of prepaid phone users in their directory as well.

By coupling existing directory information and crowdsourcing their user-bases contact lists (opt-in) they create a hybrid of publicly available data and crowdsourced information to put together the TrueCaller directory.

Truecaller is a great way to prevent spam from sales calls and others that users don’t want to talk to.

The founders of Truecaller originally started the idea as a side project. They were tired of missing calls from people who were important but necessarily in their contact list already. As they tell us in the interview below, they released the original, rough version of the app and saw over 10,000 downloads immediately. That’s when they realized they should push forward and turn Truecaller into a real startup.

This is the third startup for founding duo Alan Mamedi and Nami Zarringhalam who met while studying at the Royal Institute of Technology.

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

Dartmouth Startup: Square One Mail Is Your Personal Email Assistant

A Dartmouth startup called Square One Mail wants to help busy people sort their email in the most effective ways. Rather than combing through pages and pages of email Square One Mail will put everything in an easy to view dashboard, automatically sorted out into zones.

Square One Mail is starting out with an iPhone app which is currently in private beta. They plan on adding a web-based interface and an Android app soon.

There are a lot of email alternatives available but most of them, like Sparrow, that still sort email in rows, almost the same way it appears on the iPhone’s original email program. While this may work for some people, the Square One Mail dashboard let’s you take a quick look at what’s come in before scrolling through pages and pages of messages.

“SquareOne Mail is a personal email assistant for busy people. We automatically sort out all of the commercial newsletters and social notifications, and present these in a digest view. The rest of your incoming messages are presorted into Zones, which represent different communication areas in your life, such as different projects at work, or Family, College Buddies etc. Instead of a cluttered inbox list, all your zones are presented in a Dashboard. The Dashboard is the main interface for interacting with email – you get a bird’s eye view of all new messages sorted into Zones, so you can prioritize and focus on what’s important. All messages are displayed in an in-line conversation view, which makes even reply-all conversations with multiple recipients easy to navigate. The user has control over which zones prompt email notifications in what contexts (time of day, geographical location).” Square One Mail co-founder Branko Cerny told us in an interview.

If you’re constantly sorting through hundreds of email messages, Square One Mail could be for you, especially if you want to eventually read all of your email but you just need to prioritize it, easily.

Check out the rest of our interview Cerny below.

17 Year Old Russian Entrepreneur Launches Startup: Hippflow

When you think of people to give you startup advice or to model your startup after you typically think of either high profile VCs or people who’ve had eight to nine figure exits. They must know what’s good for you because they’ve either invested in big deals or had a big deal themselves. That makes perfect sense.

Well a 17 year old entrepreneur by the name of Kirill Chekanov from Moscow has developed a startup called Hippflow which will hopefully help other startups.

How?

Chekanov tells us in the interview below that Hippflow will help entrepreneurs input and track resources, plan work, measure progress and celebrate milestone achievements.

Chekanov knew that for something like this to work he needed to go global from the beginning. He’s already inked partnerships in the US, England, Singapore and China. His latest partnership, is with Chinaaccelerator one of the largest startup accelerators in China.

Internally, his organizational startup has kept him focused and hitting his milestone goals while simultaneously finishing his last year in the Russian equivalent of high school.

Check out the rest of the interview with Chekanov below.

Toronto Startup CountMeIn Is The Next Generation Of Wish Lists & Gift Registries

While it’s not as explosive as the reward and loyalty space, we’ve profiled a handful of gift registry and group gifting startups here at nibletz.com, the voice of startups everywhere else. Monday we brought you the story of a new feature from our friends at Buyvite that allows people to pay back someone on a group gift purchase, socially. This Toronto startup called CountMeIn merges all of that together.

Toronto startup CountMeIn is the next generation of wish lists and gift registries. CountMeIn’s co-founder Israel Schachter, who goes by Yummy (don’t ask), tells us that he came up with the idea for CountMeIn after getting a friend and business associate a $1500 gas grill at Home Depot as a housewarming gift.

Schachter had no plan of action, except getting a commitment from 14 of his closest friends for $100 a piece for the gift. Once he arrived at Home Depot he found the grill and decided that was the gift. Then, he needed to figure out how to get the grill to his buddy’s house in his sedan. Needless to say it was a huge headache, and two years later he’s still collecting money. He thought there had to be an easier way.

While he calls coming up with a startup to solve your own problem “selfish” most of us call it innovative.

Rather than tackling the problem of group collaboration on a gift, executing the gift and collecting on payments separately, he and his team went all out and tackled all three problems in one.

Check out our interview with Schachter below.

Ottawa Startup Suprpod Is An Online Collaborative Space For Marketers

I’ll bet if you were to do the research you would probably find thousands and thousands of conferences and conventions for marketing folks. I seem to get invited to a new marketing conference every other day. But can you believe there’s no social network, community or collaborative space online just for marketers? That was until Ottawa startup Suprpod came along.

The online portfolio and collaboration site exclusively for marketers takes it’s name Suprpod from Dolphins. In an interview with nibletz.com co-founder Jennifer Butson says:

“Superpod is the term given to large groups of dolphins who travel together. Because dolphins are brilliant communicators in the animal kingdom, the term lends well to the group of expert communicators in the human world!”

Which is why their logo is also a dolphin. You should see the tricks their team can do with rubber balls on their noses.

All kidding aside though, collaboration between left brained marketers can be healthy, creative and produce some amazing results. That’s why it’s hard to believe no one had thought of this before.

The site has three basic function areas, browse, share and create.

The browse section is home to curated portfolios from some of the industry’s hottest minds. It’s ripe for the taking right their at Suprpod. PR, and marketing people can check out Suprpod for some of the best marketing ideas out there.

Share is where questions are asked and answered about anything related to PR, marketing and social media.

Create, will allow users to display their work like they’ve never seen before.

Butson has a lot of experience in both marketing and startups. It was working on a different startup that helped he find, hone and craft the idea for Suprpod. We got a chance to talk with Butson, read the rest of the interview below.

Complete Your Lifelong Goals With Help From Bangkok Startup Bucketlistly

It all started when Pete, the founder of Bucketlistly went to Beijing for a Mobile Monday event. While at the event he was intrigued by everything going on around him. He was speaking at the event and wanted to figure out a way to share his own achievements and help others share their achievements as well.

Of course with that and seeing the movie starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, Pete had an idea.

He calls Bucketlistly a social bucket list. The platform allows users to list all the things they want to do in their lives, crowd source ideas on how to achieve those goals, do the impossible and share all of that.

When it’s time to conquer those life long goals users can write stories about them and even include pictures. The website than chronicles the achievements and archives them so the user can reference them later and inspire others.

We got the entire skinny from Pete, check out the interview below.