Startup Interview Archives - Page 22 of 34

Santa Monica Startup: DocRun To Challenge Legal Zoom, And Do It Better?

If you were to hear a pitch from a legal startup that planned to offer do it yourself access to legal forms, you would immediately think of LegalZoom right? Who would enter into a space crowded by a giant like LegalZoom? That would be as asinine as pitching an online auction site for collectibles, clothing, accessories and every day junk right?

Well Santa Monica based startup DocRun is doing just that. Of course their position is that they’re going to do it better.

DocRun has positioned itself to become the site to go to when small companies, and even startups need legal documents that may otherwise cost them thousands of dollars. When a user goes to the site they can create highly customizable, attorney level legal documents by answering a handful of relevant questions.

DocRun isn’t your run of the mill startup though. The company’s founder is Jennifer Reuting a nationally known expert on small business and corporate structuring. She is the author of the book “Limited Liability Companies For Dummies”.

This is also not her first foray into web platforms for small businesses. Reuting created InCorp.com the third largest registered agent service provider in the country and MyLLC.com a business entity formation service. Reuting has baked patent pending “artificial intelligence” into DocRun. This technology trumps LegalZoom’s one size fits all legal document service.

We got a chance to interview DocRun check out the interview below.

Chicago Startup: clickInterview The Latest To Join Video Interview Space

A startup in Chicago called clickInterview is the latest to offer a video solution to recruiters, HR folks and perspective employers. clickInterview, like PitchPick in Austin among others, lets job candidates answer pre-screening interview questions in the comfort of their own home or wherever they happen to be when they feel like answering.

Legacy human resources folks aren’t entirely sold on the idea of pre-screening or interviewing candidates with pre-recorded videos. Naturally the candidate will only do the video at the best opportunity for them and of course they can prepare for the interview. It takes out some of the spontaneity of the interview.

Now with clickInterview and the other startups in the space no one is suggesting that they completely replace the actual in person interview, but rather use it in the first preliminary phase, eliminating the need to accommodate on site interviews.

Max Sperando, founder of clickInterview says that his secret sauce is in the design and ease of use. One check of their site and you’ll agree that it’s pleasing to the eye and simplifies the process.

Sperando is also hoping to give the candidates a little more control of their interview situation, again the part that “old school” HR folks don’t like.

clickInterview definitely has a chance to take over the video interview space if they can scale right. We got a chance to interview Sperando, check out the interview below.

Israeli Startup Ringya, The First Collaborative Address Book For Smartphones?

An Israeli startup called Ringya has put an interesting new twist on the address book. They’ve taken, probably your most social set of data and added social functionality. Ringya allows users to share their address book, as much or as little of it as they want, as seamlessly as sharing a photo, video or other digital asset.

Sure you’ve always been able to share vcards and contacts via text, but Ringya groups contacts together any way that you like and than allows you to share them individually or in lists. Say you have a project management list, or a soccer team list, whatever list you have set up for contacts, if you need to easily share that list you can.

What’s even more interesting though is Ringya’s ability to turn paper lists into smartphone contact lists. Simply snap a picture of an actual paper contact list and Ringya will extract that information and put it into digital contact format and keep the list in tact.

In the interview below Gal Nucham, founder of Ringya, explains that all you have to do is snap a picture of a contact list and email it to a specific Ringya address, moments later you get the same list back, digitally. This would make migrating paper phone books, address books and black books a cinch.

It’s hard to believe that until now, no one has done this before. Check out our interview with Nucham, after the break.

Chicago Startup StageBloc Is A Content Creation Platform For Everyone INTERVIEW

A new startup incubating at Chicago’s world famous 1871, has set out to create a new content creation platform that’s perfect for anyone and everyone. If you want to start a blog, you can do that on StageBloc. If you want to create photo and video albums, you can do that on StageBloc. If you want to create podcasts, again you can do that on StageBloc. If you’re into short form posts like status updates, you can do that as well. In fact you can do al that and monetize whatever pieces of it you want.

Now suppose you want to mix them all together. You can also do that using StageBloc’s robust platform. But even better, you can do as much or as little of it as you want. It’s like an all you care to eat buffet of content creation tools.

StageBloc makes it incredibly easy to create content in any way that you want. StageBloc founder Tom Giles was convinced that while Facebook and other sites are great for exposure, StageBloc is more about developing your brand online and also monetizing that brand.

This all in one approach to content creation means that if you use StageBloc you don’t need a blogger account, flickr account, YouTube account, Twitter account and Facebook account. You get all of those services in one. Now being realistic no ones going to shun their Facebook or their Twitter account but creating content and then having to move to another site to embed pictures and videos is a pain in the butt.

If you’re only in the mood for a short form post, you don’t have to leave the StageBloc dashboard, likewise if you’re in the mood to write a long Tumbler-esque post, you don’t need to leave the platform to do it.

StageBloc also recently launched their Mirrorgram app into the iOS app store and it’s quickly become the 11th ranked paid app in the store.

We got a chance to interview Giles. Check out the interview below.

Walk Thru’s Made Easy With Israeli Startup WalkMe

By a show of hands how many people out there have “walk thru” still on their to-do list. Everyone wants to do a great walk thru for their company, business or startup but many people have the hardest time getting this project off the ground. Either they don’t think they have access to the resources to create great “walk thru’s” or they don’t think they can afford it.

Well a startup in Tel Aviv called WalkMe is about to solve both of those problems for everyone.

No matter how easy or complex your task is, WalkMe wants to provide you with the tool to create an easy step-by-step “Walk thru” guide to everything.

Walkme is a simple to use plugin. Once you have it installed you just move about your screen in the natural steps it takes to do whatever process you want to teach. As you begin to complete each step you write what the step is, how to do it and add your text balloon and move on to the next step.

You can easily create “walk thru” instructions while you’re creating your WalkMe walk thru.

Anything from how to complete an order, to how to change your password, can easily be explained using Walkme. If you want to show someone an easy to use trick on your own website, you can create a WalkMe “walk thru”. Basically if you can do the task you want to teach, and if you can use a mouse, than you’re in business.

We got a chance to talk to the team from WalkMe about their easy to use tool. Check out the interview below:

Oklahoma City Startup: Buzzam Has The Blueprint For Next Generation Radio

Oklahoma City startup Buzzam is currently accelerating at the new Blueprint for Business accelerator in OKC. In fact Buzzam is the only homegrown team in the BluePrint For Business accelerator, other teams hail from as far away as London and Alabama.

Buzzam promises a whole new way of listening and enjoying some of your favorite online radio sources. The iOS app, which is available as of today, integrates seamlessly with your iTunes, Rdio and Spotify accounts insuring that you’re never without your favorite music regardless of the source.

It doesn’t stop there though. Buzzam is offering a new kind of radio, similar to original terrestrial radio, in that Buzzam will deliver information that is relevant to you, the listener. But we aren’t talking about relevant information to an international radio listening audience, a national listening audience or even a local audience. Buzzam will deliver information that’s relevant to just you.

Buzzam will create a radio listening experience for you based on your favorite Rdio and Spotify channels and your iTunes music. What happens in between songs is what makes Buzzam truly unique. Buzzam’s dj service will deliver your Facebook and Twitter updates right to you while you’re enjoying your favorite music.

Using Buzzam’s proprietary and patent pending technology, all your important social data is broadcast in between songs no matter what the feed.

On a recent visit to Blueprint for Business even Brad Feld thought Buzzam was a cool idea.

We got a chance to talk with Greg Starling, co-founder and COO of Buzzam about this innovative new radio idea ( and you know how we love radio ideas). Check out the interview below.

Meet Romania’s Mobile App Developer Referral Startup: BigBangJobs

Job boards are a dime a dozen these days. The job board was a space once owned by just two online companies, Hot Jobs (Yahoo) and Monster.com. Now there are job boards for just about everything and everywhere. It’s innovative new career minded sites, and category specific platforms like, WorkForPie and Path.to that are prevailing in the United States.

But what about outside the U.S.?

Well Romanian startup Big Bang Jobs is trying to solve the problem of connecting mobile app developers to people hiring mobile app developers in a way that cuts out a lot of the clutter found on more traditional websites.

BigBangJobs is a two way street. They function as a place where great mobile developers can find exciting new projects to work on, and where startups and established companies can find the perfect developer for their project. BigBangJobs is a mobile web developer community.

Unlike many other startups, BigBangJobs has a revenue model in place. After a quick vetting process, those developers that wan’t to participate in the program are admitted free. Those companies listing projects pay a one time fee of $99. While that may seem a little steep, BigBangJobs is looking to produce real results and get mobile app developers to work as quick as possible, in situations they want to be in.

We got a chance to talk to the founder of BigBangJobs, check out the interview below.

Listen To Places Through People With Chicago Startup: EvzDrop INTERVIEW

Chicago startup Evzdrop has put a new spin on social discovery. Rather than going somewhere and seeing who’s around you, you can “listen” to places using Evzdrop’s website and mobile app. Essentially what Evzdrop is doing is combining event discovery with people discovery, in reverse.

To understand this better here’s how it works. When a user goes somewhere they do a drop, basically putting a pin down where they are at. “Dropping” is Evzdrop speak for checking in. Once you check in or “drop” you can leave a tip or comment about the place. Through your setting you can decide if you want to share your “drops” with people in your network or the public at large. Or, if you rather just lurk in the shadows you can go into “stealth mode” kind of like those startups that think they have original ideas.

You can update your drops as well. For instance if you go to your favorite burger joint and they’re out of milkshakes, that may be important information people need to know. Or perhaps you’ve gone out to one of your favorite clubs but tonight it’s a pure sausage fest.

These drops make event and people discovery for other users a breeze. Now people can look at all the places they want to check out. Users can search for a place or see what’s trending. When they do that, they’ll see all the drops from the people there already. They’ll know if it’s hot or not, by just looking at the drops on the mobile app.

If you’re the “dropper” your drops can be voted up and get you points by the more people that check out your drop. Evzdrop calls this whole thing listening in. So now you’re listening into places rather than just checking them out.

To put it another way. FourSquare is great for checking in you want to check in and get points, and show all your friends that you’ve checked in to such and such place. You may even want to be the mayor (do they even do that anymore). With Evzdrop they’re giving the drops a real purpose. When’s the last time you went to FourSquare to see if a place was hot? You looked for the people right? Evzdrop puts that idea in reverse.

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

Israeli Startup: Vidimind Lets Any Brand Become A TV Provider INTERVIEW

So hearing about Israeli startup Vidimind got me thinking, how cool would it be if Nibletz could own it’s own TV service. You could get a cool Android powered Nibletz TV service box for your home, and then use that box to stream tv, access tv apps and games, all the while under the brand “Nibletz TV”. Pretty bad ass huh…

Well that’s exactly what Vidimind does. This innovative Israeli service allows any company to purchase it’s white label tv service. The service is offered through an Android powered set top box. The box can be plugged into the TV or shared via wifi to smartphones and tablets in your home as well.

Through Vidimind the end user gets a robust tv service via their set top box. The company, or brand, gets access to vital subscriber data and can offer subscribers custom data as well. Brands and companies can offer deals, promotions, contests and more through the Vidimind box giving companies an advertising vehicle, in the living room, that’s rivaled by nothing else available on the market today.

With the power of the internet, Android and a set top box, any company in the world can become a tv service operator.

We got a chance to interview the team behind Vidimind. Check out the interview below:

Chicago Ideas Week: Kara Swisher On The Next Big Thing VIDEO

We are in Chicago this week for the Startup America regions summit for Startup America Champions. We’re actually attending as Champions rather than media. Our good friend Frank Gruber at TechCocktail is also attending the summit as a regional champion from Washington DC.

While we did a little bit of actual work at the summit for the most part it’s been a great learning experience. In fact, when I tried to continue working after lunch, Startup America CEO Scott Case personally came and got me to make sure I was learning and not working. All the sessions on Tuesday were definitely worth it.

That doesn’t mean we couldn’t work at night after the summit was over.

It’s idea week in Chicago through October 14th. It’s a week long series of entrepreneurial, startup and innovator events, talks and lectures very similar to startup week happening in Austin Texas. As part of Idea Week, Startup America Chairman Steve Case (no relation to Scott), spoke in a mega talk Tuesday evening.

Case drove home many of the important points from his talk earlier in the day at the Startup America summit. He also went into a little history of AOL and briefly talked about the Time Warner merger.

After Case cleared the stage, they introduced the next guest (which we hadn’t read the program so we didn’t know) Kara Swisher.

Swisher is an authority on startups, technology and silicon valley. She was one of the reporters featured prominently in the 60 minutes interview with Mark Zuckerberg and she, along with Walt Mossberg, head up AllThingsDigital. She’s a great interviewer and an equally as good interviewee.

Most of the interview was in true Swisher banter, great down to earth, and real tech talk sprinkled with her signature humor. In fact one of the funniest points in her talk was when she made reference to the fact that she’s been married to a Google executive for 14 years, Swisher than pointed out that she is a lesbian (which she’s always been out), and in “straight years” that would be 97 years of marriage.

She referred to Google Glasses as “creep glasses” and Google+ as not a social network.

At the end of the interview (the part in the video below) she was asked what she thought the next big thing would be. Her answer may surprise you, and again, even this answer was full of humor, that’s for the most part true:

Linkage:

New York Startup: AppBoy Is A Must Have For App Developers INTERVIEW

The app economy is exploding, and as this global phenomena continues more and more app developers have turned from “Fred in the shed” developers to serious (or semi-serious) startups.

App developers are realizing though, to make it in this global app economy they need to have access to the best tools available to them. More than ever, app developers need to know their users. App developers need access to every piece of analytical data available to them. With over a billion apps available across all ecosystems, app users have an element of choice they’ve never had before. App developers need to make sure that they can hold onto that user for as long as they can. Once you lose a user it’s hard to get them back.

All this analytical data is what Mark Ghermezian and his New York startup Appboy, specialize in. But one thing that Appboy odes that separates themselves from just another app developer dashboard, is they bring the data back to app developers in a clean, visually appealing UI and data that’s easy to understand and interpret even for beginning app developers.

Appby is about more than just data though. Ghermezian understands that app users are customers, and as such Appboy positions itself as the first app CRM solution.

We got a chance to talk to Ghermezian about Appboy. Check out our interview below:

Utah Startup: Taxi, The Easiest Way To Present Online? INTERVIEW

Utah Startup Taxi has come to the rescue to anyone who needs to do online presentations. Whether you’re sharing a presentation for a meeting, sharing a presentation with a potential client, or need to send your pitch deck to a bunch of potential investors, Taxi may be the answer that you’re looking for.

Taxi lets users set up online presentations quickly and effortlessly. Taxi prides itself on simplicity with no need to set up plugins, no worrying about firewalls and no worrying that people on your conference call can’t see your screen. All you need to use Taxi is a web browser.

Need to share your presentation with someone on their mobile device? No worries, because it’s browser based the mobile experience is just as fluid on a smartphone or tablet, as it is on a desktop or laptop.

Taxi also offers seamless integration with HighRise so if you’re a High Rise user you’re still in business.

They offer a free version that allows you to share your presentation with one attendee at a time. They have affordable pricing plans all the way up to 100 attendees (just $20/month).

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

Boston Startup: SlideShark Solves The iPad/PowerPoint Problem

Although we love our Apple products around here, sometimes getting Apple to play nice with others requires a little work around. In this case we’re talking about the fact that PowerPoint slide shows never show up right on an iPad. This problem had thousands and thousands of startup founders in a frenzy trying to find the best way to get their pitch decks onto their iPads.

Sure a KeyNote presentation will play well on an iPad, after all it’s an Apple product, but what about those 30 million presentations created daily using Power Point (according to Microsoft)?

Power Point can be a vital business tool and with more and more people taking to Power Point out of the board room, it can be frustrating trying to get your slides to fit and play right on your iPad. Well worry no more, as Boston Startup Slideshark has you covered.

Slideshark is available for all iOS devices. They recently launched their iPhone version and according to the company, it plays well with iPhone 5 too. Slideshark covers three main Power Points (you see what we did there). Of course it’s a viewer that allows slides to be seen with fonts, graphics and charts in tact. Secondly, SlideShark allows users to share, track and manage their presentations in the cloud. And now, with the iOS version available, you can show your pitch deck during your elevator pitch, on the elevator, on your iPhone.

We got a chance to talk with the folks at SlideShark, check out the interview below:

Montreal Startup: Hypejar The Wikipedia Of New Products? INTERVIEW

Grant Yim and his team of co-founders at Montreal startup Hypejar are hoping that their startup becomes the “wikipedia of new products”. Hypejar aims to help manufacturers and startups with new products, generate buzz and excitement before a products official launch.

The web based platform promises to feature new and exciting products before they hit the market. Hyperjar users will be able to keep track of the upcoming products that they’re interested and get notified when those products officially hit the market. Users will also be able to vote products up and down in reddit style to indicate which products are more popular and which ones are more highly anticipated.

Hypejar is also targeting those smaller startups, and independent inventors. Inventors will be able to add their own products to Hyperjar and update their products “wiki”, to notify potential customers of new features, pricing and availability.

While Yim realizes there are plenty of sites out there that post reviews and product information after a product is released, there aren’t many sites that post information before a product is released. We know from our previous website that many manufacturers do vet out “review units” of products before a release, however Yim sees one of Hypejar’s main differentiators as the fact that users will have access to information on a large number of products before they get released.

Hypejar will become a vehicle for those early adopters who love to find out about the newest things first. It will also be a great vehicle for manufacturers, and inventors who need to gain traction for their products before they are released.

We got a chance to talk to Yim about Hypejar and the startup scene in Montreal. Check out the interview below: