Startup Interview Archives - Page 30 of 34

Cincinnati Startup: CoupSmart Turns Fans Into Revenue: INTERVIEW

Loyalty, rewards, couponing, it’s definitely a crowded space. Cincinnati startup CoupSmart says that it’s only crowded from indirect competitors. While many startups in the loyalty, rewards and couponing space offer help with engagement on social networks, CoupSmart says they deliver fans into revenue on and offline time and time again.

The startup, led by founder and CEO Blake Shipley says they’re all about the ROI. They don’t waste time building un-measurable campaigns or throwing coupons and offers around like water. Shipley knows how ineffective an actual coupon can be when looking for actual customer data.

In our interview below Shipley talks about how coupons are sorted by hand time and time again before they’re even shipped off for redemption. He experienced this first hand when he worked as an internal auditor at The Kroger Company’s Cincinnati headquarters. That’s what sparked his idea to create a better coupon platform.

We don’t need to tell you how crowded the space is and that everyone in the loyalty, reward and coupon space thinks they have the next biggest thing, but focusing on actual ROI will definitely perk the ears of hopeful clients.

One of the biggest complaints about loss leader Groupon is their ability to convert one time users into repeat users and effectively increase the businesses ROI. Many companies that have gone with the Groupon and Living Social model have lost their asses in margin just to get new customers in the door one time.

Whether it’s rewards programs, coupon programs or loyalty programs, someone is going to eventually break through the space with a platform or product that actual saves customers a decent amount of money, gets customers returning for more visits, and gets business owners the information they need.

Is CoupSmart that startup? Check out our interview below.

A Social Network For Skilled Workers Interview With NY Startup: SkilledWizard

LinkedIn is a professional business social network for all kinds of professionals. Sure there are some blue collar workers, and truck drivers out there on LinkedIn but for the most part “skilled workers” don’t have their own social network to go to. There’s a lot of money in trade labor, trucking, and manufacturing. There are plenty of people in these fields making great incomes and loving life. With more and more people turning to social networks every year there is a wide open opportunity for New York startup SkilledWizard.

The team behind SkilledWizard is hoping to connect “skilled workers” to each other, and to future employers. Skilled workers everywhere will be able to interact with each other, share extra side work, find out the ins and outs of employers and more, on their own social network.

SkilledWizard co-founder and CEO John Ducar climbed the corporate ladder in some of the companies that employ hundreds of thousands of skilled workers; UPS, DHL and even Saks 5th Avenue.

Many, including Ducar, say that there is a global shortage of “skilled workers” and SkilledWizard will help skilled workers across the globe connect with each other and with employers.

Check out our interview with Ducar below:

Interview With Pennsylvania Startup VerbalizeIt: 2012 Techstars Grads

Ryan Frankel and Kunal Sarda, the two co-founders of Pennsylvania startup VerbalizeIt have been in Boulder Colorado as part of the most recent TechStars class. Their startup is a powerful translation platform that enables you to get connected to a powerful team of translators from your phone, skype or a web browser for real time translation. They also white label VerbalizeIt and make the APIs available to developers.

Techstars just held their 2012 Boulder Demo day on Thursday and by the reviews on the internet it was one of the best Demo Days to date.

There were a lot of cool and innovative startups at TechStars Boulder 2012 class this year. One thing we love about David Cohen and Brad Feld’s TechStars program is the fact that like 500 startups, you often find more startups from “everywhere else” then you do startups from the valley.

We got a chance to talk with VerbalizeIt back in July. Check out the interview below:

Seattle Startup: PlayMySurvey Makes Napalm Smell Better In The Morning INTERVIEW

If you’re wondering about the headline Seattle Startup: PlayMySurvey Makes Napalm Smell Better In The Morning, and you’re thinking that PlayMySurvey has to do with survey’s you’re actually right. However, in a light hearted interview with the Seattle based startup that was their first answer to what their company does.

Naturally, their real mission is clearly identified in the name. They make important survey’s more fun to complete by gamifying the survey system.

If Seattle makes you think of Mike Arrington, rain and metal and grunge music, then you’re not too far off. Derek, the co-founder of PlayMySurvey used to play bass for a pretty established regional heavy metal band called Hirmsa. Now he works a day job and has 99 other jobs (but the b*tch ain’t one, oh wait that’s problems), in running PlayMySurvey. He assures us though, like any good company, he has an Indian man doing all the grunt work for half the pay, but his man is actually in Washington State and not coding PlayMySurvey in between customer service calls for some big wireless company out of a Mumbai call center.

If you can tell from our lead in PlayMySurvey takes very important work and makes it a lot more fun. Not just by the duo’s great attitude in building a startup but by adding games and engaging designs into the questions themselves. According to Derek, there are a lot of survey companies and a lot of casual game companies in the Seattle and Redmond area. There’s a huge company in Redmond that not many take seriously these days. Roll that all into one and you have PlayMySurvey.

Check out our interview below

Interview With Ann Arbor Startup MyRepairFacts

Michigan has two great hot beds of startup and entrepreneurial activity, Detroit and Ann Arbor. We’re constantly seeing startups from both cities make news. We’ve profiled and interviewed quite a few startups from Michigan.

Ann Arbor startup MyRepairFacts is a new web 2.0 portal to connect used car buyers and enthusiasts to sellers and information. MyRepairFacts offers their users National Motor Vehicle Title Information Reports (NMVITS) for $10 less than most competitors at $24.99. Not only that though, they serve as a repository for information pertaining to anyone’s car.

Users of MyRepairFacts can start using the service when they purchase their new car. Then, every time they go to the repair shop for an oil change, a repair, a tire rotation, new tires, or any other history with their vehicle, they can scan in the receipt and other information to make a nice, neat file on their vehicle in the cloud.

Storing important vehicle information through MyRepairFacts keeps all your information in a centralized location for you in one area. It also frees up valuable space in your glove box. Now though, when you go to sell your car you can be equipped with the NMVITS report, CarFax and every receipt from everything you’ve done to the car. In effect, this will improve your bottom line when selling your vehicle.

After the user has put all their information in the system and they’re ready to sell their car they can share as much or as little of the online history with the buyer via email, Craigslist or any other site with a link from MyRepairFacts that’s good for 30 days.

We got a chance to interview MyRepairFacts CEO Andrew Ramirez about this new automotive related startup. Check out the interview below:

French Startup: Azendoo To Take On Asana? INTERVIEW

Google Wave was a great idea and a great product. For whatever reason though it didn’t survive. The ability to collaborate on tasks and allow each team member to contribute to the overall task. It was an end to superfluously long email threads with 15 people interjecting. Google Wave organized everything in easy to read and easy to understand “waves” where you could just as easily identify who said what and who made what change.

Google ended up shutting down Google Wave and it was eventually turned into a project in the Apache Foundation’s incubator program under the name Apache Wave. Google originally cited user adoption as the reason they pulled the plug on Wave.

Earlier this year Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz unveiled Asana which they’re touting as the solution to email. Tasks can be collaborated on across multiple people, edits are maintained and credited to the editor and overall it functions as a superior product to Wave.

Now, a French startup called Azendoo is looking to shake up the collaborative work space. Azendoo simplifies project management and planning and integrates to do lists, messaging, documents, document sharing, editing and teamwork synchronization.

We got a chance to interview the team from Azendoo below. Check out the interview below:

Los Angeles Startup: OffBeatr Is The Kickstarter For Porn INTERVIEW

Crowdfunding is a hot startup space. So hot in fact that Ben Tao and Eric Lai, two entrepreneurs in the adult business, have started Offbeatr.com which is a crowdfunding source for adult projects.

If you’re looking to create a new adult website, adult mobile app, adult movie, or other creative adult project, funding is usually a big obstacle. Lai and Tao are hoping that fans of these kinds of adult projects will kick in to help entrepreneurs develop them. Sure there will be projects that some may find unappealing or even sleazy but even artists and sculptors who dabble in erotic art, the kind you would find at museums in NY and Miami, can get their projects funded on Offbeatr as well.

OffBeatr is using the all or nothing Kickstarter model which means that entrepreneurs and artists that use Offbeatr would need to successfully raise all of the funds in their goal in order to receive funding.

While it’s still too early to give funding or “ownership” away in the crowdfunding space, some may find it intriguing to help get the latest erotic art or full blown porn movie off the ground.

OffBeatr has projects vetted by the community before they go on to raise funds. Offbeatr requires a non-refundable deposit to start raising funds for your project on their platform. The “voting” process before a project goes live for funding, can help the project creator determine whether or not the project will be worth persuing on the platform. There’s no fee for the voting process. Once the project receives the required votes OffBeatr has final say on the projects, and only after that do you have to pay the listing fee/deposit.

Tao tells us in the interview below, that neither he nor his partner Lai set out to become adult industry entrepreneurs at first. Tao has a degree in Industrial Engineering but he’s never done any industrial engineering. He’s been a teacher, a circuit breaker salesman and a web designer. Lai has a real computer science degree (not the Scott Thompson kind), and has done work on top secret projects including some for Boeing.

This is their third venture in the adult industry and their are hoping that the community of adult entertainment and erotic art fans can come together to breathe new life into the industry. Check out the interview below:

Las Vegas Startup: Instagripe Makes Customer Feedback Instant INTERVIEW

We’ve talked about some great startups lately that function in the customer feedback space. Entrepreneurs continue to try and streamline the process of getting store owner to know what store customer thinks, quick and efficiently. Long gone are the days that $10 off at Denny’s for calling a survey line, actually gets results.

Customer feedback is critical and it needs to happen quickly because these days people are looking for things to happen at the speed of the net.

Instagripe provides a platform that allows businesses to achieve “insanely responsive customer service”. Like most other business segments founders are finding that customer service can be achieved quickest via mobile phone. Now a customer still in an establishment, can provide much needed feedback.

With Instagripe a customer can be anonymous if they’d like and they can also provide feedback instantly through their smartphone. Instagripe also allows you to leave feedback based on geo-location.

We got a chance to interview Instagripe’s Josh Payne. Check out the interview below:

Interview With Atlanta Startup: B2CGrid Crowdsourcing To Build Bigger Brands

Branding is a difficult task. Once you decide on a concept, build it out, and test it’s viability, it’s time to turn to branding. Branding is very important. When you consider that most startups are competing in a similar space with another startup, the strength of your brand is vital to your survival.

The problem most startups face, is regardless of whether they’re bootstrapping or funded, branding is something they don’t typically have enough money left over to make a significant impact.

An Atlanta based startup B2CGrid is looking to help crowdsource branding and bridge together a community of likeminded people that can help create and boost brands. B2CGrid looks to connect companies and creatives globally to build strong brands and ultimately sell more stuff.

In short B2CGrid is a market place for freelancers, designers, creatives and even agencies to connect to the companies, small, large and startups, that need their services.

We got a chance to talk with founder and CEO Michael B Moore in the interview below about this exciting new way to help get companies that wouldn’t think they could afford good branding, afford to take their brands to the next level.

Could Social Discovery Get Any Easier? Boston Startup Tagzidy Says Yes INTERVIEW

If you’re a long time reader of nibletz.com the voice of startups “everywhere else” then you are well aware of how we feel about social discovery startups. To get coverage here on nibletz, you need to “bring it” if you’re in the social discovery space. SXSWi 2012 was all about social discovery, and since then, hundreds have tried to do something in the space.

Tagzidy, a New York startup, has created a social discovery platform that is extremely easy. In fact, if you allow it to, Tagzidy will help you discover people with like interests, wherever you are, and you don’t even need to take your phone out of your pocket.

Tagzidy has a couple of unique components. You can tag and be tagged by people you don’t even know when you’re in close proximity to them (again with your permission). If you’re already linked up with that person your experience is gamified with trophies, points and other nifty stuff.

One of the really exciting features about Tagzidy is it may even be the replacement for business cards that Florida startup Fethr is hoping to be, without any button pushing, or taking out your phone.

We got a chance to interview Daniel McCarthy the co-founder of Tagzidy, who does an exceptional job of describing his startup in the interview below:

Interview With Prague Startup: Pickerio A Community For Sports Picks

Sportspicks.cz is a Czech startup that offers sports picks for sports betting from some of the top betting professionals in Prague and the Czech Republic. The best sports pickers offer their picks in a premium package of 30 picks at a time so that those who bet on sports can get the best handful of picks to place their bets on.

According to their founder Jakub Chovanec, SportsPicks.cz has done pretty well but he wanted to branch out to the rest of the world. Not only that but he wanted the opportunity to crowdsource picks from the best amateur sports pickers as well. That’s why they created Pickerio.com

Pickerio is a social network of sorts for people that enjoy sports betting. As an amateur sports picker you can write blog posts and add your favorite sports picks to share with your followers and the community. As you prove yourself as a sports picker opportunity opens up for you to start selling your sports picks to other sports gamblers.

Chovanec is relying on the experience of sportspicks.cz to pave the way for a more community based site. While online sports betting is technically illegal in the United States, buying sports picks is not. You could equate this to the several traditional publications that exist out there for sports betters and folks who wager on horses use to base their decisions on.

Pickerio’s unique quality is the fact that amateur sports pickers can actually gain traction and start making money on the side by offering up their picks (provided they are panning out).

We got a chance to interview Chovanec about Pickerio in the interview below:

Pittsburgh Startup: Grail Takes Alcohol Discovery Table Side, Interview

Last week we brought you an interview with New York Alcohol Discovery startup Drynk.me. They provide an app that makes it easy to discovery new alcoholic beverages, snap pictures, jot down ingredients, and share with friends. This week we have an interview with Pittsburgh startup RhoMania who have just released a new app called “Grail” to restauranteurs to help restaurant patrons with their alcoholic beverage selection.

Grail is available in an iPad and web app version which allows restauranteurs to have servers bring an interactive alcohol menu which highlights the selection on site at that restaurant and pairs beverages with the food on the menu. Grail serves as an interactive wine and cocktail list which can be much more robust than traditional two sheet lists.

Where Drynk.me is a consumer facing app, Grail is designed to be utilized by restaurants. The hope is that the app will help increase liquor and beverage sales.

We got a chance to talk with the team behind RhoMania and the Grail app. Check out the interview below

UK Startup: Mapov Has A New Way To Find Hotels, INTERVIEW

Sure sites look HotelTonight and Hotels.com are awesome places to shop for hotels while on the go by price and features. The problem is you have to toggle between their apps and your maps app when trying to plan out your stay. Even with the ability to drill down on the hotels.com app for iPhone and Android, by address, or venue, to get real distance and directions you need your map.

Mapov makes it easier to find hotels, and the best deals on hotels by adding a hotel layer on top of your existing Google Maps. They also harness the power of TripAdvisor for reviews, and multiple sites for the best rates. It’s like Kayak, meets hotels.com, meets priceline meets Google Maps.

We got a chance to talk with the team behind Mapov in the internet below.

Chuck Gordon & Mario Feghali Storage Warriors With Austin Startup SpareFoot

Chuck Gordon (L) Has recently lost the Justin Bieber-esque mop top (photo: forbes.com)

When you think about tech startup and storage nine times out of ten you think about cloud storage, or flash storage, RAM, DDR and any number of things. Well Austin Texas startup SpareFoot is about real storage.

Think Uncle Fred’s Storage on the side of route 40 or Grandma’s Attic storage facility tucked away behind the rest stop. Those storage facilities, the ones featured on Storage Wars, are what SpareFoot is all about.

It’s understandable at this day and age you don’t have time to go up and down the highway trying to find the best deal for your extra things. That’s why SpareFoot allows you to go to one website, figure out where you want to store your stuff, how much stuff you want to store and how long you want to store it for. After you input a little data the magical SpareFoot platform comes to life and serves up suggestions for the best self storage facility and option for you.

Two UCLA implants into Austin; Chuck Gordon and Mario Freghali are the brain power behind this startup that is firmly entrenched in the $22 billion dollar storage industry.

SpareFoot is an alumnus of the Capital Factory accelerator and is funded to the beat of $4.5 million, not too shabby, or as Dave on Storage Wars would say “yuuupppppp”. We got a chance to talk to the SpareFoot team in the interview below.