Thanks To Israeli Startup Webydo, Great Designers Don’t Need To Know Code

Some of the best graphic designers in the world don’t know a lick about HTML, CSS, Javascript or anything else involved in web development. Unfortunately for many of those designers, their great work can be hacked up quickly when trying to fit the best designs into the limitations of the web.

Now, thanks to a startup based in both Israel and New Jersey, called Webydo, professional designers can create and manage cross platform websites without knowing one bit of code.

More than 38 million graphic designers currently working to create professional websites are enslaved to an old process that depends on handwritten code. This process is slow, expensive and cumbersome, marginalizing the designer’s role and preventing direct communication between designers and their clients. On the other hand, the DIY platforms offer only preformatted templates that are not suitable for professional web creation.

Webydo solves this problem with a sophisticated DMS (Design Management System) that liberates designers from their dependency on handwritten code or limiting DIY templates. Using the company’s sophisticated online software, designers can bring any creative web design to life. With the click of a button, an advanced HTML website is published online including a friendly built-in CMS (Content Management System) for the website owner. No programming or technical knowledge is needed. With Webydo, DMS plus its CMS integrated system, designers can finally focus on the creative side of web design.

Behind the scenes, Webydo’s innovative code generator (US patent pending) automatically generates both a cross-platform HTML website updated to the latest industry standards and optimized for SEO, and a friendly built-in WYSIWYG CMS that enables the website owner to update the website content, independently.

Webydo is a community driven platform created for designers, by designers who know what they need from a SaaS product like this.

“In essence, Webydo is about unchaining millions of graphic designers from the rusty old ‘designer-programmer-client’ process of designing and managing websites,” said Shmulik Grizim, Webydo’s Co-Founder and CEO. “With Webydo’s powerful cloud platform designers can finally bring any web design to life, without writing code. Now, we want to share this technological innovation with the global design community.”

Webydo launched last week at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 and we got a chance to spend some time with Grizim. Check out the video interview below and for more information visit webydo.com

Now check out over 30 more startup stories from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013

Female Founder Spotlight: Jess Butcher CMO & CoFounder Of Blippar

Jess Butcher is the CMO and Co-Founder of Blippar, and chief proponent and evangelist for the new verb “to blipp.” Follow her @jessbutcher.

Who is your hero?

Margaret Thatcher. Like her or loathe her, Britain’s first female prime minister made her way in a man’s world and changed the way we think of women politicians.

What’s the single best piece of business advice that helped shape who you are as an entrepreneur today, and why?

Stop benchmarking yourself against other successful entrepreneurs or business people – it wastes valuable energy! Your personality and circumstances are unique and there is no right or wrong way to grow an innovative business. Yes, learn from others’ experiences and be inspired by them, but also make your own rules and navigate your own path. Trust your gut instinct as much if not more than the numbers, and surround yourself with people who you respect and enjoy working with.

What’s the biggest mistake you ever made in your business, and what did you learn from it that others can learn from too?

I don’t really associate with the word “mistake,” preferring “learning!”

The occasional error of judgement or wrong move can often move your business faster than the right ones. To be honest, I don’t think we’ve made any big errors of judgement — only wasted time and effort that could have been better spent — but you tend only to appreciate that in hindsight, and re-focus accordingly. Knowing when to stop and draw a line under a particular strategy or approach is critical. About-turns are not weak, they’re strong and demonstrate good leadership, but they need to happen quickly and be communicated decisively.

What do you do during the first hour of your business day and why?

A bit of Twitter and industry website browsing first thing on my train commute (to put my head up and check out what’s happening around us), then a good half-hour of writing and rewriting to-do lists and priorities for the day. The sheer number of balls I’m juggling means I’m constantly scribbling down to-do lists. (And I haven’t yet found a to-do app that is as satisfying as my multiple scraps of paper when it comes to drawing a heavy line through a completed item, a big bold star or a screaming, underlined caps item in red!)

What’s your best financial or cash-flow related tip for entrepreneurs just getting started?

Don’t pay yourselves until you have to! That, and hire a good finance director. This isn’t always possible from startup, but having that skill set within your founding team seriously helps. If you’re fortunate enough to have a product or service that you can trade for another, then “in kind” deals can help a lot with cash flow in the early days.

Quick: What’s ONE thing you recommend ALL aspiring or current entrepreneurs do right now to take their biz to the next level?

Possibly a slightly strange one — but if you haven’t already got one, find a good “better half” or at least draw closer to those real friends in your life whose support you’ll need. The life of an entrepreneur is all-consuming, with a poor work-life balance and a roller coaster of highs and lows. Having one personal, special cheerleader who celebrates your highs with you and brings you out of despondency during the lows makes all the difference and keeps you focused and balanced.

What’s your definition of success? How will you know when you’ve finally “succeeded” in your business?

For us, there’s a simple measure of success: when to “blipp” becomes as ubiquitous a verb as googling or tweeting, and as habitual an everyday behavior. Everywhere we go in our daily lives, we will be surrounded by physical images and objects annotated with Blippar ‘b’ instructions, which tell you why each is worth blipping and unlocking for a unique content experience. We will simply look at the world around us through an enhanced Blippar lens — whether via our phone or maybe even hardware we wear — and the world will instantaneously jump to life with additional content experiences.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab , a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Check out these other Bad Ass Startup Chicks

Dallas Startup University Passion, A Collaborative Community For College Students

What are you passionate about? Chances are if you’re a college student there are other students on campus that share your passion and collaborating could make your projects come together. Before the world of online platforms a college student with a side project, or that wanted to tackle an issue with a club, would post something on the bulletin board. From there they would get responses, presumably by phone, note or even email. Next, the students would meet and have to weed out those that were serious and could really contribute, and those who just want to be involved in something.

Enter Sam Hicks and his startup University Passion.

Collaborative platforms are nothing new. There are a ton of collaboration tools out there for almost every special interest. But, nothing out there is addressing college students, while they are college students. Sure there are students using cofounderslab and other platforms to get a jumpstart on startups but within the closed communities of campus there’s nothing out there.

Hicks is a marine biologist by trade and education. He’s an extremely bright guy and was able to get to the finals in TechWildcatters. The young entrepreneur from Mississippi left his home state the day before college graduation to head to Dallas because of their startup scene.

Check out our interview with Hicks below.

What is your startup, what does it do?

University Passion is a cloud based collaboration platform for student projects that creates a dynamic e-portfolio for college employers…

There are lots of interesting possible features: The website will contain a lot of valuable data about student projects, skills, education majors. Etc. I envision a web platform that could leverage the data of college student’s academia validation through projects.

A unique collaboration platform that connects students from across the globe to help complete projects – whether they’re building, brainstorming, or expanding a business.

Here’s a quick overview of how, the cloud based platform looks like:

Who are The Founders and What are Their Backgrounds?

Sam Hicks

Sam Hicks, Founder and CEO of University Passion, a student by occupation, an entrepreneur by profession, graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi and started a custom aquarium business known as, Pristine Aquatics LLC.

Sam is a chemist, and biologist who know everything about marine life like the back of his hand; he’s a small business guru, tenacious salesman, and social media addict. His skills and experience earned him a $2,000 grant proposal from a world recognized and nationally known College in the States.

His passion for salesmanship earned him a top spot as the best salesman in his firm. As an entrepreneur, he believes in, passion, determination, persistence, and ACTION.

Chris Greene

Chris Greene is a computer nerd, writer, and webmaster for the University of Southern Mississippi Student Printz newspaper. He’s an avid blogger and drupal developer who loves using programming languages to help spread the knowledge and make it free for many to access it.

If he’s not writing programming languages, he can be found hanging out with friends and giving lives a meaning…

Where are you based?

I love hanging out mostly in Mississippi and Dallas, Texas.

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

Dallas is a beautiful city with a very affordable cost of living for growing startups. Since my early days in College, I’ve had the passion of participating in the Tech Wildcatters Spring 2013 class but I never knew I’d come out as a finalist.

In fact, University Passion was invited as a finalist to pitch to 30 perceptive Investors in the spring class of nationally recognized Techwildcatters.

Tech Wildcatters is a mentorship driven micro-seed fund and startup accelerator. Founding teams endure a three-month accelerator program ranked by Forbes as top 10 in the USA, and boasting a 4% acceptance rate. Learn more: http://techwilcatters.com/

The founder of Launch DFW, Alex Muse and the Co-founder of Shop savvy have been supportive; every month, they host successful tech entrepreneurs which gives us the opportunity to network and work hand in hand with over 100 techies.

Dallas universities are blessed with geniuses for interns and co-founders; few can be found in Southern Methodist University, and University of Texas at Dallas, Art of Institute.

Dallas is endowed with thriving startup communities such as Austin and Houston Texas.

What problem does your startup solve?

Like I said earlier, there has been no platform with good interface that makes networking among students easy. University Passion is the first of its kind!

Students normally find it challenging recording their academia experiences in efforts to become marketable to employers but with the University Passion cloud based platform, they find it easy to create and keep portfolio’s.

University Passion wants to inspire College students to make a living doing what they love and create businesses that support their passions. As a result of this, University Passion have produced remarkable College students who’re now making impact in their campuses.

What is one challenge that you’ve overcome in the startup process?

Getting the validation of the first customer was a big challenge.

We have to develop the minimum viable product first, beta test it and address the issues. It has been an exciting journey so far; it’s an overwhelming experience when someone validates your company’s product which you helped grow from inception.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

We’re excited that Colleges and education institutions appreciate this platform; we’ve received over 100,000 responses from universities, which has geared us to take advantage of the niche market.

We’ve also partnered with 4 universities to launch the University Passion on their campuses.

We’ve pitched technology giants like: Tech Stars, Tech Wildcatters, and Kaplan and we’ve received positive feedbacks on the usability of the networking platform.

What are your next milestones?

Like every other growing startup, developing a strong technical and web development team has been our top priority. We’re also working on building connections and expanding the University Passion platform.

Who are your mentors and role models?

I’m a ‘’do it all alone’’ person, but I’ll always be grateful to Tech Wildcatters teams, program manager and the startups who’ve been solidly behind me.

Under30CEO has always made my day by delivering great contents.

Role Models: Steve Jobs has always been my mentor since my teenage years; here’s one of his favorite quote that always make my day:

“It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough. It’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing’’

Kanye West, Jay-Z, and Aristotle Onassis are also in my ‘’book of mentors’’.

What are some of the advantages/disadvantages growing your startup outside of Silicon Valley.

I don’t believe that the success of my business is in a location; I don’t believe one has to be in Silicon Valley to be successful. In fact, I’ve never been to Silicon Valley (though, I’ve heard that the streets are paved with gold); but I’ve witnessed startups scale and grow in other cities.

A businessman is like a man on a mission; if you allow the location of a place tie your business growth, you won’t go far in business; but if you’re hardworking and determined to face business challenges, you’d definitely succeed (even without being in Silicon Valley).

What’s next for your startup?

We believe in the possibility of a bright firm; and we’re constantly working hard to ensure that University Passion becomes a NO 1 cloud collaboration platform for college students.

Presently, we’re investing our time and resources in networking with other startups and upgrading the University passion platform.

Where can people find out more, and what is your Twitter username?

I’m more of a Facebook addict; but you can hook me up on Twitter; here’s my Twitter handle:@3amgrind; when I’m not on Twitter chit-chatting with my fellow entrepreneurs, you can hang with me via, Facebook or via, Angel list: https://angel.co/university-passion or just email me directly: sam@universitypassion.com

This young woman from Memphis took her startup from a 48 Hour Launch event to the finals for Black Entreprise’s Elevator Pitch Competition.

Norwegian Startup OogaBaby Is Instagram For Babies

I’m going to date myself here and say when I first heard the name of this Norwegian startup I thought about the fat baby dancing on Ally McBeal. I’m sure some of you are thinking, who the heck is Ally McBeal.

After getting over the uber cool name (and you know we love great named startups here at nibletz) we got to talking with the startups co-founder Gunnar Wold, about just what an OogaBaby is.

In the simplest explanation, OogaBaby is Instagram for babies. Using the OogaBaby app, gushing parents everywhere can upload baby photos to their hearts content. They can also track their baby’s height, weight and even the circumference of their heads. Parents can add milestones and special moments as well in this social network for babies and their parents.

Now as a parent myself I totally understand and get it, I just wish I had it five years ago. Speaking of which Wold says you can track your kid as long as you want but it’s primarily designed for baby’s up to age five.

Oogababy is great for parents and their friends with kids, but it’s also great for friends without kids. Why? Because with OogaBaby parents can stop flooding their Facebook walls with pictures of their babies.

Wold created OogaBaby after he became a father and realized there was really nothing like it on the market.

Check out our interview with Wold below and for more info visit Oogababy.com.

This Athens Georgia startup began with a bee’s dance.

Smokers Are Going To Love This California Startup, That’s Helping Veterans

Rob Howell is a Marine Corps veteran, who is trying to make life easier for smokers while at the same time helping veterans. He is the founder of a product startup that first tried crowdfunding with fundable.

HelpingHandz is the thing smokers have been looking for, for years, that protects the flame of a disposable lighter from the wind. There have been so many times that I personally have struggled with a lighter because of the crosswind. HelpingHandz is a ligher hood that fits around any standard sized disposable lighter, providing the shield the flame needs to stay lit. As an added bonus, HelpingHandz is also a keychain and a bottle opener.

As for the veterans, as a retired Marine Corps veteran, Howell will be donating a “significant portion of profits to programs that help veterans heal both psychologically and spiritually from traumatic combat experiences.” he said in an interview with nibletz.com.

The HelpingHandz product is one of those things that’s so simple you wonder why it wasn’t done before. The fact that Howell is helping sufferers of PTSD is a tremendous added bonus. Check out our interview with Howell below.

What is your startup, what does it do?

HelpingHandz (HHz for short) produces and sells a versatile lighter accessory that protects the flame of a disposable lighter from being blown out by inclement weather: wind, rain, snow, etc. Our product also functions as a bottle opener and keychain, making it the ideal tool for outdoor activities like camping, boating, or a day at the beach.

HHz currently works only with standard Bic lighters. We hope to have future designs that are compatible with other lighter models.

HelpingHandz is driven by the objective of helping United States Armed Forces combat veterans. The CEO and founder, Rob Howell, is a veteran of the Marine Corps committed to donating a significant portion of profits to programs that help veterans heal both psychologically and spiritually from traumatic combat experiences.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Rob Howell is the founder and CEO of HelpingHandz. After serving in the Marine Corps for four years, I moved to Wyoming to attended Central Wyoming Community College in the Environmental Science and Leadership Program. This is a program that works hand and hand with the National Outdoor Leadership School. While attending school, I worked for a local tree trimming company. My experience in Tree Care inspired me to start my first business, Continental Tree Care, a full service tree company that offered organic pest control and fertilization. Tree care required long, hard hours and a grueling amount of physical labor but it helped build a resiliency and determination within that served me well for my future inventions.

After six years with my first company, I began focusing on different invention ideas but came across a lot of issues getting the necessary patents. Finally, in January of 2012 I invented HelpingHandz and fell in love with the concept and mission of the product. I haven’t looked back since.

Where are you based?

HelpingHandz is an internet based company operating out of San Clemente, CA.

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

Southern California is a fertile environment for young entrepreneurs. While we haven’t actively started looking for investors yet, the response from our local community has been extremely positive and supportive. I think if you have a good idea or a good product, this is the place to be. It is a great place to start a business.

What problem does your startup solve?

Anyone who has ever struggled to light a cigarette/cigar on a windy day knows how futile and frustrating of a task it can be. It’s equally difficult to start a campfire or fire up the grill using a lighter outdoors in inclement weather.

HelpingHandz provides a cheap, easy solution to this problem. All you need is our product and a disposable lighter.

What is one challenge that you’ve overcome in the startup process?

Overcoming a lack of experience in manufacturing and product sales has been the biggest challenge. While doing hours and hours of exhaustive research was helpful, the most beneficial learning tool for me was speaking with dozens of product and manufacturing professionals who had already established a disciplined, effective business process. While it’s taken longer than anticipated to bring this product to the market, I’ve always been confident my concept is a good one and after months of hard work and patience, we’re on track to launch in May 2013 with our first production run shipment!

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

2012 brought us a number of fortunate milestones — we filed for two necessary patents (one which has already been approved). We’ve filed trademarks for our name and logo. We’ve finalized the design and prototype phase for our product. We’ve launched our marketing campaign by building our webpage, producing a video demonstrating how our product works, and promoting our company via social networks and blogs. Also – we’ve completed other business systems like packaging, warehousing and shipping protocols. Finally, we’ve received quotes from dozens of manufacturers, and we’ve begun negotiations with a few large distributers we think are good fit for us.

What are your next milestones?

Our next milestone is funding. We’re looking for the right investor to help reach our funding goals. We need enough orders of HelpingHandz from our manufacturers so that we can fulfill our distribution chain and have enough left over to take on new customers without running out.

Who are your mentors and role models?

I’ve had had too many to name them all but I would definitely start with my parents — they taught me how to work hard and the importance of always keeping commitments. These values were further instilled in me by the Marine Corps.

There are countless friends and teachers that I’ve learned so much from. I try to take a piece of the good from everyone I meet, regardless of their status. I have learned a great deal from my life experiences. I look up to people who focus their efforts on helping others and who make positive impacts in their communities. I could also say that I am fortunate to have met people who have shown me the negative side of society because I gain a better understanding of what I don’t want to be.

What’s next for your startup?

Next is laying out the distribution map. We’re in discussions with major convenience store distributers right now that can help us reach our goal of being in fifty-thousand stores by the end of the year. We would also like to start a video contest in the near future, where people make their own videos showing how they helped someone in need of an HHz. The winner will be voted on by the HelpingHandz community and the grand prize will be something really amazing like a trip to Hawaii.

Where can people find out more?

We are currently running a crowd funding campaign on the website Fundable. Here’s the link https://www.fundable.com/helpinghandz. You can get more information about our product, watch a two-minute demonstration video, and pre-purchase a first run HHz (there’s also an option to purchase a limited edition gold-plated HHz). We also have a website, www.myhelpinghandz.com and we are on Facebook at HelpingHandz. My Twitter name, which I just signed up for, is Rob Howells @HelpingHandz1

Now Read: DC Startup Troop ID Validating Veterans Past & Present In The Civilian World

Brazilian Entrepreneur Leaves Finance World To Launch Art Startup [video][Disrupt]

Luca Parise was working at a nice cush job in Sao Paulo Brazil for FRAM Capital, an investment management firm, when he decided to launch his own startup in the art world.

Nailonwall helps take the offline world of Latin American art and put it online for people around the world to find. But Parise doesn’t see it as a show and tell site by any means. He’s hoping to apply what he’s learned in the finance world to Nailonwall because “Art is a huge market and an investment opportunity”, he told us in an interview.

Parise hopes that by linking the Latin American art world to art collectors and investors globally artists’ works will become worth a lot more. So in affect Nailonwall is an entire art marketplace rather than just a showing of art work from Latin America.

Parise hopes to bill $500,000 in commission from helping to facilitate the sale of the artwork on nailonwall, this year, according to Portugese site exame.com.

There are several art marketplace startups out there, but so far none that have focused on artwork in Latin America.

Check out our video interview with Parise below, and for more info visit nailonwall.com

We’ve got a ton more coverage of startups everywhere else, from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013.

Interview With New York’s Ping Pong Startup

Ping Pong is a right of passage for some early stage startups.

As startups grow up and move out of the spare bedroom or the garage they look to make their first office space more “startupy”. Often times you have to do it with a budget. So what does a bootstrapped startup do to give their new office the “startup feel” without breaking the bank on some full sized upright arcade machines, or the latest virtual reality gear?

Well the “pop some tags” of course, and go for the ping pong table.

Over the last 18 months, travelling on our “sneaker strapped road trip” I’ve become actually decent at Ping Pong. I think we’ve seen over a 100 ping pong tables at various startup spaces. It’s funny how HD Tvs and Nintendo Wii’s can sit dormant forever, but find a few developers and designers and when they take a quick work break it’s for a fast game of ping pong. (we’ve been informed that the table tennis snobs don’t like it when rec players call it “ping pong”)

Well we got a tweet as TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 was starting. The tweet, from PaddleYou, told us to come by their booth at Hardware Alley on Wednesday, they had something for us.

So of course, the first thing we did when we arrived at the Manhattan Center was go find that PaddleYou booth. PaddleYou’s Cooper Fallek showed us the awesome Nibletz ping pong panel and explained the features. This paddle will make us beast on the table tennis courts of startups everywhere else.

Check out the video interview below. For more info or to order your own custom ping pong paddle, visit paddleyou.com

We’ve got a ton of startup coverage from TechCrunch Disrupt here.

Brazilian Startup Peela Is Gift Cards On Steroids [video][disrupt]

Brazilian startup Peela is getting some major traction in it’s native country. Peela is a reusable giftcard app and platform that allows users (buyers) to purchase physical or virtual gift cards that can be reloaded from the stores, restaurants and businesses that they were purchased for.

Peela patners with major merchants and vendors to offer the gift card, but more importantly, with reloadable gift cards, they offer a loyal customer. Perhaps your dad really loves the coffee shop he goes to every day, now everyone in the family can continually reload his card, it’s almost like a prepaid credit card for one place.

Peela has three main marketing channels, retail, e-commerce and businesses. So far it’s taking off, Peela’s Executive Director Guilherme Coelho, showed us a map detailing Peela’s penetration across every city in Brazil.

They are looking to expand the platform and were part of the Brazilian pavilion at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC 2013. Check out our video interview with Coelho below and for more info you can visit them at peela.com.br

We’ve got much more from Disrupt check out our startup coverage here.

Croatian Startup MediaToolKit Wins It’s Way To TechCrunch Disrupt, Here’s An Interview

Croatian startup MediaToolKit started as a social media monitoring web app targeted towards journalists. Journalists from blogs, newspapers, video outlets and other media resources can tap into MediaToolKit and discover trending content on Facebook and other sources from their competitors. Southeast Europes netocratic.com called it a “spy tool”.

Media Toolkit’s Ivor Bihar was on hand at TechCrunch Disrupt New York after the startup competed in the WebUp startup competition as part of the webfest.me conference last fall and won a trip over to the United States to present MediaToolKit to the US here at TechCrunch Disrupt.

Over the last few months MediaToolKit has continued to iterate. Now they offer a suite of tools for journalists, hence the name Tool Kit, including press clippings and alerts. The startup comes out of Zagreb based social media agency iStudio.

Check out our video interview with Bihar below and for more information you can check out mediatoolkit.com

And here’s more awesome TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 coverage here at nibletz.com

Israeli Startup Glide.me Is The Video Walkie Talkie [disrupt][video]

One of my favorite messaging apps is Voxer. Voxer allows me to send and receive voice messages, much like an old audio pager or Nextel’s two way radio function used to work. Now imagine if Voxer had a video element. That’s what you would get from Israeli startup Glide.

Glide allows multiple people to have two way video messaging over mobile device in extremely close to real time. You can have a two way conversation, ala Facetime or you can send a video message and the recipient can get back to you when it’s convenience for them. The big differentiator though is time.

Adam Korbl, the co-founder and CMO at Glide explained that these video messages and sent and received within fractions of a second. It doesn’t take that 8-10 seconds you will find trying to get a Skype going and the waiting you sometimes get from Facetime.

Being on the road all the time, I’ve found a new love for Facetime. When I’m on the road I’m constantly Facetiming with my five year old daughter. Glide will give us the option of having a two way conversation or if one of us is busy we can leave the equivalent of a video voice mail message.

According to TechCrunch Glide has raised seven figures to date from stakeholders including; Orey Gilliam, former CEO of ICQ and AOL IM and Philippe Schwartz the founder of ooVoo.

Check out the video interview with Korbl below and for go download Glide here.

Seriously there’s a whole bunch more Disrupt coverage here, brought to you by videojuice.co

DC Sartup DeJed Wants To Be Ebay For Digital Goods [interview][video][disrupt]

Daniel Kim and Bhupinder Singh were at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC’s starutp alley on day one. Their startup DEJED is a new digital goods market place that Kim describes as “ebay for digital goods”.

They are hoping to bring together creators, marketers and buyers in one platform that allows people to find the digital content they need and for creators, and affiliates to get paid.

In an untraditional model the duo are attracting third party people with social clout to help market the digital goods that the creators are selling. This may offer DEJED the biggest competitive edge over competitors. Singh is very excited about this aspect of the business, he told us during an interview that someone with tens of thousands of followers could easily make good money helping to bring buyers to digital goods.

DEJED hopes to become the go to place to buy and sell music, videos, ebooks, apps, plug-ins, code, models, icons, avatars, class notes, games, pictures, animations, how to’s, comics, coupons and any other good that has digital delivery.

On the buyer side DEJED will offer lifetime cloud access for all of the purchased digital goods as an archive to save everything someone buys using the DEJED platform.

Check out our video interview below and for more info visit dejed.com.

This New York Startup Wants More Grandmas On Facebook

New York startup FamilyRibbon doesn’t think there are enough grandmas on Facebook. Actually what they are really doing is trying to make it easier for beginning users to learn how to use Facebook. Yes, there are still plenty of people out there without a Facebook account. Just think how much your buubie is missing by not being on Facebook.

FamilyRibbon isn’t just about Facebook though. Their suite of apps called the EasyFamily AppSuite, is a total 7 in 1 app solution for beginners which takes the complexity out commonly used computer apps that we take for granted like Skype, email, photo albums, reminders and yes of course Facebook.

The suite of apps includes:

Easy Skype, Albums and Call-Back Requests

Quick and easy launch of Skype, Facetime, Flickr, Picasa and Facebook photo albums in easy interface. Call back request emails and texts sent with just one click.

Easy Facebook and VideoEmail® with Security Features

Facebook app with ‘Safe Mode’ designed for beginners. Email audio and video messages in just one click. The email ‘whitelist’ feature offers extra security.

Medication & Appointment Reminders & More!

Make sure medication is taken as scheduled – if a reminder has been ignored a family member will be notified by text or email.

Remote Administration and Illustrated User Guides

Manage reminders, photos, contacts, websites and even view app screenshots, all from another computer! Print our easy-to-follow user guide.

We got a chance to talk to the team at FamilyRibbon, check out the interview below:

What is your startup, what does it do?

The goal of EasyFamilyApps.com is to develop easy apps for beginner users – such as grandma and grandpa. The goal is to enable your aging parents to start using Facebook within a short period of time, to inspire them, and to make them part of the online community.

Our easy-to-use apps allow beginner users to socialize on Facebook, check email, make video calls, view online photo albums, and browse web pages. EasyFamily Social® and EasyFamily AppSuite® apps make it easy and safe to stay in touch online.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Ivan Osadchiy – founder, CEO

I am personally invested in helping seniors get online. When my father was admitted to the hospital, I found no simple tech solutions that would allow him to stay connected with the family. How could Dad see his newborn granddaughter thousands of miles away?

Mykola Komarevskyy – co-founder, CTO

I hope that our apps will help our parents to feel closer to us and have fun online. Apps like ours are especially important when there is distance between family members. For many years, I lived in a completely different time-zone than my mother and she really missed being able to contact me. She is now beta testing the app and is so excited that she can now keep in touch whenever she wants and she loves sending and receiving messages.

Where are you based?

The startup is based in New York City, New York and affiliated with PlugAndPlayTechcenter.com – a SF accelerator.

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

Fast-paced, time and focus demanding work. The three key success factors that must be embedded in the startup culture are (1) teamwork, (2) rigorous prioritization, and (3) communication. Teamwork ensures that things happen. Prioritization ensures that the tasks with the highest potential are executed, as there is always more work on the plate that can be “eaten”. Communication is vital to convince investors, build partnerships, and engage prospects and users.

What problem does your startup solve?

It allows any Grandma get on Facebook

⁃ In 30 minutes

⁃ Easy and Safe

Please also take a look at the video: http://GrandmaOnFacebook.org, and the infographic attached – for additional information, numbers, and sources. Separate slides are available at http://bit.ly/ZKQgFZ.

We conducted some research and found out that 40% of women over 60 live alone and 7 million U.S. seniors are not mobile and face isolation. In addition, multiple studies by top faculty at the University of Chicago, Harvard and Stanford have suggested that isolation significantly increases health risks.

We realized then there was a great need for an easier and safer set of applications for the older generation so that family communication – easy video calls, e-mail, Facebook, online albums, etc. – could flourish, and loneliness and isolation problems that strongly affect seniors could be reduced.

What is one challenge that you’ve overcome in the startup process?

The area that was surprisingly challenging was finding the most effective marketing channels for seniors and their families. This is where predecessors have failed.

Seniors rely almost exclusively on expensive traditional media and word of mouth, and that takes a long time to build. Their children – our generation – is nicknamed “sandwich mothers / fathers,” as we try to balance our careers with taking care of both our children and our parents. Competition for our time is fierce – being heard over clutter requires creativity and making products as viral as possible.

Some of the tools we’ve found effective include:

 Reaching out to B2B channel partners. We were approached by tech schools requesting permission to use and promote our applications with their students

 Piloting with a retirement community

 Direct-to-consumer marketing and the use of SEO/SEM (optimizing your website to improve your standing in search results)

We’re employing a combination of word of mouth, viral marketing, and traditional channels.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

We have raised seed funding and a follow-on bridge round from the existing investors. Thanks to this investment, the two apps EasyFamily Social® and EasyFamily AppSuite® for iPad and Windows computers were released. Remote administration is also available for the EasyFamily AppSuite®. Family members can manage user’s account from any device via easy web interface – they can update the address book, add and review medication reminders, upload family photos, view user’s screenshots etc.

What are your next milestones?

Our next milestone is to complete the Android version of the EasyFamily Social® app for Facebook – to make it the best Mother’s and Father’s Day gift for parents. The “17 Million Grandmas on Facebook” crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo will help us to raise the funds necessary to complete the job.

Several users and organizations asked when we were going to release the Android versions of our apps. Android tablets are the most affordable choice and are ideal for low income families, charity and educational organizations.

We hope that with the release of the Android version of the easy and safe Facebook app, many more Grandmas will join Facebook and will reach the 17 million mark sooner.

Readers can help us to achieve the milestone by supporting the “17 Million Grandmas on Facebook” campaign or by helping their Mom or Grandma to join Facebook!

Who are your mentors and role models?

Sir Richard Branson, our role model, supports the “17 Million Grandmas on Facebook” Indiegogo effort. He provided hand-signed “Elders Rock!” and “Screw Business As Usual” inscriptions, with which we’ll reward our backers at www.GrandmaOnFacebook.org.

Mary Furlong – MFA & SeniorNet founder, aging expert – is helping us to develop the right solution for grandparents.

Jim Tobias – Inclusive Technologies, Strategies and Stakeholders at RaisingtTheFloor.org; accessibility expert – provided valuable feedback on usability of our apps.

We also work with senior tech schools, including Jane Ratliff from Blue Hair Technology Group to polish user experience.

We are grateful to our mentors and are honored to work with them.

What are some of the advantages/disadvantages growing your startup outside of Silicon Valley?

Physical location of the team is less relevant these days. Silicon Valley would probably provide more opportunities to meet potential investors face-to-face and to hear more about experiences of fellow entrepreneurs and experts. However, in the era of LinkedIn, Skype, and broadband connections, entrepreneurs can meet the necessary people from any location to achieve its investment, business development and learning objectives.

What’s next for your startup?

Getting 17 million grandmas on Facebook! :-)

We hope that people will help their parents and grandparents to join Facebook this Mother’s day.

We’ll work hard to make www.GrandmaOnFacebook.org a success that will make the easy and safe Facebook app available for even more grandmas – on the affordable Android platform.

Where can people find out more, and what is your Twitter username?

Facebook @GrandmaOnFb Blog

Facebook shmacebook, these DC grandma’s have created their own startup, check out our interview with Quad2Quad here!

Dallas Startup: Adscend Media Co-Founder Fehzan Ali In Our Startup Spotlight

Fehzan Ali is the co-founder of Adscend Media and serves as the Chief Executive Officer. He is responsible for driving and implementing the strategic vision of the Company. Since inception, Fehzan has secured business with high revenue publishers and top advertisers through his deep relationships and experience in the sector. He is an industry thought leader, providing editorial content about ad-based solutions through strategic opportunities. Follow him @fehzan1.

Who is your hero?

My parents. They raised me with a foundation focused on morals, values, and being the absolute best I can be. Their entrepreneurial spirit also cultivated mine.

What’s the single best piece of business advice that helped shape who you are as an entrepreneur today, and why?

Above all else, believe in yourself. This is a foundation for both success and happiness. If you don’t believe in yourself, who will? In my earlier years as an entrepreneur, I was filled with doubts. What if I fail? Is entrepreneurship right for me? What will I do then? I created backup plans for my venture, and then backup plans for those backup plans.

In my opinion, that’s a mistake. To be a successful entrepreneur, you have to be fully invested in your business. You have to believe in yourself and your ability to succeed even when you fail, even when you are under close scrutiny. Persistence and determination is the cornerstone of success. The day I really started believing in myself is the day that I became successful. I’ve failed more times than I can count with new solutions and product launches, however, I’ve also learned so much about myself, what I’m capable of, and the value of persistence. Never give up.

What’s the biggest mistake you ever made in your business, and what did you learn from it that others can learn from too?

There’s a difference between an entrepreneur and a manager. Most successful entrepreneurs that I’ve met are great leaders and know how to create a product/solution and inspire their vision into the company. Once Adscend reached a size where it required us to hire additional manpower, we went out there and found great talent and delegated a loose set of tasks to each new team member. We continued this process until we realized that we had a very talented team, yet they were all lost and confused on how to help accomplish the company vision and goals.

Therefore, the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in business is a lack of organization/structure of the company. After consulting with my team and other resources, I spent a few months implementing organizational changes based on feedback I received from the team, and it was actually surprising to see how happy our team was with the new changes. The changes led to increased satisfaction in the team and helped us position the company to scale for growth moving forward. Furthermore, I had more free time after the changes to focus on innovation and the company vision.

If you are an entrepreneur struggling with scaling your company or getting started, pay attention to structure! If management is not one of your strengths or if you simply do not have time to set up the structure, hire someone else to do it. As a smaller organization, sometimes the leader has to be the manager as well. This is something you don’t want to overlook.

What do you do during the first hour of your business day and why?

I usually spend the first hour of my business day reading up on industry trends and new innovations within my industry. In our fast-paced world, you have to be vigilant to remain relevant and create innovative products/solutions that fills in a gap in the market. This research is important to maintain an edge in the market over competitors as well.

What’s your best financial or cash-flow related tip for entrepreneurs just getting started?

Focus on the bare necessities for success to cut your operating costs. For example, you don’t need a fancy office or a secretary to get started. By running a lean organization, you are able to minimize your risks, reach profitability quicker, and build cash flow to establish a healthy financial foundation for your company. Assess the needs of your company on a set schedule to ensure that you are maintaining a lean, yet efficient organization that scales as needed.

Quick: What’s ONE thing you recommend ALL aspiring or current entrepreneurs do right now to take their biz to the next level?

Keep an open mind and constantly seek knowledge. Never stop learning.

What’s your definition of success? How will you know when you’ve finally “succeeded” in your business?

I personally believe success is more comprehensive than simply financial gain. To me, success means being passionate about what I do, spending time with friends and family that I love, enjoying life in general, helping others, and of course being able to generate an income from my passion. As for success in regards to just my company, I knew I was successful when I signed up our first large client to my ad network and started generating revenue. It was a snowball effect from there, and we took off. Although that may seem like a small accomplishment to attribute as success, it really bolstered up my confidence, and we soon became one of the consistently top-rated companies in our industry.

Now Check out:

Indy Couple getting their grit and grind on at Memphis’ Seed Hatchery Accelerator

Interview With Al Leston, On The Wall, A Community’s Digital Story Board [OneSpark]

Al Leston is the host of the popular NPR documentary series, State Of The Re-Union. The NPR documentary style show has Leston going into communities across the country and chronicling the world around him. The show highlights, what makes the community.

Leston was on hand at the OneSpark crowdfunding festiva showing the next extension of State Of The Re-Union, a gigantic, digital tablet based wall. “The Wall” is an installation piece that he hopes to have setup in busy, high traffic areas in a town or city.

“bus stops, court yards, plazas and downtown street corners” are locations that Leston has in mind for this gigantic piece of interactive story telling art.

Just like SOTRU, The Wall will open up dialogue between people with different ways of life and different perspectives, promoting understanding and encouraging conflict resolution. If we can be connected with others in different regions, with different cultures, we will have a better chance of creating solutions to pressing issues. We will become better listeners. We will increase empathy.

The Wall challenges how media inhabits our space. The Internet is an ether, as intangible as it is infinite. But we have trapped ourselves – become idle, passive voyeurs of media. The Wall will surprise us. The Wall will touch us. The Wall will change us. And we will have the power to change The Wall. – From the OneSpark profile page.

In meeting Leston he was genuine, concerned about communities and extremely creative. A video loop showing throughout the week at his OneSpark booth showed what he hopes to create with the end result of the wall. He wants people in cities, towns and community’s to take a moment and discover the stories that are being home grown.

The community aspect, creativity and merged use of technology, in “installation art” are what made The Wall the top vote getter in the technology category during the OneSpark festival.

Find out more about Leston’s State of The Reunion program here.

We’ve got over 30 startup stories from OneSpark here.