Florida Startup Musical Math Number Line Has An Innovative Approach to Teaching Math

Florida teacher turned entrepreneur Deb Bowers has an innovative, musical way to teach students adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers. She’s put it all to music and song using one of FAO Schwartz most popular toys.

Long gone are the days that one has to travel all the way to New York City to see FAO Schwartz signature toys. You know the ones made famous by many New York based Christmas movies including Home Alone. Toys-R-Us has created an FAO Schwartz section in all of their stores and one of their most popular toys from the brand is a gigantic piano kids can walk and jump on.Think Nintendo power pad meets keyboard.

Well Bowers has created a way to use that piano toy, affix a number chart on top and teach kids to add and subtract positive and negative numbers, while performing a song.

Musical Math Numberline comes with everything a parent needs to teach this method at home, except for the piano itself. You can either order it from Bowers’ site via a link to Toys R Us or go to your local Toys R us and pick it up. The numberline comes with the overlay for the piano along with a song book that is filled not only with songs, but songs composed by performing math problems.

To get the entire gist of the idea you should watch the video below. Bowers said she got the idea from her students. She would put masking tape on the floor and have them move about the front of the room adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers. Some students suggested that there had to be a way they could add music to it, so Bowers did.

She just showed off the idea at OneSpark the World’s Crowdfunding Festival where she hoped to get a jump start on bringing the company out to a bigger market. She told us there were lots of interested people that came to see her at her booth and that she was going to continue with Musical Math Numberline regardless of whether she was one of the companies to get funded at the event.

Check out the video below. You can find out more at musicalmathnumberline.com

Here are even more startup stories from OneSpark!

Never Miss Your Kids Game With RUA Sports, And Raise Money For Their School Too!

One thing that sucks about being on the “sneaker strapped startup road trip” is missing time with my kid. FaceTime makes it almost bearable, and home time is just that, home time. Now my daughter is going to start officially playing soccer in the fall and while I am going to try and schedule our road trip stops around the soccer schedule, inevitably I’m going to miss a few games.

Aaron Russell the founder of Jacksonville startup RUA Sport feels my pain, along with the pain of thousands of other parents who’s schedules dictate that they can’t be there for all the goals, home runs and triple doubles. Russell’s startup is also great for grandma’s and grandpa’s all over the country that want to keep up with their grandkids games.

RUA Sports is the creator of MyMobile Scoreboard. In essence this app crowdsources a network of users on-site at a youth sports event in a “play by play” style manner. You’ll never miss a goal, save or a triple play again.

Russell and the team at RUA Sports have also figured out a way to do some non-traditional fundraising for the schools that utilize the app and the social crowdsourcing play by play that it offers.

MyMobile Scoreboard costs $1.99 to download and RUA Sports will give back 50 cents of every download to the schools or youth sports organizations that download the app. Each organization will have it’s own mobile scoreboard so for example a high school could have a mobile scoreboard for their basketball program. Then the parents and others who want to keep up with the game can download the app and give back $.50 per download back to the school. For some schools with heritage and history this could prove to be a really good fundraiser.

Check out our interview video below with RUA Sports and for more info visit ruasports.com

Here are more awesome startups from OneSpark the World’s Crowdfunding Festival in Jacksonville.

Florida Startup Stocktagon Another Great Research Tool For Your Portfolio’s Arsenal [video]

We got a chance to talk with Paul Irwin the founder of Florida based startup Stocktagon.

Stocktagon is a research tool that combs press releases, earnings call notes and other media and press information to help the user find relevant information about stocks. For instance, with the recent fertilizer crisis in Texas, you could use Stocktagon to research the word fertilizer and it would show you what publicly traded companies were mentioned in stories about fertilizer. It would also show you the context for which those stories mentioned your search terms.

While in beta now, Irwin hopes to offer Stocktagon to individuals, big brokerage houses and everything in between. Information has always been a powerful tool when stock and commodity trading, and tools like Stocktagon make it even easier to find that information.

Stocktagon was in the first batch of companies to go through The Factory accelerator in St. Augustine. The Factory was started by Vaughn’s software development company Feature[23] which gives them a unique position as they leverage the development side of Feature[23] to help build the accelerating startups.

With a 10 year background in finance, including a stint at Deutsche Bank, Vaughn is particularly bullish on Stocktagon. “I can’t wait to show it off to my friends in fiance” Vaughn said when we spoke with him at OneSpark. Vaughn plans on leveraging personal relationships in the finance community along with some of his connections to get Irwin and his team in front of the biggest financial companies in the world.

“Big companies can be leery of startups like Stocktagon and ProfileGorilla” Vaughn said. That’s typically because a large company would have to change the way they use another form of technology to incorporate a new startup. Many big companies are hesitant to do that because some fear that startups will run out of money, and won’t be able to pay development costs. With The Factory the development portion is already built in.

Stocktagon was one of seven startups housed at The Dalton Agency during OneSpark. We’ve already interviewed cohort mates RestroomAlert and ProfileGorilla.

Check out our video interview with Stocktagon below and for more info visit stocktagon.com

Here’s more startup coverage from OneSpark the world’s crowdfunding festival.

Anonymous Customer Feedback Via Text, Check Out AlertTheBoss [video][onespark]

On Friday we brought you an interview with Florida startup restroomalert. This startup, that accelerated at The Factory in St. Augustine, provides anonymous feedback about bathroom conditions to businesses big and small across the country. They also provide a huge analytics dashboard to their business customers.

Evan Diamond and his Jacksonville startup are taking a similar idea and approach, using text messages to alert those in charge at establishments when their are customer complaints, or even compliments.

Through a unique text code, a customer can send a text message to the business which has a greater chance of being read quicker. According to Diamond, 95% of text messages get read.

There were some privacy concerns about where the anonymous text numbers are stored with restroomalert and the same would hold true for AlertTheBoss. Diamond explained that all of their information is being held in a private, secure database that the businesses don”t have access too.

The problem is, that on the AlertTheBoss OneSpark profile it clearly says that a component of the startup is the ability to aggregate the texting numbers and use them for marketing. Unless AlertTheBoss plans to become an outbound text based marketing company, that seems near impossible to hold the numbers so privately.

While we really liked restroomalert for obvious reasons we wrote about here, it seems to me that there are some privacy concerns with AlertTheBoss.

The other thing to consider; with the move to mobile apps and native mobile apps in particular, the ability to SMS through mobile app seems much more effective. We’ll watch this one to see where it goes.

In the meantime check out our video interview with Diamond below:

Have you seen these startup stories from OneSpark The World’s Crowdfunding Festival?

ooWorldcoop (Our Own World Cooperative) Wants To Be The First Online Social Market Place Co-Op [video]

ooWorldcoop is testing the waters in a new space in the social marketplace realm. Founder Anthony Tyson, has created the first ever social online market place co-op. Like any other co-op that means that the user base or membership will actually own the co-op together. While Tyson will always be the “founder” or “creator” he won’t be the owner, everyone will.

Co-Op models have been around for many years. Group buying co-ops are the most popular kinds of co-ops that still exist in the offline world today. Most cities have a grocery store or local produce store co-op. In that case, the members vote on what kind of items to buy and at what prices. They also dictate buying power with strength in numbers. The biggest benefit for the overall business in this case is that vendors know exactly what the buyers will buy.

In the case of the online co-op, after operating expenses, members will vote on where the co-op can spend its money. Profits will be reinvested, with member guidance, to offer more and better services to members.

A co-op also means that the accounting will be transparent to any co-op member.

Membership is free and comes with an easy to design and customize ooWorld.coop account/profile.

While ooWorld.coop may accept direct donations, most of the cooperative’s revenues will come from service/transaction fees and advertising. Surplus revenues will be used for various member programs such as affiliate commissions, education grants, micro and mini grants, and other programs voted on by the membership. We hope these will include affordable, renewable energy sources, affordable housing programs, and access to healthy food and clean water.

From the Certificate of Formation of ooWorld.coop, ‘… The purposes for organizing ooWorld.coop are, but are not limited to, to empower, support and encourage individuals to improve their quality of life and increase their earning potential; to promote, encourage and support the growth of micro-businesses and other business opportunities; to promote other worthy human endeavors including, but not limited to, arts and culture, scientific research, education, and human rights; to boost local communities while building a global community based on cooperation, collaboration and sharing; and to lessen the burdens of government. Tyson said on their OneSpark profile page.

How did people respond to this new kind of startup? Well out a crowd-funding festival they loved it. Although they didn’t finish in the top three when all was said and done on Sunday, ooWorldcoop was the biggest mover on Saturday.

We ran into Tyson’s partner Seth who filled us in, check out the video below and for more info visit ooWorldcoop.com

Check out more OneSpark coverage here.

New York Startup Rentenna Gives You The Score On Apartments In 16 Major Cities

If you’ve ever been apartment shopping online, you know what a pain in the ass it can be. You’re browser usually has 99 tabs open and your going back and forth trying to get as much info as possible. If you’re organized, perhaps you made a spread sheet or kept notes. Well New York startup Rentenna is making lives easier for those shopping for apartments and rentals in New York City, Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Fort Worth, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Tacoma and Washington DC. They’re expanding at lightning speed so if you’re city isn’t available now it should be soon.

Between the three cities Rentenna have over 100,000 buildings listed in their platform. From there everything you would ever want to know about the apartment building is rated into one simple score 1-99 so you can quickly find the best bang for your buck.

Rentenna offers information open rental units from a variety of rental partners,giving users options for available listings. They also offer in depth reviews from their partner Block Avenue.

The startup was co-founded by a powerhouse team including Alicia Scwartz a young serial entrepreneur who’s credits include thecareerproject.org and howtorentinNYC.com. She is also a former New York Times rental expert. We got a chance to talk with Schwartz about Rentenna. Check out the interview below.

What is your startup, what does it do?

Rentenna’s data-driven rental search is the fastest & most beautiful way to find an apartment you’ll love. Our technology analyzes millions of data points on buildings and neighborhoods, and then compresses that information into a Rentenna Score of 0-100 to help you quickly sort through available listings and decide if a rental building is someplace you’d like to live.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds

Alicia Schwartz is a former rental broker, former New York Times Rental Expert, and a digital marketing consultant to the real estate industry.

A. Kayvon Bina studied Human-Computer Interaction at Stanford University before advising technology & media companies on Wall Street and then co-founding his first successful startup, FranchiseHelp.com.

Sandeep Kella studied engineering at UMichigan, was a Private Equity investor, and has co-founded 2 successful startups (including FranchiseHelp.com w/ Kayvon).

Kevin Dolan, Rentenna’s CTO, studied Computer Science at Cornell. Before Rentenna, Kevin built the search product at Workday (NYSE: WDAY).

Where are you based?

Rentenna is based in the WeWork Labs incubator space in SoHo, New York City.

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

New York overall has a thriving startup culture, with an ecosystem that’s benefited immensely from successful NYC entrepreneurs paying it forward by subsequently becoming mentors and investors to local startups. Our incubator space specifically (WeWork Labs) is an amazing launching pad from which to build a technology company many of our most important contacts and partnerships have emerged from the informal network fostered in the halls at WeWork.

What problem does your startup solve?

Rental search today is an awful experience. Current sites are no better than skimming through classifieds in the paper — line after line of basically identical listings, with no guidance or information to help you find the apartments you might actually want to live in. We use the power of data — data on buildings, on landlords, on rent prices, on neighborhoods, on local bars/restaurants, and more — to help you quickly find the rentals that best match your priorities as a renter.

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

Whenever you’re addressing a major consumer pain point, you’re sure to get an endless stream of (often totally contradictory) feature requests that users believe would solve their problems. If you’re too reactive to that kind of feedback, you’ll end up building an unwieldy product that doesn’t really solve anyone’s problems particularly well. We’ve been disciplined from the very beginning about using qualitative feedback to identify users’ biggest pain points while using a rigorous A/B testing framework to select the solutions (features) that best solve those problems.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

We’ve built a massive database of over 100,000 buildings indexed, nearly a million listings processed, and over 70 million discrete data points analyzed — all powering a beautiful site that was just recognized as a 2013 Webby Awards Honoree in the Real Estate category!

What are your next milestones

Over the coming months we’ll be identifying and incorporating additional city-specific data sources, testing a bevy of new features, and releasing our mobile app / tablet experience.

Who are your mentors and role models?

Each of the founders at Rentenna has been lucky to work with tremendous mentors throughout his/her career. While there are many successful entrepreneurs whom we admire and turn to for advice on Rentenna, it’s the people we’ve worked with throughout our careers who have shaped us most.

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

The advantage of growing outside Silicon Valley is being in New York, a city we love and which happens to have a startup and investor community that fits well with Rentenna’s business model.

The disadvantage of growing outside Silicon Valley is missing out on those serendipitous connections that get made every day there thanks to the area’s sheer concentration of successful tech entrepreneurs, investors, and advisors. Plus, it means Kayvon doesn’t get to go back to Stanford and stroll down Palm Drive nearly as often as he’d like.

What’s next for your startup?

We’re new, but we’ve resonated with consumers because we’re offering a product that’s unlike any the rental search category has seen before. Our next challenge is to expose Rentenna to as broad an audience as possible, so every apartment-hunter can have the fast & beautiful apartment search experience we think they deserve.

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

People can use the site now at Rentenna.com. We are on Facebook and Twitter

Sports Startup Sportsbook Revolution Is A Safer, Fun Way To Bet On Sports, And It’s Legal

Jacksonville startup Sportsbook Revolution is setting out to revolutionize sports betting for people who like the thrill but don’t want to bet away the house or the car. The best part is, it’s totally legal and based in Florida, not off on some island country.

Wayne Lachowicz, an admitted recreational sports better, designed Sportsbook Revolution to be a safer, less risky place to get the thrill out of sports betting.

Here’s how it works, a user signs up for a Sportsbook Revolution profile and pays a monthly subscription fee of $25. In exchange for the $25 the user gets 25,000 points they can use to bet on their favorite sports teams in NBA,NHL,NFL and MLB. The wagering works similarly to betting at the sports book in Las Vegas, but you’re betting points rather than betting cash.

At the end of the month your points carry over or you can cash them out for prizes. Lachowicz also says as they continue to evolve over the next few months they will eventually split the profits with the users and giveaway money as well.

Since you’re only risking $25 a month it’s a much safer way to gamble. Also, right now, there is no way to “re-up” during the month. This way you can’t blow through your $25 and continue to spend more money on betting. When you’re out of points, you’re sidelined until the next month when your points reset.

They’re considering some way to let you re-up effectively making it as risky as any freemium game or app with in-game purchasing, but that’s a decision that Lachowicz and his team are very carefully considering. Sportsbook revolution is more about the thrill and fun of betting on your favorite teams rather than trying to win money.

The site is in beta right now and they hope to open it up to the public in the next few months. It’s 100% legal, operating as a subscription based sweepstakes rather than online gambling. Sportsbook Revolution is putting the “game” into sports gambling.

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

We’ve got over 20 startup stories from OneSpark here at nibletz.com

Meet OneSpark Creator: OneForte A Knowledge Market Place [video][onespark]

Knowledge and learning are big markets in the startup space. One Forte, is a Jacksonville based startup, that’s a market place for knowledge. OneForte

Using One Forte’s platform anyone can sign up and say what their skills are. Skills can be anything from guitar playing to tax accounting and anything in between. After a person adds themselves to the One Forte platform and lists what they have knowledge in they can offer online classes via video chats.

The “teachers” or “knowledge providers” can set their rate for how much a 1:1 session is going to cost, or they could decide to do it pro-bono and not charge anything at all.

One Forte makes the entire process easy by allowing knowledge providers to have profiles, and users to search for the skills they’re looking for. Once the two hook up One Forte provides an easy way to handle the billing and takes a small percentage of the fee that the teacher sets.

This scalable platform is going global out of the gate, hoping that a cook in London could provide lessons to someone who wants to learn about cooking in Boise Idaho. All of the lessons are done online through a video platform that’s also administered by One Forte.

Check out our interview with Gary below and for more info visit OneForte.com

More from OneSpark here at nibletz.com The Voice of Startups Everywhere Else.

Bad Ass Startup Chicks: Cara VonderBruegge With St Louis Startup Bonfyre [video][onespark]

The sunny skies of Hollywood California, celebrities, and power events, with a startup, that would be the ultimate goal for many people who love startups and working for them. Well for Cara VonderBruegge, who worked in that exact position at the Los Angeles office of Living Social, that wasn’t enough.
Blasphemy!

VonderBruegge (don’t even try and pronounce it), was looking for something more and wanted to move back to St. Louis, closer to her family. From a distance, off in Los Angeles, VonderBruegge saw the explosion of growth that St. Louis’ startup scene was having and she wanted to be there.

While the world knows that Living Social hasn’t been in the best financial place lately, after a series of layoffs it looked like VonderBruegge and her LA based position had survived, and it had. However in a by-chance meeting with Ray Gobberg, co-founder of Bonfyre, they struck up a good conversation. Gobberg explained that he worked at a startup in St. Louis and VonderBruegge told him that she worked for Living Social, itself still a startup.

By chance VonderBruegge called Gobberg just to catch up right when they had a project manager opening, and boom, the job was hers. So she did the reverse, packed up her car and moved to St. Louis.

While an official events coordinator may be in the works down the road for BonFyre, VonderBruegge has her hands full with several other “top secret” projects for the BonFyre crew, and she’s instrumental on their events side too.

VonderBruegge has been on the job for about six weeks and we got a chance to catch up with her at OneSpark in Jacksonville. VonderBruegge knows her stuff, startups, events, networking and Bonfyre. Her bright personality is definitely a perk for the mostly male dominated Bonfyre team.

Check out our interview with our latest “Bad Ass Startup Chick” below, and check out Bonfyre here.

See more of our Bad Ass Startup Chicks here.

Conquer Your Bucketlist with South Carolina Startup Bucquistador [video][onespark]

TJ Schallot, an entrepreneur and startup founder from Charleston South Carolina wants you to grab hold of your Bucket List like a bull and take it down. Conquer your bucket list with Bucquistador, that’s the motto at her newly launched startup.

Leading up to the launch of the socially integrated startup that allows people to take things off of their bucket list, Schallot has been hard at work promoting her startup. She was a presenter in the Startup Village at Everywhereelse.co 2013 and now she’s presenting as a creator at OneSpark the World’s Crowdfunding Festival in Jacksonville Florida.

So there are a lot of “bucket list” startups out there, what makes this one different? Schallot told us in an interview, it’s all about conquering your list and involving your socially connected friends. This idea is the foundation for how Schallot even came up with Bucquistador.

Schallot said her friends grew jealous of the fact that she was always doing things on their bucket list. She wanted a way to share with her friends the exciting things that she was doing without spamming them with email or useless Facebook updates. “I tried Facebook but my important posts were getting drowned out by pictures of cats” she told us. Of course we all know that pain.

Now Schallot’s bucket list items are available on Bucquistador for her friends to see and collaborate on. For example if you want to fly in a helicopter through the Grand Canyon on your bucket list, a friend of yours may be going to the Grand Canyon and want to do the same thing, why not knock it out together.

Schallot and her father are manning their creator booth in the SunTrust building in downtown Jacksonville. They’ve brought along a sumo wrestler suit, moonshine, and other items that may be on people’s bucket list. “Who doesn’t want to sumo wrestle in a sumo wrestler suit” Schallot said, now if that’s on your list you can do it right at the Bucquistador booth.

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

In the words of the infamous Billy Mays, but wait there’s more OneSpark coverage here, a lot of it!

Out Of Toilet Paper? There’s A Startup For That: Restroom Alert [onespark][video]

Who’s ever gone to the bathroom at a public place only to sit down and find there’s no toilet paper in the toilet paper dispenser? Or you go through a beautiful looking store or a great restaurant and find paper towels all over the floor and a trashcan that looks like it hasn’t been dumped in days?

Well if you said yes, you’re not alone. These problems happen to millions of people every week at a variety of restrooms across the country. Going into a dirty, filthy or not well stocked bathroom affects businesses in ways you wouldn’t believe. One survey said that 94% of respondents said that a non well kept bathroom would make them leave an establishment.

Some believe that when going to restaurants a dirty restroom is a signal that the kitchen may not be that clean either. While there are people who will speak to a manager or an employee about the cleanliness of the bathroom, others are embarrassed to do so, or sometimes so grossed out they just want to leave.

Well now there’s an app for that. The multi-platform Restroom Alert, is a way for customers to anonymously report to a manager, owner or other employee that their restrooms need some attention.

It’s pretty simple. A business, small, big or gigantic, can sign up for Restroom Alert for $5 per month per room. The establishment will get signs that can easily be affixed to mirrors or walls with a short code to send a text message about the restroom. Does it need toilet paper? Do the sinks need cleaning? Is the trashcan overflowing? Is the toilet stopped up? All of these things and more can be reported anonymously via the text code.

On the business’ side, they get a text message as well saying what needs to be fixed. At that point a timer begins and the platform records how long it takes to go fix the problem.

The system can also alert owners, managers or employees when the restroom hasn’t been cleaned or checked in the allotted time. This wipes out the need for clipboards and paper restroom checklists, which often go unused.

Restroom Alert even supplies analytics detailing the restroom problems, how often they’re stocked and checked and other key factors. A clean restroom is just another way a business owner can provide excellent customer service.

Restroom Alert can be used by small mom and pop shops all the way up to Fortune 500 companies. The owner, or person in charge of such things, can get reports based on their entire network of restrooms. This way they can deal with employees that don’t give a crap about the way the restroom looks (you see what I did there).

While there are plenty of apps that can find you a restroom on the road, this seems to be the first startup to modernize the restroom checklist.

We got a chance to check out Restroom Alert one of the 464 projects found at OneSpark in Jacksonville.

Check out our video interview with Rod Dornsife one of the co-founders of Restroom Alert below.

For more on Restroom Alert visit restroomalert.com or follow them on Twitter @restroomalert

We’ve got a lot more OneSpark stories for you here at nibletz.com The Voice Of Startups Everywhere Else

Atlanta Startup AppPax Is Making Life Easier For Enterprise Developers [interview]

There are a lot of enterprise developers out there that are grinding their gears working on similar projects for different companies or clients. While developers need to stay competitive and productive, there are several menial tasks that could be done in a much easier way.

For instance, right now hundreds of developers are building enterprise enrollment modules. Typically these enrollment modules are just one tiny part of the overall finished project. A lot of time is being wasted with all these different engineers working on the same things as just part of the bigger project.

While we’re not suggesting some kind of socialist, round all the developers together in one circle and sing kumbaya kind of thing, there’s an Atlanta based startup that has a solution.

AppPax offers a cloud based platform delivering pre-built business modules that are customizable and accesible through a robust API. Their AppPax Central hub offers “cross everything” for all platforms mobile, web and desktop. This means that developers using AppPax can get the nuts and bolts from their cloud based hub and work on the actual project rather than building the initial tools.

AppPax was founded by Bill Forsyth an enterprise software engineer with 29 years experience.

We got a chance to talk to Forsyth. Check out our interview below:

What is AppPax?

We offer pre-built business modules running in a cloud-based hub — all accessible via a robust API and configurable through AppPax Central. Our webware is cross-everything. No more choosing between platform or device. No more deciding whether to develop a mobile app, mobile site or desktop experience.

In layman’s terms, how does it work? (In other words how would you explain it to your grandmother)

Developers can now call ready-made, integrated business modules from any device (web app, mobile app, etc.) instead of building features from scratch. Right now, hundreds of developers are building enterprise enrollment modules.

That’s a waste. With AppPax Access, for example, they don’t have to build it, they can just call it and load in their data.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

For the past 29 years, Bill Forsyth has been conceiving and building enterprise systems, merging the technical with the aesthetic, all to create simple solutions to complex problems. He’s held technical and leadership roles at S1 Corporation, EDS, Gemstone Systems, Bellsouth, and Platinum Software.

Where is AppPax based?

AppPax is based in Atlanta, Ga.

What is the startup scene like there?

Young, but growing. And the influence of Georgia Tech is helping to fuel it.

How did you come up with the idea for AppPax?

Bill created AppPax after years of building business systems using unnecessarily complex processes, working on system integration, playing World of Warcraft, observing the rise of mobile, and realizing that half to three quarters of all data models and features of business applications apply to other business applications. Why are we still building them from scratch?

What problem does AppPax solve?

AppPax eliminates the need to spec, design, model, and develop the majority of any business app’s features from scratch. It also makes all app features available via secure API to all devices. It’s already built. So don’t build it. Just call it, with AppPax.

What’s your secret sauce, what makes you different?

Pre-built, integrated enterprise business models in a cloud-based hub built on universal data models. The hub is the difference.

Why now?

We’re entering a new phase in the evolution of software development. Common features of apps (access, people, products, requirements, agreements, files, etc.) will simply exist in the cloud for you to call, already built, already integrated with each other. In the old days we coded everything every time. Then we went to libraries you could “link” in. Then to SDK’s and open source. And you still needed to create and operate your database, backend, and now do that cross-device.

BaaS tried to help that but as it exists right now it might actually be a retrograde since it once again requires you to design, model, and build most everything all over again. But at AppPax we’ve invented a way to provide core, integrated business features you can simply call in the cloud yet still use your own data.

Developers already no longer consider building their own maps. They simply call GoogleMaps, Mapquest, or something in the cloud. Nor would most developers think of building their own payment processor. They just call PayPal, Chargify or something in the cloud. AppPax now provides similar services but for core business features. We believe in the near future you won’t have to build or assemble most of your app. You’ll simply call the features you need from your front-ends, cross-device, allowing you to focus on your own unique front-ends. AppPax aims to lead and dominate that market.

What are some milestones you’ve achieved?

We just released AppPax Beta with our first five Pax: People, Access, Tracking, Files, Contact. We have more waiting in the wings.

You can find out more at AppPax.com

New York startup Problemio wants to help other startups fail less.

Jax Startup Floppy Entertainment Founder: OneSpark Sparking Startup Community

OneSpark starts this Wednesday and runs through Sunday. It’s the first of it’s kind crowdfunding festival for “creators”. OneSpark is taking the crowdfunding concept made popular by Kickstarter, Indiegogo and of course every single startup that’s popped up since we’ve been waiting for the JOBSact,and brought it off line.
The festival will be like SXSW interactive meets SXSW music and everything in between as creators from around the world spread out at venues across downtown Jacksonville. For a good summary of OneSpark check out this story.

We’ll be talking with lot’s of creators on-site and some as we lead up to this epic event.

First up we have Michael Le Manna, the founder of Floppy Entertainment. In our interview with Le Manna he credits the OneSpark festival for really sparking startups and the startup community in Jacksonville. Even Shahid Khan, the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars, is on board.

Check out the interview below and for more on OneSpark visit beonespark.com

What is your startup, what does it do?

Floppy Entertainment is the first game company in Jacksonville Florida, founded in 2012. It consists of a small group of highly talented programmers and artists. The vision of the company is to create a new and innovative gaming experience for people on a mobile platform to play for brief periods of time throughout the course of a normal day. Our interactive games are fun, easily understood and challenging. Players will be compelled to play again and again.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Michael La Manna creative lead, audio designer. Has been writing music for games and media for over 14 years.

Brian Marshburn programmer. Started programming games at the age of 8.

Thomas Schaffer lead technical artist. Master user of Maya software.

What is the startup culture like in Jacksonville?

Other than One Spark there has never been any support for a start up tech company such as game development.

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

The big challenge working in game development is the expensive software licensing fees.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

We have won multiple indie development contest and secured sponsorship from Microsoft.

What are your next milestones?

Our first mobile game will be released in the next 4 months.

Who are your mentors and role models?

Other independent game company’s such as Trendy Entertainment in Gainesville Florida, they have been very supportive.

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

One advantage is lack of competition but the big disadvantage is lack or interest of local support.

What’s next for your startup?

Develop and release at a minimum of 3 games a year.

Where can people find out more?

www.floppyent.com Or on twitter as floppyent

Check out more about OneSpark here at nibletz.com the voice of startups everywhere else

Startup Front, There’s Something Brewing Outside Of Chicago

We’re pretty confident that over the course of the last year Chicago’s thriving tech startup scene has proven the folks at PandoDaily wrong, very wrong. Chicago has one of the fastest growing startup tech scenes in the world. Their 1871 incubator and startup epicenter is amazing, producing hit after hit and now home to TechStars Chicago.
It’s this eruption of startup activity that got serial entrepreneur Kelly Schwedland and entrepreneur Nat Finn talking about what they could do on the other side of Chicago, in Valparaiso Indiana.

We’ve reported on Indiana’s other thriving startup communities, like Indianapolis, home to the Speak Easy, Developer Town and Verge Indy events. We even featured Speak Easy Executive Director Denver Hutt as one of our Bad Ass Startup Chicks.

Now, those in Northwest Indiana don’t need to head into the big city to have access to startup resources thanks to Schwedland, Finn and a host of other collaborators.

Startup Front started out as a lunch meet up for tech leaders, entrepreneurs and startup founders. Like every great startup though, they pivoted and have now become an accelerator, which will launch next year, with a ten year plan of cranking out at least 2 startups per session ripe for an IPO.

Nibletz co-founder and new CEO, Nick Tippmann, was a guest speaker at the kick off event for the new Startup Front last week in Valparaiso. Over the next two weeks we will feature a series of videos from Startup Front that discuss building startup communities in the heartland.

Check out the video below where Tippmann interviews both Finn and Schwedland. They discuss bringing some of the attributes of the third largest city in the United States, just miles down the road to North West Indiana.

Check out Startup Front at startupfront.org

We’ve got more startup stories from Indiana here at nibletz.com