Cincinnati Startup Pressing Issues Wants To Re-Invent Journalism

There are problems with digital journalism, or so says Brad Merrill, the founder of Cincinnati startup Pressing Issues. After years of experience in digital journalism, Merrill and his cohort of journalists decided they wanted to do something new.

“It all started when a group of journalists decided they wanted something new to read. They were looking for a news magazine that not only told them everything that was happening around the world each week, but that did so in an entertaining way. Ideally it would be gleefully sweary and eager to offend the rich and powerful. They realized this meant it probably wouldn’t include any ads,” Merrill told us in an interview.

Pressing Issues is launching today with a model similar to NSFWCorp in Las Vegas. All of the content is subscriber based and behind a paywall. They’ve eliminated ads entirely. Pressing Issues is going to have to demonstrate the strength of their content in bulk and fast.

To do that they are making sure their paid contributors provide thought provoking, and entertaining content, both are important parts for Merrill.

Check out the rest of our interview with Merrill on launch day, below.

What is your startup called?

Pressing Issues

What does your company do?

As the death of real journalism looms over the horizon, we’re paying great journalists to produce investigative pieces and long-form essays about topics other publications aren’t covering, and we’re making their jobs even harder by demanding that their stories be entertaining. We’re employing a paid subscription model with a strict paywall on our digital edition (print is coming in a couple of months!), and we’re going the 100% reader-supported route with no ads.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

It all started when a group of journalists decided they wanted something new to read. They were looking for a news magazine that not only told them everything that was happening around the world each week, but that did so in an entertaining way. Ideally it would be gleefully sweary and eager to offend the rich and powerful. They realized this meant it probably wouldn’t include any ads.

Upon realizing that this magazine didn’t actually exist, they decided to create it.

I am founder Brad Merrill, and I’ve written for and edited many digital publications in the past. I’ve long recognized the problems with digital journalism, and I decided that by not being part of the solution, I’m being part of the problem.

Where are you based?

I’m based in Hamilton, Ohio, just outside of Cincinnati. I was very disappointed to have missed out on Everywhere Else – I hope you guys will be back in the area in the future!

What’s the startup scene like where you are based?

As a tech/startup blogger myself, I’ve had the pleasure of connecting with so many brilliant entrepreneurial minds here in the Cincinnati area. The startup community is fantastic.

What problem do you solve?

We don’t have a mission statement, but if we did it would probably say something about “reinventing journalism.” It’s a broken business. Everyone wants to make an app and make journalism smaller and smaller. I say it’s time to make journalism big again. That’s why we’re publishing 3,000-word pieces online, and 10,000-word pieces in print. We’re serious about this.

As for topics, we just like good stories. Bonus points for really big stories. For example, one of our first pieces is about a former cop in Las Vegas who wrote a book encouraging the use of hostage negotiation techniques to manipulate women for sex and, in his words, “get past no.” He’s now in charge of a downtown watch group intended to keep people (particularly women who get off work late) safe in the city—presumably from the very things he advocates in his book. Not the best man for the job, I’d say, so we’re exposing the whole thing.

Where can people find out more? Any social media links you want to share?

People can find out more and subscribe at pressingissues.net

When You Need Peace & Quiet On Demand, Turn To Breather

You’re in the city and need to knock out some work, make a few calls, or simply grab a breather. What are your options? You could go back to your hotel room, find the local Starbucks to fight for the outlets, or spend hundreds of dollars at the local co-working space. I don’t know about you, but this is a problem that I experience way more than I would like to admit.

Breather is a new startup that intends to bring private space on demand, replacing the coffee shop workspace right from your phone. It is like Uber for workspaces. Launched in June this year at Le Web London by co-founder and CEO Julien Smith, his approach reminded me of something I would have read in a Rockefeller story, paced and deliberate.

“Breather is a network of beautiful spaces inside a city. You can use the space whenever you want and where ever you want and you can unlock them with your phone,” says Smith. “Fundamentally, Breather provides peace and quiet on demand”.

Smith said “It seems crazy, it seems kind of radical actually. The ability to walk through a city and at any time “order private space could work, if we could just find a way to make it work. That’s why we launched Breather.”

Breather prepares peaceful workspace that will give its users the same experience every time. Like your favorite meal at your favorite restaurant, you will know what to expect each time you return, regardless of where you are. By placing sensors in each room, Breather know what things are being used, what things are not, and how exactly to better optimize their spaces. Don’t be scared though, there’s only a camera on the lock outside the room.

Safety is also being carefully considered. Not just anyone can use a Breather space. You have to be invited by someone who is gong to vouch for you and because your credit card is put into the app prior to booking, it is unlikely that someone will abuse the space with illegal activities.

They have already received requests from cities around the globe asking to place workspaces in their cities. These types of requests prove that the concept is in demand and Breather is serious about controlling the speed of growth and locations. Growing in the right order is essential to their success.

The Breather team is the strongest piece of the startup. Smith told me that his mobile team is one of the best in the world. The team handled Angry Bird level traffic before coming to take this challenge on. The excitement in his voice when talking about this team was almost contagious.

Soon, Breather will be looking for community managers to ensure that specific cities are being managed properly. Smith told me that this is the weakest part of the startup at the moment, and they knew from the beginning how important this role was going to be.

“It seems kind of crazy, that an app on a phone could unlock hundreds of spaces in a city whenever you want it to for a reasonable fee. When it happens, you will never be able to look at a city in another way again. You will go to a city that does not have private space on demand and you will be like “this city is backwards” just the same way that ordering a taxi the regular way now seems backwards,” Smith said.

Breather will launch in New York City in October and will grow to other larger cities like San Francisco. After that, they could appear anywhere across the world.

Tony Monteleone (@StartupTony) is a serial entrepreneur and does Business Development for PERQ, a measured marketing software and services company that specializes in increasing online and in store traffic for businesses. He also serves as the Indianapolis Chapter Director for Startup Grind.

GigTank Demo Day Kicks Off With Princeton Startup Mira

Chattanooga’s GigTank accelerator kicked off their second annual demo day on Tuesday afternoon. In perusing the startups in the second cohort before they took the stage, we quickly realized that startups from around the world were accepted into the program in the first GigCity in the U.S. (sorry Kansas City).

GigTank attracted startups from Bulgaria (HutGrip), The Cayman Islands (Tidbit.co) and of course across this country. One of those startups hailed from Princeton and chose to come to Chattanooga for access to the extremely fast internet and the wide range of mentors, lead mentors, and seed capital that Sheldon Grizzle, Mike Bradshaw, and the team at GigTank have provided.

Mira is the latest startup to tackle the offline retail experience with data points and information typically only found online. Now we’ve talked with a few startups in the space, but what they lacked was an actual hardware/software platform in the store that would allow the customer to get an online experience within the walls of the retail store.

During the presentation they talked about a woman, Michelle, who is looking for running shoes specifically for a 10k. She forgot to do research so rather than postponing the purchase or going “window shopping,” she was able to use the Mira Pod, an in-store interactive sign to choose the shoes that she needed. After she went through her personal experience, she was able to try the shoes on, pay, and get on with her day.

There is definitely value in bringing that kind of web experience into a retail outlet. Check out the pitch below to better understand Mira.

You can find out more about Mira here at shopwithmira.com

Here’s our interview with Mira Designs:

And here’s their pitch video:

London Startup Simplifies Employee Performance Reviews, Moves Them To The Cloud

Nyk Lygkonis and James Strickland are two London based entrepreneurs who are looking to change the way employee performance reviews are done. Their startup, Appraisly, is being built in a clandestine location in the middle of London’s thriving startup hub. They’ve found great wifi, coffee and a color printer in the lobby of a swank hotel. That’s where these two financial guys by day are perfecting the art of performance reviews.

The product they are bootstrapping will help companies both large and small with employee retention. By having their employee performance platform based in the cloud, it offers easy access for both employees and managers to reference past reviews, keep up with goals, set new goals and conquer milestones. Long gone are the days that an employee should need to wait for an HR person to rifle through file cabinets to find the latest review.

While the company insists that for employees and employers to benefit from reviews they need to discuss them and have an actual in person dialogue their SaaS platform also allows employees and employers to communicate within the platform on a goal. This makes it easy for the employee and employer to remain on the same page. This can be critical for retaining good talent and for employees to set and know benchmarks so they can get raises.

We got a chance to talk with the guys behind Appraisly, check out the interview below.

What is your start-up, what does it do?

In your day-to-day job have you ever had a bad performance review? How did it feel? Unfair? Unjustified? Like your side of things had not been taken into account? Evidence had been ignored? Biased? All of the above?

Appraisly is a cloud-based employee performance management service which will improve the way performance appraisals are conducted at our customers businesses. Our solution allows business owners to manage employee performance in a manner that aligns individual goals to those of the business, in real time and in the cloud. It’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

Think of Employee Performance Management as all of the activities that ensure that goals are consistently being met in an effective and efficient manner. It is the method by which job performance of an employee is evaluated. We think every business (small, medium or large) in every country should be doing this; and if they’re already doing it they should be doing it better.

Appraisly will provide the guidance, tools, processes and outputs to enable business to conduct effective and value adding performance appraisals without requiring any integration with existing systems.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

I’m James and my co-founder is Nik. I’m from Cape Town, South Africa and have a background in corporate and retail finance while consulting to some of the world’s biggest organizations. I have extensive experience with large scale talent management software (solutions provided by SAP, Oracle and IBM) and personal experience with the ups and downs of the performance management process at some of the world’s top consultancies. On the start-up scene I’ve been involved in a couple of businesses including a custom t-shirt website for social media trends, an affiliate advertising master plan which never took off, and a fledgling financial trend analysis business. On the side I am a passionate PHP developer currently learning about the joys of Ruby on Rails and Python. And I love sci-fi (especially Dune).

Nik is an ex-pat who fled the sunshine and blue seas of Greece to land up in the Welsh countryside. He mastered the town of Aberystwyth and climbed the ranks of one of the world’s leading commercial finance businesses, and ended up in the same consulting jobs as me a couple of times. He’s a pitbull and doesn’t understand the word ‘no’; literally. He has a real problem with authority but is the driving force behind some of the great work we’ve done on Appraisly so far. He’s big into Basketball but has wisely decided to focus on start-ups, since he’s a short white Greek guy who can’t jump very high. He codes on the side

Where are you based?

We’re based in the cultural melting pot of London, U.K. We also have full time jobs in the Financial Services sector at the moment (but hopefully not for much longer). We tend to operate out of a swanky hotel but this is mostly because we like the waitresses, the beers are cheap and the wi-fi is free. Also there’s a color printer. We just pretend that we are staying in the hotel, but really we just rock up each evening and use their facilities. I will decline to mention the name for obvious reasons.

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

We are fairly new to the startup culture, but outside of Silicon Valley I would say that London has a great deal to offer especially around the Old Street area. There are meet-ups occurring all the time and plenty of interesting ideas and people to meet. It seems like every person we meet in our day job has an idea for a start-up too – probably because there’s a lot of really motivating success stories in the UK right now, and some really viable channels to obtain funding. Having said that, I think the proportion of folks who actually get up off their seats to make their ideas a reality is really small; and the people who have the determination and motivation to succeed is even less.

What problem does your startup solve?

Small businesses aren’t doing performance appraisals. They should be. Bigger businesses probably are doing performance appraisals, but they aren’t doing them well enough. This affects people’s job happiness and success, and ultimately affects the bottom line of even the smallest business. Overall, employee performance is not measured or managed accurately.

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

Doing valuable and unbiased market research is hard, and something we’ve failed to do in past ventures. We’ve been incredibly candid with friends, family and people we meet – we are pitching the idea to every man and his dog. But getting honest unbiased market research has been tough. Here’s how we overcame that: we built a market research survey on Google docs and personally emailed everyone we knew. We put ads on Gumtree and Google to garner additional responses; we promoted the hell out of it on Twitter. In addition, we harvested as many publications and research papers as we could from the routes available to us in our day jobs. At this early stage the data looks really promising, and most importantly it’s proving some of the hypotheses we initially conjectured. The findings are proving very useful as we move through the construction of our detailed business plan.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

Getting off the ground in the right way has been a real win. We’ve tried the lean approach in a few other scenarios but we’ve really not found that method to be a great success. With Appraisly, we wanted to plan things out properly and that’s been a huge help. By planning I mean the following: We’ve drawn up a macro plan which outlines where we want to be in 5 years, where we want to be in 1 year, and then what we need to do to get there. Some of the key outcomes from that process have been things like “We COULD go away and build this thing right away; but it’s more sensible to plan, design and then raise investment before starting”. We feel so passionate about this idea that just going away and doing a slap-bang job would be doing a great disservice to ourselves and to our idea. Having said all that we do understand that our plan almost certainly will not survive the first investor contact, let alone the first customer contact – but it will get us to those contact points in good shape, and that’s a big deal.

We’ve also drawn up a 6 week plan to get us out of the plan phase, and into design. That’s nearly complete and we’re looking forward to wire framing.

We’ve also built a holding page (htttp://www.appraisly.com), bootstrapped it and launched an EC2 instance to host the site. We’ve started a blog (http://www.appraisly.com/blog), built up a good network on Twitter (@appraisly) and most importantly, registered from early stage investor events. This gives us real targets to aim for and those targets align to our macro plan.

What are your next milestones?

At the moment we’re finalizing our detailed business plan for 12^th May, as well as a ten page investor pitch and a couple of one-pager infographics. Following that we’re going into a detailed design phase for the following 6 weeks. That will flesh out our major product offering – we’re really looking forward to this. We’ll be doing an extensive wireframe in Balsamiq and preparing detailed use-cases. Upon completion of the design phase (mid-June) we’ll be heading into the funding/investing phase.

Who are your mentors and role models?

Our role models are Mark Cuban (the man started an IT business, bought a sports team and starred in Entourage!), Elon Musk (the guy has started three separate $1bn businesses – enough said) and Kenny Powers (fictitious), the washed out baseball player from the HBO show Eastbound and Down.

Our mentors include our buddy David Batey (@davidlbatey) a coding genius and lead developer on a couple of awesome projects like Shutl, The Mediagraph and many others. If you want to mentor us give us a shout on Twitter, we’d love to hear any advice you can offer to a new start-up.

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

Our major advantages include ready access to the rest of the world (outside of the US). European venture capitalists are on our doorstep, along with a number of potential Arabian and Asian investors. The scene is growing massively and we’ll be part of that wave. We think investors outside of Silicon Valley are looking for founders who are serious, experienced, determined and will not give up. That’s us.

The disadvantages are probably on the flip-side – from what we’ve read, having never visited Silicon Valley, the culture is very immersive; everyone is talking about start-ups or knows someone who knows someone. I guess the disadvantage we have is in terms of the networking possibilities available to us. We also have to ditch our full time jobs and focus exclusively on Appraisly.

What’s next for your startup?

Getting featured in Nibbletz!

We’ll be kicking off our external facing campaign on June 13^th at the Launch 48 Showcase event in London. Look out for us there, and stay in touch on Twitter (@appraisly) and via our Blog in the mean time. You can find out more at appraisly.com

ThisChattanooga startup is gamifying workplace wellness.

Bizoogo Is A Modern Bulletin Board Connecting Founders, Startups and Entrepreneurs [interview]

The latest “cofounder platform” promising to connect cofounders to launch the next wave of startups is in London and has a great name. London startup Bizoogo, is allowing UK entrepreneurs to search, connect and collaborate with partners and co-found new businesses.

“The website is organised as a Noticeboard for “People” and “Ideas”. If you’re looking to find a co-founder to help develop your business idea, search our database of “People”; if you want to contribute your time and skills to a new startup opportunity as a co-founder, search our database of “Ideas”.”

“To get started,you sign up for free; update your profile by specifying your location, expertise and the industries you’re interested in. If you have a startup idea, post a brief, specify your location, the industry of your idea, and the expertise you’re looking for in a co-founder. Now you can find or be found according to location, expertise and industry preferences. You can shortlist your top picks and connect privately or publicly via our messaging features. And when you’re ready to meet, come along to our monthly co-founder networking meetups to find out whether the connection is as good face-to-face as it is online.” Erez Nounou told nibletz.com in an interview.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Erez Nounou (CEO) – Erez started out as a commercial lawyer before jumping ship and getting involved in the London startup scene. Alongside founding bizoogo, he has also been involved in digital media and angel investing.

Nicolás Klein (CTO) – Nico is our all-knowing technical guru. From Buenos Aires, he’s been programming for over 6 years and has several desktop and mobile (android) applications to his name. He’s now working on the next set of game-changing features on bizoogo.

Where are you based?

London, UK.

What’s the startup scene/culture like where you’re based?

The London startup scene is buzzing. We’ve got some of the best support and infrastructure in the world and the quality of our startup and investment community continues to improve and influence the European tech space. It’s a good time to be a startup in London, and as a grassroots entrepreneur community, we’ve got great seats.

How did you come up with the idea for Bizoogo?

The idea came about as a solution to my own startup dilemma of having an idea but not having the technical skills or the industry know-how to develop it. Starting up can be expensive and before proof of concept, risky. It seemed like a good idea to have a go-to, where you know from the start there’s a bunch of people from a range of industries and areas of expertise available and interested in working together, either to eliminate bad ideas early or to validate and develop good ones. That would give us all a cost-effective opportunity to start new businesses and to build better resourced teams from the start.

How did you come up with the name?

It all stemmed from the root word ‘zoog’, which in Hebrew means partner; the website is a place where entrepreneurs are able to find the partners they need to ‘go into business’. Put it all together and you get bizoogo – you go into business! The interlinking O’s in the logo design represent the partnership made up of ‘People’ and ‘Ideas’.

What problem does Bizoogo solve?

With an “ambition gap” in the UK that sees more than 44% of the population wanting to start a business but not doing it, and that “gap” largely follows worldwide, our aim is to bridge the gap by matching the ideators with the technical help they need to execute. Working together lets both sides bridge the creative, technical and financial gap that holds them back; it’s also a really easy, effective and fun way of validating ideas and building a community for those of us that are new to the scene and just scratching and exploring the surface.

What’s your secret sauce?

It’s informal, easy to use, clear in purpose, non-discriminatory and effective. Members across all industries and areas of expertise are able to connect and work together in partnerships that share the talent, time and cost of developing a new business. Instead of paying disconnected freelancers at a time when risks are high and money is limited, anyone can now find the people they need or collaborate on the ideas they like, with a shared interest to make it work. We also realise that lasting relationships don’t exist virtually, so having face-to-face opportunities to meet really helps.

Are you bootstrapped or funded?

Bootstrapped…investors, get in touch.

What is your goto market strategy?

We’re using social media to spread the word via facebook and twitter; we promote our events via meetup; we’re big on strategic partnerships and try to attend and get involved at as many industry events as possible.

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

The toughest challenge was finding the right people to work with. To start a new venture, you often don’t know where to start, who to ask or trust and there’s generally a lot of trial-and-error, particularly with freelancers. I think it’s a problem which knocks back a lot of people with business ideas because going beyond your own limited network is a step too far in the dark for most. We’ve created and personally used Bizoogo to help overcome that problem, and it’s fast becoming a really credible go-to community and first point of call for many UK entrepreneurs, because you’re sure to find a mix of different skills, experience and ideas, with the joint aim of collaborating and co-founding new ventures.

Who are some of your mentors and business role models?

We’ve got a solid network of experienced and exited entrepreneurs across digital and traditional business. I think we’re lucky in that we meet so many passionate and enthusiastic entrepreneurs through our events and our day-to-day that it always provides us with a good measure of inspiration and learning.

What’s next for Bizoogo?

We’re looking to create an end-to-end startup ecosystem where ideas are conceived, developed, grown and funded into profitable businesses.

We want the platform to become a creative, dynamic and ambitious hub packed full of ideas and professionals looking to get involved across the industries, and we want to make sure we’re able to help any business from idea through to sustainability. Watch this space!

You can find out more about Bizoogohere.

This California startup is making smoking marijuana more professional

PulseWallet The Mobile Wallet Startup We Knew Was Coming. Video Interview

With companies like Google, Paypal and now Isis looking to become the mobile wallet company of choice, there are already new technologies popping up that will make those three alternatives look archaic if executed correctly.

New Jersey startup PulseWallet is ready to challenge the big companies that are pouring millions of dollars into their mobile wallet products with the touch of a finger. PulseWallet’s technology will allow users to keep their wallet information protected and then ready to use via their own finger.

In this video interview they tell us that it’s not a finger print technology but rather biometric security. When the user couples their own finger with a four digit pin, it’s an easy, safe and secure way to pay. Forget using your phone as a mobile wallet with NFC or QR codes, PulseWallet tells us that the future of payment technologies is here.

Imagine going to a gas station or a restaurant and just using your finger to pay.

We got to interview PulseWallet founder Matt Saricicek the cofounder of Pulse Wallet in Eureka Park at CES 2013 earlier this month. It seems this team is onto the future of mobile wallet technology, before the big boys even have their systems in full use.

Check out our interview video below and for more visit pulsewallet.co

It’s not too late to get your startup into the biggest startup conference in the U.S. everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

CheckOutTheLatest Lets You Check Out The Latest Videos Just About Everywhere

A New York startup called CheckOutTheLatest lets you do just that. The video aggregation and search startup populates over 250 million videos from the top video sites like Youtube, Vimeo and Dailymotion to give you access to one site that can find just about any video on the planet, that you may be looking for.

“The idea came to us a year ago while on twitter. People were always tweeting @ us hoping to get us to “Check out” their latest Youtube videos or go watch their vimeo vids.” co-founder Deni Belanich tells us about how they came up with the idea for a super video search engine.

We got a chance to interview Belanich, check out the interview below.

Joist Helps Contractors Be More Efficient On The Go

Contractors spend a lot of time on the road and working on various projects. Typically they have to keep hand written notes in notebooks and on clipboards and then either they transcribe all that information themselves into Excel or Word, or take it back to the office for someone else to do. For some smaller independent contractors that typically means their significant other is spent doing data entry instead of savoring what little time they have outside of “work”.

A Winnipeg startup called JoistApp is looking to solve that problem. JoistApp is a mobile app that contractors can use on their iPad, iPhone or Android device which allows them to manage their business on the go. Contractors can create invoices, create estimates, send invoices, manage projects and accept payments on the go. Sure there are plenty of business management apps out there but JoistApp was created specifically for contractors.

We got a chance to talk with Brendon Sedo, co-founder of JoistApp, check out the interview below.

BargainAdsPlus Is A Curated Smorgasboard Of Video Ads For Every Business

If your business needs to get a video online, one place you may want to try is Sugar Land startup Bargainadsplus. This startup even describes themselves as “no business quite like us”. That’s because they offer video ads, video classifieds, ratings and more. Business owners benefit from having a place to put a variety of video ad content. Consumers benefit because theres no cost to peruse the listings on bargainadsplus.com or connect with service providers.

Bargainadsplus also connects customers with daily deals without having to pay a middle man.

We got a chance to talk with Geoffrey Marlin, founder of Bargainadsplus. Check out our interview below.

Chicago Startup: Rentalutions, Helping Landlords New & Old

The downturn in the economy over the last few years has forced several people, into becoming landlords. People who had a great deal on a house before the economy went down, were forced to start renting property. They wanted to hold onto their property and at the same time make money to pay their mortgages down so these new properties weren’t a total write off.

A Chicago Startup, incubating at 1871, called Rentalutions is there to help those landlords and then tens of thousands more who’ve been renting out property for years.

Rentalutions is a complete landlord tenant system. Tenants can set up recurring rental payments using the system. They can also turn in maintenance requests around the clock and communicate with their landlords directly.

For landlords, Rentalutions is one centralized system that keeps up with just about every aspect of renting property. The platform even allows landlords to list a vacant property and screen for potential tenants within the system. Once they take on a new tenant they can convert that record to a tenant record without having to re-input data over and over again.

Rentalutions, founded by two long time friends Ryan Coon and Laurence Jankeow, hopes to become the complete turn key system for the over 6 million do it yourself landlords across the country. The company provides do it yourself landlords with similar resources that some of the top property management companies are using.

We got a chance to interview Coon. Check out our interview below.

Australian Startup: School Hours Helps People Find Jobs Around, School Hours

We’re hopeful that either this Australian startup will come to the United States or someone will do something very similar. School Hours is a new startup, based in Australia that helps Australian parents find flexible jobs. Sure not every person that uses SchoolHours will have kids, but all of those using it will require some kind of flexibility.

After checking out SchoolHours even further you begin to realize that people taking night or even day classes can utilize the platform. People with second jobs can utilize the platform. Even those people that have a hobby they pursue at a set schedule can utilize SchoolHours to find the best jobs with flexibility in mind.

It’s no secret that more and more job seekers are taking culture into consideration when looking for those jobs, and of course flexibility in hours can play a big role in that.

SchoolHours is packed with a variety of jobs and a variety of schedules.

We got a chance to interview the founders of SchoolHours. Check out the interview below.

Startup Interview With New York Startup: tipspring

More and more social startups are beginning to harness the power of the social web to replace traditional “word of mouth” advertising. It’s always been said that “word of mouth” advertising is the best way to advertise a product, service, brand, store or restaurant. In fact, we reported earlier this week on Barrel of Jobs, a Washington DC startup using the social web for “word of mouth” connecting jobs to good quality candidates.

New York startup tipspring is using the power of the social web and it’s “word of mouth” advertising to promote major brands. On their website they call tipspring a marketplace for sharing and saving, and who doesn’t like sharing and saving. Not only that but tipspring allows users to accumulate points to win some really great gifts.

tipspring’s founder Greg Doran has said that users have won prizes like $1,000 gift cards and VIP invites to top fashion shows in New York City. What Doran has essentially done is taken many of the most popular brands who offer their own loyalty and reward programs and put them together in one central marketplace. Gone are the days that you have to sign up for twenty different reward clubs and then remember to go back and check them.

We got a chance to interview Doran about tipspring. Check out the interview below:

Interview with South Carolina Startup: Ridepost

There are a lot of startups out there trying to challenge everyday corporate models like the hotel and the car with peer to peer sharing services. Ridepost, a South Carolina startup incubating at Iron Yard, is looking to enter the world of peer to peer vehicle sharing. Sure there are other startups tackling the same issue, but it’s going to come down to scalability, go to market strategy and execution.

Ridepost will eliminate the need for a taxicab and other for hire vehicle services by connecting passengers and drivers in a safe and social setting.

Ridesharing in this setting isn’t new around the world, just in the US. In fact it was traveling abroad where Ridepost co-founder Marty Bauer, first experienced ride sharing and wanted to bring this money saving way to travel back to the U.S. Bauer realized that ride sharing wasn’t about getting in the car with strangers it was about traveling.

We got a chance to talk with Blair Deckard, Ridepost co-founder and head of marketing, about their startup. Check out the interview below: