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Louisville Startup: Kodable Teaching Kids 5 And Up How To Code

When you start talking to technical co-founders of today’s startups, most of them talk about how they’ve been coding in some form or another since they were little kids. Such is the case for Jon Mattingly the co-founder of Louisville startup SurfScore and their newest product Kodable. Mattingly started “fiddling” with computers at the age of 6, and now he and cofounder Grechen Huebner are setting out to teach a new breed of grade school kids how to code.

Kodable is a new iPad game that teaches kids aged five and up how to code. This is taught by teaching the fundamentals of programming and problem solving in a fun way. Kids are learning these fundamentals without even realizing it.

“It introduces the basic concepts of programming, including conditionals, loops and functions, in an abstract way simple enough for young children to understand. Kids give the characters, called fuzzes, commands that guide them through a maze. This challenges children to think through a problem in multiple ways before deciding on a solution, then rewards them for choosing the most efficient path.” Huebner told us in an interview.

There’s a variety of software out there now that teaches even younger children the fundamentals of reading. Huebner and Mattingly thought that if those skills could be learned at an early age, programming could be taught the same way. Mattingly credits Hubener’s artistic ability with actually making these skills fun to learn and easy to understand.

Check out the rest of our interview with the SurfScore/Kodable team below.

Vancouver Startup: Perch Turns iOS Devices Into Hands Free Cameras and More

Being on the road as much as we are here at nibletz.com the voice of startups everywhere else, we’ve come to realize how useful the iPhone and iPad have become to stay intune with what’s going on at home. For instance, FaceTime with my five year old daughter is something we do multiple times per day, every day. FaceTime is perhaps one of the easiest to use video chat apps ever created. A startup in Vancouver Canada, called Perch, has made it even easier.

Perch allows you to set up stationary iOS devices throughout your home or office. This unique app builds in video along with motion detection. Your iOS device becomes a Perch camera. All you have to do is walk up to the stationary iOS device and start talking, Perch knows to start rolling audio and video. The Perch app then uploads the video to the cloud making it easy for the recipient to get it.

Perch cameras can be used for surveillance and security, or as a great interactive tool for the whole family. Perch calls this hands free video operation, “ambient video”. In addition to those features you can also text and video chat with anyone in your Perch family.

The app was born out of a previous startup called Redhand which turned iOS devices into sophisticated security cameras.

We got a chance to talk with the team behind Perch. Check out the interview below.

New York Startup: Unpakt Brings The Expedia Model To Moving

The Expedia model of comparison shopping and booking online for the best discounted prices is a proven model that’s being used for several new verticals. Earlier this week we reported on Tennessee startup MDSave which applies a similar model to finding low cost health care for self pay patients. We’ve also reported on Nashville startup Rentstuff which applies a similar model to the merchandise rental industry.

As a testimony to the success of the Expedia model in other verticals, MDSave just raised $1 million dollars for their startup while Rentstuff was recently acquired.

Today we’ve found New York startup Unpakt which is applying the same type model to moving.

Sharone Ben-Harosh is the founder of Unpakt and a 20 year veteran in the moving industry. His first moving startup is FlatRate moving which he founded in 1991. FlatRate Moving takes away the uncertainty associated with hourly moving in exchange for a more honest flat rate move.

Unpakt works on the same principals, but on a larger scale. Users simply put in where they are moving from and to, how much stuff they have and what, if any, special services they need. Unpakt than brings back several real time quotes of movers that can do your move on the date requested and an actual flat rate quote so you know what you’re getting into. You also book the move online which takes a major part of the headache of moving, out of the picture.

We got a chance to talk with Ben-Harosh about Unpakt. Check out the interview below.

Nashville Featured in CNN’s “Cities Where Startups Are Thriving”

For years Nashville Tennessee has been known as Music City USA. Country music starts in Nashville. This year ABC is even running an hour long drama based on country music and life in Nashville, called “Nashville”. To people from the midsouth it’s no secret that Nashville also has a thriving entrepreneurial, startup and tech scene, but now they’ve been highlighted in a piece on cnn.com called “Cities Where Startups Are Thriving”.

In 2010 the Nashville Chamber of Commerce in conjunction with the Nashville Technology Council opened the Entrepreneur Center. A team of 75 people in an “entrepreneur task force” began researching and discussing the possibility of creating a resource for Nashville entrepreneurs back in 2007, a year after a similar effort was started in Memphis Tennessee by entrepreneur Eric Mathews and Launch Your City.

The center started as an online resource, and eventually became a brick and mortar centralized location that serves as the startup and technology hub in Music City.

In May of 2010 it was announced that successful healthcare entrepreneur Michael Burcham was picked to lead the Nashville Entrepreneur Center after a six month search.

Now the community is thriving. Nashville investors have put $72 million dollars into 21 companies so far in 2012, nearly double the $38 million dollars and 8 companies they invested in in 2009.

Startups like Edo Interactive that originated in Nashville and now has offices in Nashville and Chicago, has raised over $50 million dollars in venture capital. Another startup, RentStuff, which got it’s formidable start in the Jumpstart Foundry accelerator program, housed at the Entrepreneur Center, followed in Edo Interactive’s footsteps, relocating to Chicago and leading to an acquisition first reported here at nibletz.com late last week.

Nashville is just one of 9 entrepreneurial pockets that LaunchTN is supporting with startup accelerators. The nine high growth areas include four major hubs, Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga and also have five shoulder markets as well. Tennessee was the second state to formalize a Startup America region. That much entrepreneurial and startup activity in the state of over 42,000 square miles means that no Tennessee resident is more than an hour and a half away from an entrepreneurial hub.

Linkage:

CNN’s “Cities Where Startups Thrive”

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Austin Startup: SocialGood.TV May Save Al Gore’s “Current” TV Network

Tennessee native, former Vice President and founder of the internet (lol) Al Gore, got into the tv business with long time friend and notorious tv ad lawyer Joel Hyatt, who was well known for his tv slogan “I’m Joel Hyatt and you have my word on it”. In 2005 they launched “Current TV” a left leaning tv network.

After his failed bid in the 2000 Presidential election Gore, wanted to go into the TV business. The idea was to launch a conventional tv news network to combat the likes of right leaning Fox news. Some feel that CNN already had it’s feet firmly planted in that position, which is why Current never really took off.

Today we learned that Austin startup SocialGood.TV may be buying the national cable network and moving it’s operations to Austin. The Austin Business Journal is reporting that in addition to the move, SocialGood.TV may be looking to move the networks programming more into the middle of the road.

Stephen Vogelpohl, co-founder and CEO of SocialGood.TV has been tight lipped about what the startup is working on exactly, however it’s been learned that they have a few employees who are developing a video engagement platform for social causes.

Current currently offers programming from disgraced New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, ex-Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and “The Views” with Joy Behar. The network is beamed into 71 million homes with about 60 million of those being in the United States. In the grand scheme of things those are relatively low numbers for a cable network.

Vogelpohl told the Austin Statesman that if SocialGood.TV was successful in the bid they would move programming to causes “outside of legistlation” adding:

“Making communities stronger isn’t a left or a right issue,” he said. “We’d want the programming to be more inclusive, educating through entertaining.”

Vogelpohl’s stake holders are to meet next month in Austin to discuss the deal further.

Linkage:

Here’s a link to socialgood.tv

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Meet Indian 500 Startups Company TradeBriefs, Email Newsletters Making People Experts

Sree Vijaykumar, the founder of Indian startup TradeBriefs, has turned an email newsletter business into a bonafide startup with big upside potential. Some may think that email newsletters are old school, and that in this age of mobile first startups and apps, apps and more apps, how could there possibly be room at the 500 startups lair for an email newsletter startup?

TradeBriefs is in the current class at 500startups so obviously there’s more than meets the eye with these email newsletters.

“We have managed to silence our naysayers. People didn’t think an email newsletter business could thrive, but we have successfully demonstrated that our formula works.. Our subscribers and advertisers are both happy, which is great and now we are ready to scale.” Vijaykumar told us in an interview. Scaling is what they are focusing on while they are in Mountain View participating in the 500 startups accelerator program.

TradeBriefs is part human editor and part learning algorithm. They say that their newsletters are helping professionals in their concentrated fields become industry experts.

TradeBriefs began with an industry newsletter for India’s retail industry and quickly expanded to four other verticals including; Telecom, Finance, IT and FMCG. They are planning on adding verticals and expanding out of India.

In the US, Fierce has been able to make a viable business out of email newsletters, turned into websites, within the tech industry. Now, in addition to their websites, and newsletters Fierce also hosts major industry events in the telecom, mobile and tech industries. Is it possible for TradeBriefs to do the same thing? Obviously 500 Startups thinks so.

Check out the rest of our interview with Vijaykumar below.

Startups Everywhere Else See 65% Of US VC Money In Q3 2012

The latest Dow Jones VC Edge report for Q3 2012 was just released. Overall, venture capital investment across the globe has declined 20% quarter over quarter. Deal flow on a global decreased as well by 11% with 1341 deals in Q2 2012 and only 1189 deals in Q3 2012.

Fred Wilson, the Principal at Union Square Ventures, weighed in on the Dow Jones report in a blog post on Sunday. Most notable to Wilson was that VC funding of consumer web and mobile companies was down 42% for the first 9 months of 2012, when compared to the same 9 month period in 2011. He’s careful to note that the decrease has come in follow on funding and not seed funding.

Wilson highlights three trends in consumer based web and mobile companies that are worthy to note. The most important being that mobile first startups need to spend more to simultaneously bring products out across iOS, Android and the web. It also seems that some startups are having a hard time building scale after their mobile products are built.

The Dow Jones VC report said that IT still received the most venture funding with $3 billion dollars spent in the quarter which is still a decrease of 10%.

In overall venture funding the US was the strongest region even with a 17% drop in investment. Israel saw an increase of 43% with $263M invested in Q3.

Source: Dow Jones’ Venture Source

As for the United States, Silicon Valley still commanded 35% of the venture pie, while startups “everywhere else” drew 65% of the venture capital. Dow Jones highlighted the Los Angeles metro (3%), Seattle metro (2%), Chicago metro (4%), Boston metro (10%), New York metro (9%), and Potomac with (3%). All the other US cities that weren’t broken down accounted for 32% of funding.

Wilson’s interpretation of the critical piece of data surrounding follow on funding was spot on. The Wall Street Journal noted that companies that had a seed round in 2007 and 2008 were more successful in raising follow on funding than those who received a seed round in the following years. There was also more money up for grabs just 5 years ago. The median seed round in 2007 and 2008 was $4 million, while today that’s shrunk to $2 million.

Linkage:

Get a free tour of Dow Jones’ Venture Source here

See this Wall Street Journal piece

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Memphis Startup: Cloud For Good Introduces New Product SynagogueCloud

Tal Frankfurt and his CRM/Salesforce startup Cloud For Good has introduced a new product aimed to help synagogues across the country and around the world get more organized. Cloud For Good is a consultancy and product development company that uses primarily SalesForce as it’s back bone and specifically helps non profits.

Today, CRM (Constituent Relationship Management) is shifting towards cloud computing. Instead of buying and maintaining expensive servers and software to manage constituent conversations and information, synagogues can use Web-based (“cloud”) applications to run their CRM—and receive a higher return on their social investment. More than 16,000 nonprofits and educational organizations (and 160,000 companies) are now using Salesforce to transform their operations, reduce risk, and better serve their members.

“The cloud revolution and the Salesforce platform are changing the way synagogues operate today by providing the cutting-edge technology needed to build deep and meaningful relationships with their constituents. Meet the Synagogue Cloud!” Tal Frankfurt said in a statement.

“We tailored Salesforce, one of the most powerful web based applications, to manage every touch the synagogue has with its members, board, volunteers, partners, and vendors. The application allows the synagogue’s staff to manage one list that is integrated with their website, social networks, and financial systems. This application is going to change how synagogues engage and cultivate relationships with their members,” added Frankfurt.

SynagogueCloud manages over 20 different key areas within today’s busy synagogues.

Household Tracking
Organization Tracking
Constituent Tracking
Prospect Management
Volunteer Tracking
Leadership Tracking
Education Tracking
Relationships Tracking
Activity Tracking
Membership Tracking
High Holiday Seating
Events & Classes
Honors & Aliyahs
Revenues
School Tracking
Membership Portal
Email Integration
Direct Mail
Reporting

Frankfurt and the Cloud For Good Team have incorporated every aspect of a synagogues business including social and religious functionality. There are also custom features that can be built into the system. The pricing is incredible as well.

Linkage:

Check out SynagogueCloud here

Check out Cloud for Good here

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Washington DC Startup: MBA Project Search Connects MBA’s & Businesses For Short And Long Term Projects

We’ve reported on several job and recruitment based startups. Most of these startups are attacking problems with hiring and recruiting with technology like video and social media. Some employment based startups, like Memphis startup Work For Pie, are honed in on specific markets like developers. A new Washington DC startup, MBA Project Search, is connecting businesses of any size with MBA students or alumni.

MBA Project Search is getting it’s start out of the Washington DC area and is tapped into the MBA scene at Georgetown University. They’ve also secured relationships with every Ivy institution as well as MBA equivalents internationally.

On the startup side, MBA Project Search is great for startups that need MBA caliber talent but don’t want to hire someone on full time or do some kind of equity for work scenario. With MBA Project Search startups can hire MBAs for short term projects at an affordable rate.

Currently MBA Project Search is free for both businesses that need to hire an MBA and for MBAs to apply for projects and positions. There are no other hidden costs involved either.

The MBA Project Search team says that for students, it gives them the kind of hands on experience a doctor would get from a $100/hr residency or a lawyer would get from a $50,000 internship. They’re giving MBA students and graduates another resource to find post graduate work that encompasses the degree they studied long and hard for.

We got a chance to talk with MBA Project Search co-founder Rasheen Carbin, check out our interview below.

Startups Need A Product Model Rendered? Try Romanian Startup Renderstreet

If you’re a startup, or any company, looking to have a 3d product rendered than Romanian startup Renderstreet may be just what you’re looking for. This is the latest startup for Romanian startup serial entrepreneur Sorin Vinatoru who was also behind the Romanian startup Pagepeeker, that we profiled back in August.

RenderStreet is an easy and affordable render farm for 3D projects. The startup is also priding itself on great customer support so when you turn to RenderStreet for a project, they will hold your hand through the development.

Vinatoru has already had some success raising money for RenderStreet. He’s looking to announce a seed round in the coming weeks.

3D rendering requires immense amounts of computing power that isn’t often available to just anyone. That’s where render farms like RenderStreet come in handy.

We got a chance to talk with Vinatoru about RenderStreet. Check out the interview below.

Everywhereelse.co Becomes The Largest Startup Conference In The Country

It’s hard to believe the headline above but it’s true. With over 1100 tickets sold and over 400 accredited vc’s and angels from across the country, who’ve already purchased tickets, by attendance everywhereelse.co is the largest startup conference in the history of startup conferences. Less than 10% of the tickets sold zipcode to the state of Tennessee.

We’ve got attendees and startups in our Startup Village from as far away as Israel, Romania, Lithuania and Buenos Aires. Of course we have investors and startups from just about every state in the country as well.

We had 104 startups in the village. Two have upgraded to larger booths, and one is going to launch on the stage at everywhereelse.co we’ve also weeded out a few that weren’t going to be ready by February 10th. That leaves a handful of spots in the village open but they will go incredibly fast.

Startup Village startups will be eligible for three different startup contests with over $50,000 in cash and $100,000 in other prizes up for grabs.

There’s no other conference in the world that will give you this level of access to the investor community. We’ve actually been shocked at the caliber of investors coming to the conference who love the idea to increase their deal flow from outside the normal entrepreneurial and startup hubs.

We’ve got a handful of speakers that we can’t contractually reveal until ticket sales are over. We’re hoping to sell out during the month of December and let everyone know the few top shelf speakers that have already committed.

Of course we all know we’ve got Scott Case,Bill Harris, Tracy Myers, several startup founders from YCombinator and 500 startups and many many more.

The schedule keeps on growing and the parties are even getting better. This will be one event you don’t want to miss.

Here’s the site for the conference

Here’s the link for tickets and Startup Village booth space

Black Friday’s Over, Continue To Save Money With Philly Startup Snip Snap App

Back in May we brought you the story about Philadelphia startup Snip Snap App. We were so intrigued with the concept behind Snip Snap, that we actually posted this story, before founder Ted Mann got off the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC.

Snip Snap App has saved me over $400 personally since last May. The concept is simple, it’s a wallet for your print coupons that allows you to crowdsource print coupons from other users. Now if you’re a real coupon king, or coupon queen, then you know that different regions have different coupons. With internet coupons on the rise, and more and more stores accepting coupons on phones, Snip Snap App is poised to save consumers hundreds of dollars.

Snip Snap App allows you to take photos of the coupons out of your local inserts, post them to the app and the community and then report on their success rate in usage. Gigantic nationally known chains like Kohl’s, Best Buy, Target, Old Navy, Aeropastle, Toys R Us and several fast food chains honor electronically stored coupons from just about anywhere, even if they say “some restrictions apply”.

If you’ve snipped a coupon that doesn’t work on redemption you simply report that in the app for others to know. Users can search coupons by name, location and more and they can see how successful those coupons have been by others that have actually used them.

With the biggest shopping day of the year behind us, we thought it was a great time to check in with Mann about Snip Snap and see what, if any, surge he saw in Black Friday.

Swedish Startup Truecaller Global Directory App For Anyone In The World

A startup based in Stockholm Sweden, called Truecaller, says they are the global phone directory linking you to anyone in the world. If you get a call from a number you don’t know you should be able to tap into Truecaller and find out who is actually calling you. In addition to traditional reverse directory information, Truecaller also says they have millions of prepaid phone users in their directory as well.

By coupling existing directory information and crowdsourcing their user-bases contact lists (opt-in) they create a hybrid of publicly available data and crowdsourced information to put together the TrueCaller directory.

Truecaller is a great way to prevent spam from sales calls and others that users don’t want to talk to.

The founders of Truecaller originally started the idea as a side project. They were tired of missing calls from people who were important but necessarily in their contact list already. As they tell us in the interview below, they released the original, rough version of the app and saw over 10,000 downloads immediately. That’s when they realized they should push forward and turn Truecaller into a real startup.

This is the third startup for founding duo Alan Mamedi and Nami Zarringhalam who met while studying at the Royal Institute of Technology.

We got a chance to interview Mamedi, check out the interview below:

Tennessee Startup: MDSave Raising $1 Million To Connect Self Pays To The Best Care

A Brentwood Tennessee startup called MDSave is connecting self pay patients with a choice in healthcare that they hadn’t had before. Doctors who use the MDSave platform share their prices and extend deals to self pay patients and those with high deductible health insurance plans.

MDSave doesn’t only provide more options for those self pay patients, but in turn they help keep the emergency rooms and urgent care clinics less crowded. Perusing the MDSave website you can find that doctors are competing for those self pay patients so they keep their services affordable.

The doctors on the platform pay a small subscription fee. Patients on the other hand, use the platform to search for the type of medical service they need by zipcode. Once they’ve selected a participating doctor they pay in advance through the MDSave platform and they’re giving a voucher to see the doctor they selected. The voucher is redeemed at the appointment to cover the cost. This way, not only are self pay patients getting much needed healthcare the doctors are eliminating the risk associated with collections and the messy process it can be to collect from a self pay patient at the end of the appointment.

MedCitynews is reporting that a SEC filing has revealed that MDSave is in the middle of a $1 million dollar equity raise.

MDSave’s founder and CEO Paul Ketchel is a former member of former Tennessee US Senator Bill Frist. Ketchel is also the son in law of Tennessee Representative Marsha Blackburn.

According to MedCityNews the capital raised in this round will be used to expand MDSave outside of Tennessee.

Linkage:

Check out MDSave here

Source: MedCityNews

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