Comments Off on Interview With Canadian Startup Hashcaster0LikeLike 2,676
Back in June we brought you this story about Canadian startup Hashcaster. Hashcaster provides a curation, and measurement (analytics) platform for event coordinators to manage their social media graph. It really comes in handy when gauging the effect of marketing, press and media efforts on behalf of an event just about any size.
At Social Media Camp in June not only was Hashcaster used by the event organizers but they also received a “Coastie” for “Most Innovative Social Media Product or Technology”.
Event organizers everywhere are counting on social marketing efforts more and more everyday as traditional marketing has fallen to the wayside. Organizers need to be able to capture tweets, likes, and mentions and then aggregate them, and analyze them to make sure the cohesive message is getting across. They also want to know who their top influencers are and what kind of impact any paid social marketing may have had.
All of these things are why Geoff Clendenning and Paul Vet created Hashcaster.
Now social media dashboards are nothing new but this particular use case is. Hashcaster also takes into consideration that the social graph of a particular event is going to swell as the event draws closer. When you’re at a popular event, especially one with a social media focus, tweets, likes and mentions can come in a matter of seconds.
We got a chance to interview Clendenning about Hashcaster, check out the interview below:
Comments Off on Los Angeles Startup: Smarter Stand Sees 10x Goal On Kickstarter0LikeLike 2,375
Dotan Saguy, a Los Angeles entrepreneur figured out that if you add two little clips to either side of an iPad’s Smart Cover or Smart Case you can add several different viewing angles and positions to your iPad which make it more convenient and equally as sturdy.
The magnetic Smart Cover and Smart Case for the iPad currently offer two positions for resting your iPad. One of the positions makes the iPad sit up too straight andouille the other one lays it down too flat. As you an see from the graphic above, Saguy’s Smarter Stand clips allow for several more positions. Most of the positions could be achieved with an additional $40 stand.
Saguy was hoping to raise $10,000 with a Kickstarter campaign. With that money Saguy planned on doing a limited production run for those who were interested in the product. Saguy hit the $10,000 mark on the first day of his campaign and now has 7,120 people interested in the product.
“I can’t thank my Kickstarter supporters enough for their kind words, encouragement, and pledges to make this dream a reality,” says Saguy. “The outpouring of support simply justifies that sometimes the simplest ideas are the most useful, and having forums like Kickstarter is an incredible way to get the word out.”
The Smarter Stand clips can be mixed and matched with 10 different, iPad matching colors available. The clips live on the smart cover or smart case so you always have a stand one stand by.
The Smarter Stand clips will retail for $20 per pair or you can preorder them with a discount by pledging on KickStarter.
Comments Off on South Carolina Startups Get New Innovista Center For Product Realization0LikeLike 1,814
South Carolina startups now have another new exciting resource to tap into. The University of South Carolina has announced it’s plans to open the Innovista Center for Product Realization or ICPR. The main funding for the new center is coming from a $645,000 five year federal grant. The main purpose is to help startups with product development.
The center will be available to students, alumni and residents who are working on a startup based in South Carolina.
One of the major constraints facing firms outside of regions like Silicon Valley is access to sufficient capital and talent to achieve critical mass and scalability for their product offerings,” said Don Herriott, director of Innovista. “ICPR will provide the infrastructure, resources and collaborative relationships that capital-starved startups require to take their idea or technology to the next level.” reports the SC-Israel collaboration.
“The product realization center is yet another example of the university’s commitment to cultivating innovation, entrepreneurship and technology commercialization,” Herriott said. “It furthers Innovista’s mission of attracting and growing new high-tech businesses to our community and across the state.”
We’ve recently reported on two exciting startup ideas brewing in and around the University of South Carolina. The first was a report on two engineers working on developing a t-shirt material that could charge phones directly from the shirt itself. The other 52 apps, is an innovative app development startup that will release 52 apps a year by vote (we reported on them 4 weeks before mainstream media).
Individuals and startups looking for more information on ICPR should reach out to Lauren Edwards at (803)777-9796 or by email at laurene@mailbox.sc.edu
Businesses, retail establishments and restaurants have been using the internet for surveys for the past fifteen years. Lot’s of restaurants still resort to printing a phone number to call or a website to go to to enter a code, do a survey and get some kind of discount. The problem with this method of surveying is, despite the reward, there is still extremely low engagement.
Even customer service surveys at the end of a call to a cell phone carrier or cable provider go unanswered, and that’s after you’ve said yes you’ll answer the quick two minute survey. Most travel related surveys that I get in my personal in box go straight to a spam folder and never get completed. In fact the only time I typically fill out a survey is if the customer experience was bad, and there are a lot of people in the same boat as me.
An Oregon startup called Hively is looking to change that for business. They are hoping their platform will have a better engagement rate for two primary reasons. It takes just nanoseconds to complete and they make it happy and fun. Hively just asks one simple question, please provide feedback and with that simple question customers can quickly hit one smiley face, like the ones above, and that’s it.
On the side of the employee, employees who receive good feedback are awarded points that they can accrue for a prize.
We got the chance to interview Hively’s co-founder Jason Lander, check out the interview below:
Comments Off on Interview With New Jersey Startup: Clipix, Pinterest For Everything0LikeLike 3,693
Bookmarklets are nothing new, however Pinterest turned the concept of bookmarkletting into a world wide phenomenon. Pinterest has turned itself into a company with an astronomical valuation and no direct revenue, by simply bookmarkletting “Pinning” photos on interest boards. Heck even President Obama and Mitt Romney are doing it.
But what if you wanted to go beyond just pictures. What if you wanted to pin websites, articles, heck even word documents and pdfs? Well you would turn to Fort Lee, NJ based startup Clipix. The company, founded earlier this year has already attracted the attention of both TechCrunch and Mashable and now we’ve had the chance to interview them.
For starters they’re very very feature rich and the features don’t just sound great they work great. One of their most popular features is “Price Drop”. Clipix knows when you’ve clipped something that’s from a retail website and notifies you at set variables when they price either drops by percentage or to a certain dollar amount. Sure there are other services that do this but it’s all in one.
The other big feature is the ability to clip things from documents and pdf’s which can come in handy later on. Then you can view the items you’ve clipped via mobile device. It’s actually rather amazing.
You’ll see in the interview below, why Clipix is considered the “Pinterest for the real world”.
Comments Off on Interview With Turkish Startup: Count.ly0LikeLike 2,588
New Turkish startup Count.ly has introduced a new analytics platform for mobile apps. Count.ly offers simple easy to understand analytics for game studios, marketeers, agencies, operators and anyone with a mobile app trying to track engagement and loyalty.
Countl.y is a real-time, open source mobile analytics application. It collects data from mobile phones, and visualizes this information to analyse mobile application usage and end-user behaviour. We opened up shop with a deep belief that even boring-looking analytics can be fun to learn, use and experience, without compromising great features.
Count.ly’s dashboard is easy to read but robust and provides a lot of information to any sized mobile app developer.
They’re entering into a crowded space but Count.ly seems to know what they’re doing and ready to take on the big boys. Check out the interview below:
Comments Off on California Startup: nfinitu.de Helping Legacies Live On Through Social Media0LikeLike 2,099
Back in March we were the first site in the world to report on UK startup Deadsoci.al. This unique startup allows people to let their social media channels live on after death. After someone passes away, messages that they set up in advance can continue to inspire (or haunt) those they knew through social media and in real life. Mortality is an issue that more and more people are facing and that was actually the motivation behind deadsoci.al. As we found out at South By Southwest, the founder of deadsoci.al is dead serious about the startup.
Many don’t like to bring up tragedies but if you take a look back at the tragic incident at Columbine high school in 1999 and compare it to the recent tragedy in Aurora Colorado this past week, you may have noticed how much technology has changed in the previous 12 years. While social networks were just blossoming in the late 90’s today through social media many of the Aurora victims have Facebook tribute pages set up, walls with thousands of pages of comments, Twitter feeds with thousands of Tweets and more. In fact some of the survivors of the Columbine massacre have reached out to the victims of the Aurora tragedy via, you guessed it social media.
Combine things like that, with the tragedies surrounding mortality that we face all the time and it’s no wonder that Mario Horvath the founder of SplashHead LLC has created nfinitu.de.
While Hovarth is simultaneously launching nfinitu.de and another startup called Mindbl.am at the same time, nfinitu.de is what he focuses on in our interview.
Taking mortality into consideration and the way that people cope with tragedy nfinitu.de actually makes a lot of sense. A few years ago some may think the concept is morbid but not anymore.
With nfinitu.de people can create social media pages for those recently deceased in a tribute fashion. Often reminiscing, even if it’s just in the online context, can help people cope with the loss of a friend or loved one, whether they died of natural causes, fighting an illness or some other tragedy.
People sometimes don’t know what to do to cope with the feelings that come up after someone passes away and nfinitu.de actually helps them harness those feelings.
Comments Off on Miami Startup: CleanTie Makes Laundry A Cinch0LikeLike 1,734
A new startup in Miami is looking to take the pain away from laundry. Forget making time in your busy schedule to take your laundry to the laundromat, and forget having to fold baskets of clothes. CleanTie, a new startup in Miami has taken laundry referral to the web.
That’s not all though, CleanTie will help you find a laundry service that picks up and delivers from your home. That means you can make your laundry appointment wearing that last clean pair of boxers, from your iPad or laptop. CleanTie is adding to the growing list of services that have been able to generate business via the internet.
CleanTie is all about convenience for the customer. The search engine part of the site matches you with your closest laundry service and then you can drill down to the one you want to use from the available laundry services that pick up and deliver from either your home or office. Some of the laundry services even offer same day service.
“This is a great way for brick and mortar laundry services to reach an untapped market of busy people searching the internet for help with their laundry. Better yet, they can take advantage of the CleanTie marketing platform, without spending money or time on internet marketing themselves.” said Blair Nastasi PR Director at CleanTie.
The new startup reports that they plan on running tv commercials in their first market, of course Miami. They are also working on an official mobile app which will allow you to easily schedule your laundry pick up and delivery from your smartphone.
Interior decorating can be a pain in the ass. You normally have to go from store to store and showroom to showroom. Not to mention the fact that you’ve got to deal with a pushy sales person at each showroom and each store. It’s more of a pain than it’s worth. That’s why so many interior decorating and interior design projects get put on hold. Or worse, people spend thousands of dollars on something they don’t necessarily like, just to get the process over with.
That’s where Toronto, Ontario and New York based startup RemoteStylist comes in. With RemoteStylist you simply sign up for your own free profile and then you can coordinate your style for your interior project with one of RemoteStylists’ interior designers.
As you work with your stylist from RemoteStylist you’ll see your rooms come together right before your eyes. If something doesn’t look right on the screen you can simply send your stylist back to the drawing board and they’ll continue to work, change and revise until you have the room you’re looking for.
Once the painful part is over, you’ll be completely satisfied with what you selected. Then the second magic part happens. Everything you liked is purchased for less than retail prices and then delivered and installed in your home. Yes 99% of this entire process can happen at your desk, in bed or at the kitchen table. RemoteStylist founder Kelly Fallis and her team have made sure that the interior design process is simple, and easy and that in the end the customers are happy.
We got a chance to interview the folks at RemoteStylist check out the interview below:
I was just telling StoryMark founder Dana McIntyre the story about when my mom turned 60 five years ago how all the kids got her one of those groovy digital photo frames that allowed 30 second narration on each photo. It was a cute idea and we were able to get photos from each couple in our family and the grandkids. We were then able to narrate what the photo was about.
Well, the reason we are writing about another photo sharing app is because StoryMark does virtually the same thing, but now instead of a clunky novelty digital photo frame, it’s on your iPhone or Android device where it will be way better utilized. In fact this year in September we are getting my mom an iPhone (yes she’s ready) and StoryMark will definitely have a place on her phone.
StoryMark allows you to take photos and then add up to 30 seconds of audio to send with the photo. It’s great for pictures that tell a story. Say you go on vacation you can send those loved ones back home a great photo and an audible description. Maybe your son or daughter is just laughing away, now with StoryMark you can audibly annotate the photo for years to come.
StoryMark has so many use cases it’s absolutely ridiculous (in a good way) McIntyre tells us in the interview below you can use it for those family moments, doctors can use it to get advice and collaborate with other doctors, even the know it all leader of your neighborhood organization can use it to audibly talk about how your grass is a smidgeon too high. Teenagers could use it to pitch their parents on that must have shirt, sweater, or video game at the mall. Again this is one of those ideas so good you think, “why didn’t I think of that” well that’s because McIntyre did.
Comments Off on Florida Startup: Sprigster, Crowdfunding For Veterans Looking To Start Franchise Businesses0LikeLike 3,630
There’s an alarming statistic when it comes to unemployment in our country and that is the fact that veterans who have moved from military to civilian life are one of the highest groups that are unemployed. That’s one of the reasons that TechStars just concluded their Patriot bootcamp to help and inspire veterans with ideas for startups to get started on their plans.
Sprigster, is a startup we actually heard about first back in April. Sprigster is a crowdfunding startup where several people can come together (as with any crowdfunding model) and support a franchise or business project for veterans.
CEO Mark Mohler likens crowdfunding to “Barn Raising”, back in the day towns would rally around their neighbors if one of their neighbors lost a building or had some other need. The townspeople would have a fundraiser in a barn to give money to the community member. With crowdfunding this is all done online and meant to help our military neighbors.
Ideally the platform is meant for former military who are now civilians who would like to hire themselves as the owner of a franchise business. Mohler explains why franchising is a better model for this platform than traditional startups in the interview below.
Comments Off on Startup Weekend Memphis: And The Winner Is…. CoachSpeak0LikeLike 1,958
Startup Weekend Memphis saw some great ideas formulated from the Friday pitches. The four finalist teams were: BuyersUnite,Capta Vita (Legacy Interview), RightNowPal (Event Czar) and CoachSpeak. After Saturday evenings gut check all four finalist teams and the three individual entrepreneurs that would pitch on Sunday started to hunker down and focus on the prize at the end of the weekend. Three startups would walk away with $1000 cash, 9 hours of legal services and 9 hours of accounting services. One team would walk away victorious as the winners of Startup Weekend Memphis 2012.
By 10pm Saturday night the 7 presenting startups had pivoted a total of 24 times (seriously). The mentors had been in for hours on Saturday and everyone was scrambling. Around nine PM I checked in with Derek Chapman and Joseph Dees the two guys behind CoachSpeak and they were in an intense debate on several different key issues. We put in a call to a good friend of Nibletz.com Gabe Lozana the founder of St. Louis startup LockerDome who agreed to a quick by phone mentoring session.
That late night phone call sure paid off as CoachSpeak came in first place with the judges on Sunday evening.
Chapman walked the judges through the concept, the revenue and the execution of CoachSpeak which is a social network for professional coaches and athletic personnel from the high school level on up.
Chapman, who is the founder of CoachSpeak, demonstrated a great use case for when coaches change jobs and cities and need to fill coaching team positions very quickly. Startup Weekend Memphis judge, and entrepreneur, Ekundayo Bandele threw Chapman a curve ball asking what happens if a collegiate coach moves his whole team from one school to another, doesn’t that make the service irrelevant.
Simple answer, that never ever happens, but more so Chapman was able to explain how if that did happen that would leave openings to fill at the school the coach came from. More important than that though is that CoachSpeak is already up and running and has 120 professional coaches in their network.
The network isn’t just about filling jobs, it’s about sharing information, camaraderie between coaches, sharing scouting information, job hunting, vendor placement and more.
Dees, who is a financial advisor at Regions Bank in Birmingham Alabama had come into Memphis for his first Startup Weekend. Since graduating from UAB Dees had always had a knack for creating business plans and has actually consulted on several successful business plan. He was the perfect partner for Chapman who had ironed out the entire concept except for the revenue streams and subscriber base.
Obviously the judges liked the collaborative effort between the two!
Chapman plans on continuing to build out CoachSpeak and will probably go to some of the judges who are local entrepreneurs eager to invest in the latest tech startups brewing from Memphis.
LaunchMemphis/SeedHatchery’s Elizabeth Lemmonds was on-site Sunday evening for the final pitches and actually enjoying attending an event that she didn’t have to organize. Prior to her taking a position with Launch Your City (Launch Memphis/Seed Hatcher’s parent) Lemmonds would attend entrepreneurial events in Memphis.
As we reported on Friday, this Startup Weekend was organized by local entrepreneurs James Ruffer and Chris Przybyszewski who are not affiliated with any other organization. The two of them organized this Startup Weekend as a fun and laid back way to spur more startups and entrepreneurship in Memphis. Ruffer, Przybszewski and Lemmonds let all of the finalists know along with any attendees that the resources of Launch Your City, Launch Memphis (and if they apply) Seed Hatchery are all available to these new startups and entrepreneurs at Emerge Memphis.
The LaunchPad free drop in co-working space and Launch Memphis were sponsors of Nibletz coverage of this Startup Weekend.
Comments Off on Idaho: Treasure Valley Angel Fund Takes Over Where Boise Angel Fund Left Off0LikeLike 2,866
While Boise Idaho isn’t synonymous with startups they do have quite a few great tech companies on their hands. Part of that was because of the $1 million dollar Boise Angel Fund which has recently shut down.
A new group of angels have banded together in Idaho to again spur innovation, startups and small businesses. The Treasure Valley Angel Fund has announced that they’ve raised $750,000 of the $2 million dollars they are looking to invest in Idaho startups.
“The Treasure Valley Angel Fund is the kind of jobs-and opportunity-creating machine that will help accelerate Idaho’s economic growth through the skill and experience of proven business leaders and the creative energy of entrepreneurs,” Gov. Butch Otter said in a news release.
Earl Sullivan who is the chairman of “The Core” a medical technology industry cluster in Meridian, is backing the Treasure Valley Angel Fund and is the interim chairmen however he has already said that he’s turned over control of the fund to the members.
“Members of the Core, who are committed to building out a core competency in Idaho in health care, health research and innovation, are energized by the response of investors to grow the base of capital on which Idaho’s growing economy is built,” Sullivan said to the Idaho Statesman.
Loon Creek Capital will administer the Treasure Valley Angel Fund. Kevin Learned, the co-founder of Loon Creek and also the co-founder of Learned Mahn, one of Idaho’s first software companies said: “Idahoans have known for more than a century when to make an investment to prime the pump, and they have done it again,”
Comments Off on Disgraced Yahoo CEO,Scott Thompson, Now CEO At Pennsylvania Startup ShopRunner0LikeLike 1,856
Last week Yahoo announced the ultimate in poaching executives attracting longtime Google Executive,Marissa Mayer to the open CEO position. Yahoo had been looking for a CEO to replace Scott Thompson after he was ousted for fabricating a Computer Science degree on his resume.
After leaving Yahoo it was unclear what he would do next. Today, several news sites including siliconvalley.com have reported that Thompson is now the CEO of Pennsylvania startup ShopRunner.
ShopRunner is based in Conshohocken Pennsylvania with a satellite office in Silicon Valley’s Meno Park. Thompson will most likely spend a lot of time at the Menlo Park location. He has been based in the Valley throughout a large portion of his career. Prior to the Yahoo appointment, Thompson was a high ranking executive at EBay owned PayPal.
eBay also owns a portion of ShopRunner, a service that provides shopping perks to a number of paid subscribers at various website e-commerce partners.
With Thompson’s experience at PayPal he should do very well at ShopRunner.
“Joining ShopRunner is a tremendous opportunity to build on the strong foundation that the company has already established. While PayPal and ShopRunner are fundamentally different businesses, there are similarities in each of their success,” Thompson said in the company’s news release.
Siliconvalley.com did notice that the news release announcing Thompson’s hiring made no reference about his educational background. It’s obvious that ShopRunner is not concerned about it.
“We are thrilled that Scott has taken us up on our offer to lead ShopRunner’s continued growth,” ShopRunner co-founder and its current CEO Mike Golden said in Monday’s news release. Golden will continue as president of the company.
Kyle
Back in June we brought you this story about Canadian startup Hashcaster. Hashcaster provides a curation, and measurement (analytics) platform for event coordinators to manage their social media graph. It really comes in handy when gauging the effect of marketing, press and media efforts on behalf of an event just about any size.
