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Interview With Miami Startup: PitchShark A Social Network For Launching Film Projects

Social networks are a staple in just about everyone’s daily lives. In the Facebook generation it feels like everyone who has any kind of internet access is online and part of some kind of social network. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ have a strangle hold on mainstream social network needs. LinkedIn has the business sector covered, but now social networks are emerging for specific industries.

We’ve reported on Memphis based “Work For Pie” which is a social network/linked In of sorts for developers, there are social networks for real estate agents and now a social network for those working on films.

When we first heard about Miami startup PitchShark we weren’t exactly clear on the need for a social network, where did the real problem lay? Well co-founder Justin Perez talked with us in the interview below and there are a ton of reasons that PitchShark makes sense.

For instance, casting an indie film or a film not sanctioned by one of the major studios, can be a long and painstaking process. Perez explains in the interview that it’s not just about casting either. There are other resources that film producers need in order to get the project off the ground.

Check out the interview below:

New York Startup: PubSlush Crowdfunding Book Publishing For Good

Writers and authors take heed we found an awesome startup in New York called Pubslush. Not only do they have an uber cool name but what they do is fantastic. We actually get amped up when we find a startup that has a unique idea that doesn’t fall under one of the normal categories like SoLoMo or discovery.

Pubslush is a publishing platform for authors to crowdsource the funds that they need to actually publish their works. Pubslush is building up a healthy following of people who love to read, write and check out new books from new authors. Sure there are authors out there crowdfunding their books on KickStarter and Indiegogo but with PubSlush there’s another great incentive.

With every book sold through Pubslush they donate a book to a child in need. This is perfect for the slacktivist set. You know the type, the people who buy Tom’s because they donate a pair of shoes to charity. Well PubSlush is even better. They’re putting more physical books in the world. Needy children are reading books and passing them along to the other children around them. Great idea right?

Pubslush has a trifecta of problem solving. New authors are getting their works read. Authors are also getting their works funded and books are going to people in need. Add in the fact that Pubslush is putting more books out there in the world at a time when print publishing is down thanks to the advent of e-readers, tablets, Amazon and iPads.

We got a chance to talk with Amanda Barbara the development director at Pubslush in the interview below:

Baltimore Startup: BeerGivr Lets You Send A Beer To Friends Through Your Phone

Back in March we reported that Maryland’s Governor Martin O’Malley was holding a new breed of startup pitch contest. O’Malley held his contest on Pinterest.. BeerGivr, a Baltimore based startup, was the first place winner in the bootstrapped category.

UMBC graduate, Sean Kennedy, is the founder of this innovative, social gift giving startup. As you can probably see from the name, BeerGivr is all about spreading the love via phone in the form of a beer.

BeerGivr isn’t a about virtual beers, drinking emoticons or meme’s featuring that guy from Dolseces, no its about giving your friends or family members ice cole beer, or other libations if they so choose.

So how does it work?

Well if you can’t make it t the afterwork social or your college buddy’s 30th birthday party you can go to BeerGivr’s website, enter your friend phone number, and pay via PayPal for an actual beer. If your friend is drinking at a participating bar or restart ant that establishment then receives the payment. If they’re not drinking at a participating restaurant your friend can redeem that value via PayPal themselves.

Our good friend Molly at inthecapital.com reports that Kennedy is the sole founder and the company’s only full time employee. He has enlisted the help of two friends but right now the brunt of the work falls on Kennedy.

The idea for BeerGivr came after Kennedy graduated from UMBC. He immediately took a job that required him to travel a lot and network with business people he may not likely see again, at least for a while. The traveling was two fold, Kennedy would miss social gatherings back home, and he met some cool people he wanted to stay friends with.

He decided that buying someone a beer from afar was a good idea and got to working on a prototype. Now he’s recruiting participating bars and restaurants and watching his Maryland based users accumulate. Of course after Maryland adopts to the new technology BeerGivr will expand.

Baltimore is turning into a tech hub especially in the mobile space with cool ideas like BeerGivr and ParkingPanda. ParkingPanda allows you to book parking spaces in Baltimore and Washington DC in advance in a similar way to hotels.com.

Linkage:

For more on BeerGivr click here

Check out this cool video on BeerGivr at the source link inthecapital.com

We are on a sneaker strapped, nationwide, startup road trip and need your helpq

What The MixTape Is Back? We Interview Los Angeles Startup Mixtaping.FM

Do you remember those late nights you used to sit around your bedroom with your dual cassette deck and make sweet mix tapes for your girlfriend or boyfriend, yeah me neither. (Ok yes I actually do). Well if you were into creating mix tapes for that special someone than Los Angeles based startup mixtaping.fm may be for you.

Mixtaping.fm has taken the concept of making mix tapes and brought them up to date. They offer a cloud based platform that lets you create 30 minute mix tapes, legally.

Edward Chan, the co-founder of Mixtaping.fm realizes that today’s “mix tapes” in the sense we’re talking here, are very similar to playlists but there are problems with playlists. First off everyone’s playlists are on different services. Some services require you to sign up and pay a fee just to listen to the playlist. Other services are so obscure that it’s hard to find anything.

Mixtaping.fm lets you make a custom 30 minute “mix tape” with music that you like, or want to specifically share with someone or a group, and then you can share it easily.

One of the other big things with Mixtaping.fm is that they’ve integrated Facebook and Instagram so not only can you create a “mix tape” but you can also create cover art.

MixTaping integrates with Spotify and has plans to integrate Rdio as well.

We got a chance to talk with Chan in the interview below.

Interview With Jessica Meyer Founder Of Austin Startup: Locate Special Diet, Bet You Can’t Guess What They Do!

Over the last few years smartphones have helped me control my type II diabetes. Even when I was a devoted Android user I was able to find great blood glucose management apps that allowed me to track my diet, blood sugar and other important information and share it with my family and diabetes “sponsor”. The next thing I was in search for was a restaurant finding app. You see I’m on the road a lot.

There have been a few out there but mostly they provide nutritional guides. I can quickly go to a handful of restaurant chain apps and look up carbohydrates and even sugars in some of their dishes. But now, thanks to Jessica Meyer, the founder of Locate Special Diet, I can find restaurants and businesses that cater to diabetics. The best part though is that Locate Special Diet isn’t about just diabetics Meyer has covered just about every special diet there is from vegetarian and vegan to people looking for organic, or gluten free.

The idea for Locate Special Diet arose when Meyer was diagnosed with Celiac Disease in 2007. She wanted a way to find places that would cater to her need for a special diet in Austin Texas, and also where she traveled.

We got a chance to talk to Meyer, a female serial entrepreneur, about Locate Special Diet in the interview below.

Toronto Startup: ShopLocket Easily Sell Anything INTERVIEW

Ever had something you wanted to sell on the internet? Sure you have. Maybe you thought signing up for ebay, setting up an account and then trusting Paypal was too much of a pain in the butt? Maybe you wanted to sell your item on Craigslist but you didn’t want to deal with 100 emails telling you they would send you $10,o00 for your $400 item. Well if you thought online selling was a pain, ShopLocket could possibly be the cure.

ShopLocket is a Toronto based startup which promises to make listing your item online as easy as embedding a YouTube video anywhere. You can embed it on your Facebook page, Tumblr, Posterous,Blogger, WordPress, other web page, blog or anywhere else that you would like. If you don’t know how to embed a YouTube video, no worries ShopLocket will teach you how to embed your item.

There are three easy steps to listing an item on ShopLocket, just create your sale, share it and sell it. You can sell whatever you want. Got some old baseball cards? Sell them. Have an old cell phone? Sell it! Want to teach guitar lessons, no problem. Best of all there is no coding required.

As for payment, yes you can trust the overlords at PayPal but they also use the new payment service Stripe as well.

We got to talk with ShopLocket and their truly innovative service in the interview below:

New York Startups GroupMe and Groupie In Legal Battle, This Gets Confusing

Last year a little known group messaging startup called Groupie filed a lawsuit when it’s similarly named competitor started blowing up. If you remember back to last summer, Group messaging startup, with a lot more flair, GroupMe was acquired by Skype.

If you haven’t heard of Groupie that’s no surprise. The iPhone only group messaging platform had 60,000 users for about a million messages per day. GroupMe on the other hand has 4.6 million users who send over half a billion messages per month. GroupMe also just released no features surrounding events. What’s better than to pair a group messaging app with events you do in groups.

Fresh on the heels of GroupMe’s acquisition last August, Groupie quickly went to work suing GroupMe around trademark allegations. According to BetaBeat Groupie filed for their trademark back in 2009. That seems straight forward but in reality it looks like Groupie got a little jealous of it’s competitors success.

Betabeat reports that last years Groupie vs GroupMe lawsuit received a little bit of coverage from the likes of GigaOM, SAI and themselves. GigaOM’s piece got picked up by the Wall Street Journal, and then the lawsuit went quiet.

We’re not clear on why it’s been 11 months for this suit to resurface but GroupMe went back into court on July 11th and filed suit against Groupie. GroupMe is looking for declarations from the court that there is “no likelihood of confusion” between GroupMe’s mark and the Groupie mark. GroupMe is also looking for the court to declare that they have not violated any mark of Groupie’s.

Betabeat wasn’t able to get a statement from GroupMe and of course Groupie was more than willing to talk. Here’s what they said to Betabeat:

“This newly filed action is just the latest volley in an ongoing trademark dispute rooted in the confusing similarities between Groupie’s pre-existing, validly registered trademark “Groupie” and the nearly identical Groupme name. Groupie initially filed an Opposition Proceeding against Groupme before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board in July of 2011 (Groupie LLC v. Groupme Inc., TTAB Opposition No. 91200478). Groupie’s Opposition Proceeding seeks to protect its trademark by preventing Groupme from registering the confusingly similar “Groupme” mark. Not only do ”Groupie” and “Groupme” look and sound the same, the two companies’ products are virtually identical and are distributed through the same channels of commerce, thus causing ongoing consumer confusion. Additionally, the evidence will show that Groupme’s claim for cancellation of Groupie’s valid trademark is a late pursued theory premised on the illogical conclusion that the trademarked brand ”Groupie” is a generic term. Groupie is confident that claim will be summarily rejected. In short, Groupie has been vigorously fighting to protect its trademark in the Opposition Proceeding and will do the same in the newly filed action.”

When you consider all the facts it’s hard to say who is right and who’s wrong. Groupie did start out three years before GroupMe however GroupMe is much more successful. Groupie may have wanted to protect their idea, and name but now it does just look like they’re going after deep pockets. It’s really up for a judge to decide. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

Linkage:

Startup Weekend Hits Houston Next Weekend July 27th

If you read nibletz.com or any other startup focused website for that matter than you’re familiar with Startup Weekend. The official Startup Weekend events are held in conjunction with Startup Weekend an organization in Seattle backed by the Kauffman Foundation. Over 200 Startup Weekend organizers can be found around the country and the world.

There are two startup weekends next weekend, Houston and Cincinnati. The Houston event is being held at Start Houston, 1121 Delano Street, Houston TX 77003. The event starts at 6pm on Friday and ends on Sunday at 9:00pm after the final pitches.

If you’re not familiar with an officially sanctioned Startup Weekend event, they kick off on Friday with pitches from anyone registered. You don’t have to have a team or be from a company. After all the initial presentations finish everyone votes on the ideas that will be built over the 54 hour weekend. Teams will be organically picked and everyone is encouraged to join a team even if their idea isn’t picked. Some startups, like Zaarly for instance, have come out of Startup Weekend. Zaarly is now a funded startup and their investors include Ashton Kutcher.

There’s no guarantee where the startup will go after Startup Weekend, but people who pitch and leave after their idea doesn’t get picked, could be leaving an opportunity of a lifetime.

Saturday the teams develop their idea, work on a proof of concept, code code code, and work with the mentors for Startup Weekend. In Houston the mentors are: Bryan Guido Hassin, CEO of Smart Office Energy Solutions; Jeff Reichman, Principal at January Advisors; Nathan Eror, Founder at Free Time Studios, and Mark Stretch a Startup Advisor.

On Saturday, and part of Sunday team swill pick the coach’s brains and the coach’s will pick apart their ideas, all in preparation of Sunday pitches.

Sunday the teams will pitch their final ideas to a group of judges who will provide vital feedback on the ideas, and sustainability and ask great questions that the startup teams will need to focus on to get to the next level. The coaches, minus Mark Stretch will all be judging the pitches on Sunday.

Startup Weekend events are fully catered and plenty of caffeine will be on hand.

If you’re ready to go hit the link below.

Linkage:

Startup Weekend Houston event information

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Washington DC’s Acceleprise Welcomes First Six Startups

Back in April we brought you this story about the newly formed accelerator in Washington DC called Acceleprise. Acceleprise is targeting new startups in the enterprise space. TechCrunch called it the 500 startups for “enterprise”.

Acceleprise has great DC based founders in Sean Glass, Allen Gannett and Collin Gutman. They also have some great mentors that include well known founders, executives, venture capitalists and experienced operators. Their mentor list includes Scott Case, head of Startup America, Katharine Weymouth CEO of Washington Post Media, Maria Thomas former CEO of Etsy, Sonny Ganguly CMO at wedding wire and many more.

Their website says they are “The Enterprise Technology Accelerator”. Enterprise was a natural sector to pursue, Glass told TechCrunch’s Sarah Perez that he started thinking about how he wanted to do his personal angel investing. He found while evaluating his portfolio that he had the most success with and was able to help the most in early stages, were all enterprise focused.

Washington DC is also the perfect location for an enterprise focused accelerator. Of course the federal government is the largest enterprise customer in the country. In their immediate surroundings you have most of the largest defense companies and contractors in the world. Accelleprise is also a quick 4 hour drive to New York City and not to far from Atlanta as well.

They’ve now announced their first class of six enterprise focused startups. Each chosen startup will receive a $30,000 seed investment, mentors, office space and business resources.

The six enterprise startups have a mixed range of ideas but all tie back into services, applications and ideas that will benefit the enterprise space.

The Washington Post published this list of the six startups:

ConferenceEdge provides Web-based software that facilitates event management. Organizers can use the program to register attendees, corral feedback, manage digital marketing and process electronic payments.

Conjure sells software that allows companies to store and access strategic ideas or best practices that may otherwise wind up forgotten and unused in e-mails, PowerPoint presentations or an employee’s mind.

ExecOnline enables large corporations to offer online business courses to their employees through its partnerships with universities. In addition to its online learning platform, ExecOnline helps to develop the curriculum and puts forth investment capital to get a program started.

Employers looking to slim down their workforce and save on health care expenses use FitFeud to coordinate fitness competitions across their organization. The software can be used to register participants, send reminders, track progress and assess return on investment.

Mercury Continuity helps businesses and government entities keep their information technology network humming in the event of a “catastrophe” or other disruption. The company works with technology partners to deliver broadband connectivity in multiple ways, including through satellite and fiber-optic technologies.

Companies or individuals can store and manage their credentials online through Sigkat, then use them to validate their reputation with employers and business partners. The firm aims to make the exchange of credentials both reliable and inexpensive.

Linkage:

Find out more about Acceleprise here

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We are having a big push for this right now.

StartuPalooza Headed To Louisville KY September 18th

If you’re in Louisville Kentucky and ready to get your startup on than the Startup America Partnership in conjunction with Startup Kentucky has an event for you. StartuPALOOZA is headed to Louisville Kentucky on September 18th from 5:30pm-8:00pm at the Ice House (226 E. Washington Street, Louisville KY),

The event will feature a cash bar and free appetizers.

The event will feature an exhibition of the up and coming startups in the Louisville region. We know first hand their are some great startups in Louisville. Also, Startup Kentucky is one of the more active Startup America regions in the country, in fact you should follow them on Twitter here.

If you’re a Louisville area startup and interested in showing off in the StartuPALOOZA startup fairground than you need to apply here.

The event is sponsored by by IdeaFestival, the statewide Innovation Network, the Office of Commercialization and Innovation, the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation and Startup Kentucky, a Startup America region.

Linkage:

Chicago Startup Flux Headphones Say They’ve Solved The Tangle Problem, Need Help On Fundable

Fundable, the new crowd funding its, has some really cool projects on it right now. One of those is the Chicago startup Flux Headphones. Flux headphones was founded by Matt Scandora and Jatana Srain.

Scandora and Srain had a problem that millions of people face and that’s the tangled mess that earbuds become when thrown in a pocket, pocketbook, backpack or anywhere else when not in use. While their are products on the market like the flat corded Jays headphones that do a great job of staying untangled Flux Headphones address the problem in a different way.

The Flux Headphones have little magnets in the cords that let both cords stay stuck together and untangled, and then you can simply wrap them around your arm when you’re not using them. You can also opt to put them around your neck, in your pocket, heck you can attach them to the fridge or any other magnetic surface if you want. Scandora and Srain are aware of the competition out there, but they’re right no one solves the problem so easily or quite like this. When you take them out and are ready to use them they unfold to their normal earbud wearing position.

The other great part about the magnetic design is that they allow you to adjust the length of the cord to where you want it and then it stays there. For instance if you’re using an armband to hold your music player or iPhone you can make the cord shorter utilizing the magnets and then voila the extra cord isn’t hanging off the bottom and doesn’t look messy.

Here are the tech specs:

Tech Specs:

Impedance: 16 Ohms
Frequency response: 17Hz – 22,000Hz
Speaker : 15mm
Plug: 3.5mm
Headphone cable length: 120cm
Sensitivity：114 db

So you’re getting a great quality headphone. Flux Headphoens will come in two varieties, in-ear earbuds and traditional earbuds.

Scandora tells nibletz.com that their manufacturer is ready to go they just need the funds to move forward. That’s why they’ve resorted to the new crowdfunding site fundable.com In addition Scandora says that Fundable’s founders Wil Schroeter and Eric Cori have been great mentors to Flux.

At the time of this writing Flux has raised over $5600 of the $45,000 they are looking for and have 37 days to go.

Linkage:

Check out the Flux Headphones here at Fundable.com

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We’re doing a little crowdfunding of our own. Check out this link

DC Startup: Swapel Is Bartering For Startups And Small Businesses INTERVIEW

Washington DC startup Swapel is all about bartering. It’s a different kind of bartering though, it’s bringing back the old b2b bartering network system that was popular in the mid to late 90’s.

Nick Barron, one of the co-founders at Swapel doesn’t know it but through both of our new media startups we’ve survived because of bartering. We’ve bartered ad space and social media expertise for everything from legal services, to design and even travel. Bartering is a great way for sneaker strapped startups to save vitally needed dollars.

That’s the foundation for Swapel. Swapel puts a layer of trust into the bartering ecosystem for businesses. Bartering is growing in popularity we’ve covered a handful of good bartering startups here at nibletz.com. Bartering on a consumer, person to person level is a lot different than bartering in business to business. At the consumer level most people are bartering tangible goods. I’ll trade you my riding lawnmower for your iPad. I’ll cut the tree branches down, if I can have all the fire wood. When people are bartering with each other it’s typically a straight up trade.

The problem when it comes to professional B2B bartering is that often times at least one of those in the barter or trade is performing a service that may not be executed immediately. For instance maybe you’re bartering legal services for tax preparation services. Perhaps the tax preparer is getting a contract drawn up immediately and the lawyer doesn’t need the tax preparation until the following winter. With trades like that you need a platform to manage them, add a layer of trust and a network of trusted service providers who are willing to barter. You can’t just go to the barter tab on Craigslist and trade SEC filing paperwork for wallpaper removal.

Barron and co-founder Shawn Scott are building Swapel in the thriving DC startup community. We’ve already been through DC twice on the sneaker strapped startup road trip and we know first hand how great DC startups are. In fact Barron says that one of their business role model is fellow DC startup founder Zvi Band of Contactually.

We found that out in more in our interview with Swapel below.

20 Year Olds Get $100,000 Investment For Their Cincinnati Startup CapStory, Interview Here

Online privacy is not just a problem for Facebook users. The problem is shared across all social networks, especially ones that allow public searchable results. We’re not talking about those safety and security privacy concerns, we’re talking about those beer pong pics, jello shots and beer bongs that you don’t want that fortune 500 recruiter to see. Long gone are the days where you could share things care-free on Faccebook.

This is actually a real problem for many people .Sure the more conservative set may say you shouldn’t do those things but we’re willing to bet those people criticizing good ole college fun, had some good ole college fun themselves, back before Facebook.

It was just a few months ago where we reported on employers that actually asked interviewees for their social network accounts and their logins.

So where can you share and aggregate your photos, statuses and messages safely and privately? Where can you save them?

CapStory,Cincinnati startup,startup,startups,interview,founder interview,CincyTech

Susprasanna Mishra & Dustin Studer co-founders of CapStory (photo: marketwire)

Well a Cincinnati startup called CapStory says they have the answer. We first met the guys from CapStory at Chicago TechWeek last month. Last week it was announced that they secured a $100,000 investment from CincyTech as part of their larger seed round. CapStory plans on using the money to finish the user interface and complete the mobile version, and then roll it out on college campuses.

There are a few other startups that are trying to do what they do. BonFyre in St.Louis has a social network that is likened to Facebook before it opened up to everyone in the world over 13.

“There are other companies trying to do what Capstory is building, but the company’s emphasis on telling a story and its simple mobility are what set it apart from its competitors,” said Justin Thompson, senior analyst at CincyTech.

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

Raleigh Startup: Sprout Scores $20M Round For Female Viagra

If you’re in a relationship with a woman, whether it’s a long term relationship, marriage, or even same sex marriage, and your female partner tells you she’s not in the mood, a lot, it may not be you after all. A Raleigh NC based startup called Sprout may actually be able to help you and your partner, down the road if they get FDA approval.

In 1998 Pfizer rocked the market when they introduced Viagra the first commercially available medication for men with erectile dysfunction. Viagra spawned a new category of prescription medications that have now turned into a $5 billion dollar industry. No one thought about women though.

Female sexual dysfunction, or low sexual desire is an actual problem. An Illinois based company called BioSante Pharmaceuticals suggests that as many as 43% of women between the ages of 18 and 59 experience some kind of female sexual dysfunction. The company made that statement based on figures published by the Journal of the American Medical Association. They project that female sexual dysfunction could turn into a $2 billion dollar a year industry.

Sprout, is working toward FDA approval for fibanserin a compound developed to treat hypoactive sexual disorder which is a form of female sexual dysfunction. Sprout purchased the compound from German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim. The FDA denied Boehringer approval of fibanserin in 2010.

Sprout’s Chief Commercial Officer Cynthia Whitehead thinks that Sprout will be more successful with FDA approval. Whiethead told WRAL that there were “flawed metrics” in the first FDA submission by Boehringer. She went on to say “It will be a review issue,” she said. “We feel we have all of the data we need.”

Whitehead also said that Boehringer’s submission for fibarnserin was as a depression treatment.

Sprout has received a $20 million dollar angel investment from 59 angel investors, the same group of investors that backed Slate Pharmaceuticals which was the company that spun out Sprout. The company will use the money to support their operations and growth. They will also use the money to hire regulatory personnel and scientists to work on the resubmission of the drug in 2013.

Source: WRAL