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Boston Startup: Ministry Of Supply Gunning For Kickstarter Fashion Award

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer could really benefit from Ministry of Supply's shirts

A new Boston startup called Ministry of Supply is looking to break the fashion category fundraising record on crowdfunding site Kickstarter. The current record is held by a company called Flint & Tinder that makes men’s underwear. They were able to break the fashion record by raising $291,493 back in May.

At the time this story was written (late Friday evening) the Boston startup that uses space suit technology to manage moisture, sweatstains and odor, in dress shirts, had raised nearly $275,000. The best part of this story is that their initial goal was just $30,000. In what’s becoming a trend now for Kickstarter projects, Ministry of Supply quickly blew through that goal.

“After we got the word out about the Kickstarter campaign through the help of friends and family sharing the news through social media outlets, we then saw the Kickstarter community really start to embrace us,” Ministry of Supply co-founder Kevin Rustagi told the Boston Business Journal

Ministry of Supply’s Apollo shirt is sweat free and will save many business people the embarrassment of odors and big sweat stains in meetings and around the office. The Apollo shirt will come in real handy in the heatwaves we’ve been experiencing across the country.

The company’s Kickstarter campaign goes until Wednesday so it looks like they should have no problem reaching the number 1 spot, and raising close to, if not more than $300,000.

Ministry of Supply is currently working hard on their e-commerce platform and opening a brick and mortar location which will contain a showroom as well as their offices. The Boston Business Journal reports that Ministry of Supply will also participate in MassChallenge this summer.

Links, we’ve got em:

Check out Ministry of Supply here

Get in on their Kickstarter project here

Source: Boston Business Journal

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NY Startup: Emotish Lets You Share Pictures With Emotion INTERVIEW

Emotish is a new mobile app startup in New York City. They’ve taken a twist of the standard photo sharing app and added an element to it that makes this app special. The element is emotion.

With Emotish you take photos of yourself or you and your friends and you can tag it with what you’re feeling at the time and then share it via Facebook and Twitter. Users will soon be able to keep tabs on the photos and tags and see what feelings are trending, how everyone was feeling in a given area, favorite photos and contextual tags.

Emotions bring a whole new life into photo sharing. Instagram is great with it’s filters and likes but with Emotish not only will you see photos and a smile but you’ll have a better context of what the smiles about, or even what the long face or frown is about.

What makes Emotish even cooler is this isn’t just about great coders or a cool mobile app development startup. Emotish Co-Founder Ryan Wegner is actually a PhD candidate in the clinical psychology program at Columbia University. So like Smurks in Chicago, there is actual real psychology behind this app and what emotion brings to the table in people’s every day lives, in context and in photos.

We got a chance to talk to Wenger in between saving the world and developing great apps, check out the interview below:

Startup Weekend Memphis Reboots July 20th

Memphis has a thriving startup scene. In fact for a city of just over 650,000 they have more startup resources than most cities twice their size. Tennessee has a thriving chapter of Startup America and their are other organizations like Emerge Memphis, Seed Hatchery and Launch Memphis that cultivate startups throughout the region.

Now, after a four year hiatus, the official, nationally sanctioned “Startup Weekend” event is coming back to Memphis. Four years ago the main Startup Weekend Organization was still very new. Now, organizers of the Memphis Startup Weekend are thrilled to welcome the brand back to Memphis.

“We promise that this will be a fantastic, fun weekend, whether you want to come and work on your own idea for a company or hang out and help other people with theirs,” Ruffer told James Dowd’s Commercial Appeal. “The program has matured a lot in the past four years, and that’s why we wanted to bring it back. Not only will this energize the Memphis entrepreneurial community, but it’ll show other cities around the world that Memphis is serious about entrepreneurship.”

Startup Weekend Memphis will follow the traditional 54 hour StartupWeekend model. The event kicks off on Friday July 20th at 6:30pm. At that time, registered entrepreneurs will pitch the ideas they hope to have developed over the 54 hour period. After a quick voting period the startups to be developed will be selected.

Saturday, the startup teams will work with each other and with top notch mentors like Clay Banks, Demarcus Love, Cliff McKinney, Karen Spacek, Ted Townsend and Bioworks’ Allan Daisley who’s day job involves mentoring startups as well.

Sunday the teams will refine their ideas, try and have a proof of concept and practice their pitches. Sunday evening is make it or break it time as the teams will pitch their ideas in front of a panel of judges including James Dowd of Commercial appeal, who’s also the local media sponsor.

The teams are competing for over $20,00 worth of prizes that all startups would need. In fact one of the organizer’s Chris Pryzbyszewski says they still may have more prizes coming in.

The national and local organizers of StartupWeekend Mempis want the teams to stay around as long as they can all weekend long to flush out and build their ideas. There will be a virtually endless supply of caffeine and catered meals from Baby Jacks and more. If you haven’t been to a StartupWeekend event it’s an experience you must see first hand.

We’ll be there as well to cover the entire event, and support Memphis’ startup community one of the most thriving startup communities “everywhere else”

Links:

For more information on StartupWeekend Memphis click here

Check out our coverage of Memphis’ last startup event 48 Hour Launch

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Want your event covered, as long as it’s outside the Valley, email startups@nibletz.com

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Netherlands Startup: ShowDates To Take On SideReel INTERVIEW

If you’re a tv-a-holic or just too busy to keep up with the ever changing prime time schedule for your favorite shows you are probably well aware of sidereel. The site keeps up with the episodes of each popular TV show and can deliver customized email alerts to tell you what’s going on and when you’re favorite shows are back from break.

ShowDates, a startup based in the Netherlands says that they can do this better with their cleaner more appealing UI. Everything on ShowDates is focused around their dashboard which they call “the couch”.

Now we’re well aware that SideReel isn’t as popular as say Facebook but for the past few years it’s been the standard among those that want to keep up with TV shows, so we asked ShowDates co-founder Rick Pastoor how they’re different than SideReel:

“We really try to keep the amount of functionality to the absolute minimum to just do what users want: track their progress on shows. Our focus is on designing a beautiful interface which tells you directly which way to go. We don’t want to craft just another web application, but a friend that helps you what show to pick next and reminds you where you left off last time. Next to this, we are just two guys that love programming. We have experience in both “normal” web development and iOS / Android applications.” Pastoor replied.

He had time for a few more questions, check out the interview below:

Canadian Startup: Growple Challenges You To Grow Together Interview

While things seem to be falling apart for Waterloo Canada’s biggest company RIM, a new startup wants people to grow together. Their startup Growple is all about making challenges over anything and everything and either challenging yourself, your friends or new acquaintances using Growple’s mobile platform.

The challenges can be anything from “I challenge myself to lose 30 pounds” or I challenge Mike to pick up the girls number across the bar. Challenges are more fun when their done together. Making new friends and growing socially is more fun when it’s surrounded by challenges.

The team behind Growple is frustrated about how people claim to be “social” and how they try hard to stay connected rather than actually being connected. It’s another one of those startups that takes the virtual world and brings it to the real world, bringing the online world off line.

We got a chance to interview Growple’s co-founder Kevin Kim. Check out the interview below.

Canadian Startup Scolaris Crowdfunding Tuition

We knew this day would come, we just weren’t sure who would do it first. A startup in Toronto called Scolaris offers a crowdfunding platform for students to find funds for tuition for college.

The site allows Canadian students attending colleges and universities in Canada to setup “scholarships” for themselves. Once the scholarship is setup students can turn to friends, family and even complete strangers for funding.

We wouldn’t be surprised if some of the students who participate on Scolaris.ca tell compelling enough stories that anonymous philanthropic donors choose to fund their entire education. Stranger things have happened.

Scolaris.ca uses a Paypal interface to complete the transactions for the fundees. That allows contributors to pay via PayPal account, credit or debit card.

Scolaris founder and CEO Mark Mauleesan drew from his own hard experience raising money for medical school when coming up with the idea for Scolaris.

“Medical school wasn’t cheap. I was fortunate enough to have people apart from my parents say ‘Here’s a cheque for Mark,’” Mauleesan told itbusiness.ca “My parents helped me through medical school and now my sister’s going through law school in Ottawa. So she can raise funds for her scholarship (on Scolaris.ca) in the coming year.”

Scolaris doesn’t charge the student or the donor. To make money the company does take an 8% fee off every dollar raised, with half of that going to cover PayPal fees.

In order to raise money for tuition students must provide proof that they are actually enrolled or accepted into a post secondary education institution.

Also all funds raised on Scolaris are put in a lump sum account on the students behalf and then paid directly to the school once the student furnishes a tuition invoice.

Unlike the US an average year of tuition in Canada is around $5500 so it’s not a huge amount of money to raise.

“As long as you’re going to an accredited (school) and can prove you’re a student or are going to be a student…(there’s) no way to come to Scolaris.ca and try to scam donors to try to rip them off,” Mauleesan said.

Linkage:

For more information visit scolaris.ca

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Oklahoma Startup Incubator Blueprint For Business Looks To Make Starting Up More Humane

There’s a new technology startup incubator in Oklahoma City that is looking to offer businesses an $18,000-$25,000 seed investment along with services and mentoring. Sure that sounds like the model for most incubators across the country “everywhere else” but Guy Madison, the founder of Blueprint for business has a couple other ideas that will set this incubator apart.

Being a workaholic, non-stop founder is part of the startup culture. In my opinion and the opinion of many others it’s almost expected that you work around the clock until your body can’t take it anymore. While this is definitely not the most healthy idea, nor socially accepted to anyone outside of your startup circle, it shows drive, determination and focus.

Madison doesn’t seem to agree.

“We want them to focus on the whole package, because if you become a millionaire and your wife divorces you because you’re never around, then you’re a lonely millionaire” he told newsok.com

While some may applaud this idea, and yes it’s fundamentally great, it seems that the new Mr & Mrs Zuckerberg are quite happy together and Zuck’s bride has been with him through almost all of the Facebook startup process. Obviously the Zuckerberg case doesn’t support every startup but most founders know no bounds when it comes to working on their startup.

Madison has lined up over 25 great entrepreneurs from the Oklahoma City tech scene. He plans to integrate all the valuable lessons for entrepreneurs and founders while advising the group of startups on the human part of a technology startup, ie not working 90-100 hours per week.

Madison admits that, aside from the toned down work ethic, most of the idea behind his incubator is built on the TechStars model, as are about 90% of the other incubators across the country.

Blueprint for Business if being funded by husband and wife owners of U.S. Fleet Tracking, Jerry and Cindy Hunter.

Madison is courting entrepreneurs from everywhere to come to Oklahoma City for three months from August 15th through November 15th and culminate with a demo day in November where the teams can pitch their ideas in front of investors.

While we appreciate Madison’s idea for a more “humane” accelerator, we don’t necessarily agree that it’s such a problem. However, we are definitely jazzed up about the idea of a new incubator in Oklahoma City. Madison along with Ramier Shaik, one of the mentors in the program feel that Blueprint for Business is a much needed resource for startups in Oklahoma City.

Madison says that startups that move into Oklahoma City for the incubator don’t have to stay when the three months is up, but he’s hopeful that they will. Cost of living is much lower than either coast and outside of tornado season Oklahoma City is actually a beautiful place.

There are only a few days left for applications, the process ends on July 8, 2012. See the link below.

Hit the links:

Here’s where you can apply for Blueprint for business

Source: newsok.com

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Madison Startup: SeatSwapr Facilitates That Airline Seat Swap For You

Last week, when we stopped in Madison Wisconsin as part of the Nibletz sneaker strapped, nationwide startup road trip we took office hours with 10 hungry entrepreneurs and startup founders. One of those founders was Thomas Mueller who is hoping to take something that happens on lots of airlines, streamline it and execute it through an app.

Seat swapping is nothing new. A lot of people get on an airplane and realize for some reason or another the seat that they picked or have been assigned isn’t going to work out. At that point, if the plane is full, the passenger is stuck. Sometimes when this happens you’ll hear people trading seats or even selling their seats. In fact I’ve done this a number of times. I often select an exit row seat and then someone really tall comes along and wants the seat with the extra leg room. More often than not I’m offered between $20 and $60 to swap seats. (as long as they’re coming from an aisle seat I typically do it. I don’t do window seats, you get out of the plane quicker on the aisle).

Well Mueller is also very familiar with this practice. Every now and then you’ll see seat swap requests on major flights happen on Twitter. Typically the bi-coastal NY/SF or NY/LA flights have the most traffic on Twitter. Tweets will read “I’m on NY/LA Flight XXX and need an aisle seat $50”.

Interestingly enough the flight attendants don’t seem to care as long as you don’t delay them starting their safety instructions, and of course don’t interrupt the flow of other passengers getting to their seats.

Well Mueller realizes that websites like seatguru and seatexpert already know which seats are the best. Other sites like tripit know what flight your on and of course all the airlines offer viewable maps online of the inside of the plane so you can see where your seat is.

When you put all this information together and then tie it in with a mobile app you have the opportunity to create a seat swapping app.

Now it’s not as easy as it sounds and Mueller is ready to face the challenge. Of course with any mobile app the first thing a founder wants to do is build scale. Mueller has to build tremendous scale because for the app to work, two people need to be on the same flight. In addition as Mueller told us “If a plane is half full there’s no market for us”.

That doesn’t seem to be a problem though because since 9/11 airlines have reduced their number of flights and have tried to fill every plane to capacity. The load factor right now is 83% full while some of the more popular flights like New York to San Francisco are 98% full. Those are the flights where people would really benefit from an app like SeatSwapr.

Mueller is hoping to partner with some of the other travel sites to implement his technology.

Linkage:

Check out SeatSwapr here at SeatSwapr.com

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Chicago Startup: Red Meat Market Connecting People With Meat, Socially! Video Interview

Did you know that meat could be social? Of course you did, how many times have you socialized over burgers, hot dogs (is that meat) or great steaks? Well a new startup in the Chicago area is connecting people socially over meat. This time though, it’s about buying meat.

Red Meat Market, like Kansas’ AgLocal, connects people in Chicago, Madison and Milwaukee (for now) to the freshest, farm raised sustainable meat. Red Meat Market has a website and a mobile app which makes it a cinch to order meat in boxes, by dollar amount, choosing the cuts that you want.

With Red Meat Market you tell their platform what you want to spend and it tells you what you can get in your “box of meat” you can get a variety or one choice cut but this way you always stay in the budget that you want, each and every month.

There are actually a couple of social components to Red Meat Market. The first is the ability to split your “box of meat” up with friends, within the site and the app. Red Meat Market handles the payment distribution and everyone gets the meat they want. The meat box can be delivered to your door, or you can opt to attend one of Red Meat Market’s Meat Ups (clever huh). At their Meat Ups, Red Meat Market supplies the beer and the sides and everyone gets the box of meat that they ordered.

By holding a meat up you can meat or meet other Red Meat Market users and socialize or swap cuts of meats between boxes.

Red Meat Market is in a great part of the country to start a business like this. Co-Founder Mark Wilhelms blends his 18 years of digital and marketing experience with his love of meat for a new way to not just sell great, quality, grass fed meat but to connect people who love meat together.

Check out our video interview below:

Linkage:

Check out RedMeatMarket here at their website

Here’s more of our Chicago TechWeek coverage

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Move Your Resume To The Front Of The Line With Chicago Startup hiredMyway.com

A new startup in Chicago called hiredMyway may have just solved a huge problem for job-seekers and that’s getting their resume actually reviewed and reviewed quicker. There is a cost involved, but when it’s all laid out for the job seeker the nominal $5 fee is worth so much more in the end.

Matt Mosher the CEO and Founder of hiredMYway.com is offering a different kind of job site. With hiredMYway, when an interested job seeker finds a position they feel they are qualified for or “perfect” for they can submit their resume for free, or they can elect to pay the $5 fee which guarantees their resume will be reviewed in the first 15 days. In fact hiredMYway will notify the job seeker when their resume is actually read.

Now we realize that job seekers don’t have a bunch of $5 bills just laying around, especially if they are out of work while on the job hunt. That’s actually the beauty of Mosher’s system though. Job seekers will only pay the $5.00 for jobs they feel they are really qualified for and actually want.

The current job hunting website system is broken. Typically when a job is posted to one of the current job sites, thousands of people submit their resume, whether they are qualified or not. Some even submit their resume when they don’t even want that particular job, they just want “something”.

Recruiters, hiring agencies and HR departments that sign up with hiredMYway will know that when someone is submitting their resume along with the $5.00 payment, they have a truly interested candidate. It will effectively move those candidates to the top of the pile.

“You’re not going to pull your credit card out if you don’t think you’re going to have a chance,” Mosher said in an interview with redeyechicago.

Now here’s where it gets better.

There’s a signing bonus structure within the recruiters, hiring agencies and HR Departments. According to this article from redeyechicago that signing bonus could potentially be as big as $4,000 if not more. As with any job site or hiring agency a fee changes hands from the employer to the “agency”. hiredMYway splits that fee with 2/3 going to hiredMYway and the other third going back to the job seeker who gets the job.

With that 1/3 of the “finders” fee back in the pocket of the job seeker they most likely will make all their money back, regardless of how many jobs they paid the $5.00 “token” fee for.

Mosher is in the process of moving the funded startup from Detroit to Chicago. They currently employ 24 people and plan to hire more. They’ve secured $3.5m in their first round of funding from VC’s and angel investors.

While the $5.00 payment may be a turn off to some, if you live in a world where you believe you get what you pay for you may actually see the real value in redeyechicago. Some job sites charge extra for premium listings for job candidates. With hiredMyway your $5.00 goes directly to getting your resume seen.

Linkage:

Check out hiredMYway here at hiredMYway.com

Source: redeyechicago

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Prague Startup: mySchoolNotebook.com Expands To US INTERVIEW HERE

Two Czech entrepreneurs have developed a note taking app for students that has become very popular in Prague and surrounding areas.

There are a few apps out there for students to take school notes however none are as easy to use or as feature packed as mySchoolNotebook.com. With their app students can take notes, organize them into notebooks and even add audio to the notes. They stay organized in the same way that you would keep a traditional three ring binder.

mySchoolNotebook.com uses Facebook authorization, so to use the app you need to have a Facebook account. The upside to the Facebook integration is that it adds a conduit for sharing notes with fellow students that may be collaborating on an assignment together.

mySchoolNotebook.com also has a pdf export function that allows the student to export their notes as a pdf if you need to have an actual paper version of the notes.

More and more schools across the country (and apparently the world) are allowing students to use smartphones and iPads in class to take notes. This is good for the environment and great for the student as it gives them a way to quickly move their notes back and forth from their computers and makes them easier for reference when writing long papers or studying for exams.

We got a chance to catch up with mySchoolNotebooks.com who were actually in Chicago for TechWeek two weeks ago. Check out our interview after the break

Puerto Rico Joins the Startup America Partnership

Startup America added their 26th regional partnership on Tuesday with Puerto Rico. Startup Puerto Rico kicked off in true Startup America fashion with a networking party for entrepreneurs across the island held at Universidad Interamericana, Recinto Metropolitano in San Juan.

“Puerto Ricans want to develop their own country on their own terms,” said Startup Puerto Rico representative Richard Vazquez. “Startup America encourages Puerto Ricans to develop the country by creating more jobs and kick-starting our local economy.”

The partnership between Startup Puerto Rico and Startup America will give entrepreneurs and startups on the island access to the same benefits that Startup America members have on the mainland. In addition, Startup America membership is free, and you didn’t have to attend the launch event to sign up, you can simply click the link below.

Startup America offers free educational webinars, free benefits from partners including indiegogo, American Express, Intuit and plenty of others. The member portal on the Startup America website shows every member what the current benefits are.

They also regularly hold contests which have included a trip to attend the Super Bowl with Startup America CEO Scott Case and a trip to the Kentucky Derby.

Startup America is chaired by AOL co-founer Steve Case (no relation to Scott Case) and with Puerto Rico, now has 26 regional partnerships.

Linkage:

Startup Puerto Rico

Startup America

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Baltimore Startup: SocialToaster Grabs $1.975M In Series A Round

Baltimore startup Social Toaster seems to be on the cutting edge of monetizing social media distribution. There are a lot of companies in the same space as Social Toaster but none some to be executing with the same results.

The concept is pretty simple. If you have are a digital publisher or major brand Social Toaster helps you register ambassadors and super fans. These people are charged with helping to get your message out to the world, and because their fans, they do just that. Ambassadors and Super Fans are the type of social media folks who carry a lot of weight. How much?

Well according to Social Toaster’s CEO and Founder Brian Razzaque, “One of our clients told us that with 60,000 ambassadors, we were more effective than their Facebook page of 2 million.” he told the Baltimore Sun

In fact, one of Social Toasters clients is the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens use Social Toaster for monthly media sharing contests which help their content go viral.

This isn’t a fly by night operation or a flash in the pan. Social Toaster has been perfecting their craft. Last year their sales were $300,000 this year they are projecting $2 to $3 million in sales. That’s why Razzaque was able to announce last week that the firm had completed a $1.975 million dollar series A round.

The round follows a seed round in 2011 from Neuberger Ventures and other individual investors.

Blu Venture Investors led Social Toaster’s latest round, Baltimore Angels, Wasabi Ventures, and Piedmont Investment Advisors also participated.

Razzaque plans to double the headcount from 22-50 and also plans moving the company to larger offices to Clipper Mill with about three times the office space they are currently operating out of.

William Militello, Founder of Piedmont Investment Advisors, LLC commented, “I am always excited to fund great entrepreneurs. I believe that true innovation occurs when skilled labor, intellectual capital, and entrepreneurs with great ideas are combined with the financial capital Piedmont can provide.”

Paul Silber of Blu Venture Investors, said, “our team was really attracted to SocialToaster’s novel “message amplification” solution, to the company’s leadership, and to the fact that they were rapidly gaining traction with recognizable name-brand customers. We liked the fact that their software solution offered a cost-effective and simple way for organizations of all kinds to effectively use social media to get their message out to a wider audience.”

Linkage:

For more info on Social Toaster visit them here at socialtoaster.com

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Source: Baltimore Sun

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Indianapolis Startup: Blab Bubble Is A DIY Platform For Pay Per Click Social Media Advertising INTERVIEW

If you haven’t noticed advertising is moving away from traditional online pay per click models of years past. Advertisers are reaching out to both mobile and social media channels for advertising.

Companies like Ad.ly,MyLikes and Sponsored Tweets allow individuals with good social media followings to capitalize on their tweets, likes and recommendations by offering cash based incentives. Blab Bubble is a new startup that’s coming into the same space with a new spin that may work out even better in the long run.

Blab Bubble spent a lot of time and money researching the market to find out where social media advertising is breaking down. They found two key areas that had the biggest pain points.

The first was that many advertisers felt that traditional social media advertising sites were too cumbersome when trying to create campaigns. The other area that needed improvement was in the startup and small business arena. Most social media advertising companies targeted big brands and enterprise. Of course, with that, they were pricing small businesses and startups out of the market.

Blab Bubble has created a simple, easy to use interface for businesses of any size to set up social media campaigns. The process takes just a few minutes and the campaign is off and running. Blab Bubble also offers very easy to understand pricing, how about $.40 per click no matter who you are.

We got a chance to interview BlabBubble to find out more about this Indianapolis startup and their spin on social media advertising.