startup Archives - Page 68 of 87

Baltimore Startup: Woofound Launches Gamified Recommendation App For iOS

Woofound is a Baltimore based startup in the recommendation space. Since we hail from Baltimore and Philly, this is exciting news for our area, and of course “everywhere else”.

Woofound matches your personality to things you want to do. Woofound was actually built in conjunction with psychoanalyst and psychotherapist Dr. Noreen Honeycutt from Baltimore Maryland. This is actually the second startup in just as many days that we’ve reported on that dives much deeper than the surface to serve up recommendations or discoveries. The first was London based ColourDNA which uses the psychology of colours in it’s discovery platform.

Our friend Sarah Pereze over at TechCrunch reports that Woofound co-founders Dan Sines and Josh Spears founded the company last year after Spears was set up on a blind date. The two friends thought, wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to match up interests based on personality traits?

Like Parking Panda, (another Baltimore startup) Woofound’s launch centers around Baltimore and DC, however today’s launch brings online the 70 top metro markets. Perez pointed out that most of the recommendations in her hometown of Tampa were things she was already familiar with. I had much better luck in Atlanta this early morning.

There’s not much mention of how deep the personality integration goes however they are going to develop a version of Woofound for the Univesity of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) that will help students with career path goals.

The interface is nice and it has this simple feel to it. The user simply rates things “Me or Not Me” reminiscent of the hot or not days.

The iOS version launched today with Android in the coming months.

Linkage:

Check out Woofound here

Source: TechCrunch

We’re the voice of startups “everywhere else” here are more stories from “everywhere else”

Arkansas Startup: Rebounces Puts The Green Back In The Tennis Ball

In our endless quest to look past the trending (read valley based) startups on the Angel List (angel.co), we came across one that is sports related, fun, green (environment) and green (money). The startup is called reBounces and they are based in Harrison Arkansas.

Arkansas has a bubbling startup scene and we’ve covered a handful of startups from Arkansas here at nibletz.

So what is reBounces?

Well Rebounces was founded by Bill Dirst and Cannon Fletcher. The company uses a gas based mixture technology invented by Dirst to put the bounce back into flattened tennis balls.

Typically when a tennis ball has been used over and over again they start to deflate. Even if you are only a casual tennis player you’ve probably noticed this deflating. Normally when a tennis ball deflates the natural reaction is to go buy another can of balls. While that’s all well and good, the tennis balls are not biodegradable and even in their flattened state they go into the landfill.

With the reBounces technology tennis balls are dumped into the Green Tennis Machine. After the machine is sealed and the balls sit for three days they enviro-magically have their bounce back. The balls have the same bounce as balls that just came out of a fresh can and they are back to regulation.

More after the break
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Boston Startup Postwire: Share Private Content In A Highly Visual Way VIDEO INTERVIEW

If you’re a sales person with a few binders worth of clients, a rolodex filled with other clients and vendors and you spend way too much time at a fax machine, Postwire may be for your. Postwire is a new startup application launched by Boston based VisibleGains. The concept behind Postwire is actually very easy, the execution is why it was one of the finalists in this years Disrupt Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012.

Postwire allows business users to set up private, personalized web pages for clients so that forms, orders, and other paper based correspondence can be shared quicker and in a much easier to view way.

Now instead of spending all day at a fax machine, sales people, vendors and other business to business companies can post things to a private post wire page to correspond one to one.

“We developed Postwire with the goal of creating a super simple approach for helping professionals and clients get on the same page — literally,” said Cliff Pollan, co-founder and CEO at VisibleGains. “Sharing just the right information goes a long way toward helping your clients succeed. Now, everyone from small business owners to sales and account teams to physical therapists can easily offer each client a personalized resource page to reference at any time.”

We got to talk with Pollan at TechCrunch disrupt who took us on a little tour of Postwire and plans on taking us on a little tour of the startup scene in Massachusetts as part of our sneaker-strapped nationwide startup road trip.

Check out the video below:

DC HealthTech Startup MedClimate Presents At TechBUZZ

MedClimate, a DC area startup in the HealthTech field, presented last week at TechBUZZ as part of Capital Connection 2012.

MedClimate is looking to take a problem that many new and expectant parents face with doctors and that is, getting questions answered without increasing wait times in already packed waiting rooms. As Tim Barnes, Founder of MedClimate, points out in his pitch, everyone has experienced long waits at doctors offices.

What you may not have considered is that as information has become more and more available to patients, including new parents and expectant parents, wait times in waiting rooms are increasing because more patients are asking more questions. This definitely makes sense when you’re the parent, or patient, but never in the waiting room itself.

Through a disruptive approach to appointment management and using things like videos, video messaging, and making web and mobile appointments, medclimate hopes t o streamline care and make wait times less painful. They plan on doing this all and still allowing for an increase in patient/parent care questioning.

MedClimate plans to use video conferencing to allow patients to ask questions and get immediate feedback from their doctors from the comfort of their own home, or office, while still allowing the practitioner to collect payment via insurance.

The ultimate goal is to not affect everyones already busy schedule with unnecessary appointments.

Check out Barnes pitch below:

Washington DC Startup: KikScore Aquired By Google

Google has Acquired a Wahington DC startup called KikScore. KikScore is an online reputation startup that helps smaller online businesses build reputations and become more trusted for consumers.

CEO and co-founder Rajeev Malik created KikScore after his wife noticed that people would fill up their shopping carts on her furniture website and then abandon them. Malik and his wife did some research and discovered that most incomplete shopping cart purchases were partially based on the customers trust, or lack thereof, of the merchant.

Malik describes KikScore on their blog as:
a patent-pending online reputation score and interactive report card for small businesses around the world. KikScore enables online small businesses to take information and reputational data about themselves, their track record of responsibility and dependability and show their website visitors that their business can be trusted. Small businesses do this by placing the interactive KikScore Confidence Badge, real-time merchant report card and comment platform on their website so they can close more leads and sell more.

KikScore’s other co-founders are Travis Valentine CTO, Mike Collins Head of Product, Mike Mauseth Board of Advisors member, and Tom Lewis another Board Of Advisors member.

This article from SocialMatchbox positions the acquisition as a straight up acquisition without acquihire. Malik told SocialMatchbox that he aimed to spend more time with his budding family and work on his next startup.

Google will most likely fold KikScore into their current Trusted Stores product that falls under the Google Checkout/Google Wallet department.

Linkage:

Source: socialmatchbox.com

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” here are more stories from “everywhere else”

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Interview London Startup: ColourDNA Discovery Of Things In A New Way

If you’re a starutp pitching “discovery” these days you need to make sure you have something unique, fresh and disruptive. London based startup Colour DNA is one of those startups.

Colour DNA isn’t about the things your friends like, it’s about the things that you like.

Once you sign up for the service you pick a color that matches your personality or your favorite color (it’s colour because it’s the British spelling). From there you use an icon with your colour and a heart symbol to mark all the things that you love. Sounds simple so far right?

Then through their property algorithms, ColourDNA matches your likes with other likes across the network. All of these places, foods, events and things also get their own colour based on the spectrum of colours that everyone who loves them has used.

So now you get matched with the things you love and ColourDNA matches you with the people you have the most matches with. Then, ColourDNA takes the things those people love that you don’t love and matches you to those things as discoverables.

Now ColourDNA has helped you discover things and share your things with others. Pretty simple huh?

There’s a lot more to it then meets the eye. Ben Poynter, Co-Founder and CEO of ColourDNA told TechCrunch in an interview earlier this year:

“We are all about discovery new things to enjoy in life based on your interests.. and a few other factors like your favourite colours. We think the interest graph should be about making it easy to discover new things that you’ll love through personalisation, much like Facebook has made it easier for you to re-connecting with your friends.

“I think Pinterest has done a great job as a beautiful and intuitively designed curation tool. We are less a curation tool, and much more a discovery tool… A key feature for us is that a user doesn’t need to know anyone to get an immediately rewarding experience from their unique actions. We push you personalised recommendations by unlocking how your interest graph overlaps with other users, so that you can discover great new things that you would struggle to elsewhere without having to spend a considerable amount of time endlessly browsing.”

Once you download the app itself you’ll see how all of these different aspects of Colour are relevant in ColourDNA. Check out our video below as well:

Linkage:

Check out ColourDNA at their website here

Here’s more of our coverage of TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012

We’re on a sneaker-strapped, nationwide startup roadtrip, check it out here

Michigan Startup: Rippld Get’s $50,000 To Expand Social Network For Creative Professionals

Rippld a social network to promote, collaborate and bring creative together has announced the receipt of a $50,000 micro loan investment to continue working and expanding their network.

This innovative startup for creative professionals is a resident at Wayne State University’s TechTown incubator.

“Friends ask us all the time where to find creative talent,” said co-founder Adrian Walker, who conceived of Rippld with his partner Wilbert Fobbs III when trying to get a fledgling video production company off the ground. “I looked at what was out there in the online landscape and nothing offered the kind of access or information people were looking for. Rippld fills that gap.”

Statewide, Michigan has seen a huge uptick in startups forming in the state or moving into the state. In fact, just this morning we reported on the budding community of 37 startups and innovative companies at Ann Arbor’s TechBrewery, and their newest tenant the team behind PaperDesk.

As for Rippld, Michigan is firmly home of the social startup, in fact, co-founder Lander Cornado-Garcia moved back from Chicago to Detroit to help start Rippld.

“TechTown and its sister incubators have been and continue to be critical to Rippld’s success,” said Coronado-Garcia. “The one-on-one coaching, business plan support and networking capability we accessed through TechTown positioned us to be competitive in our bid for this pre-seed loan and validated the integrity of our business model. We owe this victory in large part to TechTown and its partners.”

More after the break
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Ann Arbor’s TechBrewery Welcomes Innovators Behind PaperDesk

Ann Arbor’s TechBrewery is part co-working space, part incubator and home to some of the top innovators in Ann Arbor’s thriving startup community.

Scott and Lida Hasbrouck are the innovators behind the educational notepad app PaperDesk. PaperDesk is the duo’s most well known app under their WebSpinner brand. It’s a note taking app developed with educational purposes in mind, and aimed at replacing traditional spiral and composition notebooks.

PaperDesk, is not what the Hasbrouck’s plan on working on at TechBrewery though. They will be working on a new educational startup that goes by the name Ginkgotree. They’re also bringing an iOS developer, 3D animator and graphic designer to the TechBrewery as well.

Ginkgotree will fall under the TechEd category, but it’s unclear exactly what they will be doing. Their website currently has a place for a login and the words “Learn Beautifully” on it, on a chalkboard, no less.

Ginkgotree will join these 37 other startups and innovator members of TechBrewery.

“We’re excited about our new beginning at the Tech Brewery,” states Lida Hasbrouck “and participating in the Silicon Valley of the Midwest.”

They’re not the only entrepreneurs and members of the startup community excited about Ann Arbor. The Foundry’s Jason Mendelson recently spoke at an event in Michigan and talked about how Ann Arbor is starting to thrive. Also we recently profiled Michigan startup HealPay who was happy to be moving back to AnnArbor to continue working on their FinTech web applications.

Two students also launched their note taking app called FetchNotes in Ann Arbor. All of this startup excitement in Ann Arbor is why we’re trying to make Ann Arbor, and actually most of Michigan, part of our nationwide sneaker-strapped startup road trip.

We can’t wait to see what the Hasbroucks have planned for Ginkgotree, and what else brews out of TechBrewery.

Linkage:

Ginkgotree’s website can be found here

Checkout TechBrewery here

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” check out these other Michigan stories

Check out our sneaker-strapped startup road trip here

Louisville Startup: Impulcity, Discover The World Around You INTERVIEW

I know I know I know, after South By Southwest you were sure the days of reporting on new discovery startups were over, but we assure you this one is a little different. Louisville startup Impulcity isn’t about social discovery, or app discovery, or thing discovery, Impulcity helps you discover kick ass events, venues and thing to do.

But Impulcity doesn’t stop there, they find the best events, and even sell tickets (often at great discounts) to those events. Then, once their users get into the events the entire experience turns just about user controlled. The user community adds pictures and media to prove what a grand ole time they are having at whatever event it is.

Impulcity will come in handy at Bonaroo, BamaJama, and of course next year at South By Southwest. So what you’re essentially doing is finding the best events, securing your spot in the best events and then reporting on the events to prove what a great time you’re having, and then in turn helping others discover kick ass events.

We got a chance to catch up with co-founder Hunter Hammonds who pinged us after we ran a story about the Louisville startup that’s moving to Cincinnati based incubator the brander.

After Hammonds bold statements for that story we had to check it out further. And yes, Impulcity is going to kick ass (It’s Friday the asses are ok)

Check out the interview after the break and I promise not to say that word again

Interview With NY Startup Edamam Becoming The Worlds Food Knowledge Base

Edamam founder and CEO Victor Penev has a lofty goal. He wants his company to become the goto place for food knowledge in the world. While the goal seems quite lofty as I am writing this right now, if you watch the video below you’ll see that Edamam may well be on their way to doing just that.

They launched their consumer facing product, a mobile app which pulls over one million recipes from different sources, at the DEMO conference in April in Santa Clara California. This isn’t just your run of the mill recipes.com app though, the UI is appealing, the navigation is a breeze and you can separate and search through recipes six ways to Sunday.

On the business side Edamam offers an intense, information packed widget for food blogs and websites to tap their vast knowledge base in the same ways as the mobile app and more. They are also offering an API for developer partners to tap that big food database.

In this interview with Edamam they talk about how they plan on being the goto place for food knowledge. In a few years time they hope that the end user will be able to go to the grocery store, by a piece of salmon and get a treasure trove of possibilities wrapped around Edamam information.

Off camera he admitted that he would love to see Edamam being tapped by the users smartphone in the grocery store, and then a smart refrigerator, stove, or other appliance that offers recipes, food guidance, wine recommendations, anything. We’re talking the Jetson’s Rosie in the big data era.

We’ve covered quite a few food startups here at Nibletz, this is the first time that a startup has such a clear path to the future. We really wish these guys well, and after you watch the video you’ll see they have their stuff together and could easily achieve that lofty goal.

Linkage:

Check out Edamam here at their website

See more of our TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012 Coverage here

We’re on a sneaker-strapped, nationwide startup roadtrip, check it out here

Interview With Boston Startup Jaxx, A Social App For Dudes

Jaxx is a mobile social application just for guys they call it “an app for your entourage”. Jaxx stands by the fact that women and men communicate differently. Where women need face to face interaction men prefer shoulder to shoulder.

That’s why the Jaxx app has three key elements. Jaxx allows men to form entourages of friends. Within the entourage they can “throw down” bets on games, “call out” friends to challenges and “roast” each other.

The roasting part was actually pretty funny. It’s a location portion of the social mobile app which allows you to leave a smack talking roast when your “bro” gets close to that area. For instance if you know your bro is going to play tennis you can leave a roast like “Man you hit like a girl” and when he gets to the tennis court he’ll get that message.

Jaxx launched a beta at TechCrunch Disrupt for iPhone and they plan on launching an Android app as well. They were handing out an investor prospectus at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012 which said they were expecting major growth in 2013 an d2014 and they were seeking a $500,000 seed round.

At this point in time Jaxx is more of a novelty than anything serious. There are several social networks revolving around sports that men may find a lot more appealing, and a bit more mature. Judge for yourself though, check out the video below:

Linkage:

Check out Jaxxapp here at their website

See more of our TechCrunch Disrupt coverage here

We’re on a sneaker-strapped, nationwide startup roadtrip, more here

Austin Startup: BeDJ Bringing Turntable.FM To Real Life, This is Hot! INTERVIEW

By now most of us have had the great experience that is turntable.fm. Hanging out with friends in a virtual space, and going around the room and controlling the music. You get to be the dj and so do your friends. You get to control the music in the virtual room.

Now imagine if this concept was done in real life. For instance, you and your buddies go to the local sports bar and hang out. Now it’s 2012 so instead of a juke box, imagine if you could control the music in the bar or restaurant using your phone. Sure you can control the tv’s with an IR blaster and you may even be able to hack a stereo system, but imagine if it was encouraged. Imagine if you could BeDJ in real life.

That’s the technology behind Austin based startup BeDJ. It’s so hard for restaurants and bars to control the music in their establishments. They can never appease all of their clientele all the time. That’s why in the 60’s -80’s jukebox bars were hot because the people could put another dime in the jukebox and hear what they want.

BeDJ is offering a system/app for venues that allow their overhead music to be controlled by customers with a controller app. It’s a fermium service where venues will be able to get the music controller app for free, however they can upgrade to offer a more robust user experience and also deliver location based ads to their customers.

Imagine the benefit to a restaurant or bar that says, “select your next song and get half off your next round” well we’re definitely in on that deal even if we’re four or five rounds in. The social, customer, and reward element of BeDJ make it a great model for the establishment.

We got to talk in depth with co-founder Simeon Duong to hear all about this exciting startup. Check out the interview after the break
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We Catch Up With Social Photo Sharing Startup StreamZoo At TechCrunch Disrupt VIDEO INTERVIEW

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2011 in New York City, our Managing Editor, Cameron Wright caught wind of Phonezoo’s latest startup project StreamZoo. StreamZoo is a multi platform photosharing application for Android and iPhone that has unique elements that make it one of the most popular photo sharing experiences outside of Instagram.

For starters StreamZoo allows users to follow users and streams that are created by hashtags. For example, co-founder Manish Vaidya talks in part three of this interview about how international users in Indonesia and Brazil make streams for their countries which draw more photos from other users in their country.

Wright also talks to Vaidya about the impact that Instagram has had on StreamZoo. Vaidya says that StreamZoo wasn’t really affected by the adoption of Instagram. Users were steadfast in their ways with their photosharing apps. What did happen however, was when Lightbox was acquihired by Facebook and subsequently shutdown StreamZoo found a lot of users migrated to their service. Those users used a stream #lightbox to find each other on StreamZoo.

StreamZoo also offers a badging element reminiscent of GoWalla which was also acquihired by Facebook. StreamZoo has the ability to create badges centered around locations, businesses, fun places to go and events. In fact Vaidya created a special badge unique to just Disrupt.

In Part I of the interview Wright talks with Vaidya about the progress that StreamZoo has made since they met the previous year. They also talk about how the StreamZoo community influences changes in the 8 person Sunnyvale based team. StreamZoo had gone a little notification crazy but quickly reacted to the community adding a more effective way to manage notifications in messages within the UI. Check out part I below:

In Part II of the interview Vaidya talks about the impact of Instagram, Facebook and Lightbox on the StreamZoo application. Check out part II after the break

Interview With A Founder: Philly Startup Snip Snap App

At TechCrunch Disrupt we reported on a very cool startup called Snip Snap App. I was so excited about it that I had the first story up before Ted Mann, the founder, got a chance to get off the Disrupt Battlefield stage. While he may feel that larger media outlet coverage is more relevant, we all know the power of nibletz as the voice of startups everywhere else, that’s why after several editorial meetings about this we decided to post the interview anyway, regardless of the founders view on TechCrunch coverage vs Nibletz coverage it’s a damn good product, and heck some people think I’m a total douche, but still read nibletz everyday.

So what is Snip Snap App, it’s an app that’s already saved me $36 and I’ve only had it on my iPhone 4S since last Wednesday. With Snip Snap App you simply take pictures of your print coupons, within the app and voila the rest is magical.

Snip Snap App takes all the useful coupon information like the barcode, promotional codes, and images and makes them easy for the cashier to see at checkout. Now you don’t have to worry about loading down your pocketbook, or purse, or forgetting the Babies R Us coupons, which is consequently why Mann created the app.

Here's our original picture of MC Hammer talking to Mann that was borrowed without accreditation (photo: nibletz syndicate)

But that’s not all…

When you sign up for Snip Snap App you join a community of likeminded couponers who are also posting coupons on a daily basis. You can use a search function or discover function to find coupons that you’ll use in your community, or in your daily travels.

In fact, you don’t even need to upload a coupon to get the benefit of using everyone else’s coupons.

Now, when you try and redeem the coupon there is the risk that the cashier or store won’t take the coupon but more and more stores are getting used to seeing digital coupons. If you successfully redeemed your coupon than you mark it as such after using it. If you pitched a fit and are waiting for the paddy wagon to come and get you for punching the clerk in the face for not taking your coupon, then you mark it as “unsuccessful” (please don’t really do that).

These success ratings give you a better idea going into the store whether or not you’re going to have success. Bed Bath & Beyond, The Gap, Old Navy and Burger King seem to be quite successful thus far. Snip Snap App also has a new exclusive coupon deal with Aeropastle as well so you can use their coupon at any shopping mall in America.

Snip Snap App is going to be more successful than traditional coupon apps because of the discovery, search and sharing functionality. In some cases those gigantic Bed Bath & Beyond coupons that come in the mail are being shared on Snip Snap App with success. This is a feature the other coupon apps don’t have.

So far Mann has seen over 130,000 device downloads after being featured in the iTunes store and over 50,000 repeat users. Why, because it’s really a must have app. Mann reports to our Managing Editor Cameron Wright, that an Android and iPad app can be expected in the coming months.

Watch this video than download it:

Linkage:

Check out Snip Snap App in the iTunes App Store

See more of our TechCrunch Disrupt Coverage of startups “everywhere else”

We’re on a sneaker-strapped, nationwide, startup roadtrip find out more here