Enigma Reinvents Public Data And Wins TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield

Public data is a huge gigantic mess. Some municipalities offer everything in indexed searchable sites, while others send you cd roms of property values and tax records. Still, some municipalities require that you go down to their town hall or courthouse and sift through filing cabinets as if they’re trapped in the 1970s.

Cumulatively you’re talking about 100’s of millions if not millions of records of data, and none if it’s uniform. It’s possibly the largest big data project in the world. An ambitious project, taken on by Hicham Oudghiri and Marc DaCosta co-founder sof Enigma.io, as well as CEO Jeremy Bronfmann.

There are mountains upon mountains of public data. What is “public data” it’s really determined by the municipalities themselves. For instance, tax records, property records, marriage licenses, etc are just about public data in every town and city across the country and around the world. In some municipalities though, restaurant food scores, public transportation records and even dog licenses are considered public data.

Sure there are scammy data sites that off-shoot to wanna be background reports, but Enigma is out to do something bigger. They want to create an entire new layer of the internet in the next five years.

Enigma has already raised $1.1 million dollars in seed funding from Triple Point Ventures, CrossLink Capital, and angels like YouTuber Brent Hurley. They’ve also inked some important partnerships with Harvard Business School, Gerson Lehrman Group (a research firm), S&P Capital IQ and The New York Times.

One of the challenges Enigma faces is the rapid rate at which more and more data is released to the public. Yet another thing that Bronfmann says their team is ready for.

Enigma started to amass this huge collection of data by sending a ton of Freedom of Information Act requests. They’ve had to compile the data in one simple, easy to use format even though it comes in a variety of sources. Bronfmann told us in an interview that some data even comes on “print outs”.

The scope of what Enigma is looking to achieve along with the powerhouse team and the work they’ve done to date, was enough for them to win the TechCrunch Battlefield competition on Wednesday. That honor comes with a $50,000 non-equity prize and of course startups that have won in the past like UberConference and GetAround, have gone on to raise huge rounds.

Check out our interview with Bronfmann below and sign up for more info about Enigma here at enigma.io.

See how this Cincinnati startup went from Startup Weekend to TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield.

EatWith Is The AirBnB For Dinner Parties. Watch Their TechCrunch Disrupt Pitch Here

Eatwith was one of the TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield participants on Tuesday afternoon. This exciting new startup is like the AirBnB for dinner parties. Guy Michlin, the CEO of EatWith discovered that eating at a complete strangers home, while traveling, was one of the best ways to experience what the locals have to offer.

“The inspiration for EatWith came while I was travelling in Greece and had the opportunity to share a meal with the Papadakis family. It was a wonderful opportunity to experience authentic local food with a local family that made me feel at home. The food was tastier, the location more interesting, and the experience was by far the highlight of my trip, ” Michlin said in a statement Tuesday morning.

“When I came back home, I did some research and saw that this dining experience exists today all over the world but it’s hard to find and there’s no consistency or feedback for you to know which hosts to trust. I realized that there was a real opportunity to build an online platform that enables people all over the world to connect around the dining table and have a similarly unique experience.”

Michlin said that on that trip to Greece he and his wife wanted to find the unique places that locals ate at but towards the end of the trip they had eaten at every “tourist trap” in Greece. So he asked a complete stranger on the street “where do the locals eat”. The bewildered stranger looked back at Michlin and said “at home”. Thus the idea was born.

Eatwith allows amateur chefs and cooks to share their homes for a meal with complete strangers and make a little money on the side. The startup is insured and vets the diners so that there is minimal risk. It’s a lot safer than say advertising a dinner party on Craigslist.

Michlin saw the service take off in it’s beta testing stage, but what he didn’t expect was that locals were actually signing up as well and they were dining out multiple times each month, using the Eatwith platform.

The platform provides guests with a beautifully designed site that allows them to easily find a local host. The site features a wealth of information about each host including information about the food, the location, and the price of the meal allowing guests a perfect experience catered to their needs. Mirroring this is a set of tools that hosts can leverage to share information about their offering and attract guests.

Some of the most important elements of the service are the processes and tools created by EatWith to ensure the trust and safety of both its guests and hosts. This includes a vetting process for hosts by the EatWith community, the EatWith Guarantee — third party insurance coverage, and a ratings and reviews system.

When it came time for judging David Tisch asked Michlin how many times people were expected to open up their homes to strangers. He seemed shocked when Michlin reported some hosts were hosting 4-6 times a month. Tisch felt that with 72 dinners a year, isn’t that in itself becoming a “tourist trap”.

Michlin shook that question off and powered forward through the rest of the questioning. Overall it’s a new innovative way of getting to know people, trying new things and for the hosts, perfecting their culinary skills on new diners they couldn’t otherwise cook for.

Check out their pitch video below and for more information visit eatwith.com

See even more of our startup coverage from TechCrunch Disrupt here.

Celebrities Love The Startup The World Has Been Waiting For: Hater App

There are haters everywhere, or at least that’s how the song goes. Lord knows I have a bunch. That’s why Jake Banks created Los Angeles startup Hater. It’s the world’s first social network surrounded by things people hate.

The social network is alive and growing at a very quick rate. People are finding lots of commonalities over the things they hate. It can be anything from hating the New York Yankees to hating pickles on a Big Mac. It can even be hating your ex-girlfriend. But, co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer Andrew Batey says “It’s not about bullying”.

Hater App works on your mobile device. Download it from the app store and you can immediately start identifying the things you hate and identifying with the people who hate similar things. If a person becomes the subject of too much hate, or things get inappropriate (to a degree) they will get filtered out.

To date there’s been nothing available like Hater, and it’s caught the eye of celebrities like Teyana Taylor, Wiz Khalifa and Fat Joe who will feature the app in his next show. “Fat Joe’s people found out about Hater and reached out to us” Batey explained to nibletz.com at TechCrunch Disrupt NY.

Hate isn’t always used as a bad thing though. Batey explains that there are celebrities that are getting together over issues like global warming and getting users to say why they hate global warming. “Users may say things like I hate global warming because I can’t breathe” Batey said. It’s a great awareness tool and it’s blowing up.

Hater launched at SXSW and since then Batey and Banks have been hard at work promoting their startup globally. They recently did New York Tech Day, TNW in Amsterdam and now TechCrunch Disrupt 2013.

“You don’t always have to like something, and the option to hate or dislike has been missing out there. Everyone has something they hate; now you can and it’s better than therapy.” Banks said in a statement.

Mashable recently featured Hater in “8 standout apps from March” which is a particularly big honor considering how many apps were released at SXSW which fell during that month. They’ve also been featured on Wall Street Journal live. People are quickly beginning to see that Hater app is a lot deeper than you may think.

Check out our interview with Batey below.

More from TechCrunch Disrupt here at nibletz.

AppArchitect Could Be The Easiest Way To Build An App [interview][disrupt]

AppArchitect is an idea that was actually born at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2011. It was there, at the Disrupt Hackathon, where the first lines of code were written.

Over the last two years the team behind AppArchitect has been refining the product. They’ve also been through the DreamIt Ventures accelerator in Philadelphia and raised $325,000 from Actinic Ventures, BHV, DreamIt and other angels.

They finally went live just before 4:00pm on the Battlefield stage at Disrupt 2013. Co-Founder Ilya Zatulovskly took to the stage and showed off what could be the easiest platform ever to build a native iOS app. AppArchitect sets itself apart from other DIY app generators because it’s not template based and not just a “wrapper”.

Users who want to create a new app simply need to know how to drag and drop things, to create an app using AppArchitect. Zatulovskly says “if you can build a slide deck you can build an app”.

It’s such an easy platform that Zatulovskly created an app during the quick Battlefield presentation.

That may not have been enough to wow the judges in their Battlefield session called “Get Things Done”. The judges: John Frankel, Hilary Mason, Megan Quinn, and Sam Yagan seemed to take notice that the competitive landscape in the DIY app creation space were plentiful. They also weren’t exactly sure who the end user was.

Naturally, the end user is anyone who wants to build an app. However, design agencies and advertising firms are already employing developers and DIY app creation tools that have already been on the market. With over 1 million apps across all of the app stores, it’s getting harder and harder for any app to stand out.

AppArchitect could come in handy for mom and pop shops, small restaurants and small businesses who are looking to get into the app world with something specific for their business.

Regardless, Zatulovskly and the AppArchitect team are hoping to use this experience, coupled with the knowledge and experience gained at DreamIt, to raise another round of capital and continue building AppArchitect.

Check out our video interview below and for more info or to try it out yourself you can find AppArchitect here.

More startup coverage from TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 here.

Croatian Startup MediaToolKit Wins It’s Way To TechCrunch Disrupt, Here’s An Interview

Croatian startup MediaToolKit started as a social media monitoring web app targeted towards journalists. Journalists from blogs, newspapers, video outlets and other media resources can tap into MediaToolKit and discover trending content on Facebook and other sources from their competitors. Southeast Europes netocratic.com called it a “spy tool”.

Media Toolkit’s Ivor Bihar was on hand at TechCrunch Disrupt New York after the startup competed in the WebUp startup competition as part of the webfest.me conference last fall and won a trip over to the United States to present MediaToolKit to the US here at TechCrunch Disrupt.

Over the last few months MediaToolKit has continued to iterate. Now they offer a suite of tools for journalists, hence the name Tool Kit, including press clippings and alerts. The startup comes out of Zagreb based social media agency iStudio.

Check out our video interview with Bihar below and for more information you can check out mediatoolkit.com

And here’s more awesome TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 coverage here at nibletz.com

Paul Singh Turning Backburner Project Into Bloomberg/Motley Fool Of The Private Markets

Paul Singh, the Washington DC based entrepreneur, who became a household name in many startup circles while he was a partner at 500 startups, has began sharing much more about his startup Dashboard.io. We had started hearing rumors that Singh was stepping down at 500 startups during SXSW and it was confirmed in March.

Singh returned to his DC roots to continue growing dashboard.io a project he says he started on the back burner. Dashboard.io quickly grew into a huge tool that 500 startups founders and other accelerator startups could use to reach investors, share information and talk with each other.

We recently took a trip to Silicon Valley and had the chance to talk with several 500 startups founders who found the dashboard extremely useful.

Singh explains on the dashboard.io blog how the idea came about:

It began with the innocuous “initial commit” and a pitch of “Let me peek at your traffic data. I promise to keep it private, and I’ll anonymously show you how you stand up to everyone else on the platform.”

Once he started the initial project and it made it’s way on to Hacker News over 300 startups started flooding the system and adding their data. Soon after that Singh “turned off the spigot” and went back to focusing on 500 Startups. 500 was still young at the time and they resorted to using Google Groups to communicate with founders and mentors.

“The turning point came when a well known founder and mentor had enough and, frustrated and angry, handed in their resignation. They couldn’t see through the clutter to mentor our community, and just like that, one of our best was gone. That same night I revived Dashboard.io with a renewed mission — to build a better platform for the 500 family.” Singh writes.

As 500 startups grew, so did the internal dashboard system. The dashboard system has allowed 500 Startups founders, and 400 accelerator companies to communicate internally with VC’s, Angels and Mentors. Sarah Ware, CEO and Founder at 500 Startups alum Markerly, told us “The dashboard system gives us access to people that may not necessarily correspond with us outside of the system.” Being a 500 Startups company certainly gives a startup credibility but Ware added “potential investors and mentors get back to us quicker when the message comes through the system.”

Fast forward to today and Singh seems motivated by the ability to really help young companies grow through the use of dashboard.io. The tool, coupled with AngelList provides an unparalleled resource for startups. The best part is it’s free.

Singh recently explained in a Facebook post how dashboard.io will make money.

“we give the software away completely free — and in a Yammer-like way. We use the aggregate anonymous data to create content and sell portions of it. Think of us as the Bloomberg / Motley Fool of the private markets. We give away a ton of content (soon) via our blog and then monetize on the extremes”

One of Singh’s biggest priorities is confidentiality and privacy making two big promises to the Dashboard community.

I will keep your information safe. I will never sell or share your data with anyone, including your investors.
I will use that data anonymously to benefit our entire industry and move it forward.

Check out Dashboard.io here.

Check out these other Brandery stories at nibletz.com The Voice Of Startups Everywhere Else.

Dallas Startup: Adscend Media Co-Founder Fehzan Ali In Our Startup Spotlight

Fehzan Ali is the co-founder of Adscend Media and serves as the Chief Executive Officer. He is responsible for driving and implementing the strategic vision of the Company. Since inception, Fehzan has secured business with high revenue publishers and top advertisers through his deep relationships and experience in the sector. He is an industry thought leader, providing editorial content about ad-based solutions through strategic opportunities. Follow him @fehzan1.

Who is your hero?

My parents. They raised me with a foundation focused on morals, values, and being the absolute best I can be. Their entrepreneurial spirit also cultivated mine.

What’s the single best piece of business advice that helped shape who you are as an entrepreneur today, and why?

Above all else, believe in yourself. This is a foundation for both success and happiness. If you don’t believe in yourself, who will? In my earlier years as an entrepreneur, I was filled with doubts. What if I fail? Is entrepreneurship right for me? What will I do then? I created backup plans for my venture, and then backup plans for those backup plans.

In my opinion, that’s a mistake. To be a successful entrepreneur, you have to be fully invested in your business. You have to believe in yourself and your ability to succeed even when you fail, even when you are under close scrutiny. Persistence and determination is the cornerstone of success. The day I really started believing in myself is the day that I became successful. I’ve failed more times than I can count with new solutions and product launches, however, I’ve also learned so much about myself, what I’m capable of, and the value of persistence. Never give up.

What’s the biggest mistake you ever made in your business, and what did you learn from it that others can learn from too?

There’s a difference between an entrepreneur and a manager. Most successful entrepreneurs that I’ve met are great leaders and know how to create a product/solution and inspire their vision into the company. Once Adscend reached a size where it required us to hire additional manpower, we went out there and found great talent and delegated a loose set of tasks to each new team member. We continued this process until we realized that we had a very talented team, yet they were all lost and confused on how to help accomplish the company vision and goals.

Therefore, the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in business is a lack of organization/structure of the company. After consulting with my team and other resources, I spent a few months implementing organizational changes based on feedback I received from the team, and it was actually surprising to see how happy our team was with the new changes. The changes led to increased satisfaction in the team and helped us position the company to scale for growth moving forward. Furthermore, I had more free time after the changes to focus on innovation and the company vision.

If you are an entrepreneur struggling with scaling your company or getting started, pay attention to structure! If management is not one of your strengths or if you simply do not have time to set up the structure, hire someone else to do it. As a smaller organization, sometimes the leader has to be the manager as well. This is something you don’t want to overlook.

What do you do during the first hour of your business day and why?

I usually spend the first hour of my business day reading up on industry trends and new innovations within my industry. In our fast-paced world, you have to be vigilant to remain relevant and create innovative products/solutions that fills in a gap in the market. This research is important to maintain an edge in the market over competitors as well.

What’s your best financial or cash-flow related tip for entrepreneurs just getting started?

Focus on the bare necessities for success to cut your operating costs. For example, you don’t need a fancy office or a secretary to get started. By running a lean organization, you are able to minimize your risks, reach profitability quicker, and build cash flow to establish a healthy financial foundation for your company. Assess the needs of your company on a set schedule to ensure that you are maintaining a lean, yet efficient organization that scales as needed.

Quick: What’s ONE thing you recommend ALL aspiring or current entrepreneurs do right now to take their biz to the next level?

Keep an open mind and constantly seek knowledge. Never stop learning.

What’s your definition of success? How will you know when you’ve finally “succeeded” in your business?

I personally believe success is more comprehensive than simply financial gain. To me, success means being passionate about what I do, spending time with friends and family that I love, enjoying life in general, helping others, and of course being able to generate an income from my passion. As for success in regards to just my company, I knew I was successful when I signed up our first large client to my ad network and started generating revenue. It was a snowball effect from there, and we took off. Although that may seem like a small accomplishment to attribute as success, it really bolstered up my confidence, and we soon became one of the consistently top-rated companies in our industry.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab , a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Now Check out:

Indy Couple getting their grit and grind on at Memphis’ Seed Hatchery Accelerator

Ashton Kutcher Set To Return To TechCrunch Disrupt NYC

Coming through the pages of the startupmemphis blog by Commercial Appeal James Dowd I was pleasantly surprised to read that Ashton Kutcher would be returning to the main stage next week at TechCrunch Disrupt.

The annual Disrupt event held in New York City is one of the most talked about startup events on the east coast. Hundreds of startups vie for the opportunity to present in the highly coveted startup alley and even more apply to pitch on the Disrupt Battlefield. Startups lucky enough to be chosen to compete on the battlefield go up against some of the hardest judges that New York and Silicon Valley have to offer.

The battlefield startups are competing for a $50,000 prize but much more importan than the cash is the chance to say that your startup placed in the battlefield competition. For a startup closing a funding round down, that may be the extra push they need to make it over the top.

In the four years that we’ve covered Disrupt NY (once as Nibletz 3 as TDG) we’ve seen great startups on the battlefield stage and a collection of the best fireside chats in the world. Except for Disrupt SF 2011, some of the best have been hosted by Mike Arrington.

Two years ago at Disrupt NYC Ashton Kutcher sat down with Charlie Rose. This was right as he was making the transition to his new role on Two and a Half Men and questions about the show were strictly off limits. Instead Rose and Kutcher discussed his VC firm, which just two years ago, people were still concerned that actors were making a mockery of the venture capital model.

Since then Kutcher has proven himself. Through his A-Grade investments he’s backed startups like 2011 Disrupt battlefield winner GetAround, Sonic Notify, Fab and Tiny Chat. Through his own angel investments Kutcher has backed AirBnB, DuoLingo, Summly and Dwolla.

This year he returns to the main stage to chat about A-Grade’s investment strategy and portfolio. While Two And A Half Men was off limits TechCrunch Editor In Chief Eric Eldon says he may end up talking about his role as Steve Jobs in the biopic film that debuted at Sundance.

Nashville Courting New Startup Accelerator,From Silicon Valley, Hattery!

Hattery,Entrepreneur Center, Michael Burcham,Nashville startup,startup,startup news

Hattery strategist, and Engine Advocacy co-founder Michael McGeary (photo: hattery.com)

Nashville’s Entrepreneur Centre Director, Michael Burcham, played host to Mike McGeary, a strategist with Silicon Valley innovation lab, Hattery.

Currently the Hattery has a west coast location in Silicon Valley and an east coast location in New York City. Hattery invests in early stage startups and helps the startups with support in design, engineering and business development.

If you think you’ve heard McGeary’s name before it’s because you probably have. In addition to being a strategist with Hattery, McGeary is also the co-founder and chief political strategist with Engine Advocacy a group connecting startup founders and entrepreneurs with government officials to create change in the entrepreneurial/startup space. They were recently intricate in a startup pilgrimage to congress. McGeary also worked with TuneIn and on two presidential campaigns.

Hattery is looking to take their unique model to another state and Nashville seems to have caught McGeary’s eye.

“There is a great energy here and I’ve read about it and heard about it because Nashville has been really good about talking about its success stories,” McGeary told the Nashville Business Journal during the Nashville Technology Council’s TechVille event. He continued; “It has been really fun and interesting to see the companies created here, how the community is being built in a really unique way. I think there is a lot of growth potential here.”

Burcham, who is one of Nashville’s biggest advocates for entrepreneurship and startups as well as the leader for Startup Tennessee, Startup America’s Tennessee region and the second region in the United States, characterized the possibility of Hattery relocating to Nashville as a “giant deal”.

“He already works with so many investors and organizations in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, so for us to have someone sitting here that has access to those places, that’s enormous,” Burcham said, who reached out to McGeary about three months ago via Twitter. “My goal is to turn that from a conversation into something real.”

Burcham is looking to overflow the new 22,000 square foot, multi million dollar entrepreneur center with as much programming and resources as possible. The Hattery program would add another great avenue for Tennessee startups to take advantage of. Although still under wraps,we do know that there are other nationally known accelerator brands looking to partner with the new entrepreneur center when it opens in June.

If anyone can sell Nashville’s startup and entrepreneurial community it’s Burcham. He’s a salesmans salesman and with his vast experience in the startup space, coupled with his down home Nashville personality, it’s hard to not fall in love with the guy and his passion.

The team behind the Hattery is filled with Silicon Valley success stories and they’re looking to spread the wealth across the country. Their portfolio includes; Bright Funds, Cloud Physics, Zubhium, and Hipiti.

Find out more about Hattery here and the Nashville Entrepreneur Center here.

Take a tour of the new multi-million dollar 22,000 square foot Entrepreneur Center here.

We Find Out What A Bumper Buzzer Is [startup][video][onespark]

Mark Foss spent most of his career in outside sales with technology companies. As an outside sales person he was constantly parking his car in new places. Finally he got fed up of bumping into curbs, and those annoying concrete things in parking lots that you can’t see over the hood.

So he did what any natural entrepreneur would do, he invented something.

That something is the Bumper Buzzer. A device that hooks to the front of the car and sends a signal by radio frequency to a receiver inside the car that alerts the driver to the fact that they are about to hit something.

Now a lot of newer cars have some kind of option for the car that may assist in situations like this, however that option is usually hundreds of dollars and doesn’t necessarily work all the time.

Foss hopes that the introductory price for the Bumper Buzzer will be in the neighborhood of $24.95 and the best part is that it’s completely user installable. A couple of screws and some automotive 3M adhesive that comes in the package, and you’re ready to go. Because the signal is operating via RF there is no need to run wires through the front of the car.

Foss is a lot further along with his startup than some that we saw at OneSpark. He has a prototype built and is already working on getting the Bumper Buzzer in front of Telebrands, the Pennsylvania based company that former Shark Tank shark Kevin Harrington runs, better known as “As Seen On TV”. Foss is convinced that with his easy set up and price point it’s a shoe-in for an infomercial.

And we concur.

Check out the video below and for more information you can visit bumperbuzzer.com

We have a ton more OneSpark startup coverage here at nibletz.com The Voice Of Startups Everywhere Else.

Whata.tv From Startup Weekend To Getting Our Vote At OneSpark [video]

There were over 500 creators at OneSpark, The World’s Crowdfunding Festival, in Jacksonville from Wednesday through Sunday. They reported that over 115,000 people had been through downtown Jacksonville for the event. With 500 creators and over 100 tech/science creators, inventors and startups, there were a lot of people clamoring for my vote.

I saw a lot of creators I really liked. I’ll be doing my top 5 OneSpark startups and creators in the next day or two. However, a little after midnight Sunday morning I cast my vote for Jose Fermin and his startup Whata.tv. I thought I’d share a little insight into what exactly whata.tv is and why I voted this way.

Whata.tv started with Fermin who is originally from Venezuela. He migrated to the United States with his family nine years ago. While in Venezuela, Fermin, who has two degrees in engineering, had a high profile position in satellite and communications, working with some of the biggest defense contractors in the world.

He wanted to move to the United States because he saw a land of opportunity so he did. However when he got to the US he realized quickly that he would have to start all over from scratch. Because of immigration laws and security clearances, Fermin, who worked with the likes of Lockhead Martin and Boeing in Venezuela, all of the sudden didn’t have the proper security clearance to work with the same exact people once he moved to the US.

He had one good prospect. He had a job offer in New York that paid very well, where he would serve as the International Director of satellite communications for a huge worldwide company. The problem was they needed him to go to Peru two days after he signed the contract, and he was still under his two week international travel waiting period from the immigration department. After the two weeks were up they didn’t have a spot for him.

Unscathed Fermin did anything and everything he could to provide for his family and not give up on his American dream. He painted houses, did roofing, general contract work and even worked at a dry cleaners. All the while he tinkered with side projects.

As the startup scene in Jacksvonille started to take shape he would go to meetups and Startup Weekend’s. Things weren’t what they were in Venezuela but he had his freedom and was living the American dream. Except for one thing that always bothered him.

Except for the World Cup, Fermin was unable to watch his Venezuelan soccer on American TV. He couldn’t even find the games online, just the scores.

Last winter, with Startup Weekend approaching, he decided to do something about it and created whata.tv. He was chosen to build at Startup Weekend and was able to do some of the preliminary leg work. He is relying on his connections and strengths in satellite and communications to help get this thing off the ground.

What is it?

whata.tv is a paid subscription model tv viewing service. It works on tablets, smartphones and the web. The difference this time? The customer pays just $2.99 for a monthly subscription to a channel.

When Fermin originally pitched whata.tv it was just about Venezuela but the other entrepreneurs quickly made him realize he was onto something. As the service nears launch Fermin is in negotiations with tv channels across the world to carry their signals on whata.tv.

While we think they should be paying him for the added eyeballs, Fermin is giving them a percentage of every monthly subscription. In addition he plans on marketing his own advertising; including pre-roll on the channels as well as customized demographic advertising. He explained it to me like this: “Say you have a popular comedian coming to Orlando from Mexico. whata.tv will know how many people in Orlando subscribe to Mexican tv channels on the service and we could market the comedians ad specifically to them.”

The service is also great for military serving abroad to watch the U.S. channels that they are missing. The same goes for business people who travel all of the time. He is hoping to provide full streams of the channel including things like local news, something you can’t get a la carte from sites like hulu.

So why my vote?

Well I really couldn’t in good conscious vote for DJ Mercy, I was after all covering the startup angle (just kidding).

In voting for whata.tv it was as much about Fermin as it was about whata.tv and the disruption coming to the tv industry. While we shot this footage on Saturday afternoon, I had actually gone by their space on Thursday morning. That’s where I met Fermin’s high school aged daughter who gave just as good an interview, as her dad did a pitch.

Fermin called me on Saturday morning to make sure I wouldn’t miss the pitch, rain or shine he would be pitching. Fermin is also a startup community leader in Jacksonville. With the luck he had, first starting out in the US, it’s refreshing to meet someone like this.

And of course, in the wake of recent events, with everyone waving the “immigration reform” flag this week, Fermin and his family are a great reminder that great people come to the US from other countries all of the time.

We’ll be tracking whata.tv.

Here’s that pitch:

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Anonymous Customer Feedback Via Text, Check Out AlertTheBoss [video][onespark]

On Friday we brought you an interview with Florida startup restroomalert. This startup, that accelerated at The Factory in St. Augustine, provides anonymous feedback about bathroom conditions to businesses big and small across the country. They also provide a huge analytics dashboard to their business customers.

Evan Diamond and his Jacksonville startup are taking a similar idea and approach, using text messages to alert those in charge at establishments when their are customer complaints, or even compliments.

Through a unique text code, a customer can send a text message to the business which has a greater chance of being read quicker. According to Diamond, 95% of text messages get read.

There were some privacy concerns about where the anonymous text numbers are stored with restroomalert and the same would hold true for AlertTheBoss. Diamond explained that all of their information is being held in a private, secure database that the businesses don”t have access too.

The problem is, that on the AlertTheBoss OneSpark profile it clearly says that a component of the startup is the ability to aggregate the texting numbers and use them for marketing. Unless AlertTheBoss plans to become an outbound text based marketing company, that seems near impossible to hold the numbers so privately.

While we really liked restroomalert for obvious reasons we wrote about here, it seems to me that there are some privacy concerns with AlertTheBoss.

The other thing to consider; with the move to mobile apps and native mobile apps in particular, the ability to SMS through mobile app seems much more effective. We’ll watch this one to see where it goes.

In the meantime check out our video interview with Diamond below:

Have you seen these startup stories from OneSpark The World’s Crowdfunding Festival?

ooWorldcoop (Our Own World Cooperative) Wants To Be The First Online Social Market Place Co-Op [video]

ooWorldcoop is testing the waters in a new space in the social marketplace realm. Founder Anthony Tyson, has created the first ever social online market place co-op. Like any other co-op that means that the user base or membership will actually own the co-op together. While Tyson will always be the “founder” or “creator” he won’t be the owner, everyone will.

Co-Op models have been around for many years. Group buying co-ops are the most popular kinds of co-ops that still exist in the offline world today. Most cities have a grocery store or local produce store co-op. In that case, the members vote on what kind of items to buy and at what prices. They also dictate buying power with strength in numbers. The biggest benefit for the overall business in this case is that vendors know exactly what the buyers will buy.

In the case of the online co-op, after operating expenses, members will vote on where the co-op can spend its money. Profits will be reinvested, with member guidance, to offer more and better services to members.

A co-op also means that the accounting will be transparent to any co-op member.

Membership is free and comes with an easy to design and customize ooWorld.coop account/profile.

While ooWorld.coop may accept direct donations, most of the cooperative’s revenues will come from service/transaction fees and advertising. Surplus revenues will be used for various member programs such as affiliate commissions, education grants, micro and mini grants, and other programs voted on by the membership. We hope these will include affordable, renewable energy sources, affordable housing programs, and access to healthy food and clean water.

From the Certificate of Formation of ooWorld.coop, ‘… The purposes for organizing ooWorld.coop are, but are not limited to, to empower, support and encourage individuals to improve their quality of life and increase their earning potential; to promote, encourage and support the growth of micro-businesses and other business opportunities; to promote other worthy human endeavors including, but not limited to, arts and culture, scientific research, education, and human rights; to boost local communities while building a global community based on cooperation, collaboration and sharing; and to lessen the burdens of government. Tyson said on their OneSpark profile page.

How did people respond to this new kind of startup? Well out a crowd-funding festival they loved it. Although they didn’t finish in the top three when all was said and done on Sunday, ooWorldcoop was the biggest mover on Saturday.

We ran into Tyson’s partner Seth who filled us in, check out the video below and for more info visit ooWorldcoop.com

Check out more OneSpark coverage here.