startup Archives - Page 79 of 87

Startup Indiana Launches To A Packed House

(photo: startupamerica)

If the packed house at Wednesday nights Startup Indiana kickoff is any indication of things to come, we’ll be reporting a lot on Indiana. 350 entrepreneurs, founders, community members, supporters and investors turned out for the party celebrating the latest Startup America partnership.

“Entrepreneurs in Indiana are diverse and dynamic, and we all come from different backgrounds–with unique experiences and expertise,” said Matt Hunckler, Startup Indiana champion. “Startup Indiana will serve a crucial role in connecting the dots between industries, redefining business models, and disrupting the status quo.”

Startup America CEO, who’s trying to beat the nibletz team in travel miles, Scott Case was on hand for the festivities:

“I had the pleasure of experiencing first-hand Indiana’s amazing startup scene when I came out for the Super Bowl,” said Case. “I’m incredibly excited to see the local startups, large companies and entrepreneurial leaders come together though Startup Indiana to make it an even better place to start and grow a company and encourage all startups in the state to join today.”

Startup America and Startup Indiana urge entrepreneurs, startup founders, and investors to join Startup America. It’s a free nationwide resource. This year Startup America is committed to bringing as many localities across the country with a startup scene into the partnership. Down the road Startup America will be able to offer benefits to startups and entrepreneurs across the country with the clout of America’s largest startup organization behind it.

Linkage:

To Join Startup Indiana click here

For More on Startup America click here

Nibletz is the voice of startups everywhere else, see what we mean here

We’re on a nationwide sneaker strapped startup road trip working hard, learn more and support us here.

Huntsville Alabama Startup Has The Answer To Losing Money On Penny Auction Sites

Over the past few years penny auction sites have exploded. Just about every TV network has a slew of ads promoting one penny auction site or another. “Imagine getting the new iPad for $25” that’s how they attract bidders to their site. Many people have avoided penny auction sites because of the old adage, “If it sounds to good to be true it probably is” however, if you understand how penny auction sites work, with a little luck it can prove to be very profitable.

For those of you not familiar with the penny auction site, here’s a little primer of just how it works. You register for the site and link a payment source. The product that you’re bidding on starts off with a penny and moves up in price as more people bid on it. Easy enough right? Well while you’re bidding on the item at penny intervals, there is a payment or a bid cost that you incur, it could be anywhere from $.25 to $.99 so as you increase the cost of the item you are dumping that much more money into the auction itself.

When the penny auction closes, let’s say for that New iPad for $25.00 that could have been 2500 bids. If that penny auction site is charging say $.25 per bid that’s $625 they just made for the new iPad which would have cost you $499 in an electronics store. Now say you’re the winner. You would pay $25.00 the cost of the winning auction, but lets also say you have 100 bids in. So now you’re paying $275.00 for the new iPad not $25.00. However, look it at for what it’s worth you just saved half price on a brand new iPad. What happens with the money if you don’t win?

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Massachusetts Startup: Have You Heard Wins “ReThink Music” Startup Competition

from left: Rethink Music Genesis Project startup competition winners Adam Gottesfeld and Joey Seiler, co-founders of Have You Heard?; (photo: hyperbot)

Two Harvard Law School students, Joey Seiler and Adam Gottesfield and the startup they’ve founded called “Have You Heard” have one a music startup competition sponsored by ReThink Music Berklee and Babson College. You may be wondering what studying and law have to do with this music based startup, well nothing, but it’s a great idea.

From my days in top 40 radio in medium and major markets the hardest thing for a music director in a radio station to do is actually listen to new music. On any given Tuesday (new music day) there are anywhere from 10-30 “priority” records that the record labels want to get airplay. In the 90’s there was a competition called the AIR competition (Active Industries Research) a company founded by Jonas Cash who founded the Billboard Airplay Monitor. Music directors and Program Directors at R&R reporting radio stations would compete every week to guess where a track would end up on the charts. At the end of the quarter prizes, including BMW’s and 30,000 in cash were awarded to those that got the most right.

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Detroit Startup: RegainGo Introduces Home Owners To Home Improvement Service Providers

Now that Spring is officially underway, despite that cold front we just had on the east coast, home improvement is on a lot of peoples minds. Home Improvement startups happen to be a hot topic these days. Earlier this week we told you about Florida startup showoff.com that helps home owners by providing free home virtualization software so home owners can see what home improvements will look like.

RegainGo is a Detroit based startup in the home improvement space. Co-Founders Jason Beale and Clark Covert are looking to bring home owners and home improvement service providers together in a way that fosters a relationship of trust. Xconomy calls the startup a hybrid of Groupon and AngiesList.

Covert and Beale have backgrounds in real estate. They found that when people were looking to have work done for their homes they would go to Google and use the first name that pops up. That caused a disconnect between homeowners and service providers that do quality work.

RegainGo is attracting homeowners to their site and their service providers by offering coupons for home improvement services. After the user signs in via Facebook they can browse the deals on the RegainGo site and buy the ones they like. The site encourages you to share the deal with friends and family via the users social networks. A voucher for the deal you purchase will be emailed to you and that merchant will honor it.

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Portland Startup: Chifpify Raises $1.3 Million For It’s Twitter Commerce Platform

Imagine if one of your favorite online retailers was having a sale on a new cashmere sweater that you’ve been wanting forever. Imagine if they tweeted that sweater and all you had to do was reply to the tweet with the word “Buy” and in three days you’d have that sweater delivered to your home? Well that’s becoming a reality thanks to Portland Oregon startup Chirpify.

Chirphify’s founder and CEO Chris Teso, who started the company as “Sell Simply” plans on making buying things on Twitter that easy. “Everybody is trying to become that ubiquitous wallet,” Teso told website oregonlive.com.

It works pretty much as I described it above. A Twitter user registers both their Twitter and Paypal accounts with Chirpify. A Chirpify merchant solicits a sale on twitter for example “Red Cashmere Sweater $19.99 delivered” and those with Chirpify accounts can simply reply with “buy” and the transaction is initiated. Chirpify takes a small percentage from the vendor for facilitating the transaction.

Are people using it? Yes, in fact Nestle has been using it to sell PowerBars on Twitter. Teso is hoping to attract independent musicians who could sell downloads via Twitter to their Twitter followers.

Chirpify’s $1.3 Million dollar investment was led by Voyager Capital and included Ryan Holmes, Hootsuite’s CEO. Private investor Geoff Entress, BuddyTV CEO Andy Liu and Rudy Gadre a former Facebook executive participated as well. Angel investors with TIE Oregon also participated. Oregonlive reports that Portland incubator UpStart Labs provided Chirpify with an earlier backing of $50,000.

Linkage:
Find out more about Chirpify here

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Source: OregonLive

Boston Startup Play140 Acquihired By OOmba Founded By The Creator Of Atari

Play140 CEO Shawn Broderick and his team thought they were onto something that could be game changing. The company had built an acronym game, called The Acronym Game, to be played on Twitter. Their thinking was simple, make Twitter more than just communication. It was a novel idea, play games on Twitter, I mean everyone was doing it on Facebook.

The game was simple, see who could make the most clever phrase out of the acronym provided. For whatever reason the game never took off. The company’s Twitter feed shut down and they stopped posting on their blog. Boston.com reports that the employees of the company, including two of the three co-founders went to find other jobs. That left Broderick and the company’s CTO Michael Johnson left manning what was left of the game.

Fast forward to this week and they’ve had some rather exciting news. A venture funded startup called Oomba has acquired Play140 for an undisclosed amount. What’s really interesting is that this startup’s founders include Nolan Bushnell. Now if y you’re thinking that name sounds familiar, it’s because Bushnell founded Atari and Chuck E Cheese among other feats in his career.

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EXCLUSIVE: Los Angeles: 23 Year Old Woman Launches Smartzer, A Startup That Will Change Video Forever

smartzer, tv, kevin harrington, Karoline Gross, Nibletz

23 Year Old Karoline Gross Is The Founder Of The New Video Platform Smartzer (photo: K. Gross)

This story has wow written all over it and Nibletz, the voice of startups everywhere else has it first.

With all the innovation in video in the past few years we knew it was a matter of time before someone, some company or some startup would find a way to hot link or link map products in videos, like product placements, to actually make them clickable and then purchasable. We didn’t know it would be a 23 year old woman from Los Angeles that would do it. That’s exactly what Karoline Gross and her startup Smartzer are doing.

Imagine watching a movie or an episode of one of your favorite shows and seeing an iPad or some cool new iPad charging cradle you haven’t seen before. When the Smartzer officially launches this fall, and the video content is Smartzer enabled you will be able to click that iPad or iPad charger and see more in-depth information about the product or purchase it. This is what people like Kevin Harrington, CEO of “As Seen On TV” has been dreaming about.

When the technology launches producers will have to integrate the Smartzer system into their videos in order for it to work, but with the progress Gross has made so far, and the fact that she’s in Los Angeles meeting with studio executives all the time, it won’t be too long until we see this technology on the big three networks. You will be able to use your smartphone to watch tv and interact with tv for more than just checking in and redeeming deals, you’ll be able to click, look and buy.

You like the jacket Ryan Seacrest is wearing on Idol, click, look, buy. You like the dress your favorite star is wearing on the red carpet, click, look buy. What about that song in Glee, click, look, buy. Yes we knew it was coming and Smartzer is setting the pace.

We got a chance to catch up with the busy 23 year old entrepreneur and here’s what she had to tell Nibletz about herself and her amazing startup:

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Austin Startup: Kampfire.co Lets You Play Drinking Games Miles Apart

There’s an interesting new startup in Austin Texas. The startup, called Kampfire.co is hoping to bring together friends, family members and others to socially play drinking games across the internet, enabling both social and video. Of course the startup is only open to those 21 and over.

Co-Founder Joe Wallen told Nibletz.com that this idea came about because friends and family members after college sometimes want to get together for fun, adult socializing. He talked about how you could play beer pong with a buddy who may have been shipped off for the military (off duty of course), or frat brothers who’ve moved away could get together for an evening of fun and games, via the internet.

Now we’re not talking about avatars or animation we’re talking about a real video enabled platform to set up drinking games and play in remote locations.

We told you this was interesting. We spoke to Wallen a little more in-depth about it:

What is Kampfire.com?

The main product will be online gaming/social network, with an online store. This creates not only a forum for sponsors to market their products, but also to market our own line of apparel and merchandise. The targeted consumers are anyone, worldwide, who plays any of the drinking games offered on the website. We will not, however, be confined to cyberspace. The monthly and yearly tournaments can be held live, College vs. College, military branch vs. military branch, and tours are just a few of the other areas that will bring sponsors and new growth. Others are sure to follow once they see the billion dollar industry that we have created.

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Charlotte Startup: Rawporter Talks About What DEMO Was Like

Our good friends Kevin and Rob at Rawporter were among the startups that presented at DEMO last week in Santa Clara. We reached out to many of the startups that were coming from “Everywhere Else” to DEMO to talk to them about their experience and what it is they were doing.

Rawporter is an app and service (Service as an app) that allows everyday people with smartphones to take pictures and videos, upload them to the rawporter site and then get paid for providing “man on the street” coverage to news outlets across the country, and the world. It’s also a great service for bloggers to source video that they might not otherwise be able to cover.

“Now anyone who needs custom video and photo content can request it from our users who might already be in the right place at the right time. In exchange for responding to assignments, our Rawporters get the compensation and credit they deserve simply for putting their smartphone to work.” Kevin Davis, co-founder of Rawporter told Nibletz.com

So we wanted to find out why, with all the startup competitions across the country, did Rawporter choose DEMO?

“We knew DEMO was a tremendous platform to launch a new business, but since we’re still bootstrapping, we weren’t sure if we could afford the exhibition fee. Luckily, they offered us a scholarship and that made it a very easy decision. The DEMO team was incredibly helpful and we can’t thank them enough for the experience and exposure that Rawporter received at the event.”

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Baltimore Startup Parking Panda Launches Service In Washington DC

(photo: Baltimore Sun)

One of the things Cameron and I noticed when we were in Washington DC as part of our nationwide startup road trip, was that their parking meters were equipped for internet payment. That meant we could refill our parking meters while we were meeting with some great startups all over town, and not have to run back to the meter. Convenience had it’s price but we needed to do what we needed to do.

If you don’t want to mess with the high tech innovative meters in DC, or the hassle of finding a space, Baltimore Startup Parking Panda has you covered. Parking Panda works with owners of un-utilized parking spaces. These could be in the form of small lots of the side of buildings, or parking company owned lots that have spaces that aren’t used on a regular basis.

Parking Panda Users can rent spaces using the service and basically pay in advance for a guaranteed spot. This really comes in handy, especially in a city like Washington DC where street parking, even at the meter, can be scarce.

“A city resident myself, I know that finding available parking can be maddening, expensive, and sometimes almost impossible,” said Nick Miller, CEO of Parking Panda. “Parking Panda takes the hassle and expense out of searching for a parking spot. Parking in D.C. will no longer be such a time-consuming, daunting task because people can reserve spots ahead of time and for less money.”

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Startup Weekend Heads To Madison Wisconsin

While most people intone with the startup scene are well aware of “startup weekend”, the 54 hour hackathon style startup marathon, people in Wisconsin have never had an event quite like this. That’s why entrepreneurs and startup types are heading to Madison WI this weekend, the home of their first ever startup weekend.

“We want to foster and encourage people who are doing startup companies and get more people involved,” said Forrest Woolworth, one of the organizers of the event and brand director at Per Blue,told madison.com. “We want to continue to make Madison known as an awesome place to start a company.”

According to startupweekend.org there have been over 500 official “startup weekends” with over 45,000 participants to date. There have also been “unofficial” and similar events structured around the same model, like Hack Omaha. Great things have come out of startup weekends all over the country and all over the world. This first event in Madison will let entrepreneurs from a state widely known for cheese and the Green Bay Packers show off their tech scene.

Startup Weekend Madison will be held this Friday through Sunday at Madison College West Campus 302. S. Gammon Road in Madison.

“Younger startups are now growing to become a cornerstone of the Madison economy,” Mayor Paul Soglin said.

Madison’s startup weekend is part of Capital Entrepreneur’s Week which kicks off tomorrow with speakers, mentors, bootcamps and more for local entrepreneurs.

source: madison.com

Chicago Startup: Iconicast’s “Smurks” Puts The Heart In The Machine

How can you share that smile on your face through digital and mobile? How often have you misinterpreted the context of a text message because you didn’t know how the other person was feeling. Does that LOL mean laugh out loud, that’s really funny. Or does that LOL mean laugh out loud you’re really stupid?

Iconicast, a Chicago Startup, co-founder Pat Burns took the stage at DEMO in Santa Clara CA last week and talked about the three stooges movie he just saw. He gave the example of talking with a friend who asked how the movie was. In his presentation he pointed out that if the friend was in front of him the look on his face would tell the complete story.

That’s what smirks is all about. Now when you first look at Smurks, the new app by Iconicast, it may appear to be a 2012 take on the emoticon. However, the gesture based app is an extension of human emotion. Swiping up shows off a happy face, swiping down sad. Left and right offer equally as polarizing emotions via the app. In fact there are many different faces that you can make.

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Philly Startup: Blue Claw Tough Stylish Bags Made in America

The Blue Claw Company is a Philadelphia area startup that launched in 2010. Blue Claw Co manufactures handmade Luxury Bags that have the bright bold look that the mid 20’s to mid 30’s business professional craves and the durability to handle all the travel people can throw at them. As many of our readers know we spend significant periods of time on the road. Just last month we traveled to Chattanooga, Washington DC, and other cities along the eastern shore of United States. We are preparing to head off on the “Road Trip to Everywhere Else.” So Blue Claw came into our lives at just the perfect moment.

We tend to have at least two or three bags a piece before getting on the road and most of our “luggage” consists of backpack or messenger bags. We have been in need of at least one professional appearing bag for each of us. I’ve struggled with a very strong dislike for plain bags. If my bag is impossible to identify at the baggage claim; or if somebody could easily walk anonymously away with my bag – well, I don’t feel comfortable. As you can see in the photo above, the Worton Weekender maintains a professional look but with flair.

Most of their bags come with waterproof liners an absolute must for other tech geeks like us. The bags offered by Blue Claw are made with Imported Leather and 1050 D Ballistic nylon. This is to help provide years of use (and abuse) by seasoned travelers and still be available to hand down to their kids. What was the impetus that caused the decision to launch a luxury bag company in the midst of a recession? How did this all come about? We asked Adam Blitzer (Founder) a number of questions.

1. Your name is Adam (last name?) and your co-founder is named?

My name is Adam Blitzer. My cofounder’s name is Alex Realmuto.

2. When you contacted us you said “If you guys are interested in covering a startup that is bringing jobs back to the USA and the improbable concept of starting a luxury company amidst a recession…” You bring up a great point, what were you thinking? Was there a specific set of circumstances or was this just a “let’s do this, economy be damned” decision.

As crazy as it sounds, it was actually the perfect time to launch. People were cutting out impulsive purchases which is exactly what we are not. No matter what the economy is doing, people value quality products that will last forever. We knew if we created the perfect line, people would become brand advocates. There were not a ton of luxury bag companies popping up at the time so the buzz was magnified. This really helped get the ball rolling.

Florida Startup: Showoff.com Provides DIY Home Virtualization For All

If you’ve purchased a new home in the last few years you may have had your real estate agent show you what the house you were buying would look like with hardwoods instead of carpet, or sky blue paint instead of brown. They may have shown this to you on a laptop using some very expensive virtualization software.

Well the folks at VisApp in Sarasota has launched an award winning web tool called showoff.com that provides free virtualization software for home owners. This new startup has already won the award for the best website generating leads at the 2012 BizTech Innovation Summit in Tampa.

Showoff.com was also showing off their home virtualization tool at the DEMO conference in Santa Clara California last week.

While the fact that you can use showoff.com when you’re buying a new house, the software can be applied in so many other ways. TechNewsWorld’s Rob Enderle is building a house in Belize. As he writes in his piece about Showoff.com’s appearance at DEMO, he can now do all his modifications at home and see what they’ll look like at his house in Belize. Possibly shaving off some expensive travel to and from, not to mention explaining to his contractor in Belize exactly what he wants. With Showoff.com he can just show him.

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