Popchilla The Robot For Autistic Children Shows Off At Eureka Park, CES 2013

Raising children can be both hard and a blessing. Raising a child with autism is a lot more challenging. Autistic children often times have problems communicating even their simplest needs sometimes.

Parents of autistic children are constantly looking for “more tools to put in their tool chest” Michael Knight the founder of Popchilla, told nibletz.com in an interview.

Popchilla is a fun loving robotic stuffed animal that also has an app to go along with it. As an example Knight showed us a portion of the app where the Popchilla would tell the child to get his or her toothbrush and tooth paste from a virtual house on a tablet, and then brush Popchilla’s teeth.

Knight knew early on that Popchilla would be a success. His company used to make animatronic robots. He wold get questions from parents of autistic children all the time, asking when he was going to make a robot for them. He learned that sometimes children with autism actually interact better with robots rather than humans.

Popchilla was one of the most innovative things we saw at Eureka Park. Not only is Popchilla a cool robot, but when you couple that with the app you have a recipe for success, and definitely another tool for the tool chest.

Check out our video interview with Knight here:

Check out Popchilla at popchillasworld.com

Want to exhibit your startup at the largest startup conference in the U.S.? Check out everywhereelse.co the startup conference.

Are Accelerators from “Everywhere Else” Better at Producing Groundbreaking Innovation? Maybe. Here’s Why GUEST POST

There’s been a lot of press lately about the lack of true, groundbreaking innovation in Silicon Valley. I don’t think that’s completely true, but reading about it made me think a bit about the nature of innovation and whether the current system is built to foster it.

I live in this little city called Memphis and we have a small but growing tech community and a great little startup accelerator called Seed Hatchery that is currently taking applications for its third class.

Now the thing about Seed Hatchery is that it doesn’t get near the number of applicants as a Y Combinator or a TechStars or even some of the less well-known accelerators. They’re okay with that and they’re okay with plugging along and making improvements year after year and meeting goals and milestones that are at a somewhat smaller scale. And there are a lot of accelerators just like Seed Hatchery, all over the world.

There have been arguments made that these accelerators will die out. That may be true for some. But I happen to think that before they do they will have trained and produced more innovative entrepreneurs than some of their larger counterparts. Why? Because, generally, the enrollees in these programs have a high appetite for risk to begin with, and because they won’t have that appetite beaten out of them by the time they finish.

True innovation typically happens at the knife’s edge between failure and success. It doesn’t come from the safer and satisfied middle. That’s good news for tiny accelerators, and may be bad news for some of the more successful ones.

A program that gives me a ton of money, a good to great chance of raising more, and an almost 100% chance of landing softly even if I fail tends to convince even big risk takers to play things a bit more safe. It seems like the opposite should be true, right? I have all these benefits with virtually zero chance of absolute failure, so why shouldn’t I give it a go? But, as we see time and time again, that kind of thinking just doesn’t happen very often.

For these programs, getting in is the big challenge, and once you’ve achieved that you’re granted superstar status. Your success rate jumps to 70% or more. And if the success rate is 70% or more, then beating everyone else isn’t as important as not being in the bottom 30%. So, often enough at least, you don’t build something that has a 10% chance of glorious success. You play it safe. You try not to f$%k it up.

For other programs, by contrast, getting in is potentially easier, but success after graduation is much much harder. A lot of smaller accelerators have one or two companies out of ten successfully raise follow-on funding. When the success rate is that low, the companies tend to take bigger chances in the hopes of finding themselves among those one or two success stories. Except in extraordinary cases, it doesn’t matter what kind of human being you are. The company you build will be different based on whether you’re motivated to succeed above all others or motivated to not screw things up.

Now, before you jump all over me, I will say that there are things that continue to make Y Combinator and TechStars amazing programs, and you would be a fool not to join them if invited. The mentor networks, and the advice participants receive from those mentors, are probably by themselves worth the price of admission. But, imagine for a moment the kinds of companies that might be produced by a Y Combinator should, say, only five to ten of the 80 companies receive follow-on funding. Might that look different? My bet is yes, and that they would be much more groundbreaking.

I’m also betting that the smaller accelerators—so long as they don’t measure success by Y Combinator standards—can produce these kinds of companies. There will be more failures, sure, but that’s okay by me. The near certainty of failure is one the most compelling features.

Author Biography:

Cliff McKinney is CEO of Work for Pie, a company that is changing the way software developers get recruited and hired by changing the way they communicate with

Here’s another take on accelerators “everywhere else” from nibletz.com

Learning from Instagram’s Faux Pas! Guest Post By Moe Glenner

Once again, a technology-based company has exposed to the world their classic misunderstanding of change. In Instagram’s case, the failure was two-fold: a failure in planning and an even bigger failure to communicate. In late 2012, Instagram tried to generate revenue by sharing its users’ photos. (The new policy has since been retracted.) Unfortunately, the company’s new policy was not communicated properly and resulted in a predictable firestorm of bad publicity and the loss of a number of users. Instagram’s public change failure can provide important lessons for anyone or any organization pursuing change.

Lesson 1 – Planning for Risk can Make-or-Break the Change Initiative

While we would like to believe that Instagram planned for potential risk emanating from their new policy, it’s clear that if they did, they didn’t do it very well. Instagram’s risk planning failure is especially poignant given recent missteps by Facebook and Netflix. The media and users closely scrutinize any and all policy changes, especially those involving privacy. As users, we have become very educated and involved with changes to the technology platforms we use most. Similar to many technology applications, Instagram struggles with revenue generation. The attempted policy change was undoubtedly, an attempt to generate revenue. Somehow they didn’t plan for any backlash and their immediate retraction only served as direct proof of this lack of risk planning. All changes must plan for probable risks and have ancillary planning for other risks. Ignoring this rule, will most likely lead to change failure with its resulting costs.

For organizational changes, risk management is a serious endeavor and must be handled appropriately. While it is impossible to identify every possible risk, it is possible to identify risk categories. By this identification, response plans are put in place to immediately address a risk pending its categorization. The key to successful identification is communication.

Lesson 2 – Honest, Relevant and Timely Communication is Critical

Unfortunately for Instagram, the only communication was in full damage control mode. While appropriate, the communication was much too late to save the change and did little to mollify many users who subsequently defected. The time for communication is prior to, during and after the change has been implemented. This communication must be honest as to intentions and goals. It must be relevant to the specific change initiative being forwarded and it must be timely to the current stage of the initiative.

Communication must be honest, constant and consistent between the project sponsor, team leader, team members and those affected by the change. In the planning stage, a wide array of resources must be utilized to establish categories and then identify probable and potential risk. Honest communication allows for robust dialogue between team members and subject matter experts and the formation of a realistic risk plan. Once the change initiative is started, communication becomes especially critical. Lack of relevant and timely communication will lead to confusion, fear, resentment and even pushback to the otherwise appropriate change initiative. All of these negative results will severely and potentially fatally impact the likelihood of success. Thus, there is no such thing as over-communication but lack of communication is real and must be combated.

Above all, this is the time to be brutally honest and realistic with ourselves and our colleagues. We have a tendency to take on goals and internal change projects that are overly ambitious. Once the initiative is started and the going gets tough, we start compromising with ourselves and questioning the likelihood of success. Honest communication, internally and with our support team, allows for greater probability of realistic goal-setting and realistic achievement.

If Instagram’s goal was to generate revenue, their change initiative should have planned for a potential backlash and it should have been communicated in a manner that incorporated the risk strategy and allowed for meaningful dialogue during all stages of the change initiative. By learning from Instagram and others like it, we can effectuate successful and enduring change in the future.

Moe Glenner is the founder and president of PURELogistics, a leading consulting firm that specializes in organizational change. He earned his MBA at Lake Forest Graduate School of Management and a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certification from Villanova University. Glenner’s new book, Selfish Altruism: Managing & Executing Successful Change Initiatives ($13.95 | Amazon), explores best practices in organizational change. For more information, visitwww.moeglenner.com.

The nibletz.com team is at CES 2013 Check out all the startup stories out of the International CES

Fitness Startup PumpUp Picks Up The Pace Again With iOS App

Back in May when the high princess of startups inside the valley Sarah Lacey suggested there were no good fitness startups we found out about Waterloo startup PumpUp.

What makes pumpup.co so great are a number of things. For starters the three founders behind pumpup.co know their roles and do them well. In an industry that can run a little top heavy on the ego side they have the entrepreneurial founder, the sales, marketing and bizdev founder and of course the athletic trainer founder. You couldn’t have a fitness startup without one.

The UI is intuitive and it’s made for the average person, not the overly buff set that don’t need the gym as much as us normal folks.

Now, to make things much easier to manage PumpUp on the go, they’ve released an iOS app for iPhones and iPod Touch, both devices that make it into the gym while you’re working out.

With over 40% of new gym memberships cancelled in less than a year, people are looking for an easy-to-use solution that gives them the guidance and motivation needed to get fit. By asking a few simple questions about people’s fitness goals, where they want to work out and the equipment they love to use, PumpUp automatically builds a highquality workout designed specifically for each user.

PumpUp is meant for people who want to get started with a fitness routine but don’t know what to do, or those who want to take their fitness to the next level. PumpUp shows users what to do, how to do it,and over time, adapts their plans to ensure they continue to improve.

“People aspire to be fit and live a healthy life but most people find difficulty in reaching their goals,” says Phil Jacobson, co-founder & CEO of PumpUp. “We’re simplifying the experience by asking you what you want and taking care of the rest. Getting fit doesn’t have to be tough; people just need to be shown what to do. With PumpUp, that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

The PumpUp App is available as a free download on the Apple App Store on iPhone or iPod Touch at http://itunes.com/apps/pumpup. PumpUp is free to try for 30 days and costs $4.99/month on an annual subscription. To celebrate the launch and New Year, an annual subscription for PumpUp is only $2.99/month for the rest of January 2013.

Pumpup your startup everywhere else at everywhereelse.co The startup Conference, details here!

Berlin Entrepreneurs Trying To Curb Facebook Fatigue With Flowsee

A new Berlin based startup called Flowsee is hoping to take advantage of Facebook fatigue by offering users a social network with a local angle and curated multimedia. Flowsee is a mashup of Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit.

The Flowsee social network has multiple category pages like music, tech and photography. In each of the categories users can upload photos and videos that are relevant to that category or whatever other categories they like. Pictures, links and videos are then voted up or down in a way similar to both Digg and Reddit with the most “likes” getting to the top of the page.

While the site is stating out and focused on Berlin, the company feels that it’s readily scalable. Back in late October they told us that they had already surpassed 10,000 users per month.

Like some other social networking projects, while Flowsee has a definite infrastructure to it, they are letting early adopters use the social network the way that they want to. For instance, vendors at the Mauer Park Flea Market has started using the platform to post their handmade and vintage goods for sale. Co-founder Olivier Jarfas told Silicon Allee that it didn’t take long for the vendors to start adding photos and even videos to their pages.

We all know that Facebook isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, they past the billion users mark last year and continue to move forward despite the fact that their stock market price is a lot lower than they had hoped. Nibletz co-founder and CEO Nick Tippmann also reported earlier this week that Facebook may be perceived by teenagers as “for older people”.

As a result more and more social networks are popping up. Most of the newer social networks are finding verticals to launch in like food, academia and careers.

As for Flowsee, we got a chance to talk with the Berlin based team. Check out the interview below.

Mark Cuban: Shit! That Sound You’ll Hear From The Valley As The Fund Manager Turns Out The Lights

Marc Cuban, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley Bubble, startup,startups

Mark Cuban (center) with nibletz co-founder/CEO Nick Tippmann (left) hanging out in Indiana

Like, Dave McClure, entrepreneur, Dallas Mavericks owner and investor Mark Cuban is a strong advocate for starutps outside Silicon Valley, “everywhere else” as we call them here. It seems that almost every time Cuban is asked to speak at a startup investor conference or in front of entrepreneurial students, someone asks him about the next bubble.

Cuban is a self made business man all around. One of his earliest business endeavors was selling computers. The kicker though was that he didn’t even own one. He read manuals and documentation on whatever he could about computers working for someone else, until he ventured out on his own.

His earliest success came during the first dot com “bubble” when he sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo in 1999 for $5.7 billion dollars. Not too shabby. He was able to parlay that into purchasing the Dallas Mavericks and founding HDnet which is now axs.tv.

Cuban has spead his latest investments around. He’s invested in companies (outside of Shark Tank) in Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta and other cities, keeping his portfolio out of harms way in the event of a Silicon Valley bubble 2.0. And that’s just where he thinks the next bubble will occur.

He doesn’t think the next “bubble” will actually be a bubble but rather the results of a pyramid scheme or modern day chain letter.

“It’s almost the 2011 version of a private equity chain letter,” Cuban said, as reported by PEHUB.

“Remember the old chain letter, where you put up some money, then you got other people to put up some money, and you gave it to the people who were in the deal before you? That’s what’s happening today,” says Cuban. “The early [VCs] are getting the new [VCs] to invest enough money at high enough valuations that they get most, if not all of their money back. Then the next round [sees] someone else invest more money at a higher valuation, returning cash to the last two rounds of investors. By the time you get to the last [VC] standing, those last few rounds hope they can get a return from the public markets. That may be very tough. But the only players really on the hook are the guys from the last rounds. Just like in a chain letter.”

Lately there’s been a lot of talk as to whether Silicon Valley is on the brink of another bubble explosion. The first one saw startups quickly become brand names like Pets.com and Toys.com, and then just as quickly evaporate into a bankrupt land of nothingness.

Several things over the last three months in particular have caused investors to look more cautiously. Back in mid december the Dow Jones VC Edge report came out. That sent a tremor through Silicon Valley and New York City. Fred Wilson blogged about it as a signal that there was a “Series A Crunch” coming. That same week Paul Graham the founder of YCombinator shook things up some more when he reported that startups in the world famous accelerator program would receive less seed funding and that they were taking less startups in the next YC class.

Today, people are watching anxiously as companies like Zynga and Facebook were expected to make billions in IPO’s and then carry investors off into the sunset. That didn’t happen for either company, Zynga much worse off today than Facebook, and that was all in the last year.

Cuban banks on winners, in fact on and off the court he says “No one hates losing more than me”. He’s practical though and knows not everything he invests in is going to have $5.7 billion dollar exit but he’s going to work relentlessly to insure as much success as possible.

What he does say though is that eventually, like with a chain letter, Silicon Valley investors are going to be left holding empty envelopes. He won’t be one of them.

“When the market has a correction, stock prices will correct dramatically, and that sound you’ll hear from the Valley?” says Cuban. “[It] will be of a fund manager screaming, ‘Shit!’ as he turns out the light on his fund.”

Startups “everywhere else” join 1700 other entrepreneurs and founders who’ve already bought tickets to everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

No Really The Early Bird Attendee Ticket For Everywhere Else Is Going Away Tomorrow

Everywhereelse.co The Startup conference has quickly become the largest single venue multi day startup conference in the United States. It’s happening February 9-12th at the Memphis Convention Center in Downtown Memphis Tennessee.

The conference features amazing guest speakers and a panel line up geared specifically towards early stage, and pre series-A stage startups from outside Silicon Valley. Scott Case,Bill Harris, Rohit Bhargava,, Tracy Myers Techstars Alum, 500startups alum and many more will talk about their experiences outside Silicon Valley and give entrepreneurs, founders, developers, dreamers and do-ers what they need to be successful.

Startups that participate in the Startup Village will get three attendee tickets, booth space, electricity, wifi, a private party, and three pitch contests for $100,000 in cash (and then prizes) there are a few Startup Village spots left here.

Access to capital is one of the biggest obstacles facing startups outside the valley, this panel “How To Raise Money Everywhere Else” will feature some great funded startups and their founders from outside Silicon Valley, you can read more about that here.

Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference has sold (not pans on selling but sold) over 1700 attendee tickets to date, with only 15% of them zipcoding to Tennessee so this is very much a national conference.

The early bird ticket price was originally supposed to go away Halloween, then before Thanksgiving, then before Christmas and then New Years eve. Well we’re about to officially name our CEO and he’s not happy that we keep extending the date on the conference early bird ticket, so it absolutely positively will end at midnight Pacific time tomorrow morning (Thursday).

You’ll get a great three day conference, access to over 400 angels and vc’s that have already purchased tickets, a Memphis Grizzlies game ticket and a chance to check out a town built on entrepreneurship like Holiday Inn, FedEx, Autozone, Sacks Fifth Avenue and many many more.

Stop reading and go get that early bird ticket now by clicking here.

Before SnapChat There Was Quimby

Unless you’ve been living under the Christmas and holiday rock, you’ve undoubtedly heard about the “controversial” mobile app startup, SnapChat and the ensuing controversy surrounding Facebook copying the technology as “Poke”.

SnapChat is a mobile texting app that allows multimedia texting. What makes it particularly intriguing is the fact that messages sent with SnapChat can self destruct. Make no bones about it or call it anything less than it is, it is the “sexting” app and its burning up the charts. SnapChat quickly found its place in the top 3 apps in the iTunes App Store where it’s been living for weeks.

Teenagers are using it in droves for sexting, to talk freely about others and for anything else they don’t want accidentally left on their phones.

Facebook was quickly called out, when after seeing the runaway success SnapChat was having, copying the technology completely and releasing it as a mobile app called “Poke”. Poke quickly rose to the top of the charts as well but when people realized how Zuckerberg’s mobile engineers blatantly ripped off SnapChat, Poke began falling as quickly as it rose to the top.

Before SnapChat though there was another app designed to do the exact same thing. We first reported on Toronto startup Quimby back in April when we interviewed the apps founder Heather Burns.

Burns had teamed up with our good friends at Toronto mobile development giant Bnotions. The premise for her app was the same thing, self destructing messages.

Burns tried to take the high road though, she suggested adults may use it for when they are away from each other for long times and long distances. Another use case for Quimby was highly sensitive messages between employers and colleagues. Either way Quimby is just as much for sexting as SnapChat is.

SnapChat also went on the defensive at first but of course any press but your obituary is good press right?

See out interview wit Quimby here

CES 2013: CEA Partners With Launch.It For Eureka Park Coverage

Launch.it a New York startup that bills itself as an event news and social information management platform announced earlier this month that they’ve partnered with the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) to power the official news channel for Eureka Park, the startup zone at the 2013 International CES.

Eureka Park is in it’s third official year and has grown 40% year over year. This year there are 140 startups exhibiting throughout the duration of the show. In addition Startup America will host a content stage with speakers, panel discussions and even pitches throughout the event.

“Every great company starts with a eureka moment, a unique idea that launches the next must-have product or service. And through our partnership with CEA, we have ensured that you can now find these companies within their dedicated home in the Eureka Park TechZone and online through their dedicated interactive news site,” said Brian Cohen, CEO and Co-Founder of Launch.it said in a post on the company’s website. “I’ve worked at and attended CES for more than thirty years and it has been one of the best places to find these fledgling start-ups and diamond in-the-rough companies waiting to be discovered and make it big.”

Launch.it will provide access to all of Eureka Park’s startups to these important tools:

· In-depth social analytics

· Wiki-like environment to make story updates in real-time

· Investors and media can follow companies to get real-time updates

· An action box to engage readers for investment and media opportunities

· Facebook comments for insight and feedback

· Rich multimedia, tags and geo-location for enhanced engagement and discoverability

· “Buy it and Trial it” buttons to drive users directly to point of purchase

· Customized tweets for precise messaging and branding

“CEA recognized early on that startups are now an integral part of the consumer electronics industry and created Eureka Park to cultivate and support the passionate entrepreneurs,” said Trace Cohen, President and Co-Founder of Launch.it. “Having attended CES for the past few years, Eureka Park, in it’s first year last year, was one of my favorite areas to walk through because of the innovative startups looking to disrupt multiple industries. Best of all, I had the opportunity to ask questions, meet the passionate founders behind the ideas and can now support them through our partnership to make sure all their news can be easily found, discovered and shared.”

Of course nibletz.com the voice of startups everywhere else, will be covering the entire show including Starutp Debut and the entire Eureka Park experience as well. We’re looking forward to in depth interviews, pitches and reporting on all of the innovative startups in Eureka Park.

Through our previous web properties, and now nibletz, we’ve covered CES for the last decade. Typically with shows like CES we turn to BusinessWire or TradeShow Wire for up to the minute news releases.

CEA partnering with Launch.it, a startup in it’s own right, will better position the Eureka Park startups to make a bigger splash among the over 3500 companies exhibiting during the week in Las Vegas. Launch.it is better positioned in terms of the newest trends in news delivery and social media over the more traditional news services. This way the startups in Eureka Park have their own clear and coherent voice that’s a bit more relevant than traditional newswire services.

How To Raise Money Everywhere Else Find Out At Huge Startup Conference

Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference is being held in Memphis Tennessee February 9-12th at the Memphis Convention Center. Over 1700 attendees have already purchased tickets including over 400 angels and vcs. The conference will offer startups at any stage pre series-A unparalleled access to investors, fellow entrepreneurs, founders and speakers.

In addition to great speakers like Scott Case, Bill Harris and countless others, “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference” is going to help startups outside of Silicon Valley unlike any other event in the world.

In talking with hundreds of startups every week we’ve found (and you probably know first hand) the biggest obstacle for founders outside the valley is access to capital. Sometimes we hear about it to nauseam.

Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference is going to tackle that issues in a variety of ways starting with a panel of some great startup founders who struggled bootstrapping until they had their big break, most of them staying right where they are.

We’ll talk with Gabe Lozano founder of St. Louis Startup LockerDome who’s raised over $2 million dollars to date from names including Jim McKelvey, co-founder of Square. Lozano is firmly planted in downtown St. Louis.

Rob Kischuck the founder of Atlanta startup bad.gy, who on a chance meeting at a party for Mark Cuban hosted by Nibletz co-founder and CEO Nick Tippmann, met Cuban who loved the idea. Cuban is a big fan of founders putting in enormous amounts of sweat equity and Kischuck could write a book on the topic. Kischuck has now raised nearly three quarters of a million dollars for his startup. Kischuck will talk about his experience at everywhereelse.co

Shawn Flynn, co-founder of Memphis based Restore Medical Solutions will talk about moving his startup from Atlanta to Memphis Tennessee for the ZeroTo510 accelerator. After the accelerator program he and co-founder Ryan Ramkhelawan went on to raise a series A round of $2.5 million dollars in Memphis Tennessee.

McKeever Conwell the co-founder and CEO of Baltimore startup Given.To has had the opportunity to move to Silicon Valley and get in the venture capital rat race but stayed in his native Baltimore to grow his company and help others through his involvement with organizations like Accelerate Baltimore.

Scott Case, founding CTO of Priceline.com and the current CEO of Startup America will facilitate the panel and also talk about Priceline’s experience building a billion dollar company outside Silicon Valley.

Be part of the Startup Village at everywhereelse.co for your chance to pitch in three different contests for $100,000 in cash. Click this link for tickets.

Interview With Eric Mathews Founder Of Memphis Startup Accelerator Seed Hatchery

While some startup communities are in their earliest stages of development, Memphis’ ecosystem is going on six years old. One of the biggest drivers of that startup community is Eric Mathews, who’s Launch Your City organization has been at the center of Memphis’ entrepreneurial community for over six years.

Launch Your City is the organization behind Launch Memphis, Upstart Memphis, and Seed Hatchery, Memphis’ intense three month startup accelerator. Seed Hatchery is currently taking applications for it’s third class which will begin in February and graduate in May during Memphis’ legendary Barbecue Festival.

We got a chance to catch up with Mathews to discuss Seed Hatchery, what makes it different, and why Memphis. Check out the interview below:

CES 2013: CEA Welcomes Startups With New Membership Category

We could see the writing on the wall for this one over two years ago when Eureka Park was announced. CEA, the Consumer Electronics Association and the producers of the International CES show in Las Vegas January 8-11, has created a new membership category making it easier for startups to join the ranks of the top consumer electronics association in the world.

In addition to Eureka Park, one of the largest global gathering of startups in the world, CEA has been busy fostering startups, innovation and entrepreneurism in the United States. They’ve started a grassroots campaign “The Innovation Movement” to educate lawmakers on the spirit of innovation, they produce the International CES and have launched a new magazine called “It Is Innovation”.

This year, CEA has also partnered with Startup America to provide continuous programming at the Startup America stage as part of Eureka Park’s Tech Zone.

CEA’s President and CEO Gary Shapiro is also very supportive of innovation, startups and entrepreneurism. He often writes about innovation across the country, lobbies for innovation and speaks at startup events. Shapiro was on-hand for Chicago TechWeek this past June where he spoke to startups and founders as well as gave away and signed books.

“Startups are jumpstarting our economy and are paving the way for America’s future,” Shapiro said in a statement. “Creating a unique membership category for startups is another way we are pursuing our strategic goal of promoting innovation, the lifeblood of our industry. Many of the individuals behind startups have put all of their resources on the line to make sure their companies have the best chance of succeeding. Every bit of support we can offer as an organization is critical not only to advancing the consumer electronics industry but also to ensuring the world’s most cutting-edge technologies end up in consumers’ hands.”

CEA’s new Startup membership category is just $95 per year. In order to qualify for this membership level companies must be in development of a technology product, service or app that has been introduced in the market within the last year or will be in within the next year. They must have annual sales under $1 million, be located in the U.S. and not have been CEA members in the last two years.

To sign up for this membership International CES Attendees can visit the CEA booth in the Grand Lobby of the Las Vegas Convention Center during the show. You can also email membership@ce.org beginning January 3, 2013.

Linkage:

More CES 2013 team coverage from nibletz.com here

Startup News

CEA’s Website

Event two in the grandslam of startup events is everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

60 Startups From Everywhere Else Gear Up For Startup Debut At CES 2013

60 startups from “everywhere else” are set to take the stage next Sunday January 6th as part of the annual “Startup Debut” at CES 2013. This event puts early stage startups in front of as many as 800 journalists and tech media aficionados in an intimate setting where founders can get 1:1 about their companies.

Last year, Liquipel, debuted their product at Startup Debut, held at the HardRock in Las Vegas. The waterproofing product for smartphones had an exceptional award winning year after their initial debut at the event.

Startups from Texas, New York, Toronto, LA, Virginia and even Budapest will exhibit at the Bali Hai Golf Course, two blocks south of Mandalay Bay.

SocialRadius one of the earliest social media marketing agencies, and a die hard supporter of startups, started the event in January 2010 at CES. They now hold five annual events with their two biggest being CES and SXSW.

Nibletz, the voice of startups everywhere else will bring you all of the startup goodness from Startup Debut as part of our ongoing team coverage at CES 2013.

Linkage:

Complete team coverage of CES 2013 can be found here

The next big startup event after CES is this

Iowa Startup BidOnMyJob Harnesses SMS To Take On Craigslist

A new Iowa Startup called BidOnMyJob is ready to talk on the likes of Craigslist and AngiesList. The startup, founded by Derrick Hans and Nathan Gibson takes the, gigs and service offered sections out of Craigslist and has made a targeted platform for job matching, social discovery, and referrals.

The concept behind BidOnMyJob is that there are contractors and people who can do work for other folks just about anywhere. ”

You have a huge network out there at your fingertips. Chances are there is someone that knows someone who can and wants to fix it for you” Hans said.

Contractors, workers and neighborhood handymen can sign up for an account at BidOnMyJob. From there, when there is a job posted that meets their criteria they will be alerted through the website and via text message.

We talked to Bruce Matheson, a carpenter and contractor in Maryland who said that the SMS integration would give BidOnMyJob a leg up on competitive sites he already uses for jobs. “I can only check Craigslist and Angie’s List in the morning before I go out for a Job and then at lunch. The jobs are gone by then. Having a system that texts me jobs would keep me more competitive.”

In addition to SMS alerts BidOnMyJob has a great social component that allows every job to easily be shared across multiple social networks like Twitter and Facebook, by email or even by text message. Hans and Gibson have launched the company in the Des Moines metro area and will stay local for now, but do plan on a nationwide roll out.

Linkage:

Check out BidOnMyJob here

Here are more startup stories from “Everywhere Else”

This is the biggest startup conference in the US