startups Archives - Page 3 of 75

Episode 9: Jon Bradford of Techstars Says How To Get Into Accelerators

Jon is Managing Director of TechStars London and has previously founded and worked on startup accelerators around the globe. He’s co-founder of F6S.com which has grown into one of the most important startup program platforms in the world, and has recently cofoundedtech.eu to feature startup and tech news across Europe.

Our interview had so much great content we decided it was worth 2 episodes rather than cut out such valuable knowledge. In part 1, Jon explains:

How to get into accelerators
What investors are looking for
How to build a good team
Shifts in startup accelerator models
How to use crowdfunding to your advantage

How things got started

Jon shares with us how he went from being a “bored accountant” at a major firm to launching his first startup (made a ton of money) becoming a VC, joining Techstars and being part of the growth of the tech startup world.

We then dive into his opinion on the changes in how startups can get off the ground, how to get into accelerators, and what people like him (the decision maker) are looking for when making those decisions.

Don’t miss Part 2! You can contact Jon at jon at techstars dot com

Episode 4: Eric Dobson, Angel Capital Group (Part 1)

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Eric Dobson is the CEO of Angel Capital Group. Since growing two companies to more than $4M in investment as an entrepreneur, he now manages the portfolio of 25 companies in which ACG has already invested. Eric plans to increase ACG’s investments to one per month in 2014 as ACG activates its crowd funding initiatives.

We talked to Eric for so long that we had to make two episodes (here’s part 2). You don’t want to miss the incredible information Eric shared with us, including:

knowing your exit before you start,
how to appeal to companies who want to acquire your startup
how the word “exit” means different things to different groups of people,
why entrepreneurs do what we do,
the right way to use outsourcing, and
how to build a founder team.

Specifically regarding working with investors, Eric tells us:

what to expect as a realistic time line to getting funded from pitch to check,
how important it is for founders to have skin in the game, and
whether or not to ask for money capital than you need.

How to Use and Share Wisdom

Eric says, “Wisdom should be hard won and freely given.” These two episodes are chock full!

The Overwhelming Urge to Start!

Eric jumps right in by explaining to us how he, “got fed up with watching great commercial opportunities cross my desk [in academia.] I wanted to do something, so I started a company to follow some of those ideas.” That company turned into two companies, and two exits.

John and Ledge hear this story in every interview. The urge to start is so overwhelming that we just can’t help chasing down that idea and starting a company! Leave us a comment if you’ve ever felt that way and followed it. If you haven’t followed the feeling, why not?

As CEO of Angel Capital Group, Eric has made a full move from “the begging side of the table to the giving side.” He thinks “it’s much more fun on this side of the table.”

If you could go back and change anything, what would it be?

“I definitely would have done at least a business minor [in college]. Computer science was a leg up in everything I have done in life and I believe a business minor would have done the same thing.”

Also…

“I over-valued my first company very badly [while raising money]. You can’t back track fast enough if you do that.” Doing so makes working with investors very difficult.

Don’t miss Part 2! You can contact Eric at eric at angelcapitalgr dot com or apply for funding today.

Heroes2U Connects Celebrities, Charity, and You

1. What’s your startup called?

Heroes2u and our tagline is Memorable Conversations, Meaningful Causes, based in Columbus, Ohio.

2. What’s your big idea?

Video chats for charity – we host group video chats with high profile people to raise money and awareness for a cause they care about! We want to create a platform for the next generation of givers, that’s why we use the technology we use and sell $5 dollar tickets. The way it works is simple – first we identify a Hero who is someone that is passionate about a cause, has a story to share, and has an online community. We set up a campaign with the Hero – they pick the date and time to do a half hour video chat from anywhere with an internet connection/webcam and also where the money goes (they pick the charity). We then sell $5 dollar tickets on our website with $4 out of every $5 going to the cause being uplifted throughout the campaign. At the end of the campaign 30-40 days we pick 8 people randomly out of all the tickets and they get to be face to face with the person of their dreams, while everyone else who purchased a ticket gets to watch live and submit questions to our moderator and follow along on Twitter! We record all these chats and send out clips to the winners and the charity so everyone has their 5 minutes of fame with their Hero!

3. What’s the story behind your idea?

The story started when we were working on our last startup which used video to train people with fitness goals, so that’s where video over the internet came from. One day we were sitting and going through ideas and we thought what if you could video chat with celebrity x and people were telling us they’d pay to do that. So we thought ok why would the celebrity care to get in front of their computer for a half hour and chat with fans, and we realized how meaningful it could be if they were raising money and awareness for a cause they care about. A lot of them have their own foundations and causes they support so it made sense and we went out and raised an investment of 175k last June (2013) from Tony Wells and his family Foundation to make our dream a reality!

4. Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

I am one of the founders – John Weiler – 25 and one of my best friends is the other founder – Jeremy Meizlish 25. Jeremy graduated from Capital and studied English, and I attended Ohio State and studied Economics. We both knew we wanted to be entrepreneurs from a young age and started our first LLC in school, then got involved in a health and fitness video training over the internet start up and then left that to start this about 2 yrs ago.

5. Where are you located, and what’s the startup scene like there?

Columbus, Ohio and it’s a growing community – we have had tremendous support from Ohio State and their Technology and Commercialization Center and have attended the local Startup Weekend, and actually spoke at the last one here a few weeks ago.

6. What milestones have you reached?

We raised our initial investment in June of last year and since then we built and tested our platform, we did a private alpha in Quarter 4 of last year and held chats for free with several TEDx speakers. Earlier this year we launched our public beta in February and started raising money for charities and working with names like Jack Hanna, Country Music star Phil Vassar and several NFL players! We’ve now raised over 10k for charity in small money donations and are just starting! Our last chat had viewers in 23 states and the 8 winners were in 7 different states (none from Ohio) and the cause being a local Ohio based charity A Kid Again, getting national exposure was a big achievement for us!

7. What are your next milestones?

Our next milestones are to start working with even bigger names and causes, we have seen traction and want to start growing our pipeline of Heroes we work with! We have a lot of ideas in the pipeline in terms of product evolution and different phases to build out for the non profit partners we work with as well as our fans, but for now we want to keep things simple and scale what we have!

8. Where can people find out more?

People can check out any of our website heroes2u.com or our social media accounts to stay up to date – twitter @meetheroes or our YouTube/meetheroes or our Facebook/heroes2u or Instagram/heroes2u and read our blog at blog.heroes2u.com

A 1-Year-Old Magazine About Farming Is the Talk of the Media World

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3 Ways to Make a Social Impact With Your Startup

When I think about startups that incorporate social good, I think about businesses that are always doing the right thing – for their team, for their community, for their customers, and for the environment. Most importantly, the decisions that they make naturally consider their social impact. They don’t fake it and it is not a fad strategy – it is core to the business model. Social good isn’t about doing something to just get attention.

Case in point: After living and working in Malawi, artist (and friend) Marissa Perry Saints, founded Dsenyo in an effort to create opportunity for hard-working African women and artisans. “Social good is the reason we exist and it permeates every facet of our identity. With this approach we have buy-in from everyone…leadership, staff, suppliers and customers. Our social mission is our core,” she explained.

If you’re interested in incorporating social good into your business, here are three best practices I gleaned from my fellow Boulder- and Denver-area entrepreneur friends:

Clearly Define and Communicate Your Social Impact

Think through whether the fundamental problem your company solves is actually “social good.” If so – define how. What is the social impact of the work you’re doing? If successful, what is the social impact your company will have? Your team has to believe it in order for them to execute, and in order for them to share the impact they’re having in the community and with your customers. Is it a leap? Or is it real?

Analiese Brown, Community and Recruiting Manager for ShipCompliant, said, “Social good should become an outcome of what you’re trying to build, rather than an afterthought. What is the fundamental belief that drives your business? If you can get clear on why you do what you do at that very basic level, it becomes easier to see how you can achieve social good as an extension of your product and brand. That doesn’t mean your product has to solve a social problem explicitly (although it might), but it does challenge founders to think about how they could use their existing resources — their team, their technology, their solution — to make the world a better place.”

Make It Part of Your Company’s Culture

As an entrepreneur, you have to communicate your social impact clearly with your team early and often before you can make the case for doing it externally. It has to be ingrained in everything you do. And it must naturally connect to your business’ mission and vision.

Elizabeth Kraus, Managing Director of The Impact Angel Group, said, “To really achieve social good, startups should first start thinking about it early in the process so it can shape the company culture and be supported by the early investors and stakeholders. Startups can’t forget that they must survive in order to create social good. If used as support for customer acquisition, employee retention and other startup challenges, a social good strategy can be a competitive advantage.”

Be Authentic About Your Impact

Marc Gutman, Chief Meeting Officer and Founder of Lighthouse Conferencing, said, “My biggest piece of advice to startups looking to do this is do it for the right reasons. Do it because it is meaningful to you and your team. Do not enter into it as something that’s going to be monetized or to bring you business. If it does, that’s a bonus, but you’ll most likely be disappointed if this is your main reason for starting one of these programs.”

In other words, don’t create a social good strategy solely to generate revenue. It won’t work because people will see through it. Rather, connect the dots internally and externally on how your company can make a positive social impact throughout your business model. And if you can’t, don’t force it.

If your company’s mission isn’t to change the world, that’s okay too – there are other ways to incorporate social good into your model. For example, some employers choose to empower their employees to use paid time off to donate to the charity of their choice. Said Bill Douglas, CEO of EssentiaLink: “I chose to create a charitable time off policy from the start and encouraged employees to donate their energy on company time to the charity or school of their choosing. This bonded our teams because we all cover for each other without hesitation when its for charity. There is pride in ownership as employees boast about their chosen charity. Our stakeholders even get involved now. Its become engrained in our culture and everybody benefits.”

Integrating social impact into your business model shouldn’t be an afterthought and it shouldn’t be temporary. It should be central to achieving your vision. Otherwise, it might just be a distraction — one that your clients and employees will see through.

Sarah Schupp is the CEO and founder of UniversityParent.com, the #1 site for college parents to find everything they need to help their student succeed. Follow her on Twitter @Sarah_Schupp

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

Canadian Startup Raise Your Flag Connects Students With Post High School Jobs

1) What’s your startup called?

Raise Your Flag

2) What’s your big idea?

Approximately 45% students in Canada and the US go to work as their primary post-secondary destination. These kids leave school feeling like they failed the system. What if we celebrated the school-to-work pathway the same way we celebrated opening a college acceptance letter?

Raise Your Flag helps work-bound students find a job that’s connected to a career path they’re excited about and helps them find companies that could hire them.

Raise Your Flag allows work-bound students to declare their post-secondary pathway and celebrate the possibilities.

3) What’s the story behind your idea?

For the past 8 years, I’ve been traveling speaking to high school students (over 750,000 to date) and wrote a book to help them make decisions about their post-secondary lives (http://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Own-Lunch-Epically/dp/1402297033)

3 years ago I was speaking at a conference for work-bound students. After my presentation a student named Michael came to introduce himself. Chin-quivering, he thanked me for being there and then told me that none of his friends or family knew he was at the conference. When I asked “why?”, he responded, “do you have any idea how embarrassing it is when all of your friends are opening college acceptance letters and you’re the loser in the corner not knowing what you’re doing with your life?”

Raise Your Flag is built for Michael and the MILLIONS of students just like him.

Michael deserves to be excited about his pathway.

4) Who are the founders?

Ryan Porter + Scott Walkinshaw

5) Where are you located?

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

6) What’s the startup scene like there?

Strong. We have some great companies up here doing great work and building companies that are changing the way things are done. Toronto was ranked world’s 8th Most Active Startup Scene: http://www.betakit.com/three-canadian-cities-ranked-top-20-most-active-startup-scenes-infographic/)

7) What milestones have you reached?

Accepted and completing JOLT accelerator program, v2.0 launch, confirmed our first major national employer partner (announcement coming soon), earning revenue.

8) What are your next milestones?

Announcement of more major partners, US expansion, hiring employees 1, 2 and 3 and raising a round of funding.

9) Where can people find out more?

www.raiseyourflag.com

Manalto Wants to Solve Social for Enterprises

What’s your startup called?

Manalto Social Media ERP

What’s your big idea?

Manalto is changing the way social media is managed inside enterprise.

We’re enabling organizations to manage social media content with greater efficiency and alignment to their operations, with seamless integration with marketing and communications processes and activity.

Manalto is an end-to-end social media management platform, powered by an innovative backend technology which has been engineered for enterprise. Our cloud-based social media management solution allows SMB’s and multi-site or multi-brand organizations greater control to create and efficiently manage fully customized Facebook pages, regulate user permissions, and monitor and engage with local communities on Facebook and Twitter from a centralized dashboard.

Manalto enables

o Improved brand management across organizations of different sizes and structures, from a single business to a multi-site, or multi-product enterprise

o Greater agility for an organization to manage operational and reputational risks, through built in system controls expected of an enterprise system

o Increased delivery of operational efficiencies

What’s the story behind your idea?

Manalto formed from the need to address a significant challenge and barrier-to-entry facing multi-site, multi-brand organizations wanting to adopt social media into their existing traditional-digital suite of sales and marketing activity, but not able to find the right solution that delivered the same level of rigor, brand control and granular-level user management controls. Manalto is positioning itself as a mid-tier to top tier social media management software provider, architecting enterprise-grade solutions for single and multi-site organizations – such as a franchise group, wanting to sustainably and efficiently integrate social media management into their core operations and marketing activity.

Manalto also offers a robust SMB solution. SMBs are a critical market for Manalto given SMBs make up a large percentage of the business sector. The Manalto SMB solution which enables a business to manage a single social account using Manalto, offers the same management features as the Enterprise solution.

While the DIY SMB solution and DIY Enterprise solutions are available directly through the Manalto website our primary approach to the SMB market is through the ISP and Hosting company channel. Where an SMB is going to be able to purchase and use the Manalto software using their hosting account.

Who are the founders?

Anthony Owen

Where are you located?

Currently in Melbourne, Australia; and Santa Monica, CA

What’s the startup scene like there?

The start up scene in Australia is alive and active. There are a lot of innovative companies, talent and technologies in Australia that have both a local and global focus.

Australian-founded technology companies that make their foray into the USA are generally highly-regarded. However, unfortunately not everyone takes the leap into the USA market and choose to remain with a local focus.

I think one of the challenges facing start ups in Australia is the lack of Seed capital and Series A investors available locally. Typically, early stage companies in Australia are expected to be generating substantial revenue to attract investment interest and hence tend to source lead investors, in particular, outside Australia.

What milestones have you reached?

Manalto has achieved significant traction and successes in its short life to date.

Since it build and launch in Australia 12 months ago, the team has released two substantial upgrades to our software and is at now at version 3 and soon V3.1. The solution has come leaps and bounds and we work closely with organizations to shape our solution to solve problems.

We relocated the business to the USA in December and have been rapidly building momentum, ramping up our sales and marketing activity, expanding our team and creating a footprint for Manalto in the USA.

What are your next milestones?

Manalto plans to continue to drive our growth in the USA and cast the net wide – extending the solution to as many organizations and developing our distribution channels. We will close a Series A Round, and look to expand inside European and Asian markets, while accelerating our growth in the USA.

We have a comprehensive and innovative technical development pipeline that will see the Manalto solution integrated with more social media platforms, CMS tools, advertising management tools and e-commerce solutions.

Where can people find out more?

People can follow us on Twitter (www.twitter.com/ManaltoInc) and/or FB (www.facebook.com/ManaltoInc), and go to our website (www.manalto.com).

Chimpmint Takes on Buffer, Feedly, and All Those Other Guys

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Those of us in the tech world know all about social media marketing and finding and sharing content online. We know that it’s good for our brands and reputations, and a lot of us think carefully about how we want to handle social media.

Your average small business? Maybe, but maybe not. And without some level of social media savvy, they can get lost in the crowd.

That’s where Chimpmint comes in. They’re looking to curate and share content for small businesses who don’t necessarily have the time or motivation to learn social media marketing. There are plenty of tools that do what they do, but Chimpmint is honing in on the customers who will be overwhelmed by the more popular tools.

They face a few challenges, though. Most significantly, marketing to small businesses–and convincing them they need this–could prove difficult. The companies they’re talking about can often be averse to the Internet in general, much less social media.

Also, you know, Buffer, Feedly…

Check out Chimpmint’s Q&A below. Then hop over and let them know what you think.

What is the name of your startup?

Chimpmint Content Curating & Sharing

What’s your big idea?

If traditional marketing is land and social media is the ocean, then many startups, small businesses, and personal brands are lost at sea.
Every brand, at one point or another, has the same two core problems when it comes to social media marketing:

I don’t know what to post on social media to build my follower base and to engage with them.
I don’t have the time to post.

So how does Chimpmint help? To solve the first problem, we search, find, and present related content to that brand. Doesn’t matter what you sell, if you have a brand, then we have quality articles, images, and videos that relates to what your brand. To solve the second problem, Chimpmint helps you share efficiently. Already in our first release, we’ve gotten great feedback on the simplicity of our scheduling feature. And like an infomercial, it gets better! Our next upgrade is coming soon and it’ll will be a game changer. We plan to make social media management as relevant to a business owner as checking an email.

What’s the story behind your idea?

Once upon a time, about 11 months ago, my partner Maurice Prosper and I were working in the web development. One of our early clients, Stacy, owned a small furniture store. To our surprise, just a month after finishing Stacy’s new website, she left us a message stating her dissatisfaction.

What was wrong? The website worked like a well oiled machine.

So we asked Stacy. She told us she feels the site isn’t worth the cost since the traffic to the site stayed the same. So we started our search on Google for a product that can drive traffic to Stacy’s website with social media. Right away, we knew it had to be simple, because Stacy didn’t want to learn social media marketing, and preferably a ‘Smart Software’ that educated users while getting the job done. Unfortunately, we never found this magical software. That’s when we had our “aha moment”.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Maurice Prosper and Michael Tibebu. We met in Mr. Thomas’s history class in high school. Good ‘ole times.

Where are you based?

Chimpmint is based out of Austin, Texas but we service any and all businesses since we provide our services via the internet.

How are you different from the competition? Buffer comes to mind…

We simplified our software while being able to improve efficiency. Our competitors see the demand but see only one layer of the problem. As stated in Question[1], just a scheduling feature isn’t going to cut it for Stacy the store owner. Neither is a bare content aggregate. Chimpmint is the only web application that solves both those problems, while keeping simplicity of the product for our user’s learning curve and user experience.

What milestones have you reached so far?

We just celebrated our 3 month anniversary. That being said, since then we’ve gotten users on Chimpmint giving us great feedback and advice. We’ve legitimatized our online brand @Chimpmint with well over 400 followers. All of which we’ve attained by using our own product. Our blog (blog.chimpmint.com) returning readers. We also showcased at South by South West in Austin, Texas in front of thousands of tech lovers and investors.

What are your next milestones?

Chimpmint next milestone is to reach our goal of signing up our first 1000 businesses. We still have spots open. Sign up at www.chimpmint.com we wont disappoint.

Where can people find out more?

People can find out more about Chimpmint by emailing hello@chimpmint.com.

They can also reach us via our feedback button located on the bottom right corner on www.chimpmint.com

Our first 1000 businesses get a year long free subscription to Chimpmint. Don’t miss out guys, it’s a good time to register at www.chimpmint.com.

Lumiary Gives Indie Retailers a Shot at Competing With the Big Guys

Indie retail (think Etsy and Shopify) is becoming a big deal these days. With these revolutionary platforms, every day entrepreneurs and makers can sell products direct to consumers. By cutting out big retailers, these individuals and small companies have higher profit margins and better chance at success.

But, they still lack one thing.

Marketing.

Lumiary, founded by several tech veterans including Etsy’s former head of analytics, solves that problem for them. Their system creates a marketing dashboard that can compete with big companies.

Check out our Q&A with Lumiary below:

1) What’s your startup called?

Lumiary

2) What’s your big idea?

Independent retail has lost half its market share over the past 30 years. At Lumiary, we believe independent makers and brands are now producing some of the best products out there. And because of the internet, they can reach just as many shoppers as large retailers. When it comes to marketing themselves, however, they are wildly outgunned when it comes to budget, data, and expertise. So even with a superior product, independent retailers are being left behind.

Our mission is to help makers and independent brands compete with big brands by leveraging their more personal relationships with their customers, fans, and followers. Lumiary is an integrated marketing platform for indie ecommerce brands that works just like the big data dashboards that all the big guys have, but is tailored for their unique strengths. Currently, the only analytics, marketing, CRM options for these small businesses are point solutions, forcing busy entrepreneurs to pull data from multiple platforms on their own and then attempt to make sense of it.

3) What’s the story behind your idea?

Each of the Lumiary founders approaches indie brand marketing from a different perspective. Carrington comes from Etsy, Charles consulted for American made indie brands, and Matt built multichannel merchandising technology for small retailers. We came together when we collectively realized the widening gap in product quality, originality and authenticity between the big brands and independent ones. We felt more shoppers should be buying products from independent retailers, and our mission is help them take back market share.

4) Who are the founders?

Carrington Williams, formerly head of analytics and business development at Etsy, and Product Manager at AOL

Matthew Knight, formerly from Reconstrukt, EMC and Computer Associates

Charles Valentine, formerly a vice president at Discovery Communications and advisor to Northern Grade and Pierrepont Hicks

5) Where are you located?

Richmond, Va.

6) What’s the startup scene like there?

The startup scene in Richmond is quickly growing and changing. New incubators have popped up in the past 2-3 years, we are a part of one called 80amps, backed by the nationally recognized Martin Agency. And there is a huge creative/maker culture coming out of VCU Design and Brand schools.

7) What milestones have you reached?

We have just now come out of our beta, and now have our first paying customers. We’ve also gone through the painstaking work of establishing critical integrations with the leading ecommerce platforms, social networks and analytics tools, including Shopify, Big Commerce, Magento, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and Google Analytics.

8) What are your next milestones?

Up next we’re going integrate with Etsy stores, so we can offer our easy to use marketing platform to the millions of amazing stores on Etsy. We’re also launching soon our customer micro-segmenting tool to allow brands be more personal in customer communications and thus increase sales from email campaigns.

9) Where can people find out more?

www.lumiary.com

PlateWave Uses License Plates to Help You Find Love

You’re driving down the street in your new car and you see heads turn. You’re not going to stop the car, get out, and talk to that person, are you?

Or, on the flip side, you’re the person on the street, and you see that car drive by. That car’s driver just happens to be a fairly good-looking person, too.

Up until now, what did you do? In short, nothing. You gawked at either the guy or gal opening the door, climbing in, and zooming right out of your dreams.

Or, if you were the driver, you kept driving, hoping that by some magical happenstance you might someday see that same bystander on the side of the road staring at you again. Then all of the stars would align and you’d fall into each others’ arms and live happily ever after.

Marcus Ackerley, though a thoroughly happy and long-time married man, came up with a solution to each of these problems. A Brit who happens to drive a fairly nice car, Marcus got a call one day.

“Were you out driving today?” his car dealership asked. And he had been. The seed was planted.

Fast forward four years and Marc’s created PlateWave, an app that helps people find and connect to each other using registration (or license) plates. Savvy, eh?

His first aha moment came when he ran a little math through his head, though.

“What are the chances of someone knowing someone at the dealership I bought my car at? Now what are the chances of someone knowing someone at every one of the hundreds of dealers across the country? What kind of chances exist that I’m driving in my own town and not traveling across the country at the time when they see me? Altogether, they’re virtually zero.”

“What we’re talking about here is visual social discovery,” Ackerley said, “You see something or someone and you’re interested to the extent that you’d like to make some kind of comment. And if it’s easy enough for you to send them a message…it’s a whole new, easy way of contacting people.”

And that it is. It kind of reminds me of a Tinder for cars, actually.

His second aha moment came when he met his technical partners. “There is a way of doing it. It’s just a really, really big project,” the tech side of the project, Sean Wilson and James Black of Underground Creative, a UK-based web development firm, said. And though it’s been roughly four or so years in the making, they’ve done it.

Though PlateWave is only available in the UK as of now, they expect to be scaling to a country near you soon, so be sure to check out PlateWave at platewave.com and follow @PlateWave on Twitter.

Tyler Sondag is a startup connoisseur with a hand in anything and everything you could imagine. Hailing from the ever-developing Northwest Mississippi, an alum of Saint Louis University and currently a transplant to St. Louis, Missouri, one of his main missions in life is to get and keep young people engaged in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Follow him on Twitter: @MrSondag.

Edison Nation Medical Lets Anyone Test Their Medical Device Idea

EN-Medical_approved_logo[1] Healthcare and medical devices are becoming a big area of growth in the startup world. But, the path to development, testing, and iterating is expensive and difficult. It’s obviously not like software, which requires time but low capital.

Edison Nation Medical is trying to help individuals with great ideas bring their medical device to market. Think Quirky–for healthcare.

Check out our Q&A with Edison Nation Medical below, and head over to their website if you have a great medical device idea.

1. What’s your startup called?

Edison Nation Medical (www.EdisonNationMedical.com)

2. What’s your big idea?

We help people bring their bright healthcare ideas to life! Our mission is to identify and foster innovative healthcare and medical device inventions that improve the quality of care and increase efficiencies across the entire hospital ecosystem. We accomplish this goal by breaking down the barriers that often inhibit individual inventors – the doctor, nurse, patient, caregiver, university tech transfer office, or small company – from getting their ideas commercialized.

3. What’s the story behind your idea?

Edison Nation Medical is a medical device incubator and online community for people interested in changing healthcare. We provide a clear pathway for anyone—physicians, nurses, technicians, entrepreneurs, even patients and caregivers—to submit their product idea for in-depth review and potential commercialization. Our business model is based on trust—trust between a person with a great healthcare invention and a company that gives a thorough and expert read to determine the value of the idea. If an idea has value, we find it, unlock it and get it to market in order to improve care, lower cost and increase access for the patient.

4. Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

Louis Foreman, CEO of prolific consumer product developer Edison Nation, and leaders from Carolinas HealthCare System, one of the nation’s leading public healthcare systems, valued innovation in healthcare. They knew that creating a model whereby open innovation could exist outside the traditional R&D labs would foster new ideas to improve care, lower cost and increase access; ideas that likely wouldn’t have come to fruition as quickly, if at all, within the status quo. They launched Edison Nation Medical in July 2012.

Foreman is a prolific inventor, product developer, innovation enthusiast and small business entrepreneur. In 20 years, Louis has created nine successful startups and has been directly responsible for the creation of more than 20 others. Additional companies in the Edison Nation Medical family include Edison Nation, Enventys and Inventors Digest magazine.

Robert (Bobby) Grajewski joined as Edison Nation Medical’s president to lead the company in building innovative healthcare companies, securing licensing agreements with major medical device manufacturers and increasing the online member community of medical inventors. Grajewski has nearly 10 years of private equity and venture capital investing experience. In addition, he co-founded and launched two web-based start-ups, Heritage Handcrafted and eCollectors.

5. Where are you located?

Charlotte, NC

6. What’s the startup scene like there?

As one of the financial and healthcare capitals of the South, Charlotte has a vibrant and growing scene for highly intelligent and motivated entrepreneurs who are taking risks and pursuing truly groundbreaking ideas.

7. What milestones have you reached?

Edison Nation Medical has already developed and licensed numerous products to medical device companies. Likewise, our member community is rapidly growing. (We now have inventors from over 180 countries around the globe.)

8. What are your next milestones?

To look forward to continuing to expand Edison Nation Medical’s footprint in the healthcare ecosystem and further enable passionate inventors to get their innovative healthcare ideas reviewed and commercialized.

9. Where can people find out more?

On our website, which can be found at www.EdisonNationMedical.com. You’ll be able to learn plenty about us, but you’ll have access to even more information once you become an Edison Nation Medical member. We encourage you to sign up for your free membership today! Even if you don’t have a bright idea to submit yet, we invite you to use us for education and inspiration.

Dear Everywhere Else: You Will Not be the Next Silicon Valley

We hear this a lot: “Such-and-such city is going to be the next Silicon Valley.”

Everyone in the startup space admires and wants to replicate the Valley’s success. After all, a lot of billionaires have been made there.

But, here’s the thing, there will never be another Silicon Valley, the way we know Silicon Valley. What’s going on there is the result of decades of dedicated tech entrepreneurship, education, and financing. Many of the success stories found there happened well before tech and startups were cool.

That’s good for us, though. Because, here’s the other thing:

The world doesn’t need another Silicon Valley.

The world needs Detroit–where they are using entrepreneurship to claw their city back from bankruptcy.

It needs Israel–where they are using tech to find solutions to many of the world’s security problems.

It needs the countless cities across the country who are seeking solutions to the many problems our healthcare system has, from administration to devices.

It needs entrepreneurs who are so focused on solving the problem they’re tackling that they don’t really care if it’s current trend or “it” thing.

Even though we won’t ever be Silicon Valley, that doesn’t mean we can’t learn a few lessons from their success.

Innovation, not imitation

One reason Silicon Valley became what it has is because it was full of people who refused to imitate. No one in the Valley has ever said, “We’re going to be the next New York.”

Those of us in startups outside the Valley can take a lesson from this. Ecosystems who know their strengths and wear their differences like a badge of honor will be the next success stories. The ones who innovate in “unsexy” ways may well just find the next billion dollar ideas.

Understand entrepreneurship

There are great entrepreneurs all over the world, from the founder of this week’s hottest app to the women in Africa who make and sell jewelry to support their families.

But startups–truly ecosystem-shaping startups–are the ones chasing the big ideas relentlessly. Silicon Valley understands this, and you won’t find many lifestyle entrepreneurs there. Not that there’s anything wrong with lifestyle businesses, but it’s a completely different game they’re playing.

Successful ecosystems will not only know their industry, they’ll know what kind of entrepreneurs they have. And smart investors and mentors will be able to pick out the truly scalable ones to help grow.

Solve your own problems

There are plenty of articles lambasting Silicon Valley for solving rich, white boy, first world problems.

This isn’t going to be one of those articles, because I don’t think that’s fair to the smart men and women doing amazing things in the Valley.

However, there are other problems to be solved, problems that, for better or worse, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs just may not be aware of. That’s the true power of building your startup everywhere else.

In a recent article on PandoDaily, tech entrepreneur Chris Nicholson says,

People solve the problems they see every day. Even with the million amazing projects getting invented in San Francisco, the tech bubble produces a monoculture in what tech produces–apps that create more apps–and how it thinks.

Maybe the problem that captures your attention isn’t “world-changing,” but that’s okay. Solve it in the most creative, compelling way possible, and you may be surprised what comes next.

Ecosystems outside of Silicon Valley are the next big thing. It’s why we do what we do at Nibletz and the Everywhere Else Conference. We don’t think anywhere will ever be the “next Silicon Valley.”

But that doesn’t mean it won’t be amazing.

Handwritten Letters Meet Technology

Do you remember the days of pen pals? You’d write a letter on paper with a pen, and you’d put a lot of thought into it because it would be your only communication with that person. You would fold it up, put it in an envelope, stamp it, and stick it in the mailbox. Weeks later, you’d get a response and know your friend had put the same kind of effort into communicating with you.

Sounds idyllic, right? Fast forward 20 or so years, and we all know that’s not what we call “scalable.” In today’s world, thanks to email and social media, we’re meeting people all the time, and we need to interact NOW, not weeks from now. Emails and texts get business done faster, and often more efficiently.

Still, on the rare occasion you get a handwritten note, isn’t it a memorable experience?

That’s what the team at MailLift is betting on. Founders Brian Curliss and Daniel Jurek believe that with the rise of technology, we’ve lost the habit of personal connection. So, they’ve figured out a way to automate a quintessential part of personal connection: handwritten letters.

At his last company, CEO Curliss rented homes by the night, and he would write a real handwritten note to leave for the guests to find at check in. Obviously, they loved it. When a mentor asked him what one part of his business he would have gladly paid for, he knew what his next company would do.

Now, MailLift isn’t for writing notes to Grandma. (She’s your grandmother, for crying out loud! Write your own damn note!) Instead, MailLift focuses specifically on sales and marketing professionals. Handwritten letters break through the marketing noise in email and on social media, which MailLift believes will increase sales for their clients.

“Our customers love it because they can turn a high-touch action to a set-it-and-forget-it system,” Curliss told me.

The system is easy enough, with clients doing most of their part online. Then a team of retired teachers and artists does the actual handwriting. They also address the envelopes by hand and use actual stamps to send the letters. The website even says that Curliss insists that every letter or envelope be photographed and verified by 3 people before it goes to the post office. That’s commitment!

MailLift is participating in the recently announced 500 Startups class. In the coming months, they will roll out Salesforce integration, which will make the process even easier on their clients.

Find out more about MailLift on their website.

5 Things to Get Straight Before Starting Up

planning Starting my company Gloss and Glam was the best thing I ever did. But before I opened my business, I spent countless hours speaking to lawyers, accountants, and other entrepreneurs trying to figure out next steps. Save yourself countless hours — and the possible headache of making a huge foundational mistake — by getting these five things straight before you start up:

Own your name. Make sure the company name you choose is one with an available trademark and Internet domain name. To see if a trademark is available, you can do a trademark search online through the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s website. Failure to properly obtain a trademark could put your fledgling business at risk — not to mention that the time and money you have invested in establishing your business name could go to waste if someone else owns the trademark. Don’t assume your new business name is not trademarked because you were unsuccessful finding such name on the Internet, either. Someone could have used the name for a business that closed, or filed a trademark and never used it.
Get in with the law. Understand what regulations, licenses and taxes you will need to follow, obtain and pay for your new business. After doing some initial research on your own, consult with a lawyer and accountant to confirm your understanding and to help structure your business to be in compliance with the law. Generally speaking, you will need to need to (i) ensure you are charging the correct amount of tax your service or product that your business is promoting, if applicable and (ii) obtain all of the proper licenses needed to run your new business, at a minimum. Establishing a successful business is hard enough. The last thing you need is some technical legality or administrative detail to stand in the way of your success.
How much do you need to live? When working on your business plan, do not forget about the most important factor: YOU. You need to take into account your living costs. Rent, mortgages, and health insurance — these are all things that don’t pay for themselves. You will most likely need to cut out all the unnecessary extras you can live without. Make sure you account for unforeseen or unexpected expenses by factoring a little flexibility into your budget for those “just-in-case” moments. You might even consider taking a part-time job until things pick up with your new venture and speak to a financial planner to help you budget yourself properly.
Where are you in your life? Starting a new business takes brains, bravery, and what will seem to be endless hours of hard work. When you own your own company, there is always something that has to get done. You will most likely find yourself working at least 60-80 hours a week for the first two years. With that said, I’ll ask you one very important question: Are you ready to give up your personal life for the next three years?
Don’t over — or under — spend. Starting a business can be incredibly financially taxing on you and your family. You will need to learn where and when to spend. It’s important not to waste those precious seed dollars but it’s equally important to spend where necessary. In any business, you often have to spend money to make money. Don’t skimp out on things your company needs. For example, it may be worth it to put $1500 in an online vendor listing, but it may not be necessary to give every new customer a $15 mug. Be sure to keep up with technology too — there are many time-saving programs and apps (including free or inexpensive ones) that can help you keep track of it all, and as we all know, “time is money.”

Nicole Robinson is the CEO of Gloss and Glam, a premier and largest luxury on-location hair and makeup company. Gloss and Glam provides high end hair and makeup services for runways, magazines, weddings, TV shows, movies, and private clients across the world. For more information or to book an appointment visit www.glossandglam.com.

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.