Boom I’ve Got Health Insurance, Thank You Startup America And Cigna

Back in July during one of Tech Cocktail’s legendary mixers in Washington DC, my good friend Scott Case, the founding CTO at Priceline.com and the current CEO of Startup America was speaking. As normal, at the end of his great speech which I remember involved gambling, women and priceline.com, he had a little Q&A.

I have been a Startup America supporter and Champion since the beginning and am always on listservs, chat rooms, and even here preaching the gospel about Startup America. Well that didn’t sit too well with one woman from Pennsylvania.  We were on the Philly Startup ListServ and I was writing someone about Startup America. Now before Startup PA even opened it’s doors she was all over me about how Startup America gave her no benefit what so ever. Then, she kept on bringing up healthcare like we were talking about Startupacare or Obamacare.

I relayed this conversation during the Q&A with Case and brought the room to great laughter since I did a great impression of the whiney woman on the Philly list serv. But as a Type II diabetic and an entrepreneur since 2003 I was actually curious about the health insurance. Case admitted that while building out regions was Startup America’s focus for the immediate future, there were talks going on about health insurance.

Entrepreneurs, freelancers, and the self employed account for a huge uninsured segment. Truth be told I was looking forward to next year when Obamacare takes over since I couldn’t afford healthcare on my own and 90% of everyone (even Cigna at the time) was either too much or refused me altogether because of the diabetes.

Well low and behold just moments ago I received an email from Donna Harris at the Startup America Partnership announcing an exciting partnership with Cigna for mentorship, education and of course health insurance.

So I quickly glanced over the mentorship and education part, great stuff by the way, and I clickity clicked through to the health insurance part. I filled out the form and within nano seconds I was talking with Shelly from Cigna on the phone. She knew I was signing up via Startup America and BOOM! It’s done** (disclaimer part: of course health insurance is underwritten but I was informed that even with the Type II diabetes the rate she quoted was good). So alas if all goes well Shelly tells me I can go to the doctor for a mere $25 starting next month vs the $85 I have been paying!

In a statement this morning Case said:

“We know how important mentoring, education, and health insurance benefits are to startups, and we’re excited to bring Cigna on board as a new partner to help our members,” said Scott Case, CEO of the Startup America Partnership. “Cigna believes, as we do, that entrepreneurship is a core American value and critical to the country’s long-term economic success.”

The real deal here is that health care, education and insurance is one of the biggest things that hold entrepreneurs back. Healthy entrepreneurs make healthy startups and healthy startups mean more jobs. Really it’s that simple.

Linkage:

Go check out the new partnership with Cigna and sign up for your own insurance here

Sign up for Startup America at s.co here

More Startup America coverage from us here

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SXSW Bringing Startup Event To Vegas Baby: SXSWV2V

SXSW,SXSWi,SXSWv2v,startups,startup events,hugh forrest,downtown project,Tony HsiehThe SXSWi or South By Southwest Interactive show, as part of the annual South By Southwest festival held in March every year, continues to grow. This year all hotel rooms in the immediate vicinity are already sold out. Last year, despite torrential downpours for three days SXSWi had it’s biggest year ever.

SXSWi has been the birth place to many great startups that we use today. Twitter, FourSquare, and Zaarly are just a few of the startups that successfully launched out of SXSW. Glancee (acquired by Facbeook), Highlight and Banjo were the talk of the town last year during the festival.

Thousands and thousands of entrepreneurs flock to Austin Texas to see and take part in the latest startups brewing across the country. In fact, there are even buses that head down to SXSW where startups are building “startup weekend style” along the way.  There are many startups that set aside a great chunk of their marketing budget to participate in the SXSW festivities. Other startups use it as both a customer acquisition point and a launch pad.

SXSWi Director Hugh Forrest has seen how SXSWi has grown and taken off and now he wants to expand the property and brand outside the realm of downtown Austin. Forrest has announced V2V August 11-14 2013 at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas.

While the strip is still a short distance away from Zappos founder Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Project, the 4 day SXSW conference is a welcome event among all of Las Vegas’ tech community.

Forrest hasn’t decided what “V2V” means just yet but told the Austin Chronicle  “Well, the idea there is that it is somewhat of a meaningless term, but if you really want to think of a meaning there, it could be visionary to visionary, or voice to voice, or voice to visionary, or visionaries to Vegas. We like that it’s an open palette and will afford us some room to grow and develop into whatever this event becomes.”

While the Downtown Project continues to grow and the Vegas tech scene is on fire we’re pretty confident that V2V will catch on just as quickly. If it doesn’t though, Forrest isn’t worried. He’s used to building things slowly and organically.

” I think that we can bring a lot of skill and expertise to the Las Vegas venture. On the other hand, one of the reasons SXSW is where it’s at now is it that it was allowed to grow somewhat slowly and organically. We were afforded the luxury of making mistakes on a fairly small stage and then learning from those mistakes and growing after it, growing better. It’d be great if the Las Vegas thing draws a big crowd the first year but at the same time, I don’t want to grow that too fast. I’m very much a believer of the slow, organic growth idea as a way to figure out exactly what you’re doing”  Forrest said in the Austin Chronicle interview.

“With the growth and popularity of the startup-related programming across the SXSW family of events, it is clear that there is enough momentum to create a wholly unique and independent event focused on entrepreneurs,” said SXSW V2V Producer Christine Auten said in a statement. “SXSW V2V will follow the same general strategy we have followed with other SXSW experiences. It is about turning creative ideas into reality — bringing visionaries to Vegas.”

SXSW V2V will take place at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas — a deluxe urban resort in the heart of the Vegas Strip — from Sunday, August 11 through Wednesday, August 14. SXSW V2V registration will include three days of programming, an opening reception, welcome dinner and an eclectic mix of evening and networking events. Register now at the discounted rate of $695 through December 14, 2012

Linkage:

Looking to participate,speak or volunteer at V2V click here

Want to pitch at V2V click here

Maybe you should warm up your pitch at “everywhereelse.co” click here

 

Boston TechStars Startup: Saverr Offers Coupons From Receipts, You Know The Things You Actually Buy

The intuitiveness of the algorithms used to deliver Google adsense and Amazon suggestions can seem eerily close to home, but even as good as they are they still sometimes miss grasping what you are really looking for and what you really want to buy.  Proximity based coupon apps are great but unless they are generic in nature it’s hard to say what you’re going to buy.

That’s why Boston startup, and Techstars alum, Saverr offers the best couponing proposition to the coupon user. Saverr gives you coupons based on what you actually buy based on what you actually bought using your receipt.

You know those machines that set next to the register tape at Target and the grocery store? You know the ones that spit out the coupons at the end of your visit? Well Saverr is giving you that machine, inside your phone. Pretty bad ass huh?

Saverr uses your actual receipt, the entire receipt, to give you coupons on the items that you just bought. Most likely you are going to buy them again right?

Saverr,Boston Startup,Israeli startup,Techstars,Techstars Startup,startup,startups,startup interviewThe idea came about when the Israeli team was trying to create a shopping discovery app of sorts. What they quickly found wasn’t that the world needed another discovery app, but the world needed a money saving app. Their proprietary receipt scanning technology is the back bone of their app.

The best part for the consumer is since Saverr is working on the manufacturer coupon side of the world, you can get coupons based on receipts from all types of stores. You’re not relegated to the store that you’re currently shopping in.

We got a chance to talk to the Saverr team which relocated to Boston for Techstars and is staying around for a while. Check out the interview below:

Read More…

New York TechStars Startup Condition One Raises $2.35M From Mark Cuban And More

ConditionOne,New York startup,Mark Cuban,TechStars,Startup,Startups,Startup NewsNew York Techstars alum Condition One has just closed a seed round at $2.35 million. The round was led by Dallas Maverick’s owner and billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban as well as Manilla CEO George Kilavkoff and more.  Cuban initially invested $500,000 in the immersive video startup earlier this summer.

Academy award nominated photographer and videographer Danfung Dennis has seen his work in Newsweek and the New York Times. He’s been hailed for shooting some of the best war footage ever seen. That’s in part because Dennis has found a new way to capture more of what we see in video.

Humans actually see a wide range of things in their peripheral vision and then adjust based on what’s interesting in their range of vision. Video isn’t that way. Video can actually see what’s shot straight on, but then, because of the way us humans see, it doesn’t feel as natural.

Dennis has created Condition One to capture and share things that typical video misses and includes a 180 field of vision.  Condition One is software that takes that warped 180 degree footage shot with a fisheye lens and then translates it back into a clear flat image that we see. It’s somewhat like the Lytro that lets you shoot out of focus photos now and focuses them in later.

Even with Shark Tank, people know that Mark Cuban isn’t typically an investor at seed stages of the game. However, in addition to the Maverick’s Cuban’s other large business is HDTV which was just rebranded as AXS TV. This is where Condition One makes a lot of sense. Cuban’s AXS TV is known for it’s live concerts and events. Condition One’s technology is perfect for capturing events and putting them into a better viewing perspective.

“Our technology is going to enable some amazing new concert experiences where the user can pan back and forth between the stage and the crowd, between the drummer and guitarist, or between the action onstage and what’s going on backstage,” Condition One COO Andrew Chang told The Verge.

Condition One allows viewers to take videos of concerts, and sporting events and then pan back to the action that they really want to see, bringing into focus the parts that are most important to them.

“My work has been an evolution from still images to video and now into immersive experiences,” said Dennis. “Yet, I’m still motivated by the same idea: that the future of storytelling will be driven by technology.”

Linkage:

Check out Condition One here

Source: TC  Verge

Huh a Startup Conference where we can exhibit for less than $400?

North Carolina Startup: BuyStand Introduces Name Your Price Goods Buying

BuyStand, NC startup,startup,startups, name your price,priceline,scott caseName your price was a concept introduced and revolutionized by the negotiator, William Shatner, in his ever so popular commercials for Priceline.com. Typically when talking about Priceline.com these days in regards to startups, it’s mentioning Scott Case the founding CTO of Priceline.com, and now the CEO of Startup America. Well we’re talking about Priceline.com because of that infamous name your price concept and a new startup in the Raleigh area of North Carolina called BuyStand.

BuyStand is the latest startup from North Carolina serial entrepreneur Joe Davy. His most recent startup EvoApp failed, of course as any good founder and entrepreneur knows failure leads to success. Failing fast is just one of the methodologies entrepreneurs in 2012 live by.

BuyStand is completely different than Davy’s previous startup.

For concept demonstration purposes Davy used one vertical market, outdoors. Obviously the platform will work for any retail good but outdoors was a great place to start.

As you can probably imagine, reading this far, BuyStand takes the “name your price” concept and applies it to outdoor goods. Whether you’re looking for the latest running shoes or the best all terrain jacket or back pack, you’ll find it at BuyStand. But you won’t find a typical priced out click through e-commerce portal.

With BuyStand the user selects the item that they want, names the price they’re willing to pay and then BuyStand sets that payment aside. Once a buyer has named a price, the BuyStand system lets the buyer know they have a taker and from there the “bid” is either accepted or rejected. If the “bid” (price) is accepted than BuyStand pays the vendor and the buyers product is shipped to their home.

It’s a two click process, name your price and click.

Davy says the need for BuyStand arises from the fact that buyers waiting for items and buying them second hand, used or “off the truck” at sites like e-Bay and Craigslist account for $200 billion dollars in lost profit.

“BUYSTAND solves this problem by eliminating the price and creating an open, efficient, free market.” Davy told the CED Start Something blog.

BuyStand is open in an limited Beta at the moment and you can sign up for a beta invite by visiting the link below.

Linkage:

Sign up for BuyStand’s beta test here

Source: CED Start Something Blog

Here are more startups from “everywhere else”

Here’s where every good startup from “everywhere else” will be

 

Fair & Square How To Divide Equity In A Startup (Guest Post)

Slicing Pie, Mike Moyer,Startups,Startup,Funding startups,funds,raising funds,splitting equityHow to Use a Dynamic Equity Split Program in Your Start-up

You and a partner start a company and split the equity 50/50. You do all the work and your partner flakes out. He owns half your company and wants to keep it. Now what?

This is called a fixed equity split program and it is the most common method of splitting up equity among founders. However this painful situation is very common. It is virtually impossible to design a fixed split equity program that doesn’t cause problems. A dynamic equity split program, on the other hand, provides most fair way to divide up shares in a start-up company among founders, early employees, partners and anyone else that deserves a slice of the pie. It will allow you to determine exactly the right number of shares each person deserves based on (and here is the key) the relative value of their individual inputs.

In a dynamic equity model the founder or founders who provide 90% of the great ideas, early seed money, sweat equity and other resources will wind up with 90% of the reward and the junior developer who provides only 2% of the great ideas, early seed money, sweat equity and other resources relative to the founders will receive 2% of the reward. This is how it should be; anyone who thinks differently is probably someone who wants more than their fair share.

The book, Slicing Pie: Funding Your Company Without Funds, is essentially a user guide to dynamic equity splits for entrepreneurs. It provides detailed instructions on making one work. However, here is the nutshell version of how a dynamic equity spilt model works:

Step One: Have (or be) a trustworthy leader

Only join a start-up company where you can trust the other people, especially the leader. The leader will control 100% of the equity while a dynamic model is being used. This means that an unscrupulous leader can take advantage of everyone. The leader is responsible for tracking the shares and keeping things fair. He or she will provide the appropriate cap table to the lawyers who create the formal equity agreement when the time is right. The right time to issue the equity is when the company shows real, actual, concrete evidence of value.

The leader will also make sure that when a person leaves they are treated fairly. I’ve posted a summary of how to treat people fairly when they leave a company on my blog at SlicingPie.com.

Step Two: Assign values to the various inputs provided by each participant relative to other inputs

A relative value is not the same thing as an actual value. Actual values in a pre-money start-up company are pretty much impossible to determine. Relative values are much easier to calculate and much more meaningful. The key is to set a relative value that is fair given someone’s background, experience and job responsibilities. For instance, the sweat of an experienced CEO with a couple of homeruns under her belt is relatively more valuable than that of an entry-level graphic designer. However, two founders with similar skill-levels may have a similar value to the firm.

When it comes to the value of someone’s time the relative value should not only take into account their skills and experience, but also the requirements of the job. You should be sure to subtract any current compensation the person receives in cash. Equity compensation is provided in exchange for what people put at risk in a new company. If you pay them a fair salary you shouldn’t have to give them any equity because they aren’t risking anything.

Time isn’t the only input an individual can provide. Other inputs include cash, loans, ideas, intellectual property, important resources (like equipment and supplies), strategic relationships and even things like office space. Nearly everything in a start-up company that can’t be bought with cash (if you don’t have it) can be acquired with equity. A dynamic model will tell you exactly how much each is worth relative to other inputs. Everything has a relative value that is fair to the provider and the other participants. Over time these relative values really add up. I’ve posted a summary of how to calculate relative values on my blog at SlicingPie.com.

Step Three: Calculate shares by dividing an individual’s contribution to the company by the total contribution (individual value ÷ total = shares %)

This will give you exactly the percentage of equity a person deserves. No more and no less. I call the total contributions to the firm a “Theoretical Base Value” or TBV. It’s theoretical because it’s not real. It simply adds up the values of the inputs based on the value you assigned in step two. So, you may determine that a founder is “worth” $200 per hour. But, if he works 1,000 hours the company may not actually be worth $200,000 more. I hope it’s worth a lot more than that, but the point is that the value of inputs are only important as a relative measure. I’ve posted a calculator spreadsheet on my blog at SlicingPie.com to help keep track.

This means that over time the potential equity split will change depending on what someone contributes. This is why it’s called a dynamic split. When you get a major investor or start generating enough cash flow to pay people you can calculate the equity, issue official shares, sign a shareholders agreement and be on your way. So, the sooner you raise money or the sooner you make money the sooner you can “lock in” the equity.

Dynamic equity splits make no assumptions about the future value of a company. It doesn’t matter what the future value will be. All that matters is that when you actually create future value everyone who risked something to help you get there should get their fair share of what’s created. Only a dynamic equity split can achieve this. Only a dynamic equity split provides a framework of fairness and respect for all participants. All other methods are prone to failure in their ability to treat people fairly. When I say “all others” I mean all others and “others” is what is commonly used today. That means the model you used or are planning to use in your start up is putting you and your team at risk of unfair equity allocation.

Sorry!

Dynamic equity splits are very uncommon, however, because the process isn’t well understood. Additionally, the dynamic nature of the split scares people who want to grab the biggest possible piece for themselves. Even the founder who errs on the side of generosity will ultimately fail because they, themselves, will be treated unfairly.

I’m on a personal mission to make sure that every entrepreneur on the planet understands dynamic equity models before they make the horrible mistake of using a traditional fixed model. Too many start- up companies are destroyed due to conflicts that arise when people on the team are treated unfairly. The dynamic model can accommodate all possible outcomes in a way that motivates and inspires a person who is treated with fairness.

To learn more about dynamic equity models visit my blog at SlicingPie.com and buy my book, Slicing Pie.  If you can’t afford it let me know and I’ll give you a copy!

 Mike Moyer is the author of “Slicing Pie: Funding Your Company Without Funds” 

Linkage:

Moyer’s Blog

Get the Book “Slicing Pie: Funding Your Company Without Funds” here at Amazon

Everywhereelse.co Be here!

Vegas Tech Fund Startup Romotive Lands $5 Million Dollar Round, Prepares 3rd Generation Robot

Romotive,Las Vegas startup,Vegas Tech Fund,startup,startups,startup news,Pando DailyMany of you are familiar with the story of Romotive. This was the company that was building iPhone controlled robots in a mini assembly line in the founders’ apartment at the Ogden in Las Vegas. Of course if you’re familiar with Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Project or the Vegas Tech Fund you know that the Ogden building is entrepreneur and founder central.

Romotive has been making all the right moves. In the summer of 2011 the then three person company participated in the TechStars Seattle cohort. After that they launched a Kickstarter campaign to get their robots into the hands of backers.

It was that Kickstarter campaign that caught Hsieh’s eye. The story goes that Hsieh received the weekly email from Kickstarter highlighting some of the projects raising money at the time and Romotive was one of them. Hsieh reportedly liked their three minute video and actually knew a friend of theirs who was staying on his couch.

Hsieh is big on referrals in fact you can’t get a meeting with Hsieh or the Vegas Tech Fund without having a referral from inside the network. But like other tight knit organizations, once you’re in you’re in.

After Hsieh participated in a $1.5 million dollar round in December of last year the team relocated to their current home at the Ogden building. Business Insider reports that the team has grown to 18 and they are all living, playing and building robots together.

That’s all going to change now though as Romotive has just closed a $5 million dollar Series-A round. With that round the company plans on adding a few more employees and shifting production to a factory in China.  According to Geekwire, the round was led by Sequoia Capita with CrunchFund and SV Angels participating among others.

On top of the $5 million dollar round Romotive has gone back to Kickstarter to raise another $100,000 from the community. As they report in their Kickstarter pitch they are looking to broaden the robot by creating more apps and the $100,000 will be used to start that development program.

Romotive isn’t the first smartphone controlled robot startup to catch the eyes of David Cohen and the TechStars team. Orbotix, the Boulder based creator of the “Sphero” ball, accelerated at TechStars Boulder and had Brad Feld as one of their main mentors. Feld went on to participate in Orbotix seed round via his Foundry Group.  Orbotix has grown up big time as well. They recently announced a partnership for distribution in 1200 Target stores just in time for the holidays.

Linkage:

More on Romotive here

More startup news from “everywhere else” here

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CEO Remorse? After Firing Mollie Spillman On Vacation Is Marissa Mayer Eyeing Baltimore Startup Millennial Media?

The 37 year old fireball we’ve all come to know and love, Marissa Mayer, has been hard at work in her new role as CEO of Yahoo. During that time she’s mandated free smartphones for her staffers, made meals free, hired a new CFO and even had a baby of her own with just a few weeks maternity leave. Mayer knows that Yahoo’s share holders are looking for a big change and quick. So far she seems to be delivering.

The next thing Mayer and the Yahoo team have to do is lock down solid revenue streams.

It appears that Mayer is going to attack revenue from all angles and focus on the angles that she knows the best. A new version of the Yahoo home screen recently leaked out that showed a higher profile for search. For those that didn’t know Mayer had a long tenured history at Google.

She also seems to be honing in on Yahoo’s content properties and cutting away other under performing properties.

Mayer’s also focusing heavily on mobile a place she knows well from her Google days. Yahoo held their first quarterly conference call under Mayer, Monday afternoon. During that call Mayer spoke about her plan to focus the company’s efforts on mobile. At one point in Yahoo’s long dot com history the page, with their silly tv commercials, was a destination of browsers everywhere to find just about anything in a portal design moreso than a straight search engine.

In the early days of Google, Yahoo search was actually powered by their Mountain View rival. A time Mayer knows all too well from the other side of the fence.

Mayer is hoping to make Yahoo and it’s many apps a go to destination on mobile devices. Once their mobile product line is beefed up they are going to need a better monetization strategy than they currently have in place.

Mollie Spilman,Millennial Media, Yahoo, Mayer,Marissa Mayer, Baltimore Startup,Startup,Startups,startup acquisitionTo that end, this past weekend Business Insider reported that Mayer may have her eye on Baltimore mobile ad startup giant Millennial Media.

 Millennial Media was created by a group of former advertising.com and Verizon Wireless employees and is led today by co-founder and CEO Paul Palmeri who was integral part of the creation of Verizon Wireless’ v-cast service.  With their engagement and developer centric mobile ad strategy Millennial Media quickly rose to prominence as the second largest mobile ad company in the world, eclipsing even Apple. Google is of course at the top, and by all accounts they are not for sale.

Millennial Media went public back in March. They debuted at $13 and quickly shot up to $25 with a high on opening day of $27.90. Unlike many of the tech companies and “startups” that went public this year, Millennial Media trades on a day to day basis, very close to where they debuted at, closing yesterday at $14.25.

All around it’s a solid company and a solid acquisition candidate for Yahoo.

Of course no one at Yahoo or Millennial Media is speaking about this however Yahoo could truly benefit from having the second largest mobile ad network behind Google in their stable.

There’s also a huge connection between Yahoo and Millennial Media. Millennial Media’s Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer is Mollie Spilman. You may remember Spilman’s name as the CMO from Yahoo that was fired by Mayer while she was on her vacation. Perhaps there isn’t such bad blood between Mayer after all.

Linkage:

Millennial Media

Source: SAI

Here’s more startup news from “everywhere else”

 

Colorado Startup Employtown Says They’re Flip Flopping The Job Market

Employtown,Colorado startup,startup,startups,startup interview

Scott Balster co-founder of Employtown

Innovation in the job and recruitment space seems to be a weekly occurrence. The neat thing about jobs related startups is that every one of them knows that something different needs to happen.

Monster.com, the leader in jobs sites has become stale. It’s also become a breeding ground for recruiters, head hunters and agencies. It’s hard these days to sort through real ads verses cattle calls for talent pools.  Entrepreneurs are attacking this problem from all angles. Some are crowd-sourcing and using social media, some are putting job markets into silo’d verticals, while others are putting an entirely different spin.

Colorado startup Employtown is one of those startups that’s trying to do things totally different.

Husband and wife founders Scott and Andrea Balster have taken the job market and turned it around. Now instead of focusing on open slots, they are focusing on human capital. Employtown is about the people and not the job openings. Dare we say match.com for job seekers looking for employers?

In our interview with Scott he talks about how with their startup, those looking for jobs set up profiles, showcasing their style, creativity, skill sets, and resume items. The next thing they do is where Employtown separates themselves from other startups. Job applicants put what they’re looking for in terms of a job. They let employers know their criteria, are they looking for a 100% smoke free environment, are they looking for flexible hours, are they looking for a cafeteria and a weight room? Are they looking for more creativity in the work place? Whatever the applicant’s criteria for a new job is they can place it in their profile and employers can sift through profiles and find candidates that match.

Check out the rest of our interview with Scott below.

Read More…

Bethlehem PA To Hold First Startup Weekend Lehigh Valley Next Week

Startup Weekend Lehigh Valley, Startup Weekend, Startup,Startups,Startup events, Ben Franklin Technology PartnersThe 54 hour weekend hackathon to build startups that we know and love “Startup Weekend” is coming to the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania next weekend. After you’ve cleared your house of ghosts and goblins and a week before Startup Weekend’s big global jamboree, entrepreneurs, developers, founders, and startup ecosystem partners will converge at Ben Franklin TechVentures for Startup Weekend.

Startup Weekend Lehigh Valley, is an officially sanctioned event being administered in conjunction with the Startup Weekend organization based in Seattle, which receives major funding from the Kauffman Foundation. All “official” Startup Weekend events follow the same general format.

Registration will begin on Friday evening at 6:30pm at Ben Franklin. That will be followed by great networking dinner where attendees will be able to size up the competition and the possible teammates for the weekend.  At around 7:30pm the “Friday Night” pitches will begin. We’ve covered a lot of startup weekends and you can see plenty of Friday night pitches here at nibletz.com.

The Friday night pitches are 60 seconds and hard timed by a Startup Weekend official. In that 60 seconds you need to sell the audience your idea and why it should be built over the next 53 hours.  After everyone who wants to pitch has been given the opportunity, community voting will commence. It’s a rather diplomatic process. Usually the pitchers will hold up a sign with their startup name on it and attendees will put a sticker on the idea they like the best. At the end of the process, those with the most stickers will have their ideas developed.

Friday evening typically tops off with team selection and then some icebreaker time with the teams. From there the teams break off and start working on the startup idea.

Saturday, the community coaches come into play. These seasoned entrepreneurs and local business folks are there to help answer questions for each team and provide ideas and suggestions. The coaches for Startup Weekend Lehigh Valley are: Mark Lang, co-founder of the Northeast Ben Franklin Technology Partners; Yuriy Portyko, General Partner at Smart Start a cross-atlantic incubator and early stage venture capital investor; Scott Gingold, serial entrepreneur with several exits; Amar Reddy, Founder & CEO of Smart IMS; David Easton, Senior Business Development Manager Smart IMS; and Shahri Naghshineh, CEO Surface Chemistry Discovery.

Saturday is also the day that most teams take to the streets, the phones, the emails and the interwebs to get customer validation on their startup project. All the while designers, developers and coders are working on pitch decks, wire frames, prototypes and products.

Sunday is the day the teams put the finishing touches on both their products and their presentations. At 5:00pm and not a second later, the selected teams will have five minutes to pitch their idea and have a brief Q&A with the judges. Startup Weekend Lehigh Valley  judges are: Jim Gordon, President & CEO Robert Rothschild Farm; Bob Moul, CEO appRennaisance; and Wayne Barz, Manager of Entrepreneurial Services – Ben Franklin Technology Partners.

Startup Weekend Lehigh Valley is being organized by: Anthony Durante, Wayne Barz, Anthony Josiah Braun, Mark Koberlein, Tim Lytle and Santiago Rivera.

Linkage:

Official Startup Weekend Lehigh Valley here

Check out Ben Franklin here

You gotta check out “everywhere else” here

$1.1 Million Awarded To 18 Startups In MassChallenge Awards

MassChallenge, the largest accelerator program in the world, celebrated their awards dinner for their most recent session in Boston Tuesday night. The dignitaries, entrepreneurs, celebrities and investors that filled the Boston Convention and Exhibit Center were there to see the best of the best of startup innovation coming out of the program that’s gone on to produce hundreds of millions in follow on funding and exits.

The 18 startups that received cash awards were narrowed down from a field of over 1200 applicants and then a pool of 26 finalists.

The four startups that won the diamond award of $100,000 each were:

Global Research & Innovation Technology

LiquiGlide

Rally Point

Strong Arm Technologies.

12 gold winners took home $50,000 cash prizes each and they were:

Bounce Imaging

Coach Up

Guided Surgery Solutions

Lab Automate Technologies

Ministry Of Supply

Nordic Technology Group

BuysideFX

Dynamo Micropower

Integral Research

Lovin Spoonfuls

NBA Math Hoops

Recovers.org

Ten startups were selected to stay on with free office space until next years class arrives in May.

In addition to those prizes directly from MassChallenge and it’s supporters, there were several community awards given out as well. Lovin Spoonfuls and NBA Math Hoops were the recipients of the $30,000 John W. Henry foundation prize for social impact.

Global Research Innovation won an additional $15,000 Perkin’s School For The Blind Assistive Technology Prize. PlenOptika won $10,000 as part of the same prize.

Rainbank and Bounce Imaging were recipients of a $15,000 prize from VenCorps for the greatest potential to positively impact New York City.

125 of the startups selected from the original 1237 applicants were part of the four month accelerator program. A round of judging narrowed those 125 startups down to the 26 that were competing Tuesday evening.

Linkage:

Source: Boston Herald

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Pittsburgh Startup Songwhale Born From Beowulf! INTERVIEW

Songwhale,Paywhale,Pittsburgh startup,Pennsylvania startup,startup,startups,startup interviewA Pittsburgh startup with a funny name is engaging customers from brands across multiple touch points. SongWhale specializes in taking customer engagement to a new level using the web, text, pay and direct solutions.

The unique company offers multiple products to drive engagement and even a pay product of their own called PayWhale which offers the ability to text a payment. Paying via text is very popular in emerging countries but no one in the US has really embraced the technology. It’s actually one of the easiest ways to pay.

While interactive engagement may not seem sexy some of the things SongWhale is doing are. Not only that but the story about how Songwhale came about is one of the most interesting ones we’ve heard.

Songwhale’s four core business areas, Web, Text, Pay and Direct can be summarized like this:

Web: Songwhale can get a companies brand or message through the web on any screen; smartphone, tablet, or computer all optimized for each size.

Text: Songwhale offers engaging SMS campaigns including games, and interactives.

Pay: Songwhale’s Paywhale product offers a text payment solution that is possibly the easiest form of mobile commerce and one wildly adopted in emerging countries.

Direct: Songwhale offers direct branding and engagement campaigns that encompass web, text and pay solutions.

We got a chance to interview Songwhale. Check out the interview below:

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Mother & Daughter DC Startup Dormify, Changing Dorm Rooms Everywhere

Dormify, Maryland startup,DC startup,startup,startups,startup interview What can you do with the limited space of a dorm room, or shared living space while you’re in college? Well unless you’re an interior designer for Ikea you may think your options are limited. That’s not the case thanks to the mother and daughter team of Karen Zuckerman (mom) and Amanda Zuckerman (daughter).

The Zuckerman’s have created a new Washington DC startup called Dormify that looks to serve those college age students with ideas, and tools to help transform their living space for their four years of college life. Everything from crafty ideas, to room furnishings, trinkets and even college flair can be found on the Dormify site.

Dormify gives college students everywhere the freedom to stop combing the aisles of Ikea and Target in hopes to find some idea that all the other students aren’t using.

Towels, pillows, home furnishings even stylish school supplies and sweets can be found on the Dormify website.

As you can imagine Dormify came about when Karen was helping Amanda move into her first dorm room at Washington University in St. Louis. Both Zuckerman women have been known for their creativity throughout their lives and the neon colored towels, matching trash cans, rug mats and computer chairs on sale at Target weren’t going to do the trick.

After shopping for Amanda’s dorm room at a variety of boutique shops in downtown St. Louis, a look Amanda could live with was born. The Zuckerman women realized that there is no centralized place to build looks like this, so they did what any entrepreneurs would do and built it themselves.

We got a chance to talk with Dormify’s employee #1, Nicole Gardner, who tells us more about Dormify, below:

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Miami Startup: Kipu Systems, Transforming The Substance Abuse Industry

Tobias Franoszek, the CTO and Co-Founder of KIPU Systems, a cloud-based records management system for the substance abuse industry, is no stranger to startups and technology. In the mid-nineties he achieved great success with CONCEPT!, a Frankfurt stock exchange digital  interactive agency, were as Client Services and Technical director he led the technological growth of the company from 4 to 250 employees. At the turn of the decade, Concept identified the growing Latin-American Tech Sector in Miami and he was delegated as the Managing Director for the Region. As history goes, not long after he began his tenure the burst of the dot come bubble occurred. He endured it after obvious adjustments, and then adopted Miami as his hometown transitioning into technological consulting and various other digital service offerings.

In the beginning of 2012 Tobias was contracted by The Right Place Residential Detox center to evaluate electronic medical records systems. After reviewing more than 30 vendors he couldn’t recommend any of the solutions evaluated and instead offered to create one – and so the journey to create KIPU SYSTEMS began.

KipuSystems,Kipu,Startropica,Miami,Incubate Miami,startup,startups Not surprisingly, Tobias witnessed huge inefficiencies while studying the procedures in place and it became a big motivating factor for him, as he says: “to begin with, the detox industry is not easy to manage because each patient is different and the procedures change according to the type of addiction, age, sex, consent of guardians, you name it, and it’s not easy for the caregivers to keep up with all the paperwork, so it became an opportunity to improve upon an antiquated system.” Today KIPU is completely functional at The Right Place Residential Detox center where it has proved that its implementation reduces Initial Evaluations, Patient Intake, and Doctor Review times by more than 50%.

And the reasons for this improvement can be seen at the center on a daily basis. Now caregivers use an iPad with the Kipu software to process sign-in information and every other procedure they implement on their daily routine, whereas before the norm was endless paper handling. But one of the most impressive achievements of the KIPU team is the transition from manual “bed boards” into “electronic bed boards” (this boards show the current census, bed assignments, and incoming and leaving patients, at any given moment). This means caregivers no longer have to write and erase information on whiteboards; instead the system creates the electronic version in real time. No wonder KIPU is the subject of adoration at the center.

Read more at our Miami content partner Startropica.com