Memphis Entrepreneur Launches Phone & Personal Protection Startup Coyote Case

Memphis entrepreneur, Jonathan Page has just launched an Indiegogo campaign for his new startup Coyote Case. Coyote Case uniquely blends personal protection with phone protection.

Sure we’ve seen phone cases that hold pepper spray and even one that has a taser gun built in, but Page’s case is different. The Coyote Case features a 100db personal alarm which makes one heck of a noise if someone pushes the button and is being attacked. But in the infamous words of people like Billy Mays… But Wait There’s More…

With the Coyote Case there’s actually much more.

In addition to the personal protection alarm, Coyote Case has a bluetooth chip built into the case housing. It’s also integrated with a battery that will last well over a year. The BlueTooth is used to communicate with an app that’s on the smartphone. Using the app, a user can set up an emergency list for an outgoing text message.

Combining the Bluetooth technology, GPS and SMS technology the app within the phone will send an emergency text message to those on the list. If your alarm company, or University security is set up to receive text messages you can add those folks to your emergency list as well. When the app sends out the text message it will also send out your GPS coordinates so that your ICE (In Case Of Emergency) contacts know that you need assistance and exactly where you are.

The idea came to Page after his college aged niece visited him from Nashville last year. Page’s niece had told him that she was nearly attacked while walking back to her apartment at night. When Page found this out, not only was he scared for his niece he went out searching for more information .He found some startling statistics from the Department of Justice website that he talks to us about in the interview video below.

Not only were the statistics shocking for females in general but it was revealed that girls between 18-24 were at an even higher risk. When Page found this out he immediately set out on the idea for the Coyote Case.

Page is trying to launch Coyote Case without giving up any equity to traditional venture capital investors so he’s taken to Indiegogo where you can contribute to CoyoteCase and get early access to the life saving, and phone protecting case.

Check out our video interview with Page below and the links to the Coyote Case are in the Linkage section. Coyote Case will proudly be exhibiting at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference, and you can too.

Here’s that video:

Linkage:

Check out Coyote Case here

Support their Indiegogo here

See them live and in person here

Seattle Startup Bibo Launches Social Drinking Beta App

There are very few areas where the phrase “There’s an app for that” doesn’t apply. The social drinking space is starting to produce a whole new crop of apps. On nibletz.com alone we’ve featured Wisconsin based startup Trinker, New York startup Drynk.me, Pittsburgh startup Grail, Baltimore startup BeerGivr, and Oklahoma startup Drink Easy.

Each one of these startups addresses social drinking in a different way. A few of them are about buying a buddy a drink either in person and charging it to your phone, or from afar. Some are about taking pictures of drinks and sharing them, while others are more like mobile based wine lists.

Seattle startup Bibo is hoping to become the social discovery platform for drinks. Their new iPhone app allows users to rate, and share beverages socially. It also allows you to search for drinks based on your physical location. Now you don’t have to walk into a strange bar or restaurant just to find out if they have your favorite craft beer or mixed drink. Bibo solves that for you in the palm of your hand.

Similarly to Drynk.me, Bibo wants to become the largest location based picture database of drinks in the world. The platform works in reverse as well. Say you go into a bar that you like for ambience and atmosphere but the bartender there doesn’t do your favorite cocktail. Well with Bibo you can show the bartender how to make that drink that will keep you coming back.

The co-founders of Bibo are no strangers to discovery. Natan Antolin, Mac McClian, Steve Jacobson met in late 2011 while working for a job search platform.

Bibo works with local bars, lounges, night clubs and restaurants to procure all of their drink data. From there restaurants and bars can be featured based on the drinks they serve.

At this point in time the drink space is anyones game. We’ll see if Bibo can bring it.

Linkage:

Check out Bibo here

Here are more startup news stories from nibletz, the voice of startups “everywhere else”

A conference wouldn’t be a conference without some good parties, click here

Chicago Startup StageBloc Is A Content Creation Platform For Everyone INTERVIEW

A new startup incubating at Chicago’s world famous 1871, has set out to create a new content creation platform that’s perfect for anyone and everyone. If you want to start a blog, you can do that on StageBloc. If you want to create photo and video albums, you can do that on StageBloc. If you want to create podcasts, again you can do that on StageBloc. If you’re into short form posts like status updates, you can do that as well. In fact you can do al that and monetize whatever pieces of it you want.

Now suppose you want to mix them all together. You can also do that using StageBloc’s robust platform. But even better, you can do as much or as little of it as you want. It’s like an all you care to eat buffet of content creation tools.

StageBloc makes it incredibly easy to create content in any way that you want. StageBloc founder Tom Giles was convinced that while Facebook and other sites are great for exposure, StageBloc is more about developing your brand online and also monetizing that brand.

This all in one approach to content creation means that if you use StageBloc you don’t need a blogger account, flickr account, YouTube account, Twitter account and Facebook account. You get all of those services in one. Now being realistic no ones going to shun their Facebook or their Twitter account but creating content and then having to move to another site to embed pictures and videos is a pain in the butt.

If you’re only in the mood for a short form post, you don’t have to leave the StageBloc dashboard, likewise if you’re in the mood to write a long Tumbler-esque post, you don’t need to leave the platform to do it.

StageBloc also recently launched their Mirrorgram app into the iOS app store and it’s quickly become the 11th ranked paid app in the store.

We got a chance to interview Giles. Check out the interview below.

Chicago Startup Everypurse Blows Out Kickstarter With PowerBag For Women

A new startup in Chicago has taken Kickstarter by storm with their integrated purse, charging bag. This bag designed for women, is a clutch style handbag on the outside. Inside though it has a battery charger that will fit most of the current line of smartphones via USB.

Integrating bags and power charging solutions isn’t new though. Michigan based Power Bag has been doing it now for two years. That company, founded by Homedics founder Ron Ferber, offers a full line of backpacks, rolling luggage, and messenger bags with integrated charging solutions and a variety of batteries for every work and travel scenario.

While Powerbag offers a “tablet bag” which I’ve personally been carrying around for nearly a year as a Murse (read man purse), it’s not a purse by any stretch for a woman.

In fact our reviews coordinator Allie Fox told Ferber and the PowerBag team personally that they were missing the boat by not offering a variety of stylish bags for women.

No worries now though because Everpurse has done a really good job of producing just that. The purses come in a variety of colors and in fact it looks like quite a few men have signed up on Kickstarter to buy a purse for themselves. Everpurse offers a black leather purse that looks no more feminine than half the leather iPad cases out on the market today.

To have the ability to charge your phone without the need for a plug is a definite plus, and far outweighs how unmanly carrying a purse around could be.

Everpurse trumps PowerBag in another department as well and that’s charging the device itself. All of the PowerBag products require the user to plug a standard “wall wart” AC charger into the wall and then into a weather protected charging mechanism on the bag, or directly into the battery pack.

Everpurse uses a white, stylish looking induction charger that you could easily put on a foyer table, coffee table or night stand. Simply place the Everpurse on top of the induction charger and you’re good to go.

People love it and so do we. We can’t believe that no one has taken this concept to market yet. The best part is that the product idea came from a busy social worker who realized her phone was dead after 6 hours on the go every day. People call me crazy because I carry several on the go charging apparatus but the one thing that drives me absolutely crazy is a dead phone.

Everyone seems to love Everpurse. They blew it out of the water on Kickstarter raising $238,187 of the $100,000 they aimed to raise.

Now that the Kickstarter campaign is over, start looking for Everpurse, soon.

Linkage:

Everpurse.com

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” here are more startup stories from Chicago

Are you coming?

nibletz.com Becomes The First Site To Integrate With 500 Startups “Markerly”

Markerly founder Sarah Ware has teamed up with nibletz.com as their beta guinea pig

We’ve covered Markerly pretty in depth over the past few months. Their rockstar woman founder, Sarah Ware, will even be a panelist at the upcoming “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference” event in February.

When we first started reporting on Markerly it was a browser plugin that allowed you to very easily highlight, clip and share any content on any website. Markerly allows you to share to your social networks, email or even your own personal Markerly account so that you can have text later on, and the source information from that text.

We installed the browser plugin a few months back and would share content from nibletz.com and other startup focused online magazines periodically using the Markerly tool.

Well, last month Ware and her DC based startup got accepted into Dave McClure’s 500 startups program in Mountain View California. We have a pretty good relationship with Ware and we weren’t surprised when she called to tell us that just under two weeks into the program they were making a mini-pivot.

We won’t go too much into what that mini-pivot is, we have to save some of the suspense for the 500 startups demo day early next year. But we will tell you that Markerly is now integrated within nibletz.com.

All you have to do is select text like you would to copy and paste, anywhere, in any article within nibletz.com. Regardless of whether you have the browser plugin or not, once you select the text you want a hover button will appear above the text. At the moment the button allows you to share the extracted text to Twitter, Facebook or by email.

When you share your highlight, those who check it out on your social networks will be taken to our original story and they’ll even be able to see the highlighted text within the story.

Markerly is a great tool in that regard. I’m willing to bet on a daily basis someone shares a link with me either by email or instant message and with that link, minimal text. Well the problem arises when I’m sent a link to a 1000 word story. I don’t have time to read 1000 words just to get to what someone else wants me to see. Using Markerly I can see the text that someone wants me to see within the entire body of the story so I can grab the context at my leisure.

While we’ve seen some of our readers adopt the browser plugin Markerly product and share across Facebook and Twitter, the team at Markerly has made it insanely easy for anyone to capture the experience (you see what I did there).

Right now it works on any desktop/laptop/PC/Mac browser and hopefully down the road it will work on Mobile as well.

So go for it, try it, select some text in this story and see what happens.

Markerly is actually solving two problems for nibletz.com. The first is the sharing problem I described above an also the more traditional social sharing problem. We have share buttons at the bottom of each and every story, and we encourage you to use them. However, we know that we have some long stories here at nibletz.com so when you can’t wait to share something, highlight it and send it out immediately using nibletz.com now powered by Markerly.

Linkage:

Check out Markerly here

500 startups here

Everywhere Else here

Tackle Your Student Loan Debt With New York Startup: Student Loan Hero

New York startup, and recent Startup Chile graduate, Student Loan Hero is looking to help college students after graduation. Student Loan Hero is the latest startup to join the growing student loan management space. Startups like Tuition.io, AllTuition and So Fi are also battling for the same college graduate users.

With a whopping $870 billion dollars in unpaid student loans in the United States alone, there probably won’t be a shortage of student loan startups.

While it was big business back in the late 90’s and the early part of the decade to enable websites with affiliate programs for low interest credit cards

Cuban Backed Boston Startup Apptopia Heating Up, Sells First $25,000 App

Back in march we reported on Boston area startup Apptopia. They’re making a name for themselves as a second hand market for app developers. They essentially do what Flippa does for websites, except for mobile apps.

Mobile app developers may find that they’ve built an app that’s picked up a bit of traction, but they’re ready to move onto something else. Rather than abandon the original app idea or it’s user base, an app developer can turn to Apptopia and sell the app and the accompanying intellectual property to someone else.

Many mobile app developers are incredibly good at coding and design but they may fall short in the marketing or sales department. For some developers the thrill in itself is the development process. Apptopia is the perfect place for those developers who may not necessarily have the skill set or drive to push their app to an actual business model. In some cases Apptopia may actually save some really great apps and get them out to market, in the hands of a more business savvy owner.

Apptopia is also a great place for multi title app publishers to increase their portfolio size.

Apps can sell on Apptopia, with the business plan, intellectual property and user base in tact, from anywhere to a few hundred dollars, upwards to tens of thousands of dollars.

Such is the case with an app that modeled itself after humor site 9GAG. The Android based app, which in some opinions was better than the official iOS 9GAG app, (and had more downloads than the official app) recently sold on Apptopia for $25,000.00.

On the sale of the 9GAG app, Apptopia founder and CEO Jonathan Kay told nibletz.com

“The 9GAG app that sold for $25k on Apptopia boasts stats that include over 855,000 downloads & 37,000 ratings. This is great to see as this app (built by an independant developer) is far out performing 9GAG’s offical iPhone app (which has less than 10% of the stats). 9GAG plans to enter the Android Market “later this year,” but i would be quite shocked if they built something from scratch versus acquiring the best available option (and customizing it to fit their brand/API). In my opinion this is what makes the acquisiton so interesting – there is a massive opportunity to then flip this back to 9GAG when they are ready. Just remember it’s about the users, not the technology.”

That’s definitely not chump change, especially for developers that may not have as much skin in the game.

To date Apptopia has facilitated the same of 83 different apps from the original developer to a new buyer. Sure with the hundreds of thousands of apps available today 83 doesn’t sound like very many, however Apptopia has been growing exponentially since their launch earlier this year.

Why does this work?

“Probably 80% of people who want to get involved in mobile either don’t know how to code an app or don’t know an app developer,” Kay said. “So there’s this massive demand, but kind of a little bit of a barrier to entry.”

The model alone has attracted an investment from Dallas Maverick’s owner, entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban. The secondary app market will naturally continue to grow. As the word spreads about Apptopia people will start utilizing the service as a go to spot for app developers to sell their apps outright.

Kay also pointed out that there are some developers out there who are developing directly for Apptopia.

Linkage:

Check out Apptopia here

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” here are more startup stories from “everywhere else”

Come, to “everywhere else”

Washington DC Tops Inc’s 500 List Of All Time

The Inc 500/5000 conference just wrapped up in Phoenix Arizona. The three day conference highlights the private sector companies, both big and small, that are the fabric of our American corporate culture.

The Inc 500 is a list published every year by the premiere business magazine, that lists the 500 fastest growing companies in the country. The list, first published in 1982, has become the benchmark that many companies set for growth in their formative years. Companies like Pandora, Zipcar, Zappos and even companies with rich history now, like Toys R Us and 7 Eleven have topped the list.

The Inc 500 is a subset of the Inc 5000 which shows off an even broader range of US companies, those who are the fastest growing 5000 companies in America. Each of the Inc 5000 companies are featured on Inc’s website. The 500 companies are featured in Inc’s traditional magazine in the September issue.

The Kauffman Foundation, the non profit foundation in Kansas City that procures important data relating to startups, innovation, corporations and growth, recently analyzed the last 30 years worth of Inc 500 companies.

They found that over the past 30 years worth of Inc 500 lists, Washington DC has produced more companies that have appeared on the list than any other metropolitan area, in the country. In the last 12 years alone Washington DC has been home to 385 companies that have appeared on the Inc 500 list.

On a state by state basis California and then Texas topped Kauffman’s list. Virginia (which borders DC) was in the number 3 spot and Massachusetts was number 4.

When the list was adjusted for population Indianapolis ranked 6th, Baltimore ranked 15th, Philly ranked 19th and Louisville Kentucky ranked (20th).

When examined by county, Virginia had three of the top five counties with Fairfax City, Falls Church City and Arlington County. Motley County Texas and Broomfield County Colorado topped that list.

Check out the interactive map of the data in the links below

Linkage:

Source: Inc Magazine

Kauffman’s data set

Something worth checking out

Walk Thru’s Made Easy With Israeli Startup WalkMe

By a show of hands how many people out there have “walk thru” still on their to-do list. Everyone wants to do a great walk thru for their company, business or startup but many people have the hardest time getting this project off the ground. Either they don’t think they have access to the resources to create great “walk thru’s” or they don’t think they can afford it.

Well a startup in Tel Aviv called WalkMe is about to solve both of those problems for everyone.

No matter how easy or complex your task is, WalkMe wants to provide you with the tool to create an easy step-by-step “Walk thru” guide to everything.

Walkme is a simple to use plugin. Once you have it installed you just move about your screen in the natural steps it takes to do whatever process you want to teach. As you begin to complete each step you write what the step is, how to do it and add your text balloon and move on to the next step.

You can easily create “walk thru” instructions while you’re creating your WalkMe walk thru.

Anything from how to complete an order, to how to change your password, can easily be explained using Walkme. If you want to show someone an easy to use trick on your own website, you can create a WalkMe “walk thru”. Basically if you can do the task you want to teach, and if you can use a mouse, than you’re in business.

We got a chance to talk to the team from WalkMe about their easy to use tool. Check out the interview below:

Oklahoma City Startup: Buzzam Has The Blueprint For Next Generation Radio

Oklahoma City startup Buzzam is currently accelerating at the new Blueprint for Business accelerator in OKC. In fact Buzzam is the only homegrown team in the BluePrint For Business accelerator, other teams hail from as far away as London and Alabama.

Buzzam promises a whole new way of listening and enjoying some of your favorite online radio sources. The iOS app, which is available as of today, integrates seamlessly with your iTunes, Rdio and Spotify accounts insuring that you’re never without your favorite music regardless of the source.

It doesn’t stop there though. Buzzam is offering a new kind of radio, similar to original terrestrial radio, in that Buzzam will deliver information that is relevant to you, the listener. But we aren’t talking about relevant information to an international radio listening audience, a national listening audience or even a local audience. Buzzam will deliver information that’s relevant to just you.

Buzzam will create a radio listening experience for you based on your favorite Rdio and Spotify channels and your iTunes music. What happens in between songs is what makes Buzzam truly unique. Buzzam’s dj service will deliver your Facebook and Twitter updates right to you while you’re enjoying your favorite music.

Using Buzzam’s proprietary and patent pending technology, all your important social data is broadcast in between songs no matter what the feed.

On a recent visit to Blueprint for Business even Brad Feld thought Buzzam was a cool idea.

We got a chance to talk with Greg Starling, co-founder and COO of Buzzam about this innovative new radio idea ( and you know how we love radio ideas). Check out the interview below.

Meet Romania’s Mobile App Developer Referral Startup: BigBangJobs

Job boards are a dime a dozen these days. The job board was a space once owned by just two online companies, Hot Jobs (Yahoo) and Monster.com. Now there are job boards for just about everything and everywhere. It’s innovative new career minded sites, and category specific platforms like, WorkForPie and Path.to that are prevailing in the United States.

But what about outside the U.S.?

Well Romanian startup Big Bang Jobs is trying to solve the problem of connecting mobile app developers to people hiring mobile app developers in a way that cuts out a lot of the clutter found on more traditional websites.

BigBangJobs is a two way street. They function as a place where great mobile developers can find exciting new projects to work on, and where startups and established companies can find the perfect developer for their project. BigBangJobs is a mobile web developer community.

Unlike many other startups, BigBangJobs has a revenue model in place. After a quick vetting process, those developers that wan’t to participate in the program are admitted free. Those companies listing projects pay a one time fee of $99. While that may seem a little steep, BigBangJobs is looking to produce real results and get mobile app developers to work as quick as possible, in situations they want to be in.

We got a chance to talk to the founder of BigBangJobs, check out the interview below.

Memphis Entrepreneur Abandons Startup To Launch Startup To Sell Startups

Confused by the headline? Don’t be. Memphis Entrepreneur Harold Strong launched a photo sharing startup called YaDoog at 48 Hour Launch back in June. The premise for YaDoog was a little different than other photo sharing startups. Strong wanted people to share their photos in an organized “day in the life” manner. The idea was going to be perfect for wedding days, a newborn’s arrival, and other significant life events.

Strong had a lot of support at that 48 Hour Launch and his idea was selected to build out. After one heck of a great Sunday pitch Strong was feeling great about the idea. It appeared that he was building off the momentum but as with a lot of weekend startup hackathon events, many of the team members went back to their normal lives come that Monday morning.

Strong abandoned the idea in time for Startup Weekend Memphis later this past summer.

That’s when he came up with Acquire For Pennies. This new startup idea makes sense. The premise is an online auction site or e-commerce platform where startup founders can sell their startup idea and the accompanying intellectual property easily.

The idea is perfect for people who develop good ideas at weekend startup hackathon events like 48 Hour Lunch and then don’t have the time to follow through. Another great use case would be serial entrepreneurs who are more idea people rather than follow through. Some entrepreneurs know they have a good idea and then they’re struck with another great idea.

With Acquire For Pennies, any entrepreneur or founder can sell their idea.

Strong has already thought of a way to handle the sale of the idea and intellectual property without disclosing the entire idea in public view.

After pitching at two different weekend startup hackathon events, the June 48 Hour Launch and Startup Weekend, Strong’s Friday pitch for Acquire for Pennies was great. By Sunday evening we’ll see how well the weekend fared for Strong.

Here’s the Friday Pitch:

Here’s Strong’s pitch for YaDoog from June

Everyone’s talking about this event “everywhere else” click here

Meet The Founders Of Miami Startup: CloudShopper

This story originally appeared on our content partner site StarTropica.com

“We didn’t set out to do a Startup we’re doing a Business”, Ulises Orozco, co-founder ofCloudShopper, a free shopping comparison add-on already popular in the market place told me when our conversation turned a little too much into startup blabber as if wanting to draw the line between the social and fashionable side of “having a startup” and the simple execution of a business plan.

Simple it is, and also lean. So lean it only appears in your browser at the exact time that you need it, nothing more nothing less. Unlike most existing browser add-ons CloudShopper is invisible and it only pops up when you search for a specific product in a shopping portal offering you price comparisons of the exact same item in other websites, so that you can choose the lower one. One click and you are off to see it, and very probably buy it.

It’s sleek, non-intrusive, efficient, and accurate, no longer it has amassed 17,000 downloads in almost a year with very limited advertising; as big as that number is it’s not even near to what their goal is, they actually need much more than that to really start seeing the kind of return they are expecting, that’s why they are conquering every browser platform in the market. It is already available in Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Explorer, and Opera, and they are soon releasing the iPhone app.

What’s so amazing about CloudShopper is how simple it is for the user but how complicated it is to implement on the back-end. The add-on is available in 2,500 e-commerce websites from Amazon and Wal-Mart, to Sears and Target, you name it, and they are there. This implied setting up connections with many of those portals through their APIs, but at the same time making a different piece of software for each of the existing Browsers to then bring it all together under a clean user interface. And they did it all in just under a year of work.

Continue reading at our partner site StarTropica

Have you heard about this yet?

Memphis Entrepreneur Aaron Prather Launching New Startup This Weekend During 48 Hour Launch

It’s 48 Hour Launch time in Memphis Tennessee. This weekend entrepreneurs from across the state (and some neighboring states as well) have assembled for a weekend of launching new startups, hackathon style.

Nearly 50 entrepreneurs, developers, marketers and support people are working on three great startup ideas. The three selected ideas will work to develop those ideas over the next two days and turn them into actual viable startups. Sunday they’ll show off their new startups to the toughest judges of them all, a room full of their peers.

48 Hour Launch is a unique concept in the weekend startup hackathon. As a product of Launch Memphis, the 48 Hour Launch teams have access to continuing resources to develop their ideas, way beyond Sunday.

As a testament to that concept, Richard Billings, the founder of Memphis startup ScrewPulp, spoke to the crowd before the Friday evening pitches. Billings alternative independent publishing platform was hatched in June at Launch Memphis’ last 48 Hour Launch event. Today, Billings has staffed up and even moved the company to office space downtown. Their designer is working on the front end, a developer is working on the back end and Billings is working on developing the business and laying roots in the publishing community.

Aaron Prather, the founder of Memphis startup Stiqrd, was on hand for 48 Hour Launch. Prather is no stranger to Launch Memphis or their cohort based accelerator, Seed Hatchery. Pranther’s startup Stiqrd accelerated at Seed Hatchery two years ago.

This weekend though Prather had a great idea. He’s building a tool where online news consumers can use a widget, or browser plugin to let publishers, bloggers and writers know that they want follow up to the stories they read online.

If you’re familiar with how sites like Reddit and the hub at Startup Revolution work, you can get notified every time someone does anything with your message. Pranther wants it to be that easy, but in reverse, to let writers and publishers know, “Hey I’ll read a follow up on that”.

The idea is great for publishers, because as Prather put it, there’s guaranteed eyeballs on stories not even published yet.

Check out Pranther’s Friday pitch below:

Linkage: