Kansas City Man Buys House To Give To Startups!

Kansas City’s entrepreneurial and startup ecosystem continues to grow. Kansas City is home to some great startups like Neighbor.ly, AgLocal, Front Flip,Cognovant, Zippido and even Ray Ray’s. Even Helzberg Diamond’s, Barnett Helzberg Jr, has launched a new startup in his hometown.

Kansas City Mayor Sly James recently announced an initiative to make Kansas City a destination for startups. Part of that initiative called for those in the private sector to contribute to the growing ecosystem.  James is calling on private sector businesses to step up to the plate and donate unused office space, equipment and mentoring time for new startups.

Although he doesn’t own his own company and fancy’s himself an “entrepreneur wannabe”, British Kansas City implant Ben Barreth has responded to James’ is call in a major way.

Barreth has started a new project called “Homes For Hackers”. His program calls for residents in Kansas City to make homes available for hackers and startup founders, rent free, and utility free for three months to let them get their startups off the ground. Barreth didn’t just announce a program and put up a fancy website. He put his money where his mouth is so to speak, cashed out a retirement account and bought the first home for hackers himself.

The house Barreth purchased is also located in the Google Fiber district of Kansas City, which means that the hackers working on their startups will be able to do it with 1gb fiber.

Barreth ran into an initial stumbling block when he found out, that since he wouldn’t actually be living in the house, it was an investment property. What that meant was that mortgage lenders needed 20% down rather than the 10% down he had prepared for.

Barreth hasn’t launched his own startup yet (we would consider Homes For Hackers a social startup), and he’s had no successful exits yet. In fact he said he had to Google what “successful exits” meant. He’s just a guy who felt compelled to do this.

Three months rent and utility free should be enough time for relocating startups to lay roots in Kansas City so that when the times up they can continue to take advantage of the resources their, like Think Big.

Barreth says that the only thing that startups will need to supply for themselves is food.

Linkage:

Check out Homes for Hackers and apply here

We found out about Homes For Hackers at the Hub at Startup Revolution

Startups you need to be here

Nibletz Teams Up With StarTropica For Strategic Content Partnership

Here at the nibletz world headquarters we are pleased to announce that we have entered into a strategic content partnership with Moises Szarf and StarTropica.

StarTropica, “cracking the startup coconut”, is the premiere startup and high growth technology website super serving southern Florida, specifically Miami.

Although just launched three months ago Szarf has been gathering and reporting on Miami area startup news continuously since then as both an outreach and traction tool for Miami’s fledging startup community.

We are particularly pleased to announce this partnership on the heels of the Startup America Regions Summit which served as a hyper advocate to promote startup communities working together and partnering for the good of the overall startup ecosystem across the country. Also, a strategic partnership with StarTropica at this time cements the foundation for our evolving plan for the nibletz.com brand and long term goals.

Our partnership with StarTropica will include story pick ups, custom content provided by Szarf and his staff as well as co-hosting events and meetups in Miami Beach (and who doesn’t want to partner when it means trips to Miami).

Nibletz.com content originating out of Miami Florida will either be diverted to the StarTropica staff, or cross posted from the Nibletz hub.  Miami startups are encouraged to keep corresponding with StarTropica directly or feel free to email miami@nibletz.com

We look forward to increasing our coverage of the great startups in the sunshine state.

Linkage:

Check out StarTropica here

Nibletz Florida coverage is here

And this is for everywhereelse click it

 

Listen To Places Through People With Chicago Startup: EvzDrop INTERVIEW

Chicago startup Evzdrop has put a new spin on social discovery. Rather than going somewhere and seeing who’s around you, you can “listen” to places using Evzdrop’s website and mobile app.  Essentially what Evzdrop is doing is combining event discovery with people discovery, in reverse.

To understand this better here’s how it works. When a user goes somewhere they do a drop, basically putting a pin down where they are at. “Dropping” is Evzdrop speak for checking in. Once  you check in or “drop” you can leave a tip or comment about the place. Through your setting you can decide if you want to share your “drops” with people in your network or the public at large. Or, if you rather just lurk in the shadows you can go into “stealth mode” kind of like those startups that think they have original ideas.

You can update your drops as well. For instance if you go to your favorite burger joint and they’re out of milkshakes, that may be important information people need to know. Or perhaps you’ve gone out to one of your favorite clubs but tonight it’s a pure sausage fest.

These drops make event and people discovery for other users a breeze. Now people can look at all the places they want to check out. Users can search for a place or see what’s trending. When they do that, they’ll see all the drops from the people there already. They’ll know if it’s hot or not, by just looking at the drops on the mobile app.

Evzdrop,Chicago startup,startup,startups,startup interview,social discoveryIf you’re the “dropper” your drops can be voted up and get you points by the more people that check out your drop. Evzdrop calls this whole thing listening in. So now you’re listening into places rather than just checking them out.

To put it another way. FourSquare is great for checking in you want to check in and get points, and show all your friends that you’ve checked in to such and such place. You may even want to be the mayor (do they even do that anymore). With Evzdrop they’re giving the drops a real purpose. When’s the last time you went to FourSquare to see if a place was hot? You looked for the people right? Evzdrop puts that idea in reverse.

We got a chance to talk with the Evzdrop team. Check out the interview below:

Read More…

Waterloo Canada: What Do You Do When Your Tech Giant Fails?

RIM,Waterloo startups,Canadian startups,startup,startups,startup newsWaterloo Canada is the home to Research In Motion (RIM) the creators of the Blackberry. For nearly twenty years the Canadian company was the leader in the smartphone space, basically because there were no decent challengers. Palm/Handspring tried to compete with their Treo line and then the Pre line. Several companies tried to implement the original Windows Phone into some kind of Blackberry contender but time and time again Blackberry prevailed.

Until 2007.

Depending on what sites you read, or who you ask, many people believe that RIM felt unstoppable. There was no way that this “smart phone” with a touch screen was going to be able to displace the top seeded Blackberry. Once Google released Android on several different OEM’s the writing on the wall was clear, RIM needed a new game plan. RIM stuck to their guns though because they thought they had the enterprise market cornered. They didn’t.

But this isn’t the story of a falling tech giant. It’s the story of a great city in Waterloo Canada. It’s the story of an incredibly solid startup eco-system that until a few short years ago, lived in the shadows of RIM.

Sortable published an amazing infographic (below) that highlights some of the amazing things going on in Waterloo Canada. You’ll probably read this article and look at the infographic and be just as surprised as we were.

Waterloo serves as the Canadian headquarters for technology giants; Google, IBM,McAfee, Oracle and Electronic Arts (EA). From that, and Waterloo’s thriving tech startup community, over 30,000 people in Waterloo are employed at tech firms.  All of that combined is good for $25 billion in revenue from Waterloo’s tech sector. Wow!

  • 550 tech startups call Waterloo home
  • 850+ tech firms call Waterloo home
  • 531 new companies started in the last three years
  • 1,000 open tech jobs
  • VC and private equity investments have gone from $7 million in 1997 to $300 million today

Shocked?

Canada has great entrepreneurial pockets throughout the country. Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and of course Waterloo have all graced the pages of nibletz.com with startup news stories and interviews.  That’s why Waterloo is known as Canada’s innovation hub.

While it wasn’t cited in this particular infographic, RIM has served as a  breeding ground for great startup founders, similar to the way Google does for Valley startups. It’s apparent though that solid people in the tech industry should have no problem finding work as RIM continues to crumble.  It was reported back in August that RIM is laying off 3,000 employees.

Waterloo Tech Infographic
Sortable Waterloo Region Tech Infographic

Linkage:

Check out our Canadian coverage here

Canada counts as “everywhere else” so click here.

Have You Tried Brad Feld’s Version Of Hacker News? The hub at Startup Revolution

Have you tried out Brad Feld’s version of Hacker News?

Most everyone in the startup community is familiar with Y-Combinator’s Hacker News. If you’re not, it’s pretty simple, it’s like Reddit but rather than all news it’s just hacker news. Most of the community contributed stories involve hacking, coding, design, development and startups.

One of the problems with Hacker News, for me at least, is that I am only looking for startup news. Hacker News gets a tremendous amount of contributions every day, so it gets to be cumbersome weeding through the stories to find the startup news relevant to me.

After I track down the startup news on Hacker News I just want to get to the story and barely have time to comment, even if I want to.

Brad Feld has introduced a new site similar to Hacker News but all about startups. The site is called The Startup Revolution Hub, actually has a nicer looking UI and is easier to navigate. Best of all I don’t have to weed out general coding and dev posts to get to the startup posts.

The Startup Revolution Hub was launched earlier this month and has already amassed 250 users.  It functions like Hacker News and Reddit. A user can post a story, comment a story and move a story up or down by hitting one of the arrow buttons.

Right now the contributions range from startup news stories, startup founders announcing their startups, startup events, and even how to’s that startup founders and entrepreneurs would find useful. For instance we found “How to design infographics”

Community members are also sharing their thoughts, best practices and advice in posts like “Technical Co-Founder Confessions” and “The Hardest Part of Startups: Getting Past Zero”.

If you haven’t signed up for Startup Revolution yet, you may want to. Joining a community early has it’s advantages and I’m sure it’s going to get quite popular, quickly.

Linkage:

Startup Revolution Hub here

Hacker News here

Everywhere Else here

Entrepreneur Development Center Opens In Jackson Tennessee

When people think about innovation, startups and entrepreneurship, Tennessee is often overlooked. What people don’t know about Tennessee is there are 9 entrepreneurial hubs across the state, anchored by Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville and Chattanooga. The other five areas are a little more rural, but still breed innovation. As wide as Tennessee is, with nine unique ecosystems, no one in the state is ever more than an hour and a half from an accelerator or entrepreneurial hub.

Tennessee has been an innovator for over a century. Tennessee was a major hub for cotton in the 1800s. In fact, prior to their bankruptcy in 2008, the fourth largest investment bank in the world, Lehman Brothers, had actually started out in Tennessee in the cotton exchange business.

Major corporations like FedEx, Holiday Inn, Auto Zone, Service Master, Sax Fifth Avenue, Gibson and Kirkland’s call Tennessee home. Heck the internet was born in Tennessee, just ask Al Gore.

In that spirit, Jackson Tennessee has announced the grand opening of the Entrepreneur Development Center.  The Entrepreneur Development Center will help budding entrepreneurs in Jackson and the Southwest Tennessee area develop their businesses from idea generation to business launch.  The EDC will pair entrepreneurs with successful business leaders who will serve as their mentors during their time in the center.

The EDC will launch Tuesday October 23rd at the Aenas Building in downton Jackson kicking off at 11:30am. Kirkland’s Co-Founder and Chairman Emeritus, Carl Kirkland will keynote the event alongside Matt Kisber President and CEO of Silicon Ranch Corporation.

“Through entrepreneurship, I’ve lived the American Dream” Carl Kirkland told Action News 5.  The beauty of this country is that you can start with little more than a dream and build a successful business that provides jobs and economic growth.”

“Our new center strives to be the “front door” for entrepreneurs in Southwest Tennessee. We will help our entrepreneurs build their businesses by connecting them to the critical resources they need to be successful. These critical resources include experienced mentors, knowledge, training, seed capital and a supportive community.” Linda Garrard, Executive Director of the EDC told Action News 5.

Marci Harris, founder of award winning startup PopVox and other entrepreneurs will also be featured during the launch event.

The EDC will open just in time for Global Entrepreneurship week from November 12th -16th. In conjunction with Launch Tennessee, all nine startup ecosystems in the state will participate by holding entrepreneurial and startup focused events all week long.

Entrepreneurial leaders across the state like Sheldon Grizzle (Chattanooga), Michael Burcham (Nashville) and Eric Matthews (Memphis) have planned out a weeks worth of talks, discussions, conferences, parties and interactive engaging events across the state for GEW.

Linkage:

Check out the EDC in Jackson Tennessee here

No one covers High Growth tech news for the south east like Nibletz

Are you going to be here?

Indy’s Powder Keg Startup Conference Announces 12 Startups In The Super Bowl

Startup evangelist, entrepreneur and founder of Verge Startups (Verge Indy), Matt Hunckler has been hard at work producing the upcoming Powder Keg regional startup conference in Indianapolis. Powder Keg is taking place in downtown Indianapolis with one amazing opportunity for 12 great startups, in a startup competition of Super Bowl proportions (can we say Super Bowl?).

“The Big Game” startup competition (see what we did there) will take place at Lucas Oil Stadium next Thursday, which just happens to be the same venue for last years Super Bowl. You know, the one where another Indiana startup evangelist put together this little Shark Tank party with Mark Cuban.

Yes, Indiana has it like that and Powder Keg will continue the tradition of great startup events produced by Hunckler on a much larger scale.  Powder Keg has a great list of speakers including illusionist David Blaine, Scott Case (who’s also speaking at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference), Dave Knox from RockFish and co-founder of The Brandery,and Erik Martin General Manager at Reddit. The event will feature two powerful days of sessions, the Startup Bowl, Startup Showcase and three great parties (what’s a startup event without parties).

Yesterday, the Verge Startups team announced the 12 startups competing for a $15,000 startup growth prize sponsored by Microsoft and Elevate Ventures.  Here’s the list:

CoatChex
CoatChex is focused on bringing innovation and value through today’s technology to an industry that hasn’t been touched in decades. The patent-pending process optimizes coat check-in and retrieval functions and reduces the risks that are commonly associated with checking coats, making it the hassle-free solution to running a secure, profitable, and efficient coat check station.

Team Mash
TeamMash is a daily email for sports fanatics. Every day, their editors scour the web for the best sports content. Each morning, they email you a mashup of what happened with your favorite teams in the past 24 hours. It even contains links to hand-picked articles from around the web.

FoundOPS
FoundOPS is developing an operations platform to help small field service operate more efficiently by gamifying carbon savings. In one, easy to use cloud based system, they’ve incorporated GPS technician tracking, drag and drop dispatching, and intuitive customer service management. The platform is provided for free, but customers are incentived to purchase premium features such as route optimization, QuickBooks integration, and BI reports in order to increase their carbon savings.

Adproval
Adproval is a service that streamlines the process of direct ad sales for small and medium bloggers while allowing them to maintain relationships with their advertisers. Working with an approved advertiser lets bloggers use their voice – by means of product reviews, featured posts, etc. – to back them as a sponsor, making ad space on that blog more valuable. Bloggers set up their sponsorship offerings with Adproval and put a page on their blog where advertisers can choose what they want and make an offer. If the blogger finds the advertiser suitable and approves of them, the ad image is automatically uploaded to their blog, the payment is automatically transferred, and the relationship is managed through their dashboard on Adproval.

Lisnr
Lisnr aims to change the way that consumers experience audio by turning what has historically been a passive experience into an interactive engagement platform. Lisnr is an app that allows music or any other audio medium to passively trigger consumer interactions, direct to their mobile device, during a consumer’s listening experience. Lisnr is completely source agnostic as notifications can be sent from audio being played anywhere.

PetBookings
PetBookings.com is the first and only website to offer instant and confirmed online reservations to the $3.5 billion professional pet care industry. They are launching v2.0 of their website platform Friday October 5, 2012 and are armed with some remarkable test data going to market. Pet owners (B2C) are not only experiencing the convenience and benefits of booking online with instant confirmation, but pet care facilities (B2B) are also seeing a significant impact on their bottom line.

Lesson.ly
Lesson.ly is a teaching and learning marketplace. It’s like iTunes, but with lessons and courses instead of songs and albums. It is “the simplest way to learn” and is currently in beta-testing.

Bonfyre
Bonfyres are private groups created around events where you can share chats and photos. All of these shared photos become part of group photostreams, called Memories, and are accessible only to others at that bonfyre. Simple event planning, private real-time sharing and collective group photos in one app, just like it should be.

Squarejive
Squarejive is a free mobile application that recommends things to do nearby. The app is built upon a mosaic design that allows users to seamlessly find and share events across Facebook, Twitter, SMS Text, and Email. With Yelp integration, the app also includes business profiles for over 400 venues in Indianapolis. They intend to launch Squarejive version 1.0 on October 13th at the Broad Ripple Music Festival.

Modulus
Modulus helps developers spend less time configuring servers and more time building products. Modulus does this by providing a complete platform that companies can use to host and scale their internet-based applications. We add to that an integrated database and file storage solution, and wrap everything under a powerful statistics engine.

Visit Apps
Visit Apps empowers Convention & Visitors Bureaus (CVBs = tourism agencies) to harness the mobile channel to deeply engage their visitors. Visit Apps has built a proprietary platform that allows any CVB – from the quaintest of towns to a bustling metropolis – to have their own mobile app. Visit Apps is a SaaS startup in the explosively growing mobile sector (available in iPad, iPhone and Android devices). The Visit Apps team is led by Santiago Jaramillo (serial entrepreneur of University Storage & MyMusicCamp.com).

Diagnotes
In an effort to eliminate the problems associated with effective communication and care during on-call medical encounters, Diagnotes has developed an integrated software solution that provides critical information, secure communication and convenient documentation for healthcare providers via their smartphones, focusing initially on on-call physicians and the 50-100 million such patient encounters conducted annually in the US.

Tickets for PowderKeg are still available for $299 check the link below.

Linkage:

Get your tickets now for just $299 here for Powder Keg

Source: Verge Startups

Then, we’ll see you in February for this

Startup Puerto Rico’s Kendall Quinones On Sharing Talent

Sparkative,Startup America,Kendall Quinones,Startup Puerto Rico,startupsThe Startup America Regions Summit this week in Chicago brought together 150 Startup America champions from across the country and Puerto Rico. Kendall Quinones, the founder and CEO of EdTech startup in Puerto Rico, Sparkative, was on hand for the summit and sharing ideas that work for Puerto Rico throughout the event.

Quinones talked in depth about one of the big challenges they are facing in Puerto Rico. They are having a hard time engaging some of the “feeders” in Puerto Rico, to get involved with the startup and entrepreneurial ecosystem. Puerto Rico is known for their manufacturing and when it comes to job creation Quinones points out that in Puerto Rico they use factories as a band aid for job creation.

It’s much easier to employ more people in Puerto Rico by attracting more manufacturing than it is to try and entice say a game development studio to come to Puerto Rico. A factory that can employ hundreds at minimum wage is actually the easier way out and one that the Puerto Rican government seems to use often.

For those active and engaged in the startup and entrepreneurial community in Puerto Rico and in Startup Puerto Rico, the culture is a complete 180.  In their region they share, share, share and share some more. Their growing startup and entrepreneurial base, is encouraged to share resources, and ideas across the country.

One thing that’s also shared is talent.

In the video below Quinones talks about how at his company, Sparkative, he encourages his people to work on Sparkative and in their free time devote a few hours to other Startup Puerto Rico members that may need their services. Whether it’s a designer, an engineer or a marketer, it seems that Puerto Rico is all about sharing.

The biggest purpose of the Startup America summit was to share best practices, and even failures so that the 30 regions currently in the Startup America partnership can grow together.

Although at times it may seem like Puerto Rico is worlds away, it’s clear that their fully engaged in not only their own community but Startup America as well.

Here’s the video clip:

 Linkage:

Check out Quinones’ company Sparkative here

Startup Puerto Rico here

Startup America here

oh and this too

Boulder Startup Orbotix Hits Target With Sphero Ball

We’ve covered Boulder startup Orbotix since the beginning. We began covering them at our previous Android website when we saw the Sphero ball at a Show Stoppers event during CES 2011. We also covered their Techstars pivot, which came about when working with their mentor Brad Feld, and we covered their biggest fan, President Barack Obama.

Orbotix is the startup behind the Sphero ball. Sphero is a smartphone controlled ball. The concept in itself can bring tons of fun, maneuvering the ball throughout the house, teasing the dog and cat can be hours of fun. However, Sphero isn’t just about the ball. They’ve built some great interactive apps (games) like golf. The control the user has with their Android phone or iPhone, over the ball, is world’s apart from other smartphone controlled toys.

While the company launched in 2011 after going through the TechStars program in Boulder, Chief Executive Paul Berberian feels like this distribution deal with Target is their big consumer launch.

“The name of the game in consumer electronics and gaming is getting in front of customers,” Berberian said to the Boulder County Business Report. “We feel like we’ve been out there for a long time telling our story, but most people have never seen a Sphero. This is essentially our launch.”

The Sphero ball has limited distribution in some Apple stores as well as some Brookstone stores but of course Target means they’ll reach the masses. It’s also a great time to get into a retail stores shelves as Americans prepare for the busy holiday shopping season.

Target already has a good selection of interactive smartphone accessories. Their toy section is filled with iPhone and iPad games that have a physical component like fishing, and even an Angry Birds game where you move the bird across the screen. Target’s smartphone accessories section, located within their electronics department, stocks the iCade mini arcade machine accessory as well as some of the “cooler” music accessories.

Sphero will be stocked among the smartphone app accessories section and available online at Target.com as well.

Linkage:

Check out Sphero here

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

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A Travel Startup For The Young Sexy & Broke NY Startup: Off Track Planet

Off Track Planet, Freddie Pikovsky, Dumbo Startup Labs, New York Startup,Cincinnati Startup,Startups, Startup,Startup pitch videoBrooklyn based entrepreneur Freddie Pikovsky is no stranger to startups. Pikovsky is the founder of Brooklyn’s Dumbo Startup Labs, a hot spot for entrepreneurial and startup activity in Brooklyn. In fact our good friends at Justdecide.com work out of Dumbo Startup Labs.

In a true testament to the power of The Brandery startup accelerator in Cincinnati, Pikovsky, who could have easily gotten his latest startup into any incubator or accelerator in the New York region, applied to, and got accepted at, The Brandery. It was The Brandery’s focus on marketing and branding that Pikovsky was hoping would help shape Off Track Planet. It’s apparent that his decision to take a 3 months sabbatical from Dumbo Startup Labs and head to Cincinnati paid off.

Off Track Planet, in it’s 1.0 form, had already attracted the attention of young, broke, millennials who loved to travel. Pikovsky knows this market well. In fact he worked alongside Diego Saez Gil, founder of inbed.me which for politically correct reasons became wehostels. Pikovsky ventured out on his own with Off Track Planet to target a different segment of the $108 billion dollar a year travel industry.

Off Track Planet targets the millennial generation by offering great content on the best places to travel to, affordable things to do, even great swag and gadget ideas for the millennial traveler.

“In order to change the world, we must see the world first. The new Off Track Planet makes it easier to explore, plan, share, and experience the world in a way that makes sense to our generation.” Pikovsky said in a statement.

In addition to a relaunch of the Off Track Planet online offering, Pikovsky has added a traditional print magazine and has also written a book that will be available at Urban Outfitters. The attraction to the millennial traveler is definitely there. In his introduction of Off Track Planet at the Brandery Demo Day, OTP Mentor and DFJ Mercury Managing Director, Blair Garrou said:

“Off Track Planet is not for the 80 million baby boomers but for the 80 million millennials.”

Check out Pikovsky’s pitch video below from The Brandery’s Demo Day:

Linkage:

Find Off Track Planet here

Brandery here

Everywhere Else Here

Israeli Startup: Vidimind Lets Any Brand Become A TV Provider INTERVIEW

So hearing about Israeli startup Vidimind got me thinking, how cool would it be if Nibletz could own it’s own TV service. You could get a cool Android powered Nibletz TV service box for your home, and then use that box to stream tv, access tv apps and games, all the while under the brand “Nibletz TV”. Pretty bad ass huh…

Well that’s exactly what Vidimind does. This innovative Israeli service allows any company to purchase it’s white label tv service. The service is offered through an Android powered set top box. The box can be plugged into the TV or shared via wifi to smartphones and tablets in your home as well.

Vidimind,Israeli startup,startup,startups,startup interviewThrough Vidimind the end user gets a robust tv service via their set top box. The company, or brand, gets access to vital subscriber data and can offer subscribers custom data as well. Brands and companies can offer deals, promotions, contests and more through the Vidimind box giving companies an advertising vehicle, in the living room, that’s rivaled by nothing else available on the market today.

With the power of the internet, Android and a set top box, any company in the world can become a tv service operator.

We got a chance to interview the team behind Vidimind. Check out the interview below:

Read More…

Brad Feld On “The Boulder Thesis” VIDEO

Author,founder, entrepreneur, investor and all around startup evangelist Brad Feld was on hand in Chicago on Tuesday for the Startup America regions summit. Feld is one of the founders, and Managing Director of Foundry Group and has been enamored in startup culture for over 15 years.

Feld’s latest book “Startup Communities” was published earlier this month, and in addition to speaking Startup America and 1871 hosted an official launch party for Feld’s book which included signing copies and free books for the first 40 in line.

Feld’s book serves as almost a handbook to other entrepreneurs and startup ecosystem leaders looking to build startup ecosystems in their town. Feld feels that most communities can support a startup ecosystem if they follow some basic guidelines. Boulder Colorado is one of the most well known and respected startup communities outside of Silicon Valley. Boulder didn’t grow into the startup community it is today, overnight. Feld points out that its been growing over the past 15 years and continues to grow.

Feld has been working with Startup America since it’s inception, in fact Startup America CEO Scott Case counts Feld as one of his most trusted advisors out in the field, working in the trenches with startups every day.

During his Startup America talk Feld highlighted the foundation, or framework found in his book “Startup Communities” about building startup communities.

  • The startup communities have to be led by entrepreneurs
  • These entrepreneurs have to take a very long term view (20 years)
  • They have to be inclusive of anyone who wants to be inclusive of the startup community in any way
  • You have to have activities and events that engage the entire entrepreneurial community

Feld prides himself on his genuine accessibility and is anxious to talk with entrepreneurs and startups from everywhere. He’s a top rate connector and if you’re headed to Boulder he will gladly share members of his network with you that he feels you will benefit from. He’s willing to help just about anyone, however before he helps you he often gives out tasks to do, nothing too hard, but rather questions to answer or information to find out, usually helping yourself in the process. These tasks usually separate the serious from the not so serious.

In the same spirit as his email accessibility Feld stuck around most of the day talking with the Startup America champions about just about anything. In fact we talked about startups, tennis and Australia and how they all interconnect for Feld and his family in February.

Check out the video from his talk at the Startup America summit below:

Linkage:

Check out Brad Feld’s site here

Startup America Here

Everywhere Else here

Chicago Ideas Week: Kara Swisher On The Next Big Thing VIDEO

We are in Chicago this week for the Startup America regions summit for Startup America Champions. We’re actually attending as Champions rather than media. Our good friend Frank Gruber at TechCocktail is also attending the summit as a regional champion from Washington DC.

While we did a little bit of actual work at the summit for the most part it’s been a great learning experience. In fact, when I tried to continue working after lunch, Startup America CEO Scott Case personally came and got me to make sure I was learning and not working. All the sessions on Tuesday were definitely worth it.

That doesn’t mean we couldn’t work at night after the summit was over.

It’s idea week in Chicago through October 14th. It’s a week long series of entrepreneurial, startup and innovator events, talks and lectures very similar to startup week happening in Austin Texas. As part of Idea Week, Startup America Chairman Steve Case (no relation to Scott), spoke in a mega talk Tuesday evening.

Case drove home many of the important points from his talk earlier in the day at the Startup America summit. He also went into a little history of AOL and briefly talked about the Time Warner merger.

After Case cleared the stage, they introduced the next guest (which we hadn’t read the program so we didn’t know) Kara Swisher.

Swisher is an authority on startups, technology and silicon valley. She was one of the reporters featured prominently in the 60 minutes interview with Mark Zuckerberg and she, along with Walt Mossberg, head up AllThingsDigital.  She’s a great interviewer and an equally as good interviewee.

Most of the interview was in true Swisher banter, great down to earth, and real tech talk sprinkled with her signature humor. In fact one of the funniest points in her talk was when she made reference to the fact that she’s been married to a Google executive for 14 years, Swisher than pointed out that she is a lesbian (which she’s always been out), and in “straight years” that would be 97 years of marriage.

She referred to Google Glasses as “creep glasses” and Google+ as not a social network.

At the end of the interview (the part in the video below) she was asked what she thought the next big thing would be. Her answer may surprise you, and again, even this answer was full of humor, that’s for the most part true:

Linkage:

More on IdeasWeek here

Go check out AllthingsD here

Everywhereelse, here

The Case Triple Threat Steve Case, Jean Case, Scott Case Speak At Startup America Summit

Steve Case,Scott Case,Jean Case,Startup America,startup,startups,Startup America SummitStartup America is holding their fourth quarterly “regions summit” in Chicago Illinois at 1871. The summit brings together nearly 150 regional Startup America influencers, commonly known around these parts as “Champions”.

Startup America champions from as far away as Puerto Rico arrived in the windy city last night for this three day conference meant to bring together regional startup leaders to share best practices, triumphs and even failures that each region can learn from.

To kick off the summit attendees were treated with a Case Triple Threat. Startup America CEO (and founding CTO of Priceline.com), Scott Case, kicked off the festivities. Case and Startup America’s Donna Harris have been busy over the last year flying around the country helping to launch Startup America regions. Scott Case (not related to the other two Cases) spoke briefly welcoming everyone to the event.

The first talk of the morning was a fireside chat between Harris and Startup America Chairman, and AOL Founder, Steve Case .Case has been traveling the country on his own talking to startup and entrepreneur communities throughout the United States. At one point Case pointed out, if you make great products no one cares where you’re from.

Case is no stranger to starting a company and raising money outside Silicon Valley. He’s started companies in Detroit Michigan before, but of course he’s most known for his little internet startup that launched out of Tyson’s Corner Virginia (a DC suburb) before anyone even knew what the internet was. Case told the familiar story of how no one really understood the internet back than and how it was just for a “bunch of geeks”.

Steve also brought home the point that Startup America, in it’s current form, is on a SWAT team mission to launch regions across the country over the next three years, and build growth within the organization. However the mission for Startup America is to have the regions function independently during that time. After that, the Startup America national office will function more as a support piece rather than a mouth piece.

The work the team at Startup America has done is nothing short of greatness though. With the addition of Startup Utah, just yesterday there are now 30 Startup America regional partners.

The third case of the morning was just before lunch. That’s when Case Foundation CEO and Steve’s wife, Jean Case came and spoke about her fearless movement within the Case foundation. The foundation just launched an initiative across the country looking for fearless people who will be the cornerstone of startups, and the economy to come.

Check out our video of Steve Case wrapping up his fireside chat with Harris below:

Linkage:

Check out Startup America here

Here’s nibletz’ coverage of Startup America here

You should be here, Scott Case will!