startups Archives - Page 38 of 75

New York Startup: AppBoy Is A Must Have For App Developers INTERVIEW

The app economy is exploding, and as this global phenomena continues more and more app developers have turned from “Fred in the shed” developers to serious (or semi-serious) startups.

App developers are realizing though, to make it in this global app economy they need to have access to the best tools available to them. More than ever, app developers need to know their users. App developers need access to every piece of analytical data available to them. With over a billion apps available across all ecosystems, app users have an element of choice they’ve never had before. App developers need to make sure that they can hold onto that user for as long as they can. Once you lose a user it’s hard to get them back.

All this analytical data is what Mark Ghermezian and his New York startup Appboy, specialize in. But one thing that Appboy odes that separates themselves from just another app developer dashboard, is they bring the data back to app developers in a clean, visually appealing UI and data that’s easy to understand and interpret even for beginning app developers.

Appby is about more than just data though. Ghermezian understands that app users are customers, and as such Appboy positions itself as the first app CRM solution.

We got a chance to talk to Ghermezian about Appboy. Check out our interview below:

Utah Startup: Taxi, The Easiest Way To Present Online? INTERVIEW

Utah Startup Taxi has come to the rescue to anyone who needs to do online presentations. Whether you’re sharing a presentation for a meeting, sharing a presentation with a potential client, or need to send your pitch deck to a bunch of potential investors, Taxi may be the answer that you’re looking for.

Taxi lets users set up online presentations quickly and effortlessly. Taxi prides itself on simplicity with no need to set up plugins, no worrying about firewalls and no worrying that people on your conference call can’t see your screen. All you need to use Taxi is a web browser.

Need to share your presentation with someone on their mobile device? No worries, because it’s browser based the mobile experience is just as fluid on a smartphone or tablet, as it is on a desktop or laptop.

Taxi also offers seamless integration with HighRise so if you’re a High Rise user you’re still in business.

They offer a free version that allows you to share your presentation with one attendee at a time. They have affordable pricing plans all the way up to 100 attendees (just $20/month).

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

Boston Startup: SlideShark Solves The iPad/PowerPoint Problem

Although we love our Apple products around here, sometimes getting Apple to play nice with others requires a little work around. In this case we’re talking about the fact that PowerPoint slide shows never show up right on an iPad. This problem had thousands and thousands of startup founders in a frenzy trying to find the best way to get their pitch decks onto their iPads.

Sure a KeyNote presentation will play well on an iPad, after all it’s an Apple product, but what about those 30 million presentations created daily using Power Point (according to Microsoft)?

Power Point can be a vital business tool and with more and more people taking to Power Point out of the board room, it can be frustrating trying to get your slides to fit and play right on your iPad. Well worry no more, as Boston Startup Slideshark has you covered.

Slideshark is available for all iOS devices. They recently launched their iPhone version and according to the company, it plays well with iPhone 5 too. Slideshark covers three main Power Points (you see what we did there). Of course it’s a viewer that allows slides to be seen with fonts, graphics and charts in tact. Secondly, SlideShark allows users to share, track and manage their presentations in the cloud. And now, with the iOS version available, you can show your pitch deck during your elevator pitch, on the elevator, on your iPhone.

We got a chance to talk with the folks at SlideShark, check out the interview below:

Montreal Startup: Hypejar The Wikipedia Of New Products? INTERVIEW

Grant Yim and his team of co-founders at Montreal startup Hypejar are hoping that their startup becomes the “wikipedia of new products”. Hypejar aims to help manufacturers and startups with new products, generate buzz and excitement before a products official launch.

The web based platform promises to feature new and exciting products before they hit the market. Hyperjar users will be able to keep track of the upcoming products that they’re interested and get notified when those products officially hit the market. Users will also be able to vote products up and down in reddit style to indicate which products are more popular and which ones are more highly anticipated.

Hypejar is also targeting those smaller startups, and independent inventors. Inventors will be able to add their own products to Hyperjar and update their products “wiki”, to notify potential customers of new features, pricing and availability.

While Yim realizes there are plenty of sites out there that post reviews and product information after a product is released, there aren’t many sites that post information before a product is released. We know from our previous website that many manufacturers do vet out “review units” of products before a release, however Yim sees one of Hypejar’s main differentiators as the fact that users will have access to information on a large number of products before they get released.

Hypejar will become a vehicle for those early adopters who love to find out about the newest things first. It will also be a great vehicle for manufacturers, and inventors who need to gain traction for their products before they are released.

We got a chance to talk to Yim about Hypejar and the startup scene in Montreal. Check out the interview below:

Don’t Forget The Flowers An Interview With London Startup BelateMeNot

Have you ever forgotten a loved ones birthday? Are you one of those guys or gals that can’t even remember to send flowers. Well fear not, there is a London startup called BelateMeNot that will make sure you never forget the flowers again.

As you can imagine from the descriptive introduction or from the company’s name, BelateMeNot is a flower scheduled delivery service. It’s designed for people in a committed relationship or maybe someone who sends flowers to their family on scheduled days, to order the flowers one time for eternity and forget about it.

Lawrence Suss, a serial entrepreneur since high school, founded BelateMeNot to help men and women everywhere, who forget to send flowers. He likes to think of his startup as “relationship insurance”. No worries either, your loved one won’t receive a card that says “sent from BelateMeNot the scheduled delivery service” they’ll just think you remembered the flowers this time, and you’ll score major points.

We got a chance to talk to Suss about BelateMeNot and London’s thriving startup scene. Check out the interview below:

MassChallenge Reveals Final 26 Startups Of 2012

MassChallenge, the world’s largest global startup accelerator competition announced the final 26 startups that will compete before the judges. The 26 startups will pick between 10 and 20 startups who will be announced at MassChallenge’s high profile awards ceremony event on October 23.

This year’s MassChallenge competition opened up on March 1st and attracted 1,237 applications from 35 countries and 26 U.S. states. From there 125 startups were chosen to participate in MassChallenge’s 3 month accelerator program. The accelerator program offered the startups free office space, access to resources and one of the best mentor networks in the world.

All 26 startup teams will have one minute each to pitch their startup to over 1200 attendees at the awards ceremony. The stakes are high, with over $10,000,000 in prizes with no strings attached. There will be over $1,000,000 in grants awarded and $9,000,000 worth of in-kind benefits.

Unlike many other accelerators, the entire MassChallenge program is non-equity based, meaning that participating companies, and companies that receive monetary awards, give up no equity.

Here are the 26 startups:

*Akrivis Technologies*	*Black Island Wind Turbines*	*Bounce Imaging*	*BuysideFX*
*Capital Market Exchange (CMX)*	*Cellanyx Diagnostics*	*CoachUp*	*Dynamo Micropower*
*Global Research Innovation & Technology (GRIT)*	*Guided Surgery Solutions*	*HelmetHub Corporation*	*iAgree*
*IntegralReach*	*Lab Automate Technologies Inc*	*LiquiGlide*	*Lovin’ Spoonfuls Inc*
*Ministry of Supply Inc.*	*NBA Math Hoops*	*Neumitra*	*Nordic Technology Group (NTG)*
*OnDeckBiotech*	*RallyPoint*	*Recovers.org*	*Strong Arm Technologies, Inc.*
	*Ubiqi Health*	*WindGap Medical Inc.*

MassChallenge features top notch judges from the Boston tech community and from around the world. This years judges are:

*Colin Angle*	*Co-Founder, CEO and Chairman of the Board, iRobot*
*Sam Bastia*	*Global Strategy Executive, Verizon Communications*
*Josh Boger*	*Founder and former CEO/Chair, Vertex Pharmaceuticals*
*Desh Deshpande*	*Serial entrepreneur and mentor, Chair A123 Systems*
*Paul English*	*Founder & CTO, Kayak.com*
*Corinne Grousbeck*	*Brand Strategist & Advisor at Gemvara*
*Wyc Grousbeck*	*CEO, governor, and co-owner of the Boston Celtics*
*Jamie Kiggen*	*President, Riverside Company*
*Jit Saxena*	*Founder and Former CEO, Netezza*
*Niraj Shah*	*CEO and Co-Founder, Wayfair (formerly CSN Stores)*
*Amy Stursberg*	*Executive Director, Blackstone Charitable Foundation*
*Mike Wilens*	*Special Advisor, Senior Fidelity Management*

“Over 400 entrepreneurs from across the globe came together in the Boston Innovation District to address some of the world’s most challenging problems together with the tremendous resources in the Boston startup community,” said MassChallenge Chief Mentorship Officer Karl Büttner. “MassChallenge 2012 represents another great example of the growth, energy and excitement that can only be produced through collaboration. It is truly inspiring to work closely with the hundreds of MassChallenge mentors and judges who volunteer their time, effort and advice to help the 125 MassChallenge startups grow.”

Linkage:

Find out more about MassChallenge here

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Going On A Cruise? Make Sure You Bring Along UCLA Startup Ship Mate

Ship Mate, a startup incubated at UCLA’s startup incubator program, wants to be your cruise companion. Over half a million people have already downloaded the app that gives you all the information that you need to know before, during and after your cruise.

Jan and Mike Jirout, the two brothers behind Ship Mate have stocked their app to the hilt. It’s literally a one stop mobile destination for everything involving a cruise.

They’ve found that most users are downloading the app about a month before their cruise sets sail. In the pre cruise period Ship Mate is great for checking out rendezvous points and finding activities to participate in while on the cruise. You can also plan out your dining and see in advance ship maps and other resources that you didn’t even think of.

When it’s time to board your cruise ship Ship Mate has ship maps, ship information and even access to deck cams so you can see the action going on around you. There’s also photo galleries and social aspects like cruise chat that will allow you to chat with other users on and off your ship.

The Ship Mate app doesn’t stop after the cruise stops though. You can add more photos to the photo galleries, rate your cruise experience, rate locations and continue chatting about your cruise with others who have gone on cruises. People seem to love Ship Mate as they’ve already done over half a billion cross platform downloads and they’re seeing over 70,000 daily users.

We got a chance to talk with Mike Jirout about Ship Mate, check out the interview below:

Maryland Startup: EasyWebContent Is Startup America’s 10,000th Member

We knew that the Startup America partnership was getting really close to it’s 10,000th member. We’ve been tracking that progress since the beginning and when the member counter hit 9700 last week we knew they were close.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, or are brand new to nibletz.com “the voice of startups everywhere else”, Startup America is an organization spearheaded by the Case Foundation and blessed with a billion dollars in funding from the federal government under the Obama administration.

Startup America has multiple benefits for entrepreneurs and startups. It’s free to join, and at the last count there were over 93 benefits to members, ranging from a pretty snazzy mileage perk on American Airlines, to substantial savings on Dell computers and a libraries worth of free e-books. All of the “perks” are related to starting a startup or resources a startup would need as they grow.

Startup America is very inline with the mission here at nibletz.com. In fact, Scott Case, the CEO of Startup America (and no relation to Steve Case), will be speaking at the upcoming “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference”.

As for their 10,000th member EasyWeb Content, they come from neighboring StartupMD. Founder Payman Taei explained to Startup America in a blog post, that they were running a web design business. What they found was that there were a lot of companies that wanted to get online but didn’t have the budget to do so.

There are a bunch of “DIY” website builders, for instance GoDaddy has a product called “Website Tonight” that allows users to create websites in minutes. But remember, at the core GoDaddy is a domain name registrant, and not a design firm.

With EasyWebContent’s background in design, they’ve built a tool that gives small business owners the ability to build their own, sharply designed websites and content.

Check out the video below with Taei who talks about Maryland and Startup America. Links below:

Linkage:

EasyWebContent is here

While you’re at it go here too

FedEx Announces $50,000 Startup/Small Business Competition

Nothing screams crazy startup entrepreneur like FedEx and Fred Smith. In fact business folklore says that when Smith wrote about his idea, that eventually became the largest logistics company in the world, for a paper at Yale he got a C. Think about how crazy the idea would be in the early 70’s to connect trucks and jets to deliver packages overnight.

In recent years FedEx has begun to pay homage to Smith’s entrepreneurial roots by opening up their own FedEx labs, and sponsoring the FedEx institute of Technology at the University of Memphis, among other things.

Now the company has followed in the foot steps of other companies like Pitney Bowes, and developed a small business (read: startups) contest.

Our good friend James Dowd at Startup Memphis reports that FedEx will award a total of 6 small businesses cash prizes totaling $50,000. There’s one $25,000 grand prize and the five other businesses will receive a $5,000 prize.

The business must have less than 100 employees and crowd voting will be done through Facebook. The voting started October 1st and runs through November 24th, and it’s not too late to enter. The winners will be announced in January.

“FedEx has long recognized that small businesses are incredibly vital to the health of both the global economy and local communities,” said T. Michael Glenn, executive vice president of Market Development at FedEx. “Providing these grants is yet another way for FedEx to show our support for small businesses as we continue to create programs to help give them a head start and access to new opportunities.”

Linkage:

Enter the contest here

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Silicon Valley Startup: Sooligan Moves To Arkansas To Help Strangers INTERVIEW

Startups flock in droves from their home city to Silicon Valley. It’s like the pilgrimage that actors and actresses make to Hollywood and models make to New York (some startups too). It’s not often that you hear of a startup moving from Silicon Valley to “everywhere else” to grow.

Back in June we brought you the story of the vitamin and supplement subscription box startup, Bulu Box. The husband and wife team behind Bulu Box moved from Silicon Valley to Lincoln Nebraska to grow their startup. Paul and Stephanie Jarrett were able to get an investment from the Nebraska Angels. They decided to pack things up and move to Nebraska, not only because of the investment but because costs would be more manageable there.

Today we’ve found Sooligan. Sooligan is a social discovery startup for the things around you. The idea behind the startup is that whether you’re traveling to a new city or your’re moving their, you can use Sooligan to crowdsource expert advice from the best experts, the locals.

Sooligan has rolled a few concepts into one big idea. They submitted the idea to the Ark Challenge accelerator in Fayetteville Arkansas and we’re accepted.

The two female founders from Sooligan, Nikka Umil and Natasha Malaihollo have relocated their headquarters to Fayetteville and plan on staying there after the accelerator program is over. Umil told nibletz.com why they decided to relocate to Arkansas and then stay there:

“I think everyone already knows about Berkeley! It is minutes away from Silicon Valley, and is a hub for the country’s best and brightest. This makes moving to Fayetteville, Arkansas (where we are currently based) quite shocking and a bit unexpected. We had NO clue whatsoever that this place had a booming startup scene/culture. We were very surprised by what we found once we started researching the area. Not ony is it home to the biggest Forbes 500 and 1000 companies, but it is also home to great up-and-coming startups like TTAGG, MobileFWD, Acumen Brands and more. Initiatives like the Ark Challenge and The Iceberg are also testaments to the growing startup culture in the area.”

Umil found a laundry list of accolades for their new home:

· Forbes named Fayetteville, Arkansas, a Best Place for Businesses and Careers.

· Fast Company recently named Fayetteville, AR as one of the “9 cities you wouldn’t think are hubs for tech startups” http://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/224504

· Travel + Leisure named Bentonville, Arkansas, one of the hottest travel destinations for 2012.

· The region, relatively insulated from the macroeconomy, offers a high quality of life and low cost of living.

· Northwest Arkansas is home to Fortune 500 and 1000 companies, as well as thousands of their big-brand suppliers.

· In 2011, Arkansas was cited by CNBC as having the lowest overall cost of doing business in the nation.

· The Kauffman Foundation ranks Arkansas as the 15th most entrepreneurial state in 2011 in the current issue of its annual report, the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity. The calculated index for Arkansas is at 0.34%, which means there are 340 entrepreneurs per 100,000 adults per month in the Natural State.

· The nation is seeing progress, innovation clusters and cultural revival in the Midwest and American South.

· Northwest Arkansas is the sixth fastest growing region in the country, surrounded by the beautiful Ozark Mountains.

· The Northwest Arkansas MSA has grown 35% since 2000 and now numbers more than 463,000 residents—the fastest growing population in Middle America.

· Northwest Arkansas is a hub at the center of a regional market including Dallas, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Kansas City, St. Louis, Little Rock, and Memphis metropolitan areas.

· Northwest Arkansas has a welcoming entrepreneurial culture with quick-start networking opportunities.

· Northwest Arkansas sees a high degree of philanthropic engagement from its citizenry, as well as creative and business communities.

· Northwest Arkansas has the most billionaires per capita than anywhere in the United States.

· As part of a regional strategic economic development plan, Northwest Arkansas has an intentional focus onnurturing mobile and Internet startups.

Below is the rest of our interview with Umil.

Florida Startup: Moasis, Geo Local Mobile Targeted Advertising INTERVIEW

It seems like local mobile is all the rage these days. We’ve run so many stories about social, local, mobile (SoLoMo) startups lately. Another industry that’s taking advantage of local and mobile is advertising. That’s what West Palm Beach startup Moasis is doing for advertisers. In a nutshell they’ve setup a very targeted hyper local geo-fenced platform for advertising.

There are huge benefits to geo-fenced advertising. Of course adwords has the ability for advertisers to drill down and purchase local clicks, but the benefits to doing it mobile are ten fold.

Anyone who’s read Nibletz, the voice of startups everywhere else, for any amount of time knows that we’re on the sneaker strapped nationwide startup roadtrip which means we travel a lot. There are so many instances where we’ve done internet searches on the phone to find something close by, be it a pizza place, drug store, Best Buy, or other store, the mobile device is quickly becoming the place for search.

The father and son team of Steve and Ryan Golden along with Jason Mascari founded Moasis to take advantage of the endless possibilities that come from the power of delivering targeted local ads to the mobile device.

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

Cincinnati Startup REPP’s Brandery Demo Day Pitch VIDEO

The Brandery, Cincinnati’s branding and marketing tech startup accelerator, held demo day on Wednesday at the Great American Ball Park. They showed off 11 new graduate startups to a packed house of nearly 400.

REPP was one of the startups we actually missed on our last trip to Cincinnati at the end of June. What we saw, was a team that knew how to dress in some awesome hot pink pants. After getting over their keen sense of fashion, REPP is actually a great new spin on a variety of old ideas rolled into one.

Have you ever met a girl that you tried to date, but a year to make love she wanted you to wait… oh wait that’s a song lyric. Have you ever met a girl that you tried to date and after she stood you up you found out she “pre date stalked you”? Well that’s exactly what happen to REPP founder Michael Bergman, when he actually met his now wife. Luckily for Bergman he’s got a pretty popular name. In fact, Chris Bergman, the founder of Chore Monster (which is a previous graduate of The Brandery) isn’t even related to Michael.

So sure we internet stalk everyone now. The first thing I do when I get a new business card or meet someone at a conference I find intriguing is go right to good ole Google. The problem with that in the dating world is that there is a lot of stuff out there that may be better suitable after a few dates.

Now take a situation at the complete other end of the spectrum. It’s time to sell your iPhone 4s on Craigslist. Now this is a hot item and you may want to know a little bit more about the man who just pulled up to a panel van and appears to be packing a pistol in his sweatshirt.

In both of these cases you want more information about someone. If you were the someone in question, with REPP at myrepp.com, you can control that flow of information.

REPP aggregates your social graph and can even integrate a background check into a profile that you can give people access to. You can also control how much information is given out in that profile.

You may want the ladies to know a little more information than the guy you’re buying the stolen Xbox from. Nonetheless both the Craigslist seller and the nice young lady would be more comfortable with more information about you.

So REPP is a background profile platform. With it’s wide variety of customizations and it’s great variety of information sources, REPP stands apart from anything else in it’s space. REPP costs $9.99 per month but for that you get a whole lot more than any other similar service. Also, the person that wants to meet you or wants to do business with you doesn’t have to foot the bill. To make that $9.99 an even better value proposition, REPP has a way to gift subscriptions of their service to other potential users.

Watch Bergman’s Demo Day pitch below. After you get over their hot pants, you’ll see why REPP won’t ruin your REPP.

Linkage:

Check out REPP here

Here’s more Brandery coverage

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Brandery Demo Day: Utah Startup CrowdHall PITCH VIDEO

We’ve really liked CrowHall even before we found out they were going to be part of the 2012 class at the Brandery. Their platform is a great way to let celebrities, public figures, politicians, bloggers and micro celebrities respond and interact with their following in a clean, branded manner that’s both organized and archivable.

The premise for the idea is great and they’ve been testing out the platform and in July they did a public test with “Bachelorette” winner Jef Holm. Holm sent out one tweet the day before the test saying that he would be taking questions on CrowdHall. He didn’t include a link to the site or the secret page that would hold his CrowdHall forum, but his fans were relentless, they went to the CrowdHall site, and founder the private page. The end result was that when Holm logged in for his CrowdHall session during the test he already had 29 questions waiting for him.

COO and co-founder Jordan Menzel pitched today at The Brandery’s Demo day at the Great American Ball Park. Menzel was decked out in a yellow t-shirt and cutoff shorts which they explained before the pitch was a “cost cutting measure”. While they have money committed they used all of the seed money working on validating their concept, and buying caffeine for their developer Nick.

The product looks great and hopefully it will be a household word in the 2016 election. Check out the pitch video below:

Linkage:

See what CrowdHall is all about here

Check out The Brandery Here

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New York Startup: Cheek’d Brings Back The Actual Calling Card For Romance

New York startup Cheek’d is bridging the online dating world with old school real world romance and bringing back the physical calling card. In an time where everyone knows the now infamous line:

“Hey I just met you, and this is crazy, here’s my number, call me maybe”

Lori Cheek and her innovative startup are bringing back traditional calling cards for people to hand out to people while at the gym, the club, the bar, a restaurant or even walking down the street. From the calling card the person given the card can engage with the person who handed out the card via the web portal.

The explosive hit by female pop sensation Carly Rae Jepsen actually brings back memories for the parents of the teeny boppers listening to the song ever so loudly in the car. In fact, even in my 30’s I remember jotting my number down on a piece of paper and giving it to a cute girl or two at the ice rink in the 8th grade.

Sure back then all we could do was leave a phone number. Now through Cheek’d you can create a profile online and point people to it via the Cheek’d card. Some singles have resorted to having their facebook profile links on their business card or personal cards. Some even jot their Facebook profile down on that slip of paper they hand to a potential love interest. We all know that Facebook may not be the place we want someone we’re interested in to check us out.

Cheek is actually an architect by trade and now she’s designing new architecture for the dating space. Check out our interview with her below: