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Grow Utah Changes To Grow America Wants To Create 5M US Jobs Through Startups

Utah entrepreneur Alan E. Hall is a very successful business man. He is the founder and chairman of MarketStar and many other Utah based businesses. Hall is also rather philanthropic but rather than taking the easy route to philanthropy and contributing to the same few causes every year, he prides himself on teaching people to fish.

You know the old saying “Give a man a fish and you feed him for the day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for life”. For the past six years through one way or another Hall has been teaching people to fish by investing in startups and entrepreneurs with a goal to create jobs. How many jobs? He hopes that through his newest effort Grow Utah,now known as Grow America, to add 5 million us jobs.

Thestandard.net says that Hall’s idea to start helping people came years ago when an acquaintance of his lost his job. That guy ended up working 3 part time jobs, accounting, working at a convenience store and delivering newspapers. Hall had one of his company supervisors hire that man and Hall personally funded the man’s salary until he was properly trained.

“And it dawned on me how many other people are unemployed or underemployed,” Hall says. “As a private citizen, I can give of my own wealth to inspire entrepreneurs to get up and running with their ideas, and jobs will be created. They will hire people.”

Grow America started out last year as Grow Utah. Hall kicked in $250,000 worth of awards and services that was divided between 9 startups. Grow America is working on one more session strictly based in Utah and then Hall plans to take the Grow America concept nationwide in April.

“The goal is to do everything we can, not just in Utah but around the country. In January, the prizes will be worth half a million dollars in cash and services.

Hall plans to grow and create 5 million US jobs within the next five years. For the nationwide rollout Grow America has enlisted corporate sponsors, Zion’s Bank, Comcast, Kunzler Law Group and the Utah Jazz.

Linkage:

For more info go here

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Xoogler Spotlight Interview With Boston Startup Price Intelligently

Although it may not seem like it, pricing products and services is one of the hardest things that a business owner has to do. They of course need to make money and make a profit but at the same time, it’s a scary thought to most that a bad price could leave product sitting on the shelves for an indefinite amount of time. There is a huge problem with the way prices are calculated these days, and that just shouldn’t be in the 21st century.

Former Boston based Googler (Xoogler) Patrick Campbell has set out to find a way to more accurately and more effectively price products. As he tells us in the interview below, until now business owners have relied on weak data, archaic practices and even “gut feelings” when it comes to pricing. Price Intelligently’s technology is built on a scientifically proven methodology that leverages existing and potential customers to determine a products price.

How important is pricing? Campbell tells us that a 1% improvement on price correlates to an average increase of profits of 12.5%.

Check out our interview with Campbell below:

Interview With Australian Startup: CheckinLine

CheckinLine is a new Australian startup that gives insight into data from checkins for engagement, promotion and insight. It works by virtually camping out for registered fans and gives access to promotions and engagements to those who deserve it most by way of a daily check-in.

The startup based in Melbourne claims that in their own case studies with their platform the average engagement level in 2011 was 69% which is well beyond the average engagement on any other platform. CheckinLine gives a more accurate picture to their clients because one check in equals one opinion. Their end research is more intimate than most, they liken it to having a one on one conversation with a companies most active customers.

CheckinLine seems to be a lot like SCVNGR where the user completes a task upon check-in rather than a blank check in without engagement. An engaged check-in is much more effective than a non-engaged check-in.

The company describes their camping out philosophy like this: “I’ll hold your place for you, but I need you to come back regularly to let me know you’re still interested. If not, I’ll reward more committed users”.

We got a chance to interview CheckinLine below:

Los Angeles Startup: Swagsy Turns The Swag Bag Into A Flash Sale Platform INTERVIEW

We’ve reported on a handful of good Los Angeles area startups that are leveraging the celebrity power in Los Angeles for their companies.

LA startup 12 Society is spearheaded by rapper Nas (Nasir Jones) and he’s called on many of his influential friends from the hip hop, music, sports and celebrity communities to launch a “birch box” subscription startup with gadgets, toys and cool tech stuff. The monthly subscription box is curated by the stars and quickly had everyone in Los Angeles talking.

We’ve also reported on MoonShark a mobile gaming startup that was built as a partnership between the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and Qualcomm. MoonShark leverages CAA’s roster of A-List celebrities to endorse, and build mobile gaming products with and around. Their latest project, Verticus is a collaboration between them and comic book icon Stan Lee.

Today we’re talking with Los Angeles startup Swagsy. This is a new online shopping and flash sales platform where the items that they are selling have been curated by a panel of “influential tastemakers”. Swagsy Co-Founder Grant Cohen, likens Swagsy to a flash sales site for things you would often times find in swag bags at A-list events. That’s also where the idea came from, as well as the name.

Swagsy’s curators recommend the type items from the top brands. From there Swagsy negotiates flash sale offers with the brands and manufacturers themselves, then their A-list tastemakers take to social media to help promote the brand, the item and the website.

No startup has tried to use celebrity power to back a flash sales model so far.

We got a chance to talk to Cohen in the interview below.

Houston Startup: GoodDeedsGlobal Hopes To Make A Difference

Self proclaimed “Modern Day Renaissance Man” and entrepreneur Corey S. Davis of Las Vegas has teamed up with co-founder Ken Melancon of Houston Texas to create a new social startup called GoodDeedsGlobal network. GoodDeedsGlobal is a cause driven social business that intends to help put money in the hands of those that need “good deeds”.

GoodDeedsGlobal has a request a good deed page which is designed for those with needs to contact the organization. It’s unclear as to what specifically constitutes a need but the site says it can be anything. So if you’re in need, go for it here.

Davis gave us this example of how the platform is designed to work:

“Maybe someone like a single mom who is really struggling to make ends meet and can’t afford to pay all the bills on a particular month, plus on top of that feed and take care of the kids and everything else. If she wrote into our site asking for something like $150 to maybe $300 dollars to help make it through the month and pay a few bills (maybe help to keep the lights on or something like that). Then what we would do is contact her back as soon as possible and verify her situation as best we can, and then simply help her out by fulfilling that request (essentially sending a money order for her to pick up in her local area and/or city)”

Davis says that the GoodDeedsGlobal network is designed to touch one person at a time and is a change agent to promote doing good deeds for each other. He is hopeful that people will use the GoodDeedsGlobal platform to “pay it forward”.

Davis equates it to the “Make A Wish Foundation” for people that are over 17 and not going through the hardship of a life threatening illness.

Perhaps our interview with Davis, below, will provide my clarity.

Following In Chattanooga’s Footsteps, Kansas City Wants To Be A Destination For Startups

Last year, Chattanooga Tennessee became the first city in the country to have a 1gb fiber network that was available to all businesses and residents within a 600 square mile area. The gb fiber is the backbone to the city’s new grid so the connections automatically go to every residence and business within the footprint. It’s up to the business owner or resident whether they want to also tap that line for data, tv and phone.

Earlier this summer, Kansas City, was the first city to receive commercial 1gb fiber available to it’s residents through Google. Google offers a great introductory offer including low cost high speed internet access, 1 tb of cloud based services and even a tablet.

When Chattanooga lit up their “gig” they started calling the city “The Gig City” and immediately ramped up their efforts to promote entrepreneurism and startups across the city. They did this by increasing promotion of co.lab a coworking space, incubator and accelerator in downtown Chattanooga and by launching the first three month accelerator based on high bandwidth, rightfully called the GigTank.

Now, with their one gigabit internet in tow Kansas City is hoping to spur innovation as well.

Last week Kansas City Mayor Sly James announced the new Launch KC initiative aimed at growing small businesses and startups in Kansas City rather than just focusing on luring big business. James said “We can build Kansas City into the place, theplace, for startups to call home.”

Kansas City is calling on partnerships with existing private sector businesses to provide startups and entrepreneurs with resources like free office space and mentoring. According to Kansas City Public Media, the city plans to kick in funds to offset equipment costs and build out wifi downtown.

This seems like a good start for Kansas City but from a municipal level we’re hopeful that this is just a start.

Linkage:

More Kansas City stories from nibletz.com

Source: KCUR.org

Startups “everywhere else” have you seen this yet?

Sports Fans Find Your Out Of Town Bar With Cleveland Startup: BackerBar

You see the tweets, Facebook mentions and Google+ messages all the time, someone in your timeline is out of town and wants to catch their favorite game at a team friendly bar. After all you don’t want to go into just any sports bar in Baltimore Maryland and ask to put on the Steeler’s game. Those special bars are what this Cleveland startup refers to as “BackerBar’s” which is where their name came from.

The team at BackerBar came up with this clever little definition:

backerbar: [n.] /ޖbakər/ bär/ – a bar that supports, or ‘backs’, a team foreign to the local market. Support can range from just a banner or two hanging up, or on game days packed wall to wall with fans wearing the teams’ jerseys…even the bartenders! Bar owners can choose to support a professional and/or college team. Examples include an Ohio State BackerBar in Chicago, Dallas Cowboys BackerBar in Los Angeles, or USC Trojans BackerBar in Boston. The combinations of teams/cities can be endless. We cover the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, as well as NCAA football and basketball.

As you can see if you’re a sports fan this is a very important startup. BackerBar has developed a gigantic database and interactive web based platform so that any traveling or transplanted sports fan can find out where their team’s “backer bar” is. They also told us in the interview below, that naturally a mobile app is in the works. No more worries about getting laughed, at made fun of or even injured for supporting your own team. You’ll find that special backer bar with BackerBar.

In the interview below BackerBar co-founder Michael Stratis talks about their startup and also building a startup in Cleveland which has become a town full of startups and innovation. In fact one of the biggest organizations that supports startups and entrepreneurs, Jumpstart Inc, is also based in Cleveland.

Check out the interview below:

Los Angeles Startup: Stan Lee Partners With Moon Shark For Mobile Games Startup

(photo uproxx.com)

Legendary comic book artist and creator Stan Lee has partnered with Moonshark for a new mobile gaming startup. We covered the launch of MoonShark in June, the joint venture startup between the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and Qualcomm. When MoonShark launched, they announced that they would draw from the long list of CAA clients to collaborate on mobile startups. This venture with Stan Lee is one of those collaborations.

The CAA roster includes hundreds of the most well known celebrities. At launch, MoonShark is working with movie star and recording artist Jennifer Lopez. MoonShark has released their first game, Dance Pad, in a partnership with Lopez. The game is a finger dancing game reminiscent of dance dance revolution, except instead of using your feet and other body parts, players use their fingers to tap to the music. The game packs over 100 levels featuring a soundtrack with over 30 top artists.

“Moonshark was formed to connect uniquely talented artists with the best independent mobile developers to bring amazing ideas to life as mobile games,” said Matt Kozlov, CEO of Moonshark. “Our mission is to keep the Moonshark pipeline full of creative, addictive titles and give talent the means to share their creativity with fans on cutting edge mobile platforms.”

Lee’s Pow! Entertainment is teaming up with MoonShark to create a new mobile action/adventure game called Verticus. Mobile continues to attract more and more celebrities and entertainers. According to VentureBeat, mobile could be the largest position in the entertainment market.

“Working closely with Moonshark to build characters and storylines for a mobile game has been a new and uniquely satisfying experience for me,” said Stan Lee, the founder, chairman and chief creative officer at Pow Entertainment. “Making Verticus is a new way for me to connect with my fans and reach a whole new group of people through their mobile devices.”

“For us, there is no one more legendary than Stan Lee,” said Matt Kozlov, the chief executive officer of Moonshark, in an interview with GamesBeat. “This is a man beloved by multiple generations, and he has created … I don’t know whether Walt Disney counts … probably the most successful characters of all time. It’s kind of insane.”

Verticus is just the beginning for Lee’s collaboration with MoonShark. They may do a sequel to Verticus or adapt other Stan Lee characters for future games.

Check out the trailer video below:

Linkage:

Swiss Startup: RightClearing Simplifies Right Clearing For Artists INTERVIEW

Most musicians want to do one thing and that is, play music. Some want to play bars and clubs, others want to play in bands and orchestras, and others want to record and sell their music. One of the issues that stands in the way of an artists creativity is clearing their rights to their music. After all they’ve created a song, they want to make sure they get credit for it.

That’s where Zurich Switzerland based startup, RightClearing, comes in. They’ve simplified and democratized the market for music licensing by providing the technological infrastructure for musicians and content users to sell and purchase licenses. The entire process from searching for songs to creating and paying for binding legal licenses has been automated. Independent artists and labels can now earn money with the usage rights to their music. Advertisers, filmmakers or private persons can license songs for their own use with only a few clicks.

When you think about copyrights and music you may not think to the Swiss however RightClearing is planning a global rollout and founder Philippe Perraux is convinced that they have a platform in place that will become a staple in any artists career. When Perraux graduated law school in 2001 he knew he wanted to continue working on copyright law. What he ran into was an old antiquated system that needed innovation. Now, 11 years later he has that system.

We got a chance to find out more about RightClearing in the interview below:

Florida Startup: EarlyShares Acquires HelpersUnite, Well, Early!

Crowdfunding has exploded onto the scene and it’s not entirely ready from a regulatory standpoint. Earlier this year the JOBSAct was passed and with that the SEC has been diligently (we hope) working on regulations that will allow the general public to invest in startups via crowdfunding, up to one million dollars. As soon as the JOBSAct looked like it was going to pass, shingles for crowdfunding startups went up everywhere.

One of our favorite startups in the crowdfunding space is EarlyShares. First off EarlyShares is based in Miami Florida so of course it’s an “everywhere else” startup. Secondly, CEO and founder Maurice Lopes has decided not to sit on his ass and wait out the SEC, which could go into the early part of this year. While most of the crowdfunding startups loaded up a back end, and a launch rock page they’ve, for the most part been waiting.

Lopes has actually been proactive about promoting EarlyShares, but moreso promoting the entire concept of crowdfunding. He’s in the midst of a nationwide road tour, offering free workshops about exactly what crowdfunding is, how to do it and the ramifications of it. We’ve seen Lopes in Chicago at TechWeek and in Memphis for one of his road trip work shops(we like road trippers). Getting in the trenches with other entrepreneurs and startups is definitely going to work to Lopes’ advantage when it comes time to officially startup crowdfunding.

Apparently while Lopes and EarlyShares have been on the road they’ve also been very busy. They announced earlier this month that they had acquired HelpersUnite. HelpersUnite is a crowdfunding portal dedicated to artistic and cause related projects. This is a milestone in the crowdfunding industry as it’s the first reported acquisition and it comes before crowdfunding for equity has officially been released.

The year old HelpersUnite is the world’s first platform to combine artistic creativity, entrepreneurial crowdfunding and event ticket sales, with charitable giving. It raises money, increases awareness, and generates an audience for special events all at once in one place. To date, HelpersUnite has assisted more than a 100 artists and entrepreneurs in funding their dream projects while also providing access to more than 1,000,000 U.S.-based charities.

“We investigated several potential partners and HelpersUnite was by far the best,” said EarlyShares co-Founder and CEO, Maurice Lopes. “HelpersUnite was attractive, because we wanted to be able to operate in the crowdfunding space, while the SEC writes the rules governing Equity Based Crowdfunding.” Lopes continued “Through this acquisition, EarlyShares will expand its capabilities and continue the great work done by HelpersUnite,”

Linkage:

Check out EarlyShares here

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Indiana Startup: CoatChex Turns Down $200,000 From Fellow IU Alum Mark Cuban To Kick Off Season 4 Of Shark Tank

Derek Pacque co-founder and CEO of CoatChex (photo: Ibj.com)

Indiana University Kelley School Of Business graduate Derek Pacque’ took his startup CoatChex in front of fellow Indiana University alum and ABC Shark Tank Shark (and Dallas Maverick’s Owner) Mark Cuban on the season premiere of Shark Tank Friday evening.

Pacque’ has a great concept. CoatChex is a system that uses pictures to match customers up with coat checked items. His current technology is boxed up in a device that’s about the size of a Verbatim credit card reader. Now, instead of using an old fashioned ticket redemption system for coat check, it’s done with technology where pictures of someone’s face are tied to their items. It’s safer, greener and easier to use.

Pacque’ explained that CoatChex isn’t just about coat checks though, it’s about any “bailment” system. Bailment is when you charge someone else with taking care of your stuff, like coat checks, valet parking,dry cleaning, baggage holding services and other similar services. Pacque holds a patent on using technology for these bailment businesses.

The 2012 graduate hasn’t sold anything yet, which was of course a complete turn off to Kevin “Mr. Wonderful” O’Leary. In the beginning of the segment, Cuban didn’t seem very interested in the fact Pacque’ hadn’t sold anything yet. Cuban called Pacque’s idea “horrible” over five times.

It looked like things were going to turn around though after Pacque explained that CoatChex wasn’t just about coats. Pacque went into the Shark Tank looking for $200,000 for 10% equity in his company, valuing it at $2 million dollars. O’Leary and FUBU founder Daymond John were the quickest out. Barbara Corcoran didn’t get the concept at all and bailed.

Robert Herjavic and Cuban stayed in the longest but both were concerned about the value. Herjavic asked Pacque for a new offer and wasn’t pleased when the entrepreneur changed his valuation to $1.5 million dollars. Herjavic bailed.

Cuban was still in and made Pacque an offer for $200,000 for 33% of the business. That’s where some may think Pacque’ went wrong. Pacque made a call to his professor and business partner who told him to tell Cuban no. Pacque’ told Cuban no. PacQue’ countered with 20% for $200,000. Cuban quickly said no.

Before he walked away though he kept telling Cuban that he wanted more experience before he pitched again.

While there’s a lot of drama in Shark Tank after all it’s a Mark Burnett reality tv show, however based on Cuban’s history with companies that he likes and the entrepreneur’s he likes I wouldn’t be surprised if Cuban turns around and invested CoatChex down the road.

Linkage:

More Shark Tank Coverage from Nibletz

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Boulder: Foundry Group Closes Third Annual $225M Fund

The Foundry Group, the venture capital group founded by Startup Colorado Co-Chair and Techstars Co-Founder, Brad Feld has announced that they’ve just completed raising their third annual $225M Fund.

As our friends at PE Hub are quick to point out the fanfare around the announcement was exactly the same as the previous two years. That’s perfectly fine with us though as Feld and his team are extremely busy and just about everything that he does is focused around funding, promoting and pushing entrepreneurs and Startups, and a lot of them are “everywhere else”.

For instance, Feld still serves as a mentor at TechStars and several other accelerators that are part of the Global Accelerator Network.

As far as the fund itself goes it will continue to invest in US based Startups and technology focuse companies. They prefer to invest in themes that have long term growth strategies in place rather than looking for the next Instagram. They often provide follow on funding for Techstars graduates. For example, The Foundry Group invested $5 Million in Orbotix Series B Round. Orbotix was mentored by Feld at TechStars. They created the Sphero robotic ball that even President Obama is a fan of.

Other notable investments include Cheezburger, Urban Airship, FullContact and Zynga.

Linkage:

Check out Feld’s blog here

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Wait what’s This?

Baltimore Discovery Startup: Woofound Discovers Another Cool Mill

High profile Baltimore Startup WooFound has reportedly closed another 1 million dollar round of funding, bringing their total capital investment to $2.2 million. Not too shabby for a Baltimore startup in the discovery space,

WooFound is far from your run of the mill discovery application. That’s most likely the fuel behind the millions of dollars they’ve raised to date. Woofound matches your personality to things you want to do. Woofound was actually built in conjunction with psychoanalyst and psychotherapist Dr. Noreen Honeycutt from Baltimore Maryland. This personality engine coupled with a simple “me or not me” button at the end of the recommendation make the app more appealing and at the same time allow the app to teach itself in ways similar apps can not.

The Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) invested $75,000 in this latest $1 million dollar round. WooFound was one of 16 Startups to receive funding from TEDCO as part of the Maryland Technology Transfer And Commcialization Fund.

“We’re honored to receive this investment from TEDCO to help us further develop our Career Application,” says Co-CEO Dan Sines. “All of our backers have provided tremendous support, not just financially, and we are grateful for their commitment to Woofound.”

Linkage:

For more on WooFound visit them here

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New York Startup: Sonar Officially Goes Android

One of our favorite startups in New York is Sonar. It may have to do with the fact that Founder and CEO Brett Martin and I grew up in the same area, or it may just happen to be that Sonar is an amazing startup. We’ve covered Sonar since their finalist appearance at TechCrunch Disrtupt 2011 and then caught up with Martin for a pretty lengthy interview a year later at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC 2012.

During our interview back in June Martin told us off the record that they were really close to an Android app that he was happy with and feature packed. He promised us we’d see it before the end of the summer, and low and behold he made it.

If you’re not aware of Sonar, it’s a people discovery app that helps you find and organize your people locally. They added some great functionality to the app this year which helps folks automagically do some amazing things. For instance Martin explained that with the newest iteration of their iPhone (and now Android) app Martin checks in on Sonar after he gets off of the subway. When he passes the Sonar office for the coffee shop his co-workers are alerted and they can put together their coffee order for Martin without texting or calling. Pretty magnificent huh.

Of course it’s not all about coffee. Sonar comes in really handy when you’re at a conference or convention with colleagues. We use it all the time and through Sonar we can tell when our press colleagues are near by at events.

Android has been part of the plan since Sonar’s inception however Martin and the Sonar team wanted to make sure that the app was just right. They began beta testing it in the spring and our old site was part of that beta test.

On the news of the Android release into the Google Play store Martin told nibletz:

“Launching in Google Play is a huge milestone and an amazing opportunity, with the 500M total Android activations and 1.3M more that are added daily. Sonar is the best way to connect and share with friends and interesting people nearby. We combine proprietary and third-party data to give you the best, most relevant results. By launching in Google Play and localizing in so many new countries, we’re enabling a huge new audience to spend more time connecting with their friends face-to-face.”

Now if you’re an iPhone or an Android user you can experience Sonar.

Linkage:

Sonar in the Google Play store

More about Sonar here at their website

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