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Interview London Startup: ColourDNA Discovery Of Things In A New Way

If you’re a starutp pitching “discovery” these days you need to make sure you have something unique, fresh and disruptive. London based startup Colour DNA is one of those startups.

Colour DNA isn’t about the things your friends like, it’s about the things that you like.

Once you sign up for the service you pick a color that matches your personality or your favorite color (it’s colour because it’s the British spelling). From there you use an icon with your colour and a heart symbol to mark all the things that you love. Sounds simple so far right?

Then through their property algorithms, ColourDNA matches your likes with other likes across the network. All of these places, foods, events and things also get their own colour based on the spectrum of colours that everyone who loves them has used.

So now you get matched with the things you love and ColourDNA matches you with the people you have the most matches with. Then, ColourDNA takes the things those people love that you don’t love and matches you to those things as discoverables.

Now ColourDNA has helped you discover things and share your things with others. Pretty simple huh?

There’s a lot more to it then meets the eye. Ben Poynter, Co-Founder and CEO of ColourDNA told TechCrunch in an interview earlier this year:

“We are all about discovery new things to enjoy in life based on your interests.. and a few other factors like your favourite colours. We think the interest graph should be about making it easy to discover new things that you’ll love through personalisation, much like Facebook has made it easier for you to re-connecting with your friends.

“I think Pinterest has done a great job as a beautiful and intuitively designed curation tool. We are less a curation tool, and much more a discovery tool… A key feature for us is that a user doesn’t need to know anyone to get an immediately rewarding experience from their unique actions. We push you personalised recommendations by unlocking how your interest graph overlaps with other users, so that you can discover great new things that you would struggle to elsewhere without having to spend a considerable amount of time endlessly browsing.”

Once you download the app itself you’ll see how all of these different aspects of Colour are relevant in ColourDNA. Check out our video below as well:

Linkage:

Check out ColourDNA at their website here

Here’s more of our coverage of TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012

We’re on a sneaker-strapped, nationwide startup roadtrip, check it out here

Philly’s Novotorium And Seed Philly Announce Entrepreneur Summercamp

Philly’s startup scene is becoming hotter and hotter everyday. With incubators and accelerators like DreamIt Ventures, Novotorium and Seed Philly, it seems that nothing is holding back the city of brotherly love.

We reported on Novotorium back in April when they were bringing their second startup, Inhabi under their umbrella.

Now, both Novotorium and Seed Philly are teaming up to make it a summer to remember for startups in the Philly area. The two incubators are partnering to kick off the summer with an event called “The Infonautics Team and a Generation of Startups”. This event is getting a lot of play in the philly startup listserv and it looks like the whole city is behind it.

According to Mike Krupit of Novotorium, “The Infonautics Team and a Generation of Startups” will show how a dynamic entrepreneurial culture at one startup helped generate a stream of successful startups, ventures and careers.

“We’ve seen tremendous collaboration, innovation and camaraderie through the years by the people who were part of Infonautics,” Krupit said. “We are now experiencing a resurgence of the entrepreneurial community in Philadelphia, so the timing is excellent to help a new wave of entrepreneurs learn from pioneers and see how and how much we have already achieved in our region, and the possibilities for the future.”

Seed Philly founder; Brad Denenberg added: “There are so many great things happening in the entrepreneurial community throughout the Philadelphia region that we don’t always take time to look back, understand how we got here, and appreciate it,” Denenberg said. “By collaborating, Novotorium, Seed Philly and numerous successful entrepreneurs are aiming to bring focus to the power of entrepreneurship in Philadelphia and help build the overall community.”

More after the break
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5 Trending Angel List (Angel.co) Startups From Everywhere Else

Chances are if you read nibletz.com regularly, you are a startup, accelerator,incubator or angel from “everywhere else” just like us. So I’m sure you’ve probably noticed in your daily check to angel.co that all of the trending startups are almost always from Silicon Valley.

We’ve decided to highlight some of the trending startups from “everywhere else” that can be found on angel.co. So here’s our first list of five.

NetPlenish (Los Angeles)

NetPlenish is an innovative way to keep track of the things you regularly buy from the store, albeit razors, gatorade, coffee, socks, diapers etc. It hold all that information in a list for you in the cloud. NetPlenish then finds the best prices for everything on your list. This could be at K-Mart, WalMart, Target, Wahlgreen’s or which ever NetPlenish merchant partner has the best price.

Then, once a week you’re notified by NetPlenish either with a push notification or email, that they’ve done the research and found the best prices for the items you need. They get each item at the vendor with the best price and then voila in a few days your items are at your doorstep.

Talk about the king of convenience.

Find out more about NetPlenish here.

FormLabs, Boston

FormLabs in Boston is hoping to make 3D printers actually attainable. Right now companies like Makerbot and others have 3D printers that they can sell to you but they are often thousands of dollars.

The FormLabs 3D printer is going to be low-cost and print in 3D right out of the box.

Co-Founders Maxim Lobovsky and David Cranor are hiring right now and we’re hoping for a roll out soon because I want to start making action figures in my basement.

Find out more about Formlabs here

Mile High Organics, Boulder

We all know that Boulder has a thriving tech scene. In fact TechStars is based there and it’s like a little metropolis of all the next best ideas.

Mile High was recently featured in the Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch section as the Nation’s First USDA -Certified Organic Online Grocer.

Mile High Organics is America’s First Certified Organic Online Grocer. Members order online and receive convenient, scheduled home or office delivery of local, organic, non-GMO (non-genetically modified) produce, dairy, meat, seafood, groceries; health, home and beauty products. We have over 500 SKUs and growing.

Mile High is backed by Dave McClure and 500 startups.

If you’re into organic food, now you can order from Mile High, get your every day supplies from NetPlenish and never have to leave the house again, where we know you’re incubating that next big startup.

Israeli Startup: YouHoo Location Based Social Networking For Friends And Strangers

(photo: pcmag)

An Israeli startup called YouHoo was in the Israeli pavilion at startup alley at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012. They have a new spin on social networking, and in particular,location based or proximity based social networking.

As you’ll see in the video below, YouHoo takes your location and polls the people closest to you. It then turns around and shows them to you on your Android powered smartphone. Your actual friends are in pink, your mutual friends are in blue and strangers are in white.

Founder Ohad Assoulin talked to us for a while about his new social network and how he hopes to turn groups of strangers into groups of friends.

YouHoo would make a great icebreaker for trips to the beach, and other locations where a lot of young people are congregating.

Israel is becoming a hotspot for social networking startups, earlier this week we featured a 15 year old named Tal Hoffman from Israel and his new social network based on interests called iTimdi.

Take YouHoo for a spin, sign up for their beta below and watch the video:

Linkage:

More of our TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012 coverage here

We’re on a sneaker-strapped, nationwide startup road trip please check it out here

DC Startup Syllabuster Is A Life Saver For College Students: Capital Connection 2012 Interview Video

Syllabuster,Carlos Cheung,Minh Nguyen,Plaxo,DC Startup,Startup,Capital Connection,TechBUZZ,nibletz

Georgetown student Carlos Cheung pitches his startup "Syllabuster" at Capital Connection/TechBUZZ (photo: nibletz inc)

At Capital Connection 2012/TechBUZZ we got to hear Carlos Cheung pitch startup Syllabuster. During the pitch he kicked off his four minute pitch session immediately diving into the problem that Syllabuster solves.

College students party hard and study harder, but sometimes the partying takes over. Now Syllabuster isn’t just an app for partying college students, a lot of college students have busier lives now than they ever had in the past, and may ever have in the future.

Syllabuster is an innovative new academic management platform, designed by college students for college students. It has a user friendly UI and unlike other academic management apps a student actually designed it. Cheung is a student at Georgetown so you know that it’s solid.

We talk with Cheung came up with the idea of Syllabuster at Startup Weekend DC and was able to attract three rock star cofounders including co-founder and CEO Minh Nguyen who sold his startup Plaxo to Comcast for $150 million dollars. Brad Birdsall and Matt Gaidica also joined Syllabuster as co-founders. Birdsall and Gaidica’s startup Lander.com is being acquired by scan.com

Cheung is hoping to move Syllabuster to a public beta in the coming weeks and launch officially in the fall when students are preparing for yet another busy and hectic year. Syllabuster currently have a working prototype and a Launch Rock set up on their website for people to sign up for the beta, and for news about this innovative platform.

Here have some video:

Linkage:

Find out about Syllabuster and sign up for their beta here

More stories from Capital Connection 2012/TechBUZZ here

What’s this sneaker strapped, startup road trip? Find out here

Boston Startup: DailyFeats, Achieve Your Goals For Health & Well Being INTERVIEW

Sure everyone sets a New Years resolution and typically within a few weeks (if not shorter) the resolution is all but thrown out the window. You’re intentions may be great but the drive, and motivation isn’t there. The same can hold true when you set a goal, like losing weight to fit into a swim suit or quitting smoking.

Well a very cool startup in Boston called DailyFeats is here to help you stay on track, and motivate yourself to achieve your goals and it’s working.

DailyFeats is a reward based habit tracker. It takes your big goals like, quitting smoking and helps reduce them into smaller, more achievable goals, like baby steps. Maybe you need to decrease your cigarette intake or, cut back on the bars you go to where you tend to smoke more. Perhaps you need to eliminate a small stress trigger that signals you to smoke a cigarette. If you can achieve these smaller goals, you can ultimately conquer your bigger goals.

DailyFeats offers a two-fold reward system. The user can request what they’d like to receive for achieving their goal or they can earn points which can be converted to actual dollars and then donated to charity, essentially paying it forward.

DailyFeats was co-founder by two brothers Veer Gidwaney and Vinay Gidwaney along with their science advisor Meghan Searl.

We got a chance to talk with DailyFeats about the startup and how they can help people achieve their goals for health and well being.

Check out the interview, after the break
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Israeli Startup: iTimdi A Social Network For Interests Founded By A 15 Year Old

15 year old Tal Hoffman is the Israeli founder of new social network iTimdi

Last month we brought you the story of 15 year old Jackson Gariety who’s startup #hashtraffic debuted at Startup Weekend Portland.

Now we’ve got the story of another 15 year old entrepreneur, Tal Hoffmen thousand of miles away in Israel. In his own words he describes his startup as: “iTimdi is an interests based social network. That means it lets you both create new social connections based on your interests & keep your previous ones”.

This is actually Hoffman’s second startup. His first was a new media reviews site which he did “just for fun”.

We got a few minutes between classes, and building his startup to talk with Hoffman about an interest focused social network and how a 15 year old launches a startup.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Unfortunately, I’m the only founder, though I’m looking for one more technical co-founder. My name is Tal Hoffman, 15 y/o from Haifa, Israel. I’m a WEB programmer in PHP, and know a bit ASP & C sharp.

So you’re 15 years old? How does a 15 year old up and decide to start a social network?

Well, as a tech lover and programmer I thought about new ideas for new possible big websites. The fact I started to get bored of Facebook just accelerated all of this. At this point, I started to think about gaps Facebook and its competitors don’t cover and came up with this.

What do your parents think of this startup of yours?

My parents support my, though they aren’t really tech guys. The costs aren’t big so far, and the fact I do programming work for someone gives me some money to cover these little costs.

Is this your first startup?

This is my first startup, though I once built a reviews site from zero for fun matters.

So describe for our readers how an interest based social network works?

Well, interests based social network, specifically – iTimdi – lets you choose your interests.
Then, you’ll be able to post updates, share collections, create events, search for friends, etc on each interest’s page. This way, you’ll get the best opportunity to make new connections & manage them successfully.

You’re based in Israel, will itimdi come out in Israel first or are you targeting the US first?

Even though I’m based in Israel, iTimdi, from the very first day, targets to the international market, specifically, to the US. With Israel being the “startup nation”, it has some of the world’s best startups and entrepreneurship scene. The problem is that Israel is a very small country with only 7 million citizens. Therefore, iTimdi is targeted to the international community.

What problem does iTimdi solve?

Although the main social networks today provide their users ways to preserve their general connections, they don’t offer any efficient ways to get to know new ones. iTimdi does both due to a simple interface.

What is your secret sauce?

iTimdi’s secret sauce is the combination of meeting new friends, preserving old-general connections & customizable privacy preferences.

What other interests do you have outside of developing itimdi?

Besides programming I love rock music (including the best: RHCP, Eric Clapton & Led Zeppelin), drums (I’m a drummer…) and playing basketball.

What’s your plan for after high school?

My biggest plan is to keep being involved in iTimdi and making it to one of the biggest social websites players in the field.

What’s next for itimdi?

Hopefully, after releasing the Beta – release the final version to the public and work on making it the leader in helping people really manage great, interesting social life.

How can people find out more about you and itimdi?

At the official website: http://www.itimdi.com.
For any more questions feel free to email to contact@itimdi.com.

Linkage:

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” check out more stories from “everywhere else” here

We’re on a sneaker-strapped nationwide startup road trip, find out more about it here

Israeli Startup: Brayola All Bras Are Not Created Equally Video Interview

Here’s something you probably didn’t think I would say, I learned a lot about boobies at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012. Well, not so much boobies as bras. See as a dude, I’ve been wearing the same Starter brand ankle socks and Hanes brand boxers since high school (now a whopping 20 years), no not the same actual pairs but those are the brands I get. Women don’t have it quite as easy.

Now if you’ve ever been with the lady in your life on a trip to Victoria’s Secret you probably thought, man there are a lot of bras and panties in here. Well there are, but there are even more bras out in the world. How many? Well Brayola’s database of bras has over 5000 different bras in it.

I know, you’re probably thinking database of bras? Well Brayola founder Orit Hashay probably knows more about bras than Victoria herself. Hashay explained that she was in the mall in Israel looking for some really nice bras. She found two that she liked that were about $60 USD a piece, so she bought them. Well after wearing them a couple of times each they started to stretch and expand. She had to stop wearing these expensive bras. This got her frustrated.

Harshay didn’t understand why it had to be so hard to find bras. Well her startup Brayola, solves that problem.

In the video at the bottom of the post, she takes us on a step by step walk through of how Brayola works.

To summarize: A woman signs up for a free Brayola account. Once the account is established she enters in the brand, type and size of her favorite bras. Harshay is quick to point out that the user needs to enter the size of the bras not her bras size. As Harshay found out, all bras are not created equally. A 34D at Victoria’s Secret could be a totally different size at Fredericks of Hollywood, or any of the other hundred or more bras vendors out there.

Through data base information and crowd sourcing Harshay and Brayola have created a database that can account for different bras sizes and tell you what your size would be in another brand at another store, based on the size of your favorite bras.

There are several options for women and their bras and Brayola accounts for them all. It helps the woman select new bras based on her preferences. She can then store here favorite bras in her virtual door under categories for example sexy, sports bras, wire bras etc. You can choose to buy one at a time, or empty out your entire set of drawers.

When you’re ready to buy, Brayola takes you to the vendor that has that particular bras and voila, new bras on the way in the mail and you didn’t even need to get fitted.

Check out the video below. Harshay is very enthusiastic about Brayola and she knows a lot about bras. She taught me a lot today about bras (not boobies).

See more of our TechCrunch Disrupt coverage here

We’re on a sneaker strapped nationwide startup road trip, find out more here!

This Thursday: A Day Of Two Cases, Capital Connection & Tech Cocktail

Thursday (May 24) Is a day of two cases first Steve Case (L) then Scott Case (R) (not related)

This week on the nibletz startup road trip we will be in New York for Disrupt and DC for Capital Connection and an event with TechCocktail.

Capital Connection is a one and a half day convention/conference being held in Washington DC Wednesday May 23rd and Thursday May 24th. It’s one of the nation’s most respected industry conferences and showcases emerging, growing companies (startups).

“For 25 years, Capital Connection and now TechBUZZ, have brought together a high-powered cross section of the nation’s technology-based, high-growth ecosystem. Attendees include senior players from across the industry – investors across the continuum of capital, professional advisors, technology product and service firms, and, at the center of it all, innovative entrepreneurs.” source

The conference is divided into two tracks one on Wednesday afternoon and the other on Thursday. Wednesday afternoon is “TechBuzz” and features early stage startup companies. The TechBuzz companies will square off in a familiar quick pitch setting. Each company will have 4 minutes to present and two companies will present simultaneously, according to their website.

Later on Wednesday afternoon the best of the TechBuzz presenters will square off again in a “semi final” type round called “Best of the Buzz”.

The Capital Connection presentations involve early, expansion and growth companies that have been vigorously vetted prior to their presentation. During the application process, the companies presenting in the Capital Connection presentations are scrubbed for “the soundness of their financial model as well as the innovation and potential of their ideas”.

Over the 25 years of the Capital Connection conference it’s been a virtual who’s who of the best tech in the region has to offer.

The Thursday afternoon festivities will be capped with a keynote by AOL founder and Chairman and CEO of Revolution, Steve Case.

Later on Thursday evening we’ll move over to the TechCocktail sessions event with Startup America CEO and Priceline Founding CTO T. Scott Case. The other case (Scott) gives great, almost guy next door presentations on startups, the startup ecosystem and Startup America.

Thursday will be a fun filled day of two cases.

Linkage:

More on Capital Connection here (tickets still available)

NY Startup: Bar & Club Stats Presenting At TechCrunch Disrupt This Week

If you go to bars and clubs in the New York area and in the near future and have your license scanned by someone with an iPhone or iPod scanner, chances are they are using technology from New York Startup; Bar & Club stats.

The innovative new startup provides a two fold service to bar and club owners in their iPhone/iPod scanning app. The app allows bouncers and doormen to effectively check licenses and IDs. On the backend the app is providing anonymized demographic information that is analyzed and given back to the establishment in easy to understand data.

For example, a bar owner may find that Tuesday nights from 8pm-1am are great nights for women between the ages of 30 and 45, with that data they can offer better drink specials and promotions to attract more of that crowd. A club may also find out that on Thursday night, college night, they actually have a bunch of patrons who are in their late 20’s. Maybe changing college night to another night would work better for them.

This is just one of the many exciting startups presenting in either “Startup Alley” or the Disrupt Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC this week.

London Startup: Kebuki Is A Team Management Tool For Managers To Inspire

It’s been a while since I worked at Best Buy, but when I did during the very late 90’s and early part of the 2000s we used to have team meetings in the “hub” every day. Anyone who has worked at Best Buy probably remembers these meetings. Everyday as a department head and then sales lead we would go in the meeting with the team and have all the Best Buy notes, stock quotes, and store information.

Our regional manager at the time, now former Best Buy CEO, Brian Dunn, also had his stores add in key dates for employees, birthdays, maybe anniversaries or if we’d get reliable info about maybe a kids achievement at school, or maybe they just finished paying off their car. We would recognize that employee in that quick meeting. As silly as that sounds it made the employee feel good for the day and morale at our store was pretty good.

That kind of rubbed off during my radio career as well when I became “management”. Although I had much smaller teams, taking an employee out for a beer on their birthday when they had no idea you knew it was their birthday goes a long way.

This “soft” management style is the heart around London startup Kebuki. Kebuki is a team management mobile tool that can be managed on any web connected device, an iPad or iPhone. Basically you load a data set (that gets encrypted) into Kebuki consisting of employees name, position, salary and incentive package, husband, wife and kids names, personal anniversary dates and important work related dates revolving around the employee.

The app (platform) then puts all of these things in a timeline for the manager. The manager can then make public recognition for the employee via the company, or even through social media channels. According to research done by Kebuki and other management consultants, these little “pats on the back” go a long way.

Imagine how thrilled your employees will be that you remember their birthdays or when they call you to tell you their spouse is sick you can tell them you hope that their spouse feels better, by name.

But how do you really know? Well in addition to the team management platform Kebuki sends out an email to the employees on your team monthly, with one simple question, “On a scale of 0-10 how would you rate me as a manager”. This feedback is great for the manager, and it further reiterates that some “soft” management tactics can go a long way.

We got to talking with Charlie Cowan, the founder of Kebuki about his management inspiring startup, and why, despite the fact that Kebuki is based in the UK, they are launching in the US first.

Check out the interview, after the break
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Ohio Startup: Whotever, A New Social Website To Discover Whotever You Want

After South By Southwest in Austin Texas earlier this year, the last thing people want to hear about is a new “discovery” app or platform. It seems everyday another startup is launching to help discover people socially. Well this startup, based in Ohio, called Whotever is hoping to fix that problem.

As more and more social discovery sites pop up, actually using the web or your mobile to discover information on the things you actually want to know about gets harder in harder. Even with basic search engines like Google, the results you get today are much more polluted than the results of say a 2005 Google search.

That problem became evident to Timi Azeez and the other co-founders of Ohio based startup Whotever, 8 years ago. Azeez told nibletz.com:

“About 8 years ago, the three of us were in a heated debate and it prompted us to confirm our facts/findings on the internet. During the research online, we discovered that we could not find exactly the information we needed for our debate. Instead, we spent hours sifting through the data page by page defeating the purpose of the discussion. We realized the internet experience was more hectic than fun and this precluded us to start Whotever.com. It was the first step to improving the users’ experience on the internet.”

That’s the foundation for this new startup that they hope to launch later this year. We got a chance to talk a little more in-depth with Azeez about whatever.

More after the break
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Boston Startup: Wizgig, Crowdsourced & Expert Advice In 150 Characters Or Less

A new Boston area startup called Wizgig launched in March offering the wisdom of both experts and the crowd. The caveat, all of the wisdom comes in 150 characters or less. It’s like Twitter for wisdom with 10 more characters.

Wizgig co-founders Matt Murphy and Mark Boswell feel that by limiting the advice tips to 150 characters users will get right to the point, without the clutter. We’ve all been there, reading three and four page expert advice columns and finding that the meat and potatoes is no more than a few sentences.

The trick is going to see if the tips can be in intelligent, easy to understand language. We’re even guilty of shrinking some of our tweets down to hash tags, and internet lingo.

Here’s an example of a Wizgig tip, this one is on interviewing:

Prepare beforehand and research the company, the people, the culture, etc. Be prepared to match your skills and background to the company’s needs.

Here’s another on quitting smoking:

When you do your spring cleaning, make sure to get rid of all the ashtrays so they don’t remind you of smoking.

All of the topics are laid out in a nice looking design and easy to navigate. With 150 characters or less you can view many tips at the same time. This is what the teaching category looks like.

Although I tend to be modest about it, I often speak as a “twitter expert” at conventions and conferences. I think my use of Twitter since the very beginning is why I was so intrigued with Murphy’s pitch to nibletz. I got a chance to talk to Murphy about starting up Wizgig.

Check out the interview, after the break
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Foundry’s Jason Mendelson, Now Bullish On Michigan Startup Scene

The Michigan Growth Capital Symposium was held this past Tuesday and Wednesday in Ypsilanti. Xconomy’s Sarah Schmid reports that over 450 founders, entrepreneurs, VCs, and others in the Michigan startup community showed out for the event.

Among them was the managing director and co-founder of Foundry Group, Jason Mendelson who gave a keynote address entitled: “The Velocity of the Midwest Venture Capital Ecosystem: Sleeping Giants or Momentary Blips?”

During his speech he was very positive about the current startup scene in Michigan. Mendelson is no stranger to the state of Michigan. He was born in Detroit and graduated from the university of Michigan. While this weeks talk was all positive, it wasn’t always that way for Mendelson and his native state.

After graduating from law school at the University of Michigan, Mendelson wanted to stay in Michigan but he quickly found that the state, so deep rooted in the auto industry, didn’t care if someone had the next million dollar idea. At that time no one cared about anything except seniority.

So like any aspiring entrepreneur Mendelson made a pilgrimage to Silicon Valley, an experience he doesn’t speak to highly of.

Mendelson said that the competition in Silicon Valley was so harsh that the only pleasure in life came from relishing in others’ failure. Mendelson described Silicon Valley to Schmid as “toxic” ultimately causing him to leave in 2006 and head for Boulder Colorado.