What Do You Do When Your Startup Fails? Create Stuffed Meme’s Of Course

In April 2012 we reported on a great new startup in Minneapolis that was trying to change the way that people watched indie films. That startup, Altsie, was a great idea with a solid founder, Lucas Rayala. The idea worked like this: a movie go-er checks out the film online and purchases a ticket online. Then they attend the movie among new like-minded friends at a venue that also supports the indie movie circuit. Voila! An instant offline social mix.

While it was a great idea and picked up some traction, six months later they shut the startup down. When they shut it down though, Rayala went above and beyond, not for himself or his team but for other entrepreneurs. He first penned a piece about his failure that appeared on TechCrunch. Then he released what he called “The Altsie Report: Summary of a startup that didn’t quite work out”, giving out advice to fellow entrepreneurs that would listen to help them succeed. It’s a similar approach to what path.to just did this week when they shut down.

So now what’s Rayala up to?

He’s working on another startup that’s in strict stealth mode. In the meantime he’s doing something fun and exciting that may catch on more than he hopes. We know he wants to do another tech startup, but this new idea is sharp.

“Working with a talented group of artists, I created Mr. No and his Meme Friends, a gang of cartoon characters inspired by many of the internet’s most popular memes. Mr. No is my favorite character, so I’ve launched this Kickstarter to produce a Santa-themed Mr. No plush toy in time for the holidays. Mr. No is 8” tall and made of quality materials that meet or exceed all health and safety guidelines. If you skip down to the production details you’ll understand why I’m starting Christmas so early this year. ” Rayla said on his Kickstarter page.

Meme’s are a crazy popular phenomena this year and by Christmas time they’ll be even more popular. This may take off, but Rayala insists that his heart is in tech startups, and he and co-founder Joe Dolson are working hard on the next project. In the meantime go sign up for a stuffed meme.

Worried about startup failure? Go read the Altsie report.

How To Start A Small Business From Your Phone

Starting your own business is exciting, invigorating, and easier than ever. These days, if you have a smartphone and a Wi-Fi connection, you can plan a startup in catering, web design, or any other industry. First, you’ll need to come up with some essential information, then you can find comprehensive apps that will help you do the work.

Put On Your Thinking Cap

To start a small business of your own, you need a great idea. Ideally, you should do something that you love, even if you have to work at it. You also need to take a look at your competition. A brand new business in a saturated market really has to work for success and it doesn’t always happen.

Say you want nothing more than to start a mail order baking business. There are tons of similar businesses, but that doesn’t mean you can’t continue with your idea. You have to make it new, fresh and give it a twist or a gimmick, but make sure the gimmick works. Don’t do something to gain attention if it won’t work for the long haul.

Come Up with the Perfect Plan

What do you hope to accomplish with your business? After you polish your idea, you need to sit down and think about how you will define your business. Come up with short-term and long-term goals, as well as details such as size, expected volume of sales and your target market.

Your business plan isn’t just for you. It also needs to contain information about viability. You have to prove that you’ve researched the market. This is essential for attracting investors and business partners. To that end, your business plan should also outline how you intend to finance your business.

Explore Education Options

You have to educate yourself. If you already have a business degree or experience, you don’t necessarily have to take classes, but brushing up never hurts. You can also take classes that relate to your big idea, such as cake decorating classes, art classes or automotive classes.

There are things you need to learn as the person behind-the-scenes as well. Learning about tax information for small businesses is invaluable. You may also want to learn how to create marketing strategies, how to choose your operations people and what to do about insurance. That way you’ll also figure out if you need to seek professional help from outside sources.

Start Downloading ASAP

Once you have your plan in order, turn to your phone. With the right apps, you’ll find you can easily start and run your business right from your BlackBerry 10. Some of the most essential apps for small business owners include:

Mint.com: which helps you keep up with your investments, bank accounts and payments
Appointment-plus: which helps you keep track of appointments and sends out reminders to reduce your no-shows
GoPayment: an essential mobile payment app and built-in card reader that will allow you to accept money straight from your phone

With a good idea, business know-how and these apps, you’re guaranteed success. How has your phone helped you manage finances or business?

About the author

DJ Miller is a graduate student at the University of Tampa. He is an avid gadget geek who spends most his time writing on anything tech related. In his spare time he likes to travel, play soccer, and watch movies. You can follow him on twitter @MillerHeWrote

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iPhone image: imore.com

Jacksonville Startup Path.To Finds The Path.To Startup Failure, Shares Ways to Avoid It

“Failing gracefully.” That’s a topic that comes up a lot in the startup world. We are all too familiar with the failure rate of startups: depending on who you ask, 70-80% of startups fail. On Tuesday we found out that Jacksonville startup path.to will be shutting down on July 19th.

Almost a year ago we interviewed path.to’s CEO Darren Bounds after reporting the previous month that they had expanded their “e-harmony for jobs” startup to include Chicago, Boston, and NYC. For a while everything looked great for path.to. They were rewriting the boring old job search platform and making it more intuitive with algorithms and indepth profiles.

Not only that, but the team is incredible. We met most of them just a few months ago during Jacksonville’s OneSpark festival. A few of the Path.to team members were helping music discovery startup Aurora while others were helping social event tracking startup #eventhash. During the event, organizer Elton Rivas told us that the path.to team were very active in Jacksonville.

“Failing sucks – especially when it comes to your startup. It’s like being kicked hard in the shins right after being dumped, all while standing in the pouring rain with no cabs in sight, only to have a huge truck drive by and splash mud all over you,” path.to community manager Jill Felska wrote on the company’s blog.

What happens next for the team? Well naturally they’ll continue being innovators, entrepreneurs, and members of Jacksonville’s thriving statup scene. Specifically though, Fileska reports that many of the team will continue innovating in the hiring space and making it a happier space by working at Ignite, a job industry idea incubator also based in Jacksonville.

While the ride is officially over tomorrow, the path.to team shared these six valuable lessons they learned during the two years they were building path.to.

1) Don’t wait to solidify your monetization strategy.

“A ‘build it and they will come’ mentality has taken over the startup space. And yes, we were included in that camp. The problem is, it rarely works that way.

We started out with the strong belief that if we could build up a large, impressive user base, that the customers would follow. Unfortunately, we were wrong. We underestimated the amount of education that would be needed to sell our product – and then were very slow to give it the sales attention it really needed.

Monetization can’t be an afterthought when it comes to startups. Shiny products are great only if they’re solving a real problem that customers will pay for.” – Pete Cochrane, President

2) Technology alone isn’t the solution.

“When the product isn’t succeeding like you expect it to, working to make sure you are providing the core service to the customer is more important than continually adding features, optimizing site-speed, and conversion funnels. Perfecting the tech stuff is fun for some of us, but it is only worthwhile if it adds value to a service that people are finding useful.” – Charlie Cauthen, Technical Architect

3) Two-sided markets are a bitch.

“Building a two-sided market is hard. Really, really hard. If I had a do-over, I would start in just one or two key cities, then wouldn’t expand past them until we had built a strong community of both job seekers and businesses who saw value in our product. Becoming a go-to product or service in your launch city not only validates your idea, but also helps drive engagement in future cities.” – Jill Felska, Chief Community Officer

4) Build for the customers you already have.

“We spent a lot of our time trying to make Path.To better by adding new features, adjusting our pricing strategy and trying to make it available to as many people as possible. While important, it’s the existing customers that really matter. If you remember to focus and appreciate the users that you have, they’ll do the work of sending more people your way.” – Kristin Gattis, Path.To People Person

5) Team communication and trust is key.

“Communication is possibly your most important organizational asset. You can have the best team of engineers and designers in the world, but it means nothing if you can’t work together and solve problems. Poor communication drives down morale and can seed resentment that persists until the issue is resolved.

Learning to surface and resolve issues quickly was one of the most important lessons we learned throughout this process. While we could not identify and resolve every problem, creating an environment of open communication and feedback was crucial.

Just as you have processes to monitor the health of your product and servers, someone in your organization should also to pay attention to the the human aspect of the product.” – Joey Marchy, Project Manager

6) Test, test, test…and then learn to let go.

“The biggest thing I learned throughout the process is to test your product’s efficacy as often as possible. Constantly ask yourself whether you’re really solving someone’s problem at the core or if you’re just making current processes slightly better. Accepting that something isn’t working and changing course is more important than getting it right the first time.” – Dennis Eusebio, UX/UI Designer

Hindsight certainly is 20/20 isn’t it? The funny thing is, these lessons aren’t breaking news. They’ve all been written about before.

The problem is that it’s hard to absorb them and look critically at your business when you’re in the trenches. When things are getting done and moving along everyday.

If our team was to challenge you to just one thing, it would be this: take a step back and really look at what you’re building. What advice from mentors, articles, and your customers could impact your business for the better today? It may just save you the trouble of closing your doors someday down the road. We truly hope it does.

OneSpark was one of the biggest startup events we’ve ever seen, check out our coverage here.

Employee #1 Monica Selby Gets It Done

Monica Selby, Nibletz, Managing Editor, startups, employee 1

Monica Selby (r) our Managing Editor and employee #1

You may have noticed that my grammar, spelling, and story flow have improved over the last two months.

First, thank you.

Second, that’s not by accident.

As an entrepreneur with two successful exits under my belt, I’ve always been a bit headstrong. I’ve also, for the most part, been a one man show. On my previous blog, we had writers, but no one above that or between me and the writers.

However, as Nibletz continued to grow I realized two things: I couldn’t do it all by myself, and people actually wanted to help me.

Most of you know Nick Tippmann joined me on the founding team late last year.

Well two months ago, we got our “employee #1.” This is a huge milestone and a celebration of any startup’s growth. For us though, we didn’t just got an employee #1. We got a bad ass startup chick, like a boss.

Monica Selby has been writing since the 2nd grade. She was the girl that was always writing stories and organizing writing clubs in middle school with her friends. Even while she was in the “real” work force, writing was always a passion for her, and 3-4 years ago she started looking at writing as a serious career path again.

I met Monica at the Upstart 48 Hour Launch in Memphis, where she had pitched her own startup. Unfortunately her startup wasn’t picked, but rather than go home, she spent the entire weekend helping Danielle Inez and Pink Robin Avenue. Inez won the 48 hour launch competition. Monica continued to stick with it, and with Inez, helping her with her Everywhere Else: The Startup Conference booth.

Monica stayed involved with LaunchMemphis (now Start Co), the organization and startup community in Memphis. She had first become aware of LaunchMemphis through her family friend (and our investor*) Patrick Woods. Monica originally thought Patrick was crazy when he asked her if she ever had business ideas of her own. As I prepared this story, Monica told me how she got involved:

Years ago Patrick encouraged me to let him know if I ever had a business idea. At the time, I had 3 kids under 5, so the last thing I was thinking about was starting a business. But, I got involved with some education stuff here in Memphis and had an idea for a education accelerator for teachers. So, Patrick put me in touch with Eric [Mathews, co-president of LaunchMemphis]. I very quickly learned that idea wouldn’t work in this particular educational climate, but I was hooked into the startup scene here in Memphis.

Monica’s title at Nibletz Media Inc is “Managing Editor.” But, like at any startup, that means she wears a ton of hats. She keeps our team organized; she makes sure Nick and I don’t kill each other; she works to grow her personal networks to help create new content and new content categories. Monica is also an integral part of planning next year’s Everywhere Else: The Startup Conference in Memphis and something else really big being announced next week.

On Monica’s personal blog she writes about issues important to her and her audience, including entrepreneurship, women in entrepreneurship, working women, and of course the coveted work-life balance. With 3 boys–a 7-year-old and 2 5-year-olds–that issue definitely hits home. Monica’s husband Austin is a high school teacher and cross country/track coach, which makes “normal” afternoons nonexistent in the Selby house.

Even with all this going on in her life, Monica is dedicated to Nibletz and the Nibletz mission, spending late nights and weekend hours working on ideas, compiling stories, and making new friends in the startup world. Monica has some exciting ideas she’ll be debuting soon, including a contributor network and several regular series. Make sure to check out her first investor spotlight with Carla Valdes.

So, we at Nibletz are excited to have Monica on board. Reach out and say hi through email (monica@nibletz.com) or on Twitter.

Meet Monica and the Nibletz team in person at this huge startup event.

Virginia Tech Turns Frat House Into Entrepreneur House For Next School Year

When Virginia Tech kicked Sigma Phi Epsilon out of their house and off their property last year, they weren’t sure what they were going to do with the mansion that housed the miscreant fraternity. Sure they could look at other fraternities or use it as housing for faculty and staff. However what the university decided to do was, well, innovative.

The Washington Post reports that Virginia Tech is looking for 35 male and female freshman with an entrepreneurial spirit. They are looking to start an innovative living and learning community that will force collisions between the creative and the entrepreneurial as they venture into college.

Nathan Latka, an entrepreneur who founded his startup Heyo out of the Virginia Tech dorms is involved in the new program. His dorm room startup is now a multi-million dollar social media company with clients like Lily Pulitzer and 16 employees. Latka told the Post that he sees the irony in million dollar startups coming from the same table where “party themes used to be hatched.”

The house “has got all the amenities built in,” Latka said. “It allows random ideation to happen at any moment. It increases the chances that two freshmen who would have never known each other from two disciplines to really collide and engage and ideate.”

This is a great start for the prestigious university that was struck by the worst school shooting tragedy in college history just six years ago.

Obviously technology is a big part of Virginia Tech already and connecting the techies with the creative and business savvy entrepreneurs can only be a recipe for success. Hayden Lee the president of Virginia Tech’s Entrepreneurs Club is worried that this may not be enough. Lee is hopeful that the house will include a designated hacking space, high tech gadgets, and flexible programming.

Latka believes that the house will attract 300 applications, draw $3 million dollars in investment, and create 30 jobs.

Does your startup have culture, should it?

Finding New York Success By Way Of Miami Living

By: Neilson Paty, Founder & Creative Director of Jetty Productions

Can sunshine and beaches improve your bottom line? At Jetty, we found the answer to be yes — and it’s a nugget of wisdom I try to pass along to my fellow entrepreneurs.

Technology start-ups are born in the minds of the founders, but that idea can incubate anywhere — a coffee shop, a home office, even a garage. As every entrepreneur knows, these ideas can come out of nowhere and spring to life at unexpected times; sometimes, proof-of-concept arrives lightning fast while other times it might take months or years of massaging an idea into a workable model. Whatever the case, the one sure thing that an entrepreneur can count on is this: every single penny counts along the way.

For entrepreneurs, your life is your business. Personal and professional time meld into one, and don’t forget about finances. Suddenly, things you take for granted at a corporate job — such as ergonomic chairs and endless supplies of pens — become a tangible expense. The old adage of “a penny saved is a penny earned” becomes magnified.

Today’s start-ups are lucky in that they were born into the technology age. Not only do we develop ideas for the Internet, the Internet allows us to work on these ideas anywhere because of its immense communication and collaboration abilities. Necessities like office space, supplies, and cost-of-living are still hovering over the bottom line, even in the best of circumstances. That’s the bad news. The good news is that we’re not necessarily tied to geography, and that allows entrepreneurs to think outside the box — or in my case, think outside of New York City.

In 2006, I founded Jetty Productions in the skyscrapers and bustling streets of New York City. As a digital content creation company, it was the ideal place to situate our blend of creative and technical. Focusing on premium video content, we worked with many of the best companies in the business. In early 2009, everyone had to tighten their wallets, no matter what the situation. With that in mind, the door opened to a new possibility — and with technology powering cloud services, smartphones, and other accessibility tools, it made sense to leave the Big Apple and take root in Miami. By that time, Miami’s beautiful Brickell neighborhood had a startling vacancy level; it was easy to find office and living space at rates that would make even the most die-hard NYC dweller drool. It also helped that Florida has no state or city tax on personal income.

The savings easily trickled down to the way I could put money into my business. This kicked open the door to a level of flexibility in what we charge, what we take on, and our resources. We can scale up or down as needed, and the annual savings compounds itself into our client base and bottom line. Jetty’s revenue increased significantly these last few years, and things are on track to continue. I truly believe that Jetty’s move to Miami has directly impacted our success. Because of our always-on connectivity, we still easily integrate within any agency anywhere in the world, including our many clients in NYC.

When I talk with entrepreneurs these days, I always stress two things: first, start your business where you can achieve a strong foundation of customers, and second, once your foundation is solid, move to a place where it’s easier to grow. For Jetty, that was Miami — for you, that could be anywhere in the world that supports your logistical and financial needs. It’s been four years since I left the skyscrapers and traffic of New York City, and our business has never been stronger.

About Neilson Paty

Neilson is the founder & Creative Director at Jetty Productions, a place for brands and agencies to create short form premium video content. Neilson is known for leading eye popping content driven campaigns steered by an analytical and user engaging approach. Jetty Productions has a client roster to include over 50 companies, creating thousands of videos viewed and shared millions of times via broadcast, film, web, & mobile.

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Montreal Startup Gets Sobersmart About Drunk Driving, Wins Grandma’s Award

Drunk driving is a serious problem. Over the past five years or so, various companies have been able to put breathalyzers in the hands of those drinking alcohol. People can even purchase retail breathalyzers as a fail-safe way to make sure they are “ok” to drive home and not impaired. In other cases the justice system hands out breathalyzers to those convicted of drunk driving. Often times those breathalyzers are tied into the cars ignition system to make sure the vehicle can not be driven if the driver is intoxicated.

A Montreal startup called Sobersmart has incorporated the use of a smartphone with a breathalyzer to make it even smarter. Sobersmart is part hardware in a fob-sized breathalyzer (pictured above) and part app readily available from the App Store. The app can function as a standalone without the breathalyzer component.

Together the system has three modes: parents/kid, driver, and taxi:

-PARENTS / KID: In a parent / kid setup, the kids use Sobersmart wherever they are before driving and the parent app gets a notification and a variety of options for their safe return. You can even get your car’s location if you have to pick it up later!

-DRIVER: The driver setup is the classic breathalyzer mode. It measures your blood alcohol level and provide you with alternatives to get back home safely if it’s elevated.

-TAXI: Under the TAXI configuration, a taxi driver is hailed automatically by the Sobersmart app. It accepts payments straight through the app, draws funds from the prepaid taxi account, or allows a parent or friend to sponsor a cab ride if someone is short on cash after a long night.

Sobersmart is currently crowdfunding $75,000 for their first production run. The team has already won several accolades including winning “The Grandmother Judges Panel” at the International Startup Festival. They also ranked top 3 overall at the ISF.

Check out their crowdfunding link here and for more information visit their website here.

Here are three ways to improve your startup pitch from a founder who’s raised $1 million dollars.

Google’s Maker Camp Brings The Maker Movement to Teens Everywhere

Summer camp is an iconic American tradition. Even if you’ve never actually been to summer camp, you know the images: lakes, ropes courses, capture the flag, and campfires.

Oh, and arts and crafts, of course.

For the second year in a row, Google is bringing the summer camp arts and crafts experience online with Maker Camp.

Don’t be fooled, though. This is the 21st century, and we’re talking about Google. You won’t see any macaroni birdhouses. Instead, Google has partnered with MAKE Magazine to bring a lineup of intense hands-on projects over a period of 30 days. Each morning, a new project is posted on the camp’s Google+ page, complete with materials needed and instructions. Each afternoon features a Google+ Hangout with a “maker” as well as tips and tricks on cool projects. The week caps off with Field Trip Friday, a video series going behind the scenes of some pretty cool spots. For example, the first week took visitors to Oracle Team USA’s basecamp, where they build the boats that race in the America’s Cup.

This year, each week has a theme. This week’s theme is “Create the Future” and features projects like a light up hoodie and learning to solder. The field trip on Friday will be to NASA, which promises to be pretty cool.

If you’re thinking some of this stuff would be hard to pull of at home, you’re right. In many areas there are “campsites” with counselors facilitating the program. Most of the projects are fairly simple, though, so if you’re in an area without a campsite, it’s still possible for teens to do them on their own. But, teens like to socialize, so they can also hop on the Google+ page to chat with other kids doing the same projects.

“Maker Camp hopes to foster the DIY (do-it-yourself) spirit in young people. We want each camper to see how much there is that you can do and how much there is to explore all around you. Once you begin doing things, you’ll meet others who share your interests, and you can collaborate to work on projects together. We call that DIT (do-it-together),” publisher of MAKE Magazine Dale Dougherty said in a blog post.

Last week I jumped on the Maker Camp website with my 3 boys. Now, at 7 & 5 they are definitely under the age range Google is targeting, and I am certainly not one of those handy moms skilled in any kind of crafts. But, we attempted the “balloon blimp” project anyway. (And by “we,” of course, I mean “I.” Unless you count chattering and jumping on the bed as the boys helping.)

The project was simple enough and the instructions pretty clear. We did need to plan ahead to get a certain kind of balloon and a certain kind of straw, though, which would be hard for a younger teen at home while parents worked. Ultimately, we didn’t really succeed in our project, but that was because my own kids were too impatient to let me try different solutions to make it work.

For the industrious teen, though, the projects at Maker Camp are easy enough to do alone, but challenging enough to require some problem-solving skills. The experience would be enhanced, of course, if they can do it with a group of some kind. Because everything’s more fun in a group.

This whole endeavor is a stroke of genius on Google’s part. They are contributing to the DIY nature of the next generation, which gives them great press. But, this year the program is also intimately wrapped up in the Google+ platform. Last year, more than 1 million campers tuned in, and this year they are hoping for even more. That’s a lot of interaction on the world’s 2nd most popular social network site.

Maker Camp is only 6 days in, so there’s still time for teens to jump in. Check it out on the website or at Google+.

Whoa! SXSW Is Next Month! Are You Ready?

Don’t worry. The entrepreneur’s spring break is still happening in Austin next March. The fine folks at SXSW didn’t change the date.

But we are excited about the newest SXSW event called SXSW V2V. This new SXSW festival in Las Vegas will run August 11th-14th at the luxurious Cosmopolitan Resort on the heart of the strip in Las Vegas.

While most people instinctively think Austin, March, bands, and startups when they hear the name, the the festival we all just call SXSW is actually 3 separate events all in one. The March event is the SXSW music festival, movie festival, and interactive festival. The interactive part is the “startup” one. Interactive and film run concurrently while music starts as Interactive ends.

SXSW also has SXSWeco, held in the fall in Austin, Texas, and SXSWedu which is the week before the main event in March. So that makes SXSW V2V the 6th event that SXSW produces, and this one is startup focused as well.

The theme surrounding SXSW V2V is “Vegas is For Entrepreneurs.” With that in mind two of the biggest promoters of building startups everywhere else, Tony Hsieh and Steve Case are the main keynote speakers. Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos and founder of the Downtown Project in Las Vegas, talks about the cultural impact of startups on August 12th at 2pm.

Case, the founder of AOL, Revolution, and the founding chairman of Startup America, will talk about starting up everywhere as well as business development and strategy.

SXSW has assembled over 140 recognizable entrepreneurial and startup speakers from across the country. Names we know here very wel like Speek’s CTO Danny Boice, a>m ventures Managing Partner Patrick Woods, oDesk CEO Gary Swart, TechCocktail CEO and Founder Frank Gruber and many more will all take part in mentor sessions, panel discussions, 20/20 vision discussions and more.

The entire event is happening at the Cosmopolitan, one of the newest and nicest hotel and casinos on the infamous strip and badges are still available at this link.

Tampa Startup Wants Fuse To Be Your One Social App

Ryan Negri, the founder of Negri Electronics and now a startup called Laicos, and Kyle Mathews, the co-founder of Laicos believe that everyone is “one social person” so they should only have one social app. They are hoping that app is Laicos’ first app, Fuse.

Fuse is a social aggregator of sorts that combines all of your popular social networks into one feed. Where platforms like Hootsuite allow a user to peruse multiple social feeds at one time through individual streams, Fuse, has one big stream for all social interactions. Right now Fuse will bring together Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn so that you can cross post, cross read and share all at the same time without having to open and close multiple apps.

Both entrepreneurs know that there are services, like Hootsuite described above, that do what they want to a degree, but Fuse is the only platform that views everything in one big feed.

Mathews is based in Tampa Florida while Negri is based in California. Neither co-founder is a stranger to working remotely. Negri talks about launching his successful electronics business in Wisconsin and then working remotely from California even after relocating that company to Nevada.

Negri’s electronics business specializes in mobile devices, and even imports some of the more high end “unlocked” devices from overseas his customers there are typically early adopters on all aspects of technology. That’s where Negri became so intrigued with solving this social problem, telling us he’s surprised no one has done it this way before. Fuse makes a lot of sense.

Check out our interview with Negri below and for more information check out Fuse’s website here.

What is your startup called?

Laicos

What does your company do?

Laicos was created to focus on social application development, mostly in the mobile app arena.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

The founders of Laicos are Ryan Negri (@ryannegri) and Kyle Matthews (@kylematthews)

Ryan is the founder of NegriElectronics.com. With over 40,000 unique and satisfied customers during more than seven years of operation, Negri Electronics has become a leader in the high end unlocked wireless industry. Before starting Negri Electronics, Ryan, our CEO, was just an avid fan of new technology, excited about the seemingly certain and infinite growth of mobile capabilities and intent on being the first to get his hands on the latest devices. Today, Ryan is still that same fan, and he offers a platform for others, like him, to get the very best wireless devices before anyone else in the world. In June of 2006, Negri Electronics began operations from an apartment in Northern Wisconsin as a distributor of high end unlocked wireless devices through a variety of third-party retail channels. It wasn’t long before the small business was overwhelmed by demand and faced with the opportunity to expand. Ryan leased his first office space, hired his first employee, and launched the first version of NegriElectronics.com. The business met the inevitable challenges each new business faces and overcame them because of Ryan’s dedication to his vision. He knew that an opportunity existed for a company that could offer exclusive devices with outstanding customer service if the price was right. The market was responding and Negri Electronics had expanded its team to five before Ryan made the decision to move from his Wisconsin roots to an area of the country that was closer to his customers and new suppliers and full of entrepreneurial energy. Ryan moved from Wisconsin to Southern California and ran the business remotely with the help of a loyal Wisconsin-based operations manager that had been with the business from the start. The business continued to grow by adding team members in finance and marketing roles, but as time passed, the advantages of operating a business in Nevada became apparent.Negri Electronics relocated its Wisconsin operation to a newly rented warehouse in Las Vegas, Nevada to take advantage of the lower costs of doing business and to make a positive impact in the Las Vegas community. Through local hiring efforts, the Nevada team added energetic and talented warehouse and customer service professionals and, within one year, the company outgrew its space once again. Today, Negri Electronics is a privately owned corporation headquartered in a nearly 6,000 square feet facility in Las Vegas, Nevada with an office in Southern California that houses administrative, finance, and marketing functions. The business offers nearly 5,000 products through a redesigned website and ships to over 190 different countries around the world. Ryan is still in touch with many of his first customers who count on him for his expertise, and they remain loyal customers and valued friends of Negri Electronics. The entire team is extremely proud of the progress to date and remain enthusiastic and optimistic about the possibilities ahead.

Kyle Matthews is the co-founder of ModMy, LLC. Their main website, ModMyi.com, is the largest iPhone customizing community on the internet, with over 850,000 members and over 1 million daily page views. Kyle has been involved in the modifying scene for over a decade, starting with Motorola phones just before the release of the Razr, and continuing this passion for do-it-yourself modifying of devices and software into the iPhone scene. When ModMyi launched in 2007 along with the release of the first iPhone, it was home to many of the first iOS developers in the world – long before Apple released an official SDK or App Store (remember the first year of iPhone had native apps only!). Cody Overcash, the other co-founder of ModMyi.com, created the first iPhone “theme” ever, starting the hugely popular iPhone theming community. Thousands of talented digital artists helped to grow ModMyi.com by creating beautiful third-party UIs and themes for Apple’s flagship device, which they continue to do. The ModMy sites began as purely a hobby, with both the founders having separate jobs. As the community grew, we experienced rapid growth and learned quite a bit about running large online communities, from best practices on management, to server tweaking and creating custom software to enhance the tools we were already using. ModMy quickly became a full time job for both Kyle and Cody, and has now expanded to include daughter companies like ModMedical, which creates iPad apps for medical device companies, and Brooks Motorsport Composites, which takes the customization mindset to the physical world in building custom carbon fiber aero solutions for race cars. Kyle is also very active in the non-profit world, as the co-founder and executive director of Because of Ezra. Because of Ezra was formed in 2011, after the 2010 loss of Kyle and his wife Robyn’s son, Ezra, to neuroblastoma, the most common cancer in infants. Ezra lived exactly 800 days. Neuroblastoma in stage 4 (the most commonly diagnosed staging) has only a 40% cure rate, and relapsed neuroblastoma has no current cure. Because of Ezra seeks to fill some of the large gaps in funding for neuroblastoma research. Since 2011 they’ve give over $130,000 to fund relevant, patient-affecting research into a cure. With a focus on creating exciting online projects with beautiful designs, Kyle has a large skill set relating to most web and mobile development and design projects.

Where are you based?

Tampa, FL, and Costa Mesa, CA.

What’s the startup scene like where you are based?

The Tampa startup scene is brand new, and rapidly growing. A burgeoning digital crew are beginning to pop up, and a host of medical companies also exist.

The Southern California Startup scene is rapidly expanding. With many new startups opening offices in Santa Monica, it’s slowing becoming “Silicon Beach”. We are excited to be a part. We have not yet tapped into the Vegas Startup Scene, but are excited to do so once we get a little more traction and Tony (Hsieh) starts replying to my requests to coordinate. Negri Electronics is based out of Las Vegas – a Tech Ecommerce site 7 years in the making – with similiar values as Zappos.

What problem do you solve?

With Fuse, our flagship product, we solve the problem of social presence fragmentation. Our tagline is “You’re one social person. Get one social app.” As you interact with the social networking world, we find people are increasingly maintaining multiple presences, requiring multiple apps to manage. Fuse brings together all your social networking in one beautiful, unified experience. Interact with your Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn contacts all at the same time. We have future plans to incorporate more networks as we grow.

Why now?

Managing your social presence is taking more and more time as multiple networks vie for your attention. A few solutions exist to interact with multiple networks, but they still fragment the experiences within the app. Fuse solves that issue.

What are some of the milestones your startup has already reached?

We’ve launched our first product, Fuse, in the App Store!

What are your next milestones?

Laicos’ next milestones are acquiring users. We’re also a month or so away from launching a major redesign, which better matches the flat design seen in iOS 7. An Android version of the app is also in the future musings.

Where can people find out more? Any social media links you want to share?

You can find out more about Fuse here, and by downloading the app on your iPhone from the iTunes store here.

Chicago Startups Raise $146 Million In Q2 2013

Wow! Builtinchicago.com has published their latest Digital Startup Report for Q2 2013. As expected the Chicago startup community has performed extremely well. 37 startups raised $146 million dollars in the second quarter of 2013.

If you’ve ever been to visit Chicago’s startup and technology scene you would see for yourself the creators, the innovators and the synergy that surrounds the third largest city in the United States. Two weeks ago we were in Chicago for Chicago TechWeek 2013 where over 100 different startups were showing off their stuff. In addition they hosted a job fair, where over 1000 engineers, developers and designers pined for jobs from over 100 Chicago based technology companies.

Chicago being a focal point for technology in the midwest is nothing new. Big Marker published this infographic in celebration of Chicago TechWeek highlighting some technology companies like CDW, Cars.com, and Groupon that have become household names.

In the second quarter of 2013 Chicago saw 26 new startups launched, 37 companies funded, and 4 exits to the beat of $396 million dollars.

These Chicago companies raised money in Q2 2013:

AvantCredit
Blitsy
Blue Health Intelligence
Care Team Connect
CareXtend
Civis Analytics
ClaraStream
Fandium
Fooda
GreenPSF
Healthation
Inventables
Narrative Science
Neohapsis
OptionsCity
Optyn
Pangea
Pervasive Health
Project Fixup
Purple Binder
Resultly
Rocketmiles
SimpleRelevance
SocialCrunch
Spare To Share
Supply Vision
Target Data
Total Attorneys
uBid Holdings
walkby
Whittl
Whoozat Inc
YCharts Inc
Purchasing Platform
Zipfit

These are the companies that made an exit in Q2

Textura (IPO)
Acquity Group (Acquired)
Spooky Cool Labs (Acquired)
Cartavi (Aquired)

Source: Builtinchicago.com

How Startup Funding Works In An Infographic

Everyone wants to know the secrets behind getting your startup funded. We receive hundreds of emails every week asking questions about funding. People really want to know how to get funded and what a startup needs to do to get funded. Access to capital and access to talent are still the most prevalent issues facing startups “everywhere else”.

The good folks over at funderandfounders.com have compiled a great infographic that takes a look at a hypothetical startup and the way they get funded.

The infographic chronicles the most common funding steps for startups that actually make it. We’re all too familiar with the statistics on startups failing. Taking a startup through idea stage, cofounder stage, family and friends, angel round, seed round, Series A, and then eventually (hopefully) IPO.

Of course there are a lot of startups that will fail, a lot of startups that will choose to bootstrap, and some startups that can go direct to revenue. Whatever your path, the infographic below is a fair representation of the funding process. The accompanying article at fundersandfounders explores each stage indepth.

source: Fundersandfounders.com

Now check out Billion Dollar Startups In A Beautiful Infographic.

500 Startups Is Looking For The Unsexiest Startups, Everywhere

500 Startups the name brand accelerator out in Silicon Valley, that takes great pains to bring cohorts together from around the world, is looking for the “unsexiest startups”. 500 Startups founder Dave McClure is a ninja, renegade and pirate and would take a martian founded startup if they had a good product, a good team and the possibility of growing with one of the best mentor networks in the universe. Now, that startup doesn’t even need to be sexy.

500 Startups knows that even unsexy startups, bring home the bacon. 500 Startup is hosting a conference specifically for those ugly startups, ok not ugly but “unsexy”.

“Even Silicon Valley, the mecca of innovation, sometimes misses the point. While everyone drools over “sexy” consumer verticals that often lack business models, some of the most high-growth, profit-wielding companies are incredibly underrated and overlooked.Covering SMB/Enterprise, financial services, communications, email, data, infrastructure, and more, unSEXY is a 1-day conference about tech startups and companies who are actually doing something incredibly sexy—they’re making money!” 500 startups wrote on their page for the event at unsexy.coTop speakers from some of the most successful unsexy startups in the world are tapped to speak at the one day conference happening August 9th in Mountain View. Isaac Saldana (SendGrid), Rashmi Sinha (SlideShare), Jeff Lawson (Twillio), Ken Gullicksen (Evernote), Doug Wormhoudt (Lovely), Patrick Collion (Stripe), Matt Tucker (Jive), and Kathryn Minshew (The Daily Muse) are all slated to speak at this first of it’s kind startup conference.They’ll be speaking on topics like:

GET UR BLING ON: Strategies for Marketing, Branding, & PR
MAKIN’ BACON: SaaS, Freemium, Subscription, & More
DESIGN THAT CONVERTS: UI & UX for the SMB/Enterprise
CUSTOMER ATTRACTION: Acquisition in Fragmented Markets
BABY GOT BACKEND: New Tools for HR, Finance, Operations, + more
SOFTWARE HEARTTHROB: Building Raving Fans in Non-Consumer Markets
SCALING WITHOUT FAILING: Solutions for Customer Service

and more.

You can register for Unsexy.co right here.

And this huge startup conference is specifically for startups everywhere else!

California Startup Launches Platform For Substance Abuse & Eating Disorder Providers

Substance abuse and eating disorders are two very important issues that aren’t discussed much here at Nibletz. But with the explosion of startups across the country, Los Angeles-based entrepreneur Michael Sigal wanted to attack those issues.

Bookyourcare.com is an online marketplace to find care provider from the comfort and privacy of your own home. They concentrate their service providers in areas of substance abuse, eating disorders, and other more sensitive health, medical, and mental health areas. Bookyourcare.com didn’t just use a directory API because Sigal thinks transparency and safety are two very important areas when it comes to health-related issues like these. That’s why they are curating all of their service providers in person to help build better profiles and ratings and make the end user experience easy for those looking for these types of services. Often times when seeking out treatment for substance abuse issues and eating disorders, emotions are running on high. That’s why it was important to make Bookyourcare.com as easy to use as possible and at the same time, as robust and knowledge filled as possible.

We got a chance to interview Sigal, check out the interview below:

What is your startup called?

My company is called BookYourCare.com. I wanted a name that precisely represented the service we’re providing to the consumer.

What does your company do?

BookYourCare is the first digital marketplace in the United States for healthcare. Our specific focus is on the huge and largely unregulated substance abuse and eating disorder treatment industry.

To accomplish this we’re bringing together the free market, transparency and consumerism to healthcare services.

We physically visit treatment facilities and execute a rigorous evaluation and analysis of what is provided and then share that unbiased information with our audience. Information is power and our goal is to supply the facts so people can make better informed choices in regards to a potentially life-saving decision and avoid questionable or unscrupulous facilities.

We’ve also included an online bidding and auction program to help keep costs down which works much the same way as someone bidding on a stay at the Four Seasons or an eBay auction.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

I, Michael Sigal, founded BookYourCare.com following my serving as the Senior Vice President of TMP Worldwide which was then the parent company of Monster.com. I have three partners with professional backgrounds in substance abuse, health and security industries.

Where are you based?

BookYourCare.com is based on Torrance, California.

What’s the startup scene like where you are based?

Los Angeles has always been known as a town where big dreams come true. There is an active community here for entrepreneurs to seek advice and workshop ideas. But given the nature of online startups I think it’s more about where you choose to live than it is about proximity to new audiences. That said, Los Angeles County has the highest percentage of treatment facilities in the nation so our work does have a “local” component.

What problem do you solve?

To date, people seeking substance abuse or eating disorder treatment had two avenues to explore in their research. They could search online where they were met by the marketing claims of the facilities themselves, sometimes untrue, or they could rely on word of mouth. Considering that in 2014 the industry is expecting to see $34 Billion in revenue I found it shocking that unbiased information was not made available, particularly to people who are typically in a highly emotional state and prone to the “hard sell” when they talk to the “closers” at many of these facilities.

The other component of BookYourCare is to help keep costs down for the consumer while also helping facilities increase occupancy. We’ve done this by implementing an online bidding and auction service. This allows consumers to set their own price and facilities to either accept or decline that price. Beyond the cost, patients also benefit as it’s been shown that more active group programs help with recovery. And because the traffic flow in treatment centers often comes in waves, should a facility find itself with a bed or two open it’s in their best interest to accept a reasonable bid.

Why now?

Substance abuse and eating disorders are skyrocketing yet as a country we seem to take an “Out of sight, Out of mind” approach to recovery. The treatment industry has seen revenue jumps of 55% since just 2005 and with the Affordable Care Act folding in substance abuse and mental health treatments we know the demand will increase. Our role is to meld the free market, transparency and consumerism and apply that to healthcare services. Our goal is to help people find wellness.

What are some of the milestones your startup has already reached?

We knew going in that what we are tackling was a time-consuming process. Physically visiting facilities and analyzing them in the way we do, which includes everything from programs offered and staff experience to facility security, past business records, licenses and more, this meant we couldn’t just flip a switch. We beta-launched to California consumers about 3 months ago with analysis provided on roughly 50 facilities. During this period we are testing functionality of the website as well as marketing and making adjustments before going to full launch. Our team is constantly analyzing new facilities with the goal of expanding our reach nationwide.

What are your next milestones?

The response of the treatment community has been overwhelmingly positive as has the response from consumers who recognize that we’re acting as an advocate for them. Our next step is the successful completion of our California beta at which time we’ll begin our national rollout. We’re confident this is a milestone we’ll reach.

Where can people find out more?

Website: http://www.bookyourcare.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BookYourCare

Twitter: @BookYourCare

500 Startups Alum, Spinnakr talks about the importance of building a foundation at home.