TechCrunch Disrupt Archives - Page 6 of 6

TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Interview With: Bar & Club Stats VIDEO

There’s no cutesie name name, no outrageously loud logo, no booth babes and no crazy animation talking about Bar & Club stats. It’s very straight forward and like a great name, their company name says exactly what they do. What a novel idea, Bar & Club Stats provides bar and club stats. It’s how they do it and exactly what they do with it that makes it cool.

Bar & Club Stats founder, Ben Silbert, said he started the business after finding most of the places he went to were really crowded. He developed an app and id scanner and then the back end piece which collects data.

Bar & Club stats is an app and id card reader that allows bouncers and door men to scan IDs. Fake IDs will not scan which makes it easier to weed out bad IDs and actually get rid of the offending person. Sometimes when someone presents a fake id they go into a temper tantrum yelling and screaming that their ID is real. After the ID is actually scanned the argument becomes a moot point.

As we reported earlier, the entry validation portion is just the beginning. Bar & Club stats take the data from the ID scans, anonymizes it and then analyzes it for the bar or club. This is invaluable information to a club owner. Were there more 18-21 year olds on Monday or Thursday? Did ladies night draw more men? Did our midtown club attract a slew of customers from Hoboken? All of this information is now available to the venue for marketing and business development.

While it’s not cute or quirky Bar & Club stats solves a problem for bars and clubs, well actually two. Check out their video interview here:

Arrington Is Back: Fireside Chat With Fred Wilson

Mike Arrington was back, looking right at home on the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC. As most of you know he was here last year for Disrupt NYC but after that things between he and AOL got a little shaky.

Last year Arrington appeared onstage with a TechCrunch Green t-shirt that read “unpaid blogger”. This year there was no special shirt, just Arrington in his best form. After being introduced by John Biggs as a guy who used to be Biggs’ boss he sat down to chat with Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson.

Arrington pointed out that every time he talked face to face with Wilson they were always in New York. Arrington went on to ask Wilson if he was extremely wealthy and if Wilson had rode into Disrupt on a helicopter. Wilson was quick to point out he walked a couple blocks and then grabbed a cab. He also pointed out that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg often takes the train.

As far as Wilson and his investments are concerned, Arrington immediately started in on him about Duck Duck Go a new search engine. In regards to Duck Duck Go, Arrington looked at Wilson and simply said “Why, I don’t understand”.

Wilson responded by saying that Duck Duck Go has 40-50% of the traffic of AOL search which is still a top 5 search engine in the world. Wilson is also enthusiastic about Duck Duck go because it was created by just one person. Concerns about privacy will also drive the popularity of Duck Duck Go because it’s a 100% private search engine.

When Arrington asked Wilson if Google should be worried about Duck Duck Go, Wilson said no pointing out that Duck Duck Go is fundamentally different. Where Google uses algorithms and key words, Duck Duck Go “leverages 100s of services that are domain experts, hit their API’s and assemble on the fly”.

Arrington admitted that he was not enthusiastic about Kickstarter at first but has since become one of biggest fans of the crowd sourced funding site. Union Square was the only venture capital firm to invest in Kickstarter. When Arrington asked Wilson why they invested, Wilson described Kickstarter as a “futures market for product”.

Arrington and Wilson rounded out their conversation talking about Wilson’s investments in Twitter and Zynga. Arrington of course said Wilson needs to get to San Francisco more.

Check out more of our Disrupt coverage here:

Austin Startup: Cyfeon To Kick Off Disrupt NY Battlefield

The first company presenting in today’s TechCrunch Disrupt startup Battlefield is an Austin based startup called Cyfeon.

Cyfeon has only been beta testing for two months. They are a very early stage, non-funded startup. They’ve created a tool called “Answer Factory” that lets any business pull data from anywhere, anytime in any format to get better answers to queries. Answer Factory is the answer for the headaches that can come from big data.

“Businesses are being overwhelmed with the amount of data they have to rely on to make decisions,” Cyfeon CEO Brandon Smith said. “And they are missing important information that might help drive better financial or operational performance. We’re convinced there is a market for technology that makes use of all available data to improve answer quality.”

The Answer Factory dashboard allows businesses to pull data from any source at any time. The data being pulled can be structured or unstructured and then unified using the Answer Factory platform. Businesses without huge IT departments can benefit from Cyfeon’s drag and drop solution.

“Data isn’t worth anything if it cannot be effectively used,” said Cyfeon CTO Chance Coble. “When we started developing Answer Factory, we knew there were tools out there to provide answers to database queries. But we didn’t see any product that effectively brings all that information together to deliver the best possible answer. We wanted to make big data a big benefit to businesses.”

Although Austin has a thriving tech scene and TechCrunch has held events at South By Southwest, Cyfeon is the first Austin startup in TechCrunch Disrupt’s five year history to be invited to participate in the highly coveted startup Battlefield.

Thirty startups will launch during the Battlefield competition but only one will go home with the $50,000 grand prize and the Disrupt Cup. The Disrupt Cup isn’t just about the money, previous winners of Disrupt Cup have secured millions in funding after winning the prize.

Judging this years Disrupt NYC Battlefield are: Michael Arrington (founder TechCrunch/Crunchfund), Roelof Botha (Sequoia Capital), Chi-Hua Chien (Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Beyers), Chris Dixon (co-founder Hunch), Marissa Mayer (VP Google), Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures).

Linkage:

Find out more about Cyfeon here

Check out our coverage of TechCrunch Disrupt NYC here

Check out TechCrunch’s coverage of Disrupt NYC here

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

Have A Startup Idea For The President, Or The Government? Better Get To Disrupt

If you have a startup idea for the President of the United States or the United States government you want to make sure you’re at TechCrunch Disrupt starting on Monday at Pier 94 in New York City. The nibletz team will be on hand to see a great panel featuring the President’s technology “gurus” US CTO Todd Park and US CIO Steven VanRoekel.

According to TechCrunch’s Gregory Ferenstein, Park and Van Roekel will not only be introducing attendees to new technological government initiatives but they’ll be looking for startups to partner with the White House as well as individuals who may want to take their tech career straight up the flag pole.

We can expect the nation’s top two technology leaders to talk about the government’s blue button initiative for universal access to health records, and it’s green button initiative centered around energy.

If you don’t have a Disrupt ticket yet, you can get one here. And of course if you’re a startup from “everywhere else” presenting, exhibiting or attending Disrupt NYC then make sure you’re on our schedule too by emailing disrupt@nibletz.com.

Source: TechCrunch

TechCrunch Disrupt NYC To Offer Design Office Hours On Stage

Next week we’ll be in New York covering the three day startup, entrepreneur and tech conference, TechCrunch Disrupt NYC. Just like last year we’ll be talking to all the great startups that present onstage for Battlefield and the ones in Startup Alley.

Although he was absent from the Crunchies amidst the TechCrunch/AOL drama, Mike Arrington will be back on stage hosting interviews and asking the tough questions to startups competing in the Battlefield.

Last fall Arrington left TechCrunch, the site he had founded, ultimately over concerns that AOL’s investment in Crunchfund, Arrington’s VC fund, sparked ethical questions and a conflict of interest (in some eyes). After the dust settled at TechCrunch earlier this year, Arrington welcomed the opportunity to come back and host this years Disrupt event.

Another highlight of this years Disrupt NYC is the new design office hours. Last year, Paul Graham, co-founder of Y-Combinator hosted office hours at Disrupt NYC. This year TechCrunch’s Kim-Mai Cutler reports that Graham will be at home in the valley playing daddy to his new baby.

This year’s office hours is focused on Design and includes Leland Rechis, (Director of mobile product at Etsy), Jamie Devine (head of user experience at AVOS), Jason Marrow (lead product designer at Betaworks), and Mimi Chum (design director at General Assembly).

If you’re interested in picking the brands of this design arsenal you can head over to TechCrunch Disrupt NYC website and complete this form. Those selected to participate will be announced at 11:55am sharp and must have a laptop, iPad, or phone to show the design.

We will have round the clock coverage of TechCrunch Disrupt on TDGN on Slacker & AOL radio as well as a ton of coverage here at nibletz.com of course focusing on startups from “everywhere else”.

Linkage:

TechCrunch Disrupt NYC page

Are you a startup from everywhere else that’s either presenting or attending email us here at disrupt@nibletz.com to get on our interview schedule.

Nibletz is the voice of everywhere else, check out these new stories

Nibletz & TDG Live At TCD With Ring Shuffle

With so many exhibitors at TechCrunch, each startup company had to do something different to set themselves apart from one another. One company gave free samples of chocolate covered bacon (yum!). Another startup gave away free socks. RingShuffle raffled off a free date. First of all,..what?! Second, what did a date have to do with RingShuffle? Thirdly, no I didn’t go on a date but the app is pretty awesome!

More after the break
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