StartupLand Sneak Preview And Panel At Everywhere Else Cincinnati September 30th

StartupLand, DC startups, The Fort, Fortify Ventures, Jonathon Perrelli

Justin Gutwein, the filmmaker and entrepreneur behind the documentary series StartupLand, will debut a limited edition special sneak preview to the attendees, startups, investors, and entrepreneurs at Everywhere Else Cincinnati.

The documentary series was filmed during the spring session of The Fort accelerator housed at Washington DC’s 1776. StartupLand takes a no-holds-barred look at the entire accelerator experience and then talks to the startup founders upon completion of the accelerator, shining a light on the ins and outs of the Fortify Ventures-backed startup accelerator.

The five teams that are chronicled in the series are:

LegCyte (DC) leverages technology to make legislation easier to understand. http://www.LegCyte.com

RidePost (DC) is an online marketplace connecting drivers and riders for safe & social ridesharing. http://www.RidePost.com

SnobSwap (DC and San Francisco) is an evolved marketplace where fashion lovers can swap, sell, or buy coveted pre-loved designer clothing and accessories. http://www.snobswap.com

TrendPo (San Francisco) analyzes the political world daily using news, sentiment, and social metrics. http://www.trendpo.com

The Trip Tribe (DC) has cracked the code on how travelers can have the experience of a lifetime. http://www.thetriptribe.com

Jonathon Perrelli, the Managing Director of Fortify Ventures and co-founder of The Fort, will be on hand at Everywhere Else Cincinnati. He and Gutwein will answer questions about the documentary, the process, and the accelerator.

StartupLand just completed a Kickstarter campaign to help with the costs of post production. Gutwein was looking to raise $75,000 for the documentary series and surpassed that goal by over $10,000.

You can see Justin Gutwein, Jonathon Perrelli, and some of the featured startup founders in a panel at Everywhere Else Cincinnati. Gutwein will also show a special  sneak preview of StartupLand during the conference. They hope to completely wrap up production later in the fall or in the early winter of 2013.

Get your ticket or startup village booth by clicking the banner below. For more information on StartupLand visit startupland.tv

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Startupland: The Movie, Chronicling Real Life In A Top Metropolitan (everywhere else) Accelerator

StartupLand, DC startups, Fortify.vc, The Fort, Jonathon Perrelli, startup movie

Justin Gutwein is a film maker and startup junkie who has combined his love of entrepreneurship and startups with his love of filmmaking with a little help from the most recent graduating class at Fortify.vc.

Gutwein has taken to Kickstarter to fund the post production and finishing costs of the Startupland documentary series. Startupland chronicles the lives of LegCyte, RidePost, SnobSwap, TrendPro, and TripTribe, who were all part of the spring cohort at Washington, DC’s “The Fort” accelerator, led by Jonathon Perrelli.

There have been a few spins on a “startup series.” Techstars did a series with Bloomberg that was great for entrepreneurs, but it looked more at the program and the program’s founders. Then there was that Randi Zuckerberg mess that didn’t really relate to any startup founders. What makes Startupland different, and necessary, is all the raw footage that Gutwein shot. None of it was scripted or orchestrated, aside from editing each episode for time, and to capture the story. It’s a real look at what an accelerator is like.

“JP [Jonathon Perelli] didn’t even want to be in the movie. He let me have full access to the startups and the program, but Startupland is about the startups and the stories are told by the startups themselves,” Gutwein told us in a phone interview.

Gutwein has a goal to have the post production done by the fall, just in time for–oh wait you’ll have to find out about that later this month!  To get there he’s looking to raise $75,000 on Kickstarter.  At the time this article was written, Gutwein had already had $25,000 pledged.

Startupland is going to be good for anyone involved in startups. For the beginner it will provide a good look into what it really takes to get into an accelerator program. For a startup in acceleration to seed or series A, it will show that every startup goes through similar issues. For the hardened veteran it will be both entertaining and educational.

Check out the rest of our interview with Gutwein below:

What is your startup called?

Startupland

What does your company do?

Startupland is a documentary series that weaves together the stories of five early stage companies in an accelerator together with interviews and advice from seasoned, veteran entrepreneurs.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

Justin Gutwein is the Producer / Director. He is the founder of ShineOn Storytelling and has produced numerous documentary projects including The Entrepreneurial Spirt and the video content for Creating Innovators.

Where are you based?

DC

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

It’s energized, growing and supportive…you’ll have to watch to find out the rest!

What problem are you hoping to solve by releasing Startup Land?

The vision is to inspire and educate entrepreneurs globally on the ins and outs, ups and downs, successes and failures of starting and building a company and provide an accelerator-like experience to those who may not have access to an accelerator.

Why now?

With new accelerators sprouting up all over the world, it seemed the right time to capture what happens at an experienced one to teach those that may not have access.

How much have you completed already?

Five companies have been documented going through an entire accelerator course. Hundreds of hours of footage have been shot. The storylines that will be the backbone of the series are being developed and fleshed out.

What are your next steps?

We are in the final stages of confirming some legends of tech and venture capital to be interviewed for the series. We are also working on developing graphics and animations to help breakdown some of the more complicated topics, like the ins and outs of cap tables, the many methods for leveraging stock as a currency and sourcing tech talent.

Where can people find out more?

Back StartupLand on Kickstarter here.  find out more at startupland.tv 

This is an absolute must attend startup conference for any startup everywhere else.

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Rawporter Roadshow: We Talk With Ric Fleisher about Urgnt.ly And The DC Startup Scene

As the Rawporter Roadshow continues we got a few minutes to sit down with serial entrepreneur Ric Fleisher about his latest startup urgent.ly.  Fleisher has had several successful exits and is proudly working on his current startup that came about out of necessity.

Fleisher found that as more and more location based service startups came out they were all focusing on what they believe people want. Urgnt.ly is a new kind of location based app that focuses on what people need.

As the story goes it was a Friday evening and Fleisher had just finished doing the dishes. Before he went to bed he set the dishwasher to run overnight. He was awakened Saturday morning by his son that told him there was water in the kitchen.  Fleisher got dressed and went downstairs expecting to find a puddle of water. Instead he found that his entire kitchen and surrounding areas in his home had been completely flooded by a dishwasher that was still spewing water.

More (including video) after the break
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DC Startup Profile: Next Game Because Nothing Is More Social Than Sports (Rawporter Roadshow)

We’re in the midst of the Rawporter Roadshow visiting with startups and checking out tech everywhere. While in DC we stopped at the Fort accelerator where we met with Next Game. NextGame thrives off the fact that nothing is more social than pick up sports. With Spring in full swing millions of people will be flocking to the local park, open fields, and gyms to participate in pickup sports and other activities, this is where Next Game fits in.

When you’re in grade school, high school and even college sports are a way of life for most people. They’re also a given all school levels have sanctioned sports, intramural sports and pick up games. When you’re living on a college campus you can look at your dorm room window and find a soccer game, frisbee golf, hacky sack, pickup basketball and more. Once you get out of college the drive and want to participate in pickup sports is still there but finding pick up sports or men’s or women’s leagues is for lack of a better word, a pain in the ass.

Often times, unless it’s a real established adult league, participating in sports is contingent on organization and follow through and no one seems to communicate well. NextGame handles that for you.

More with video after the break
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DC Start Up Venga Pivots To Add More Of The Restaurant In Their Restaurant App Business

Venga is a Washington DC start up that is part of The Fort accelerator based in the nation’s capital. When they came onto the scene they wanted to offer an app that was a little more upscale than Urban Spoon or Open Table. They were able to get their product launched and actually launched it simultaneously across iPhone, Android and Blackberry at the same time.

Restaurant apps have many avenues they can use to get off the ground. Although most avenues are very time consuming, the easiest way to a restaurant app is to draw from a location based API, crowd source reviews and voila. Well apparently that strategy didn’t set well with Sam von Pollaro or Winston Lord, the company’s founders. They actually went out to restaurants and got feedback for their app, what a novel idea.

More after the break
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