Washington DC Archives - Serious Startups

Handpressions Pulls a Beyonce, Debuts Next Hot Parents App

parents apps

I don’t ever do app reviews.

For one thing, I’m on Android, so all too often I can’t download the newest app in the first place. (This is changing rapidly, though.)

I also don’t review apps because that’s what the App Store reviews are for and because what matters to me may not matter to you.

I say all this to point out that the fact that I’m basically writing an app review shows how awesome this app is.

When Carla Valdes whispered to me about her upcoming app at Everywhere Else Cincinnati, it sounded pretty cool. The app would take a picture of your child’s hand and create a handprint from it. Then you could plug the handprint into a template and create artwork with it: prints, bags, t-shirts. Grandparents love that kind of stuff.

When Handpressions launched last week, though, I realized that I loved the app more than I thought I would.

I’m not really the crafty kind of mom (and any illusions of grandeur in that area ended when I became a founder), but the Handpressions app is actually perfect for me. I just plop my kids down, beg them to be still for 2 seconds, and snap a picture of their hand. Personally, at the moment, I skip all the artwork part, but I have a handprint–measured and stored–that perfectly records those little hands right now.

how to capture handprints

When I spoke with Carla on the phone, she was excited about the future of Handpressions, which she sees evolving into a memory collection platform. Gone will be the days of scouring through 95 pictures of the beach, hoping to get just the right one to plug into the scrapbook software. Right along with Handpressions’ hand and foot prints, you can record pictures, tag them with the date, and be done.

“It will be so much easier for parents to collect those memories,” she told me. And for those of you who are crazy enough to be starting up and raising kids (like me!), this ease of use will change your life.

So, does all this tie into Beyonce, you ask?

If you’ll remember, recently the pop star released an album overnight on iTunes, no marketing, no fanfare. Just boom, new Beyonce album. While plenty of startups operate in stealth for awhile, Carla’s closest colleagues were impressed with her ability to keep things quiet while she oversaw the app’s development.

“Carla mentioned that she was working on a project last spring. I had no inclination as to what it might be but knowing Carla, it was going to be good,” Washington DC consultant Ijeoma Nwatu told me. “Handpressions has been in the works for quite some time and it is now available to the public. Carla, similar to Beyonce, did not drum up initial press or hype her own project she just delivered, allowing her work and diligence to speak for itself. ”

And, like every visionary, when I talked to Carla after the release, she was already focused on the next step.

“We’re going to release more templates, login in with Facebook, sharing on social media so people can share their artwork…”

If you’re a parent, check out Handpressions and let Carla and the team know what you think.

Startupland Director Announces Vine Pitch Contest at Everywhere Else

There’s already a lot happening at Everywhere Else Cincinnati, and we’re not even through the first morning!

We’ve talked about the new Startupland documentary before. The new movie, set to premiere in February, chronicles the lives of startup founders going through The Fort accelerator in Washington, DC.

It’s been quite a summer for Justin Gutwein. He finished filming the movie, closed out a successful Kickstarter campaign, and is now wrapping up post-production on the documentary. His team has also grown, they’re adding a few new interviews to the documentary, and finalizing the tour schedule.

Most people would think that’s enough going on, but entrepreneurs know we’re never too busy for another great idea.

Today at Everywhere Else Cincinnati, Gutwein announced a first of its kind Vine Pitch Contest. It’s simple enough to enter. Just record an 8 second pitch on Vine and mention @startup_land and #VinePitch. At the end of the month, the Vine with the most (real) retweets will win an iPad.

“It’s a creative and fun way for us to engage our audience in a way that resonates them, it’s about sharing ideas, and having fun with them,” Gutwein told me. “We also know how important the pitch is for any entrepreneur in any industry – so thought that we would put a fun challenge together to see if people could put something effective and creative into less than eight seconds!”

And you thought an elevator pitch was hard!

For all the rules and official stuff, head over to the Startupland site. The first contest opens tomorrow, October 1, and closes on October 31.

Washington DC Tops Inc’s 500 List Of All Time

The Inc 500/5000 conference just wrapped up in Phoenix Arizona. The three day conference highlights the private sector companies, both big and small, that are the fabric of our American corporate culture.

The Inc 500 is a list published every year by the premiere business magazine, that lists the 500 fastest growing companies in the country. The list, first published in 1982, has become the benchmark that many companies set for growth in their formative years. Companies like Pandora, Zipcar, Zappos and even companies with rich history now, like Toys R Us and 7 Eleven have topped the list.

The Inc 500 is a subset of the Inc 5000 which shows off an even broader range of US companies, those who are the fastest growing 5000 companies in America. Each of the Inc 5000 companies are featured on Inc’s website. The 500 companies are featured in Inc’s traditional magazine in the September issue.

The Kauffman Foundation, the non profit foundation in Kansas City that procures important data relating to startups, innovation, corporations and growth, recently analyzed the last 30 years worth of Inc 500 companies.

They found that over the past 30 years worth of Inc 500 lists, Washington DC has produced more companies that have appeared on the list than any other metropolitan area, in the country. In the last 12 years alone Washington DC has been home to 385 companies that have appeared on the Inc 500 list.

On a state by state basis California and then Texas topped Kauffman’s list. Virginia (which borders DC) was in the number 3 spot and Massachusetts was number 4.

When the list was adjusted for population Indianapolis ranked 6th, Baltimore ranked 15th, Philly ranked 19th and Louisville Kentucky ranked (20th).

When examined by county, Virginia had three of the top five counties with Fairfax City, Falls Church City and Arlington County. Motley County Texas and Broomfield County Colorado topped that list.

Check out the interactive map of the data in the links below

Linkage:

Source: Inc Magazine

Kauffman’s data set

Something worth checking out

TechStars Announces New Patriot Bootcamp July 18-20 in DC

Veterans are you ready to venture out on your own? Have you had a great startup idea like former Navy Seal Doug Moorehead? If a startup is in your civilian career path then pay attention to this important announcement from TechStars.

TechStars, the Boulder Colorado based accelerator with programs all over the country (“everywhere else”) has announced a new three day bootcamp designed for veterans who want to learn everything there is to know about launching their own startup.

The intense three day program will occur next month on July 18-20 at Georgetown University in Washington DC. If you’re interested in participating you can apply here.

During the three day program participants will hear from successful TechStars alumni, industry leaders, DC area startups, mentors and speakers. All of the speakers and mentors are emotionally invested in supporting Veteran entrepreneurs.

TechStars said on their website:

“Over the course of the three-day program, the presentations by TechStars mentors and one-on-one mentoring will guide the participant to solidify a business idea, focus their fundraising pitch, improve their accelerator application, refine their product concept, or demonstrate progress as it relates to their entrepreneurial path. Each participant or group of participants will deliver a short presentation on Digital Demo Day to share their progress.”

TechStars has assembled a great group of sponsors for Patriot Bootcamp including: the Kauffman Foundation, Kauffman Fast Trac, Silicon Valley Bank, Prediculous and Georgetown University.

Linkage:

Find out more about TechStars Patriot Camp Here

Here’s the application

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)

Washington DC Startups: Scott Case Speaking At TechCocktail Event

Our good friends at TechCocktail are bringing one of their great session events to Washington DC on May 24th.

The event called “Relationships Matter: Harnessing The Power of Your Network To Build Your Startup” will take place Thursday May 24th from 6:30pm-9:00pm. The location for the event is top secret right now, to ensure that people don’t try to just walk up and crash the party.

Scott Case, the founding CTO of Priceline, CEO of StartupAmerica and the hardest traveling man in the startup community will be speaking. If there’s one person in the startup community that knows about the power of relationships its Case. The Startup America Partnership thrives on relationships built at the local and then national level.

The other speaker is Rohit Bhargava. Bhargava is a Senior Vice President with Ogilvy one of the largest advertising and marketing agencies in the world. More than that though, Bhargava is an established writer.

Bhargava’s first book called “Personality Not Included” was about how to develop and share a story and personality for a company. His next book, Likeonomics, is all about how we rely on relationships and do business with those we like.

This is sure to be a great event. Tickets are limited so head on over to Eventbrite before it’s too late

Linkage:

Nibletz is the voice of #startups “everywhere else” check out these new stories

We’re on a sneaker strapped nationwide road trip, check it out and support us here

Baltimore Startup Parking Panda Launches Service In Washington DC

(photo: Baltimore Sun)

One of the things Cameron and I noticed when we were in Washington DC as part of our nationwide startup road trip, was that their parking meters were equipped for internet payment. That meant we could refill our parking meters while we were meeting with some great startups all over town, and not have to run back to the meter. Convenience had it’s price but we needed to do what we needed to do.

If you don’t want to mess with the high tech innovative meters in DC, or the hassle of finding a space, Baltimore Startup Parking Panda has you covered. Parking Panda works with owners of un-utilized parking spaces. These could be in the form of small lots of the side of buildings, or parking company owned lots that have spaces that aren’t used on a regular basis.

Parking Panda Users can rent spaces using the service and basically pay in advance for a guaranteed spot. This really comes in handy, especially in a city like Washington DC where street parking, even at the meter, can be scarce.

“A city resident myself, I know that finding available parking can be maddening, expensive, and sometimes almost impossible,” said Nick Miller, CEO of Parking Panda. “Parking Panda takes the hassle and expense out of searching for a parking spot. Parking in D.C. will no longer be such a time-consuming, daunting task because people can reserve spots ahead of time and for less money.”

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Uber: Mobile Web App launched for those “other OSes” Windows Phone 7 and Blackberry

Yesterday Uber announced on their blog that they would begin to support Blackberry and Windows Phone 7 devices (and beyond, whatever that means). With the launch of m.uber.com users of the once dominant and almost relevant Operating Systems can finally take advantage of one of my personal favorite startups.

Prior to the mobile app being launched it was not possible to order a cab through devices other than iOS or Android, before that even Android was waiting in line (pun intended). Uber said in their blog post,

We’re excited to announce that our latest product, m.uber.com has been built with love and care for BlackBerry, Windows Phone and beyond! We want to make the Uber experience available to everyone, regardless of phone or carrier. That’s why we’ve introduced mobile web requests to let you request an Uber at any time from any phone……And when you make requests, you can also save favorite locations for places you frequently request from, such as home or work.

We recently stopped in to Uber’s Washington DC office but did not get a chance to spend any time talking to them about their expansion into new cities nor could we discuss the full-blown assault by the DC Taxi Cab Association. We are huge fans of the service though and we have been keeping a close eye on when they will be invading my hometown of Philadelphia. If you are in Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Paris, Seattle, Chicago, Toronto, or New York and you haven’t used Uber yet….you should. It’s that good.

DC Area Company: Cadre Looking To Change The Face Of The Network Mixer

I’ve been attending networking mixers for all of my adult life. In a previous life as a radio personality and then programmer I attended many conventions that had their own networking mixers as shoulder events. When I started founding my own businesses as “SMBs” before “Startups” were chic, I attended every chamber of commerce business after hours, every small business mixer, power breakfast and the like.

All of these events, and even the ones I regularly attend today for both of our sites, it amounts to a room full of people that get all clicked up into their circle of friends and the theme of the mixer is lost almost instantly as you walk through the door. Sometimes when you go to these things and try to be outgoing and meet new people, people look at you like you’re nuts.

I’ve recently started using discovery apps like Sonar, Glancee and Highlight to see if they would help in the networking mixer problem. In some ways they have but not by much. I’d find people I wanted to meet and they were already in deep conversations with the other people I wanted to meet about baseball, football or their latest deal.

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Rawporter Roadshow: We Talk With Venga At The Fort In DC

We’re still going strong on our Rawporter Roadshow stopping in and talking with tech companies and startups from “everywhere else”. We spend some good quality time at Fortified’s “The Fort” accelerator in DC. We already brought you our interview with NexGame and now we’re spending some time with Sam from Venga to talk about Venga and what it’s like to startup outside of Silicon Valley.

We actually felt like it was more important to spend more than just 3 hours in the nation’s capital to really get a feel for the scene. We also got to spend a lot of time with Kendrick and Carl from inthecapital who lent us some of the co-working space they were borrowing from canvas.co the largest co-working space provider in DC and a great friend of startups.

Check out the interview video above. We covered Venga earlier on here as well. If you like what we are doing we could sure use some gas money for the trip hit the donate button on the right side.

If you’re a startup from literally “everywhere else” send us an email at startup@nibletz.com and we’ll get you covered.

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.

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Uber Facing Outcry From DC Taxi Cab Association

Uber is one of those start-ups that many of us love. It works great in the major cities that they are already in. In fact our Editor in Chief, uses Uber in New York City without fail.

If you’re not familiar with Uber it is a car service that allows you to order up a car for where you need to go via an iPhone or Android app. There is a set rate of $7.00 for the initial trip and $3.25 per mile. The meter is tracked on your smartphone and the customer and Uber know exactly what is charged at the time of the trip.

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