SellingThe Parents, Richard Branson & Acquisition: Bad Ass Startup Chick Stacey Ferreira Tells Her Story

Stacey Ferreira, MySocialCloud, Bad Ass Startup Chick, GigTank

Stacey Ferreira is a bad ass startup chick, and quite frankly has one of the most bad ass stories we’ve ever heard. That story starts when she was a student at an all girls Catholic high school in Phoenix, Arizona. When you hear about entrepreneurs starting out as developers in high school, a lot of times those stories are about boys.

Well Ferreira was lonely and missing all of her public school friends who were about 40 miles away. Looking for something to do to pass the time she turned to her brother Scott. He had just begun teaching himself how to program, so the two of them decided they would learn how to become game developers.

Through the rest of her time in high school, Ferreira spent her free time creating and developing different projects with her brother. Then the time came to graduate high school and their parents insisted that they had just one more summer left before they had to go get real internships like everyone else. The Ferreira siblings decided to go all in and move to Los Angeles to build out one of the projects that they had worked on in high school. That project became MySocialCloud.

During that summer Richard Branson held a fundraiser contest of sorts that said if you could donate $2,000 to his charity you could have cocktails with Branson in Miami. Stacey wasn’t even old enough to drink, but quickly realized the value in spending time with Branson. Oh, the other problem was they didn’t have the money. To make matters worse, when they called and talked with someone in Branson’s office they discovered the two of them would need $4,000 not $2000.

Scott and Stacey now had the daunting task of selling their dad on getting a loan. Dad wanted a business plan, Stacey told the standing room-only crowd at a startup event Tuesday in Chattanooga. So she and Scott developed a business plan. Almost reluctantly their dad said yes, but they had to return the money in 3 months.

That ended up not being too tough because that meeting in Miami ended up with a million dollar investment.

Stacey, who is also involved with the Young Entrepreneur’s Council, told her story during FireSide Talks, which featured Thiel Fellows and other entrepreneurs 20 and under. Stacey talked about her entrepreneurial journey from that private school in Arizona, to living in almost the slums of Los Angeles, meeting Branson, getting $1 million dollar investment, and eventually getting acquired. Oh, and that was in less than two years.

Watch Stacey tell her own story:

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Tidbit, A Cayman Islands Startup, Is Fixing Training [video]

Tidbit, GigTank startup, startup,startup pitch, Cayman Islands startup

When Sam Bowen took the stage at the GigTank demo day on Tuesday afternoon, he talked about everything wrong with corporate training. And he should know. He’s been a trainer throughout most of his career. He has trained professionals in state government, the hospitality industry, and non profit organizations. At one point he even had to train judges, which can be an extremely hard task.

Kicking off his pitch, Bowen said, “I can tell you two things have remained constant, a majority of folks hate training,” which drew a chuckle from the crowd of investors and startup supporters in Chattanooga.The second thing, according to Bowen, is that everyone in the hospitality industry focuses on one number: the annual staff turnover rate. The national average annual staff turnover rate is a whopping 65%.

That’s obviously why everybody hates training. With employee churn that high, business owners, corporate trainers, and HR departments are constantly training new employees to do their regular jobs, making it almost impossible to find the time to teach existing employees new things.

Online training in one form or another has been around for nearly two decades. Text and “module” based training or even “knowledge base” training has fueled big corporations, staffing firms, retailers, and chain restaurants since the 90’s.

The problem with those solutions is, as technology improved, training didn’t. The other key factor is that for more and more busy people, the computer is becoming screen number 2. Screen number one is the phone or tablet.

So Cayman Islands native Bowen, his brother, and their team created Tidbit, a startup that incorporates the smartphone and all its available technology to make training materials easy for the trainer to create and just as easy for the employee to consume.  Bowen gave the example of a bakery owner who would be able to use her smartphone’s video camera and microphone to walk employees through how to make her latest cupcake designs. The employees can then in turn, watch the content created by the owner and make the cupcake at the same time.

Hotels could use Tidbit to quickly show an entire fleet of housekeepers some new way of making the beds or where a new piece of flair goes in a room. The employees become more productive by having those training modules in their hand, in the room while they’re doing the job.

For employers that want to allow their employees to access the content from their own device, training becomes something that an employee can do on the bus or at home in some down time without the worry of finding a computer.

There’s an unwritten rule across most accelerators: to wow the investors in the room, they save the best startup for last. Tidbit went last, here’s the video:

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Sisasa Is Bridging The Gap Between Young Adults And Community Banks

Sisasa, GigTank, startups, demo day

Sisasa co-founders Alejandro DInsmore and Deborah Tien (photo: NMI 2013)

Community banks are great. Often times community banks have more 1:1 resources to give to their customers. They can offer education, guidance and products that benefit local businesses, local residents and bolster the local economy.

But what happens when a college student or young adult leaves home for another city?

Well often times they turn to one of the mega banks like Bank of America, Wells Fargo or Chase. There the college student is just another number and they often times have questions that they just can’t get answered by an automated phone system. This is a real problem for college students.

“Students often find themselves incurring fees they don’t understand and can never get a real person to talk with them about it so they pay it and move on” Sisasa co-founder Alejandro Dinsmore told us before GigTank’s demo day on Tuesday. “We hear horror stories from students and their parents on a regular basis”.

What they found though, is that many of these students resort to the mega banks because they have better mobile apps. Bank of America and Wells Fargo have real time banking on their mobile apps. If you deposit $10 into a Bank of America or Wells Fargo branch, you can leave the teller station, check the app and see that $10. Community Banks are often not as up to date, relying on systems implemented years ago trying to sway young people in this digital age.

That’s how Sisasa is solving this problem. By offering a better mobile banking app for community banks they can help the bank attract or retain this important customer. If a young person has a good experience with a community bank they are more likely to stay with that bank as they continue to grow. That community bank could finance their first car or that first house, but in an internet 2.0 (almost 3.0) age, and in the age of mobile, without that technology the community bank is dead in the water.

Sisasa, who’s team hails from Michigan, Boston and everywhere else, developed their current product at the GigTank in Chattanooga. Dinsmore tells us that they blew up their original idea after their first meeting with their lead mentor. After pivoting that mentor’s company is now one of their beta customers.

Sisasa private labels their mobile banking app for community bank, giving those local community banks features comparable and at times even better than their mega bank counterparts.

We got a chance to talk with Dinsmore just minutes before their GigTank pitch. Check out our interview below.

Checkout more GigTank Demo Day startup coverage here

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Monitor Your Older Loved Ones With Sensevery, No Smartphone Required [video]

Sensevery, GigTank, Startup Pitch

The GigTank, Chattanooga’s startup accelerator named after their gigabit ethernet, graduated its second class on Tuesday afternoon. Seven startups from across the country and around the world worked through the dog days of summer at improving their companies, iterating, and bringing products to market. When the accelerator announced this year’s application process, co-founder Sheldon Grizzle was looking for startups working on the “the internet of things.”

One of those startups hails from India and is using “the internet of things” to unobtrusively monitor elderly loved ones. As co-founder Bentley Cook said in his presentation, he would call his grandmother on a regular basis, ask how she was, and she always said she was good. But really, what does good actually mean?

Many older folks don’t want to tell their younger family members that something’s wrong. Either they don’t want to be a burden or they don’t want to give up their independence.

Back in the 80’s Life Alert had a system that allowed an elderly person to hit a button and yell out to a speaker box that they’ve had some kind of problem. The token line was “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” We all remember the commercials and how big and gaudy the pendant was for Life Alert.

Sensevery is building an unobtrusive device that allows family members to monitor a loved one without disrupting their lifestyle. Cook went through a bunch of devices, including a 1980’s digital watch-looking device, and acknowledged the fact that nobody wanted to wear something like that.

Cook even went as far as to dis Solidus portfolio company, EverMind, which makes a device that monitors an older person’s power habits to see for disruptions in their daily routines. Cook said in his pitch “If your doctor wants to know how often your coffee maker was on, then you’ve got a problem.” Solidus is one of the investment backers of the GigTank program. Aside from that awkward reference, Sensevery may be onto something big.

Their system uses a small bracelet style monitoring device no more obtrusive than a FitBit or other lifestyle monitor. Now typically these devices are synced to an app and a smartphone, but really how many folks in that older generation have a smartphone or the patience to program one.

For those people Sensevery has developed a syncing device that plugs into the wall, and voila. The wall device sends the data from the bracelet to the cloud where loved ones and family members can access the data in the cloud from any internet connected device.

The data coming from the bracelet can quickly tell the person monitoring if something’s not right. Alerts can also be set up to tell the monitoring person the minute something breaks from the norm. If all of a sudden there was no heart rate picked up, the device would also summon emergency personnel.

Cook, along with co-founder Parth Suthar, are hoping that others quickly see the value in the Sensevery platform.

Check out Cook’s GigTank pitch below.

No really click on this link right now, you won’t regret it.

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GigTank Demo Day Kicks Off With Princeton Startup Mira

Chattanooga’s GigTank accelerator kicked off their second annual demo day on Tuesday afternoon. In perusing the startups in the second cohort before they took the stage, we quickly realized that startups from around the world were accepted into the program in the first GigCity in the U.S. (sorry Kansas City).

GigTank attracted startups from Bulgaria (HutGrip), The Cayman Islands (Tidbit.co) and of course across this country. One of those startups hailed from Princeton and chose to come to Chattanooga for access to the extremely fast internet and the wide range of mentors, lead mentors, and seed capital that Sheldon Grizzle, Mike Bradshaw, and the team at GigTank have provided.

Mira is the latest startup to tackle the offline retail experience with data points and information typically only found online. Now we’ve talked with a few startups in the space, but what they lacked was an actual hardware/software platform in the store that would allow the customer to get an online experience within the walls of the retail store.

During the presentation they talked about a woman, Michelle, who is looking for running shoes specifically for a 10k. She forgot to do research so rather than postponing the purchase or going “window shopping,” she was able to use the Mira Pod, an in-store interactive sign to choose the shoes that she needed. After she went through her personal experience, she was able to try the shoes on, pay, and get on with her day.

There is definitely value in bringing that kind of web experience into a retail outlet. Check out the pitch below to better understand Mira.

You can find out more about Mira here at shopwithmira.com

Here’s our interview with Mira Designs:

And here’s their pitch video:

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Twelve Cities Founder And Thiel Fellowship Liason Nick Arnett On Three Themes For Building Great Cities

Nick Arnett, Twelve Cities, Indiana startups, Thiel Fellowship

While Brad Feld’s book on Startup Communities has become a bible to many people trying to jumpstart startup ecosystems across the country, one entrepreneur has been looking at not just the startup community but the city as a whole, and he’s been doing it since he was 15.

At an age when many high school students are considering the football team, the wrestling team, or a homecoming date, Nick Arnett was sitting in on economic development meetings in his hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana. It was there that he started working on an idea to visit 12 great cities and see what they had in common.

The project officially began in 2011 when a team of individuals, spearheaded by Arnett, went on a series of twelve trips throughout the continental United States. Arnett pointed out to a standing room only crowd at the Fireside Talks event on Monday night that Chattanooga was the first city they visited.

The group working on twelve cities started noticing three big themes that existed across all twelve cities. Arnett said it doesn’t matter if they were talking to the Mayor of Grand Rapids, Michigan or a resident in Tucson, Arizona. these three themes always come up.

  1. The importance of openness and embracing the weird. Arnett explains in the video that being open and embracing everyone in the city is crucial for entrepreneurship. A city needs to embrace those who are working on startups, their own ideas, or freelance. Long gone are the days of everyone going to work at the plant.
  2. The ability to make a difference no matter who you are. A lot of cities have a gap between their older leadership and younger leadership that makes it hard for one group to make a difference. Cities that don’t have that gap are more successful.
  3. The importance of social connectivity, connecting the connectors. Having your local city connectors connect with another city’s connectors. Cities need to leverage these kinds of people that have both strong internal and external connectors.

Arnett really goes deep into all three of these themes in the video below. If you’re working on a startup community, do you have the city component as well? I’ve seen a lot of startup communities that are struggling because the city is still stuck in old ways. Make your city great, and your startup community will be greater.

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Indy Startup Adproval Simplifies Direct Advertising For Any Blogger [VIDEO]

Adproval, Matthew Anderson, Indiana startup, startup interview

Most of our readers know I’m into my 7th year as a full time blogger. Both of the new media startups I’ve founded produced fresh content six days a week. After creating Nibletz in the summer of 2011, I sold Thedroidguy the following spring to concentrate on Nibletz full time.

Like many of the serial entrepreneurs we’ve profiled here at Nibletz, I learned a lot of lessons from my previous startup, and at the same time brought with me habits from my previous startup as well.

With a new media startup (in a lot of cases a fancy schmancy word for blog), or as a full time blogger, and now one with a staff, people often wonder how we do it. There are so many people out there that think they can buy a $1.99 domain name, activate Word Press, and be in business. Well as Indianapolis startup Adproval’s, founder Mathew Anderson talks about in the video below, it’s not that easy. A lot of bloggers either stop blogging altogether or move to part time blogging because they can’t figure out how to monetize.

In 2013 there are so many different things involved in monetization, the least lucrative of those is ad networks. Through both sites we’ve tried just about every available ad network. Now with tech focused sites we’re at an even bigger loss because most of our readers are trained not to click network ads. With advertising though, the trick is to be engaging and to capture the attention of the reader. That’s why our state and local partnerships are the best way to reach an engaged audience of millions across the site and social media.

But attracting those partnerships takes a lot of time.

Even with a permanent Managing Editor on board and a co-founder picking up a lot of the backend work, I spend a lot of time working on direct sales.  Anderson is hoping to solve that problem, not just for us but for everyone.  Anderson explains his “aha moment” in his conversation with Nick Tippmann in the video below, and he shared a lot about it in our interview with him back in November.

Adproval provides a platform that makes it easy to reach targeted direct advertisers for whatever your niche in blogging is.

Are you blogging recipes, kite flying, paintball, or even tech? Adproval helps you set up their system to reach those advertisers or sponsors that will engage the audience.

At Thedroidguy we used one of the biggest and best ad networks in the world, outside of Google AdSense. Still, an Android-focused blog, we would get huge skyscraper or interstitial ads for macaroni and cheese, cleaning product,s and Brita water filters. As internet sensation Sweet Brown would say, “Ain’t nobody got time for that.”

Here at Nibletz for instance, the best ads would be for startup lawyers, PR firms catering to startups, accelerators, startup conferences, the latest mobile technology, incubators, and coworking spaces. Our readers don’t care about Velveeta Shells & Cheese; they’re still eating Ramen noodles.

Adproval’s knack for connecting bloggers with the sponsors and advertisers that will fill these needs and actually get eyeballs is making the Indianapolis-based company successful.

Check out our video interview with Anderson below and for more info visit adproval.com

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BlueBridge Digital Founder Talks About One Year Journey From College To 15 Employees

BlueBridge Digital, Indiana startup,startup interviewLast year Santiago Jaramillo was a senior in college. From his dorm room, he created a business building apps for other businesses. What happened over the next year is a story much more common to Silicon Valley and New York than Indiana. Jaramillo took that app-building business and turned it into his startup: BlueBridge Digital, a company that does “apps as a service”.

BlueBridge Digital is an app development company that specializes in three verticals: travel and tourism, higher education, and religious institutions. Their clients include Gatlinburg, Tennessee, University of Arkansas, and several well known large churches.

One of the biggest things that sets BlueBridge Digital apart from other app development houses is their subscription model. They charge their clients a monthly fee rather than making them come out of pocket with one big payment, something that often times prevents companies in their verticals from going forward with their app projects.

By focusing on just three main verticals, making their service accessible to businesses, and offering superior customer service, Jaramillo’s startup is cash flow positive and employs 15 people, just a year out of college.

Jaramillo told Nibletz co-founder Nick Tippmann in an interview that one of the biggest keys to his success was focusing on sales and getting people to actually pay for his services. This made it easier to attract a great team of established co-founders, great employees, and more clients. With all that in mind, Jaramillo was able to bootstrap BlueBridge Digital to revenue.

Check out the video interview below and for more visit bluebridgeapps.com

37 signals founder Jason Fried talks about product design.

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When Sh!t Hits The Fan, There’s Indiana Startup Evacua

Evacua, Indiana startup, innovation showcase, startup,startup interview

Bloomington, Indiana startup Evacua is a platform/marketplace for people when sh!t hits the fan. What kind of sh!t? How about evacuations.

Often times when an evacuation is necessary, nobody is prepared. That lack of preparation makes an evacuation take 10x as long as it would if more people were ready. Hurricanes, wildfires, and floods are just a few of the disasters that can displace you and your family. If you had a safety network in your back pocket ,you would breathe easier and know that anything dictating an evacuation would be more manageable.

Evacua is a network of verified travelers, companies, and transportation providers that can quickly pool resources together during an evacuation.

Evacua isn’t just about natural disasters and what you would think of as traditional “evacuations.” It’s an emergency travel safety net. If you were on a business trip and your wife went into labor or you had a death in the family, Evacua members would have access to last minute travel without the huge cost of paying commercially for it.

The startup accelerated at RunUp Labs, the travel industry accelerator based out of Bloomington, Indiana’s SproutBox. The idea is to quickly connect its members to be mobilized and ready travel companies and providers at a moment’s notice. At the same time, they are also working on the rideshare model for aircraft.

“Simultaneously, we are fixing the ride sharing model for aircrafts. By using a low cost to entry, we can appeal to a broader base of travelers. During emergencies, this base of travelers is more flexible with price, destination, and departure times, allowing for more likely matches of flights and passengers,” the company says on it’s AngelList profile.

Nibletz’ Nick Tippmann was in Indiana for the Innovation Showcase last week where he got to spend some time with Mike Beckwith the General Manager and co-founder of Evacua. Check out our video interview below and for more info visit evacua.com

 

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Kurfuffl Because Everyone Keeps Score

kurfuffl

Competition is everywhere. Of course competition is found in sports, but even in your everyday interactions there is always someone challenging you to do something.

“I can eat more hot dogs than  you.”

“I go to Starbucks more than you.”

“I can drive that golfball further than you.”

The challenges are countless and come from every direction.

It’s no surprise that a startup with a colorful name and based on social competition comes from Chicago, an extremely competitive city. With four major sports franchises (five if you count the Cubs), men, women and children are challenging each other everywhere.

That’s the basis of Kurfuffl, an app for both iPhone and Android.

“Do you score more than your friends? Now you can prove it. Kurfuffl is an app that helps you keep score in everyday social competition. Anyone who’s competitive can tap Kurfuffl to throw down, track points and talk smack. Whether settling a longtime dispute or just making a night more interesting, there’s nothing like a good fuffl.” Kurfuffl says on their website.

If you’ve been following me since TheDroidGuy days then you know the one thing that I really look forward to at every event is good chocolate chip cookies. During TechWeek, Zach Zimmerman the founder of Kurfuffl, had the cookies at his booth, so we chilled out with him and listened to what he had to say. I’m easily bought.

Competition apps are getting more popular. At SXSW we saw Alabama startup NotIt labs which is also social competition but focused on the last man standing or the person who’s “not it”.

Kurfuffl on the other hand is all about keeping score. Is it how many men or women you can pick up, how many cigar smoke rings you can make, or any other social challenge? Keep the challenges alive, keep score, and more with Kurfuffl. Find out more here and watch the video below.

 

We’ve got more from Chicago TechWeek Here.

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Has Patch Met It’s Match In Mississippi Startup PushLocal?

PushLocal, Mississippi startup,startup,startup interview, southland

Last month when we were at the Southland festival in Nashville, Tennessee, we met a lot of great startups from across the Southeast. One of those was PushLocal from Natchez, Mississippi.

You may be thinking, there’s startups in Natchez, Mississippi??

Well yes there are, and that’s what we’re here for, as the voice of startups everywhere else.

Zach Jex is a local Natchez lawyer, businessman, and mobile app developer. He’s developed a handful of apps, but one problem he became passionate about was how to get a community to embrace local news, rewards, and deals. To do that, he had to make sure that deals and information are targeting the right, local customers.

It’s easy for a big chain store to send out a mass market deal to customers in Anytown, USA, because there just happens to be one of their stores in that market, but with all of the noise coming from so many different deals sites and apps, how can the local merchant survive?

That was what drove Jex and the team behind PushLocal to create a new kind of community. It’s almost like Patch on a hyper local level with daily deals, loyalty, and rewards built in.

But PushLocal isn’t just about restaurants and retail. They want it to be the ultimate local destination where real business owners can reach real people. PushLocal is also about the community, which is why in addition to retail and restaurants, you’ll find local businesses, civic organizations, and local government as well. Is the Humane Society doing a special on spay and neutering? Check PushLocal. Is Bob’s hardware store selling snow shovel’s for a dollar? PushLocal would know. Is there a new local festival coming to town? Yup, PushLocal will have that, too.

PushLocal delivers all of those important messages without the noise of the unimportant ones. Check out our interview with PushLocal from last month’s Southland festival. Find out more about PushLocal here at pushlocal.com

 

This Nashville startup is taking loyalty and rewards to a whole other level.

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Arc Mobile Makes Paying for Dinner So Much Easier

ArcMobile, Chicago Startup, Chicago TechWeek, Startup InterviewIn our line of work, dinners, drinks, and happy hours are where we do business. It’s common knowledge that deals really happen after hours, and the Nibletz team likes to be where the deals are.

But have you ever noticed that when it’s time get the check, the server is never around? Or maybe you get one of those servers that bring the check way too early, making sure everyone knows he or she is waiting to flip the table.

It’s even more annoying when the restaurant “can’t” split the check multiple ways. Calculator apps are great and all, but who wants to do math at dinner?

Arc Mobile is a new Chicago company with some interesting solutions. Their mobile app sends the check right to your phone. You can split the check (if needed) and pay, right from your phone. The payment goes through the restaurant’s POS system, no extra pens needed.

Check out Kyle’s interview with Arc Mobile.

See more of our Startup City coverage from Chicago Techweek here at nibletz.com

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College Students Are Being Robbed Of Millions Of Dollars, Startup PackBack Will Help

PackBack, Education startup, startups, startup interview,Chicago Techweek

If you read the headline and think this is another boring story about college loans and tuition costs, you’re dead wrong. College students are being robbed of millions of dollars in a way that’s much more prevalent today then when many of us were college age. The culprit? Textbooks.

We met Mike Shannon and Kasey Gandham at Chicago TechWeek where they were showing off their startup PackBack. After spending a few minutes with them, I realized this whole “college students are being robbed, and PackBack can help” thing is no B.S. Shannon and Gandham both had textbooks that they would purchase at the beginning of the year for hundreds of dollars. Those books then stayed in the orange shipping boxes on move out day. Never even touched.

Shannon explained “Even in education technology and news is moving so fast that textbooks can be outdated on the first day of classes.” Professors have resorted to more up-to-date curriculum aids like the Internet, news articles, PowerPoint presentations, and speakers. Through his four years of college, Shannon said he may have up to 10 books that he purchased that were never even opened.

That can add up. It’s another cost factored into those mounting student loans.

So what does PackBack do? They are a short-term rental company for student textbooks. In most cases you rent the book by the day. This way if a professor surprises his or her students by actually having them do a textbook assignment, students can get access to the textbook relatively quickly.

Gandham and Shannon are testing out a model in the neighborhood of $5 per day for the text book rental. As they explain it, even if the professor resorts to the book 10 times over the course of a year, the student is saving anywhere from $50 to $100 off the cheapest used version of most books.

This startup simply makes sense cents.

Check out our interview with Shannon and Gandham below and check out PackBackbooks.com

 

Here are more amazing startups from Chicago TechWeek

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Cheek’d Is Reinventing Online Dating [video]

Cheekd, New York startup, startup, startup interview, Chicago TechWeek

Do you remember when online dating was a bad thing? You know, you met someone online, but you wouldn’t dare tell your parents or your closest friends. Instead, the story was you just happened to meet the  most wonderful woman (or man) in the world, who lives 500 miles away, by accident? Now online dating is the norm, especially for busy people.

Sites like match.com have been around since the mid 90’s, e-harmony since 2000. There are of course hundreds of apps to help you find the next perfect match, online.

Well, a startup we reported on last October, is turning online dating on its head by adding an offline component, the calling card.  Cheek’d gets its name, not from dancing cheek-to-cheek or anything romantic like that, but from its founder: Lori Cheek. Cheek told us in an interview that the idea came about when she was out to dinner with a dear male friend. As they were leaving the restaurant the male friend of hers wrote his name and number on the back of a card and slipped it to an attractive woman. Sparks went off in Cheek’s head, and Cheek’d was born.

Cheek’d lets you order Cheek’d cards that have a link to your Cheek’d profile. Typically in online dating you spend a while courting someone online and then meeting in person. Now you can take that first impression and back it with a robust online platform.

Is it working? Cheek’d told us at Chicago TechWeek that they have thousands of users from across the globe who’ve started using the service.  “Cheek’d bridges the gap between online dating and real-world romance by providing members with physical cards that they can use to entice people from the real world to flirt with them in the virtual world. It’s the 2.0 version of “Call Me.” Cheek told Nibletz.

Cheek’d is a really interesting twist in online dating. Check out our interview video below and to sign up visit cheekd.com

 

See more startup coverage from Chicago Techweek here.

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