TODAY'S COCKTAIL OF TECH STARTUP STORIES:
The latest cocktail of emerging technology news, people, startups, products, and innovations for the true tech enthusiast.
| Acceleprise Showcases Its Third Class |
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Last night, DC’s young enterprise startup accelerator, Acceleprise, showcased their third class in front of potential mentors, investors, and customers. Held at the iStrategyLabs offices at Dupont Circle, the event was a temporary refuge for those wanting to escape the thunderstorm blitz that hit this peaceful, little town (little enough to be considered a town? No?). 
The event started off with a brief introduction from Acceleprise Managing Partner, Sean Glass, on its third class. Particularly, he noted the successes the companies have already made and the potential for growth of each, considering the evolving societal ethos surrounding such things like online security and social media. Indeed, the nine companies that presented at last night’s demo represented enterprise software that aims to help on such issues, all having arisen as a result of the rapid adoption of online solutions to organizational needs.  “As an ethical hacker, I thought it was my duty to help companies learn more about [how these security issues arise],” says Apozy CEO and Founder, Rick Deacon.  Aprefis cofounder and Product Manager, Lavinius Marcu, talks about the complexities of pricing. Aprefis provides real-time price recommendations for organizations, ensuring that they maximize their revenue from the market. They basically deal with all of the pricing science and analytics – all of which can be a complicated process. The company recently received Pullmatur Cruises as its first customer.  Brian Johnson, CEO and cofounder of DivvyCloud, talks about the state of the Cloud services industry. DivvyCloud aims to help organizations manage, track and provision its cloud-based technologies. Their service aims to increase stability, reduce cost, and decrease the complexity associated with managing a company’s cloud-based IT infrastructure. Their clients currently include, EA, GoPopTV, and ZeniMax.  “Job seekers don’t want to waste time on credentials and training that might get them a job; rather, they want [training or education] that is guaranteed,” says WorkAmerica President and cofounder, Michael Colonnese.  Luis Derechin, PointWorthy’s cofounder, talks about the $16B in unredeemed loyalty points, each year, that could be put to good use. PointWorthy aims to help socially-conscious companies to provide their customers with the ability to donate loyalty or rewards points to their preferred nonprofits and charities. It does this by converting those points into cash for these charities. The company will go live in November through an agreement with CitiBank.  Ross Geesman, LiveRe’s Business Development Manager, talks about digital marketing trends. LiveRe allows organizations to create more engaging social experiences on their websites for their users. LiveRe’s tools allow site users to interact with myriad social widgets, including comments, reviews, polls, and media uploads, all while providing companies with helpful insights and data on users. Despite bootstrapping, the company collected $1M in revenue last year.  HelpJuice’s eccentric founder, Emil Hajric, mentions the company’s successes, which include having tripled their revenue and being featured in Forbes. Helpjuice offers organizations with the opportunity to improve their customer support services by offering a knowledge-based tool that aims to significantly reduce a company’s incoming support correspondence. Through the service’s knowledge base, customers are able to get instant responses or answers to their questions without the need to call or email for support.  “Social media, in the next few years, is only going to increase in volume; don’t miss out on an opportunity to act,” says Encore cofounder and CEO, James Li. Encore provides real-time, actionable insights to organizations, giving them the tools to effectively collect, manage, and repurpose customer-generated social content. Their technology allows companies to identify key mentions and trends from its social media – in real-time – and helps them act on such interactions immediately.  ResolutionTube founder and CEO, Arnav Anand, talks about the efficiency with which troubleshooting solutions are delivered through its platform. ResolutionTube provides organizations with a platform that aims to disrupt the current state of telephonic customer service communications. Utilizing real-time video communication and augmented reality technology, the company’s tool captures relevant contextual information and then provides troubleshooting tools in the form of video and text information. After the demos, the rest of the night was designated for networking and overall socializing. Because I am neither an investor nor see myself as a potential mentor, I sat in the corner and read “Dune.” Just kidding…maybe. Do check out each of these startups, though, as they’re all seeking potential investors and customers. The post Acceleprise Showcases Its Third Class appeared first on Tech Cocktail  |
| Our Favorite Reactions to Twitter's IPO Announcement |
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As everybody has been made aware over the last 24 hours, Twitter has confidentially submitted an S-1 to the SEC for a planned IPO. This is only the first step in an IPO, though, and Twitter lovers can expect around three to six months, or more, before being able to buy any options. The JOBS Act dictates that any company bringing in under $1 billion in revenue can file confidentially, and Twitter currently brings in around $500 – $600 million. Regardless, everybody knew what was going on, and confidentiality seemed to be one of the lower priorities on the list. If you are looking to buy, do not be put off by the fact that they bring in under $1 billion, because they are looking to hit that mark in 2014. In a purely Twitter fashion, the news was broken in less than 140 characters: Needless to say, there have been some amazing reactions on the Twittersphere, and here are some of our favorites: Let us know your thoughts and feelings about the IPO and what you think might happen: Will we see a run similar to Facebook, or will we see a stunning success from square one? The post Our Favorite Reactions to Twitter’s IPO Announcement appeared first on Tech Cocktail  |
| Finding Your Billion Dollar Idea: When These 9 Young Entrepreneurs Knew They Found "The One" |
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The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons. For every Facebook, there are one hundred Diasporas. Never heard of Diaspora? Exactly. Point is, most great ideas fail. The question is, what separates a good idea, from a serious money-making idea? This week, we asked our friends at the YEC, “How many ideas for companies did you go through before landing at the startup you have now? How did you know it was ‘the one’?“. Their responses are below. Enjoy. 1. ThreeRound Table Companies was the third company I started. All were storytelling related, but it took time to get the business model working. My first company was a film company, the second was an educational company around storytelling. Round Table finally capitalized on my storytelling expertise, combined with my desire to build a family of people looking to make a difference in the world while also generating revenue. Corey Blake, President at Round Table Companies 2. One a DayAn idea a day keeps the doctor away. Like many founders, I have a text file on my desktop called ideas.txt. Every day, I’d open it up and try to add at least one item to the file. Many times, the ideas were terrible, but I’d still add them to the list. Over time the list built up, and the best ideas would rise to the top. That’s when my co-founder came to me with the idea for Zapier. It was light-years better than anything on my list (which had a few good ideas). After a week of working on it, we had 12 paying customers. We knew it was the one. Wade Foster, Co-founder at Zapier 3. 50, Maybe 100I grew up with ideas: a baseball card store, a Subway franchise down the block from the center of Columbia University’s campus, a loyalty card system that would help small businesses compete with the “big guys.” I knew Modify was “the one” for two reasons. First, it was the only business that I could mold around two principles and themes that were important to me: high-touch personal service and customization. I was able to build a business and culture that I loved around a product that interested me. I care more about our company than our product. Second, the proof revealed itself during the first 12 months when I did nothing but grind on the business. Day-in, day-out, I worked 12-hour days and thought about the business in every free moment. Aaron Schwartz, Founder and CEO at Modify Watches 4. A HandfulI went through a handful of network marketing companies before I found my niche selling e-books. I knew it was the one when I saw how relatively simple it was to replicate success and automate the sales process so I could make sales while I slept. My startup has been nine years in the making. Joe Barton, at Barton Publishing 5. Too ManyIn short, too many. I’ve always been fascinated with solving problems, and it has taken me a lot of failed attempts to get a few right. My most recent startup called Brook was born from my personal need to discover great content. I wanted the ability to subscribe to Twitter feeds and get the top five tweets delivered daily to my email in a digest format. When I couldn’t find the product, I built it. It was received well by some of my portfolio companies at adventur.es (my day job), leading us to make it public. I think knowing it is “the one” is a combination of personal passion/need and external validation from users. When you’ve created something of value, it shouldn’t feel forced, but instead like you’re uncovering the obvious. Brent Beshore, Owner/CEO at Adventur.es 6. A Dozen Ideas and Two StartupsI have always had an entrepreneurial focus. While EGFS was only the second startup I founded, I have probably focused on over a dozen potential ideas over the years. For every potential idea that I thought had merit, I created a miniature business plan so that I could understand the market, how I would tackle the market, what the challenges were and if the idea was realistic. When I founded EGFS, I knew that this was the one because it was an excellent pairing of two of my core competencies: finance and accounting and my ability to create revenue through business development. David Ehrenberg, Chief Financial Officer at Early Growth Financial Services 7. FiveI started a home heating business that turned into a video production company. Really! I started a company that was going to create an ecological home heating alternative. It was a huge idea. When I explained it, people glazed over. I made a video — a really bad video — that explained my idea. It worked like a charm, and I learned more quickly that my business idea was not as strong as I thought. People listened, and when they did, I got the feedback I needed. I slowly realized I was onto something and pivoted from home heating to website development to video production. We have worked with an incredible client list and made 378 videos. There were five companies from SwitchFuel to Switch Video. Andrew Angus, CEO at Switch Video 8. OneAfter 12 years, I am still on my first company. The underlying drive for me was based on my values, the type of company that I wanted to build and the quality of delivery that I wanted to provide. I wrote a one-page business plan before I started that I showed my current team. After 12 years, it could still describe the current business. Part of the reason for this is that my plan didn’t reach for the stars. I left that for annual planning. The core idea was to set a standard, a tempo and rhythm for how to work and build a team, and it has since expanded from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur, Palo Alto, and now we are replicating it in Santiago, Chile. For all the ideas you have, most of us only have one way to define “how” we want to work on them. Robert Castaneda, Founder/CEO at ServiceRocket 9. FourI knew time coaching and training was “the one” when I noticed myself only growing in passion for learning about the topic. With other ideas, I lost interest relatively quickly. But, in the last four and a half years focusing on lasting behavioral change with effective time investment, I can only remember one day when I got tired of talking about it. Elizabeth Saunders, Founder & CEO at Real Life E® The post Finding Your Billion Dollar Idea: When These 9 Young Entrepreneurs Knew They Found “The One” appeared first on Tech Cocktail  |
| "Quora with a Business Model": Clarity Launches Clarity Answers |
| 12:00:18 PM | Kira M. Newman |
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Today, Clarity Answers launched to allow entrepreneurs to get answers to their pressing business questions. In the same vein as Quora, Clarity Answers lets you ask a question and wait for answers from experts. The idea is to drive usage of the paid Clarity platform, where you can buy consulting sessions with experts over the phone. "It's kind of like Quora – only with a business model,” says Clarity. “Many experts make over $1000/month."
After you ask a question, moderators work to make sure it gets answered quickly (most within 15 minutes). Experts get to showcase their answers on their profile, and the Q&As become searchable – creating a database of knowledge and expertise. Clarity now has over 20,000 experts, and sometimes it's hard to find the right one for your business. The Answers feature is designed to help you do so; if you like someone's advice, you might consider signing up for a phone session. In their beta test, 5 percent of answers turned into paid call requests. Clarity Answers is available immediately on Clarity's web and iPhone app. The post "Quora with a Business Model": Clarity Launches Clarity Answers appeared first on Tech Cocktail  |
| Tech Cocktail Week's Hottest Showcasing Startups Are. |
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Last night was Tech Cocktail Week’s Mixer and Startup Showcase at Gold Spike in Downtown Vegas. As always, we held our Hottest Showcasing Startup series, including the pre-event Reader's Choice online poll, as well as the Best Pitch award, as determined by the Live SMS poll. Tech Cocktail Week’s Hottest Showcasing Startup – Reader’s Choice3D Film Connection - The NEO3DO 3D Android Tablet allows users to see engaging 3D images without the glasses, and convert all 2D video to 3D, and we have 3D video games, all converted real time and streaming. Tech Cocktail Week’s Hottest Showcasing Startup – Best PitchMy Trade Cart - My Trade Cart offers a unique service and item trading platform with deep social media integrations. Being able to communicate with friends, family and colleagues is essential today. My Trade Cart's platform is built with the trading principle in mind. Users will have the ability to trade items and/or services with people in their network of friends without any cost to them. Congratulations to both startups. For your win, you receive invitation to a future Tech Cocktail Week, as well as inclusion at Tech Cocktail Celebrate, our national startup showcase held in Downtown Vegas on October 23 – 25.
The post Tech Cocktail Week’s Hottest Showcasing Startups Are… appeared first on Tech Cocktail  |
| Downtown Project Building a Factory in Vegas for Hardware Startups to Use |
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The Downtown Project will be building a factory in downtown Las Vegas for hardware startups to use, reported "hardware sorceress" Jen McCabe on the Downtown Podcast last night. The Downtown Project, started by CEO Tony Hsieh of Zappos, already invests in startups through the $50 million VegasTechFund. McCabe is heading up an arm of that fund called Nimbus, which will provide seed funding to hardware companies in the fields of robotics, connected devices, smart home, Internet of things, drones, and hardware as a service. “If mom would use it and a five-year-old would use it, then I want to invest in it,” said McCabe.
The factory, which will reportedly be built in the Arts District of downtown Vegas, will support small-scale production for VegasTechFund portfolio companies. We assume that this is the evolution of a project that McCabe announced in June called Fabbed Labs, a 3D printing lab, factory, and maker community. We've reached out to McCabe for comment, and we'll update this story as we get more details. The post Downtown Project Building a Factory in Vegas for Hardware Startups to Use appeared first on Tech Cocktail  |
WAYS TO WORK TOGETHER
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