Author Archives: austinstartup

Macheen Live in the US

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Macheen, a global cloud service provider for connected devices, today announced it is live in the United States, with mobile broadband connectivity via the Nationwide Sprint Network.   Available in Europe since February, Macheen’s comprehensive turnkey platform enables connected laptops, tablets and other consumer electronics device makers to not only to reach across continents, but also tap into different mobile network technologies.  For example, in Europe private-label services of device makers, powered by Macheen, use GSM-based networks while those same device makers are offering services in the US using the CDMA-based Nationwide Sprint Network—all with a common user interface and consistent, seamless supply chain integration.

“The hat trick is to change the equation for the device maker, enabling them to transition from a hardware to a services profit margin, without the heavy lifting.  Something had to change – device makers and their customers cannot reach the cloud without a connection to it. We are seeing a ten times improvement in purchase and connection rates.  This is what it takes.” said Richard Schwartz, President and CEO of Macheen, Inc.

According to Yankee Group Analyst John Keough, “Connected device makers have to be fast-moving entrepreneurs, yet simultaneously navigate complex telecommunications ecosystems. Platforms that transcend borders and technology families can help them do both without giving up control.”

Bill Esrey, Vice President of Wholesale Solutions at Sprint, added,  “Macheen’s ability to leverage its supply chain integration with a single device maker across go-to-market channels can dramatically reduce the time, costs and risks of deploying new connected consumer electronics .  We see a huge opportunity in connected devices and the Nationwide Sprint Network empowers Macheen’s model of supporting major manufacturers, across continents and devices, as a great way to accelerate growth in that market.”

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Your Votes Needed to Support Austin Startup 9W Search

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Many thanks to Michelle Greer for this guest post!

“More and more, sound financial information is critical to our daily well being.  As one economist put it, we aren’t just checking to see if we can make more money.  We are checking to see that our money is still there.

Enter 9W.  9W is the mobile app currently being built by Edgar Online founders Susan and Marc Strausberg.  9W will give you up-to-date information on any publicly traded company.  How much revenue per employee did they pull in?  Who is their CFO and who audits them?   9W gives you all the relevant data you need about companies you are or are considering investing in within seconds.

Susan and Marc entered the Innotribe Startup Challenge.  This contest introduces the most promising FinTech and Financial Services start-ups to SWIFT’s community of more than 9,700 banking organizations, securities institutions and corporate customers in 209 countries.  Considering the Strausbergs have already founded one company that provides up-to-date financial data and is now publicly traded, they really do deserve to win this competition.

The prize in the Innotribe Startup Challenge is $50,000 and public opinion does matter.   Please take a few seconds to vote for 9W.  Then, send this link to your friends and ask them to do the same.  Austin does not get much recognition internationally and this is a great opportunity to support a startup founded by Austinites who understand their space well enough to succeed and grow an ecosystem around them.

tags: 9w, susan strausberg, marc strausberg, innotribe, finance startups, austin startup, SWIFT, finance iphone app

InfoChimps and Twilio Sponsor Contest

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Most of you know our friends at the InfoChimps. Plying the honorable trade of helping you turn your data into money through their data marketplace. You also may be familiar with one of the hottest startups in the silicon valley; Twilio. They provide phone and SMS services in the cloud. The two of them are teaming up to have a little contest for those of you who are technically hip.

Do something cool and creative with both the Twilio and InfoChimps API’s, then submit your entry to judging. It’s that easy. So what could you build? Hmm….. well, how about dial-a-song? Call a Twilio phone number and get back a random song title from a million song dataset. Surely you can be more creative than me!

The winner will receive:

  • $100 in Twilio credit
  • $100 in Infochimps credit
  • A collection of swag from Twilio and Infochimps
  • All four books from the pioneer of data visualization, Edward Tufte

Entries must be submitted by 11:59pm PT on Sunday July 10th. Entries can be submitted here.

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NaturallyCurly.com Raises $1.2M Series C

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The folks at Austin-based NaturallyCurly.com announced today that they’ve raised some additional funding. The news isn’t even warm yet, and the San Francisco Chronicle is already pooping on the news saying that this is a sign that investors will fund anything. They are writing as if two grad students just fleeced some desperate VC  out of a check based on a fancy powerpoint deck. The reality is far different.

This is the third round of funding for a company that has been around for many years, achieved profitability in 2010, engages 700,000 consumers monthly, and counts Jimmy Treybig (founder and former CEO of Tandem) as an investor. Perhaps writer Alyson Shontell (@shontelaylay), an aspiring tech company employee herself, just has a dislike for small but solid, growing companies?

With its most recent round in funding completed, the Austin, TX-based social media company has raised approximately $2 million in total during the past four years, and achieved a profitable and cash-flow-positive year in 2010, according to NaturallyCurly CEO Crista Bailey.

“Our latest round is a testament to the business team’s performance — we’ve consistently grown revenues and visits, in triple-digit percentages, over the most recent years while achieving profitability,” Bailey said. “Our passion and vision, and the counsel we receive directly from our angel investors, is reflected in what we’ve achieved. Among our angels are astute business leaders who are involved closely with us — and I deeply appreciate their acumen and hands-on advice as we chart our way forward.”

Among strategic investors present in all fundraising rounds is NaturallyCurly Chairman Jimmy Treybig, founder of Tandem Computers. Investor newcomers include John Paul Mitchell Systems co-founder John Paul DeJoria, whose existing advisory role with the company has led to strategic relationships and ties with multiple industry leaders, and Golden Seeds, a nationwide angel network and venture capital firm with offices in New York City, Boston and San Francisco.

“NaturallyCurly represents ingredients that investors look for — a passionate team, a proven concept, a highly evolved and engaged customer community, and a willingness and drive to constantly innovate,” Jimmy Treybig said. “Through solid, focused business leadership, this recipe has translated to profitability — and a clear strategy for its continued growth. This business, in my view, is one social media company to watch.”

The NaturallyCurly Network recently named its first Chief Marketing Officer, Christopher Burkhart, and, according to Bailey, is currently seeking additional talented expertise in technology and marketing. The company soon will announce a mobile platform and launch a consumer mobile application featuring a daily Frizz Forecast™, thousands of product reviews and a stylist/curl specialist finder. A global consumer packaged goods brand is sponsoring the “app” launch, which will be highly promoted to the network’s online community, which now exceeds 1 million monthly unique visitors, and beyond.

Start-up SpareFoot Makes Self-Storage Fun

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SpareFoot, the online self-storage marketplace, launched a unique project and blog series called Adventures In Storage, designed to familiarize employees with their product in the most entertaining way possible. The new mixed-media “reality series” documents the start-up’s 18 employees as they experience the process of renting and moving into and out of self-storage units.

CEO Chuck Gordon coordinated the nine-week project, in which duos of employees moved a growing pile of possessions from one storage facility to the next around Austin, adding their own creative items for the next teams to discover and move. Each duo was responsible for finding storage near one teammate’s home, with or without the help of the company’s own self-storage finder site.

All employees – from developers to salespeople to marketers – booked units, signed leases, obtained locks and optionally rented trucks to cart the pile around town. Moving forward, every new employee to join the SpareFoot team will pick up where things left off and complete the task themselves.

The idea sprang from Gordon’s realization that most SpareFoot team members had never personally used self-storage, but he wanted them to understand the challenges storage customers face. He hopes Adventures In Storage inspires improvements to SpareFoot’s website that will make finding, reserving and executing self-storage easier than ever for everyone.

“To speak intelligently about anything related to the consumer experience, everyone at SpareFoot should have personal experience renting a storage unit,” Gordon said. “Everyone will learn what it really means to rent storage, and see how much of a pain it is. This should help guide everything we do to make the process easier for consumers.”

The project was documented through filmed interviews with each duo at SpareFoot’s office, and some scrappy video footage taken at the storage facilities. Weekly blog posts will unfold the story in a narrative style similar to that of a typical TV reality series. A short video, featuring interviews and photos, will accompany each written post. New blog “episodes” are released every Monday for nine weeks at 6 p.m. CST, starting June 20.

In tandem with the June 1 release of a teaser trailer for Adventures In Storage, SpareFoot is running a social media contest whereby the first three people to correctly guess one item in the final storage unit win $100. All in all, the series should reveal a lot about how a fun high-tech start-up staffed by a team of smart, nerdy personalities operates. It will also be an experiment in pushing the social media reach of a niche industry. Follow along on Twitter @SpareFoot with hash tag #adventuresinstorage.

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Calxeda Announces Trailblazer Initiative

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Calxeda, the company solving the datacenter energy crisis with hyper-efficient processors, today launched its Trailblazer Initiative, with founding members who focus on cloud computing and “Big Data” scalable analytic solutions.   Trailblazer is a program that will open up the Calxeda technology to industry players, hardware companies, systems integrators, datacenter end users, and ISV (software) partners, some of whom are announced today.

At Trailblazer launch, Calxeda is pleased to announce Autonomic Resources, Canonical, Caringo, Couchbase, Datastax, Eucalyptus Systems, Gluster, Momentum SI, Opscode, and Pervasive as inaugural members of the program.  See other releases also issued today on additional initial Calxeda Trailblazer members, with further announcements following over time.

Trailblazer partners will work with Calxeda to accelerate characterization and adoption of hyper-efficient servers, creating an ecosystem that will benefit end users by delivering complete solutions faster.  Since its August 2010 funding and launch, Calxeda has created significant industry interest in its ARM-based servers.  With Trailblazer, Calxeda is reacting to demand from customers and partners to get its chips into servers and datacenters, the first step being access to early silicon for Proof of Concept testing.

“We see Trailblazer as a critical step in the evolution of this marketplace, and are thrilled by the support we are receiving from the community to help it materialize,” said Barry Evans, Calxeda’s CEO.  “The datacenter energy crisis is real, and the faster we can help our system vendors and partners get complete solutions in our customers’ hands, the faster we can help them save money, and reduce their energy consumption and carbon footprint.”

Calxeda will provide Trailblazer partners and end users with early access to hardware, operating system software, tools, applications and joint sales and marketing.  Software partner and end user Trailblazers will also benefit from Calxeda technical expertise, and get updates on valuable benchmarking and technical information as the technology matures.

Elements of The Social Business

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This is a blog post I wrote for the Dachis Group blog today.

In the almost two years I’ve been with Dachis Group there is one question that I’ve been asked over and over again. “What is social business?” I’m sure my colleagues have had the same experience. The challenge I have is that social business is comprehensive in nature, and therefore defies trite explanations.

My dilemma would be made simpler if “social business” were just another name for something you already know, like “social media marketing” or “enterprise 2.0″ or (god forbid) “knowledge management.” But it’s not. It’s a term for something new and different, and our journey is so early that I don’t think any company would declare victory on being a social business in 2011. Many of our clients are definitely taking the right steps, however.

The social organizations that I have an opportunity to interact with typically have some specific elements. They include:

  • Organization. A social business will look less like a top-down, command-and-control structured organization, and more like a flexible mesh network. The mesh is empowered to act and conduct business, not needing to wait for orders from the commander-in-chief when a target is in the crosshairs. The social organization might appear podular.
  • Leadership. Most companies are over-managed, but social businesses are led by talented and visionary people. Charlene Li does an excellent job of presenting the case for open leadership and letting go of control.
  • Social. At the end of the day, businesses are made up of people. Do you interview them to determine traits like sharing and collaboration, or are you still hiring for skills? The millennial Gen Y that is entering the workforce is 80 million people, and their brains are wired differently than other generations. They literally have larger amygdalas, which makes them more social.
  • Holistic. People are at the heart of every element of the enterprise ecosystem. Social organizations pay attention to all of their constituents, understand the relationships between them, and how strong or weak the connections between them are.
  • Engagement. The old school ideas of marketing stress frequency, reach, and a multi-channel approach. Hit them with our messages as many times as possible, in as many places as possible. Rise above the noise, right? The social business isn’t trying to shout the loudest, but finding ways to engage with customers and other constituents.
  • Connected. Are the people in the company connected together, in real time? Does the CEO blog (even if it’s just internally)? Are there easy and open ways for people to discuss, share, and participate in the planning, managing, and controlling of the business?

What other elements of a social business have you seen?

Hackapalooza is Tomorrow!

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There is a Hackathon event tomorrow to build apps with the Lolapalooza API, if you’re more technically inclined. You can find more info on the Plancast for the event, and also check out a blog posting that Tim Gasper from KeepStream wrote.

Hackapalooza Austin

Hurricanestream 906 E 5th Suite 210 · Saturday, May 28, 2011, 10am-7:00pm

It’s a HACKATHON to build cool apps with the Lollapalooza API, brought to you by Keepstream and Hurricane Party. Why? Because it’s a chance to win some really awesome stuff!!!

Here’s what they say:

Lollapalooza is offering over $5,000 worth of prizes and tons of promotional exposure for the best mobile, web and desktop apps created using their API. Developers can access data on artists, events, stages/venues and updates for Lollapalooza 2011. Prizes will be awarded for apps that help fans get the most from their Lollapalooza experience before, during and after the Festival. Winners will be promoted on the official Lollapalooza website and to fans via email, Facebook, Twitter, and the jumbotron screens at the Festival.

More info at: http://hacklolla.com/

Join us May 28th as we hack something cool together! The event is the 28th, but you don’t have to submit your apps until June 24th at 4:00 PM CST, so no pressure – just hang out and let’s have fun. But let’s increase our chances of making something awesome by starting early.

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MinorMonitor Launches Free Tool for Parents to Monitor Their Child’s Facebook Activities

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MinorMonitor went live today as a unique, free, web-based tool for monitoring children on Facebook.  Built just for parents to enable a quick, dashboard-view into their child(ren)’s Facebook activities and friends, MinorMonitor was created by Infoglide, a government-grade technology company that has been delivering anti-fraud software solutions to federal and state governments and commercial organizations for over 15 years.   The free, web-based tool is open for sign up.

According to a recently released survey by Consumer Reports, there are over 20 million active Facebook minors and an estimated 7.5 million children using Facebook under the age of 13. Consumer Reports estimates that an alarming 1 million children were harassed, threatened, or subjected to other forms of cyberbullying on the site in the past year.

With increasing – and disheartening – stories of cyber bullying, online stalking and predators, hate crimes, and generally concerning conversations and relationships building through Facebook, parents feel helpless and worried about what their child is doing, saying, and “friending” online.  There are some solutions, at a cost, and may or may not be effective for parents today, nothing is the silver bullet parents are asking for.

Austin-based Infoglide has been perfecting its own security and fraud analytics for over 15 years, for customers such as the US Department of Homeland Security and several other Fortune 500 banks, insurance companies, and retailers. A company comprised of concerned parents and grandparents, it set out to apply its security intelligence to a web-based tool parents could use to monitor their child’s Facebook activities and friends.

“We are so very proud to introduce MinorMonitor to all of the parents out there worried about what their children are up to on Facebook,” said Mike Shultz, CEO of Infoglide and head of the MinorMonitor effort.  “We built MinorMonitor to take advantage of our deep security analytic technology, and extend this as a free service to benefit parents who want to make sure their child’s Facebook activities are safe.”

Even before it was in private beta, MinorMonitor was spotted by experts in the field. Renowned child advocate and cyber safety expert, US attorney Parry Aftab, talked about MinorMonitor on The CBS Early Show. She spoke of the value of MinorMonitor, in part because it leverages the same technology Infoglide uses with Homeland Security.

Additionally, early testers are sharing great feedback as well, including Marilyn Berry, a Seattle, Washington mom of a 14-year-old girl, very active on Facebook.  Marilyn says: “As an early tester, I’ve been using MinorMonitor for a couple weeks, now.  I am very satisfied with this wonderful new service.  MinorMonitor has provided me with alerts, and with this invaluable service, I’m able to keep track of my daughter.”

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