Ventureweek

Is Uber the hottest travel related app around? It could be, since it recently launched in New York after its successful launch in San Francisco. The  start-up based in San Francisco , offers a cellphone application that is aimed at making using a car service quick and painless. It has been successful with users and investors.

Uber operates as a dispatch service, working with local owners of licensed private car companies. Uber provides each car with an iPhone and software that manages incoming requests. When an Uber user needs a ride, the dispatcher and the closest car are notified, and the system sends back an estimate of the pick-up time. While they wait, users can monitor the car’s location on their phone. How do they make money?  Uber charges a  fee of $7 in San Francisco, or $8 in New York, and then another rate for the time or distance traveled, depending on the speed of the car. There is a $15 minimum for each ride, and the company includes tips in its calculation.

It’s a pricier service. The questions is can it work in every city, if so can the company handle competitors entering the marketplace?

Tungle allows users to make public the times they are free for meetings, and then allows others to schedule meetings around those times. It also allows people to see the availability of several Tungle users at once. The program works with most popular email programs. Tungle also has applications for BlackBerrys, iPhones, and the Android system.

Launched in June 2009, the company is on pace to hit one million users this year,

Investors are looking for the  next big thing and Group Texting seems to be it. 

The latest startup in the space to land funding is Yobongo Inc., a two-and-a-half-week old iPhone app that lets you chat with people located in the same geographic area. The San Francisco-based company of two plans to announce Wednesday that it has raised $1.35 million from True Ventures, Freestyle Capital and angel investors including Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus Development Corp.

The starter round comes as other group-chatting companies are raking in big investment sums, as investors look to old-school communication modes, like instant-messaging chat rooms, for services likely to resonate with younger consumers. Interest in the space is heating up as Facebook Inc. said it acquired group-texting company Beluga in March.

Yobongo is a little different. Rather than helping users chat with groups of people they already know, like friends on a ski trip, it aims to introduce users to strangers in the same area, like a neighborhood or a concert. When you first turn it on, it places you in a random chat group, where strangers typically muse about topics like the weather or the cab line at the airport. Over time, it groups you based on whom you have communicated with in the past.

The app has been downloaded tens of thousands of times and that more than 5,000 users have come back to the app in the past week. So far, only works in New York, San Francisco and Austin, Texas, where it got some buzz at the South by Southwest conference this month.

The company plans to launch the service in several more cities, including Chicago, Portland and Los Angeles, in the coming months.

From Vator.tv

Everybody loves top 10 lists and every startup loves advice from renowned Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.
 
Reid Hoffman, Executive Chairman and co-founder at LinkedIn, just voiced his 10 rules of entrepreneurship on stage at SXSW. As part of the closing events of SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas, Hoffman first presented on data’s role in Web 3.0, but then shifted his talk to tips for entrepreneurs.
 
Here are all ten:
 
1. Disruptive change: Is what I’m doing massive and different?
 

Originally posted on www.caycon.com.

It’s not uncommon for me to see a startup business plan “mission” to be the “premier brand” for their product, yet their marketing budget in the financials is trivial. This combination will almost certainly get your plan tossed by potential investors, who understand all too well the need and cost for marketing in today’s environment.

When questioned, founders usually mention word-of-mouth, viral marketing, and a top quality product. These founders need a reality check on what recognized brand names have spent to reach that threshold, and how long it is likely to take. Viral marketing costs real money these days, which usually means adding at least an extra zero to budget estimates.

Recent new brands like Facebook and Priceline.com each required over $50 million and several years to get to be premier brands. We know that existing big brands like Apple and Nike spend millions per year just to maintain their brand recognition. In fact, the average spent by Inc 500 companies for sales and marketing expense continues to hover around 10% of overall revenues.

My first recommendation then is to confine your “premier brand” comments to the long-term vision section of your business plan. Concentrate elsewhere on the near-term marketing activities (which are also expensive) for this round of funding. By the way, if the marketing section is missing or un-budgeted, you will also likely be “branded” as unfundable.

So what are some credible marketing and promotion steps you should consider for your startup? There are many more, but these should get you started:

1. Create a professional website and blog. With these, your business presence can look big and credibleeven when you are small. There are multiple low-cost website tools available, like Adobe Dreamweaver, which allow you to do your own work and save thousands of dollars, but a budget of $10,000 is a good starting point. A blog is critical, and essentially free (your cost is creating content).
2. Get exposure for your expertise. Use social media and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to start. Create meaningful content and engage others online (free downloads, white papers, webinars, regular blogging). Put out regular press releases for search purposes and general visibility. Pitch your story to newspaper journalists, radio, and television news reporters who cover your local area or industry.
3. Do something unique to get customer attention. Promotions and free give-aways are all the rage these days. This step requires thought because you need to identify what can set you apart from your competitors and how to retain customers. Promotions that appeal to the wrong customers won’t help you.
4. Generate leads for your product. Gather leads online from your social media initiatives, mine your contacts, attend trade shows, and use lead-generation services. Here is an area where you need to be creative, and not just spend big money. For example, exhibiting at trade shows is very expensive, and usually not very productive. Figure out what is valuable to your audience.
5. Establish partners and referrals. Customers who enjoy doing business with you are more than happy to spread the word. Create referral marketing opportunities within your business community that maximize the potential for customer referrals. Find partners and channels which are complementary, and not directly competitive.

Good marketing often is the only thing that separates the successful startup from the not-so-successful startup. There is no doubt that marketing overall has become even more critical for startups over the past several years.

Despite the fact that social networking and other online processes are essentially free, good marketing still costs money. If your early-year budgets for marketing aren’t 10% of projected sales or more, plus an early kicker for setup, you are probably underestimating reality, and jeopardizing your credibility with investors.

Written by Jeff Bennett is the CEO of Swap.com, an award-winning website where 1 million members swap stuff they have for all the items they want.

1. Planning is Essential – You need to know why you are hiring. Every successful venture has a strategy, or a strategic direction that provides focus, and a work plan for how they will execute against this strategy. You must lay the groundwork with this comprehensive road map before any resource planning can occur.

2. There’s No “I” in Entrepreneur – You might be the entrepreneur, but you’re not omniscient. Be sure to engage your existing team in establishing the strategy and road map. Smart people like to be part of the planning process, and share in the results of learning. And do not fall into the trap that you need to “know” everything – that’s what why you hire world-class talent.

3. Organize Around the Road Map – When determining the talent and skill sets needed to executive your work plan, think about immediate and near-term needs, and prioritize accordingly. Don’t be stymied by building Rome now, but you do have to think about today and tomorrow.

4. Establish a Set of Core Values –  Every entrepreneur has a unique set of beliefs, and you want to make sure your team shares those beliefs – not just your initial team, but each and every staff member added as you grow. These values will guide and sustain the company.

5. Checking References Is Critical – Ask for references and call them – this is critical to verifying the candidate’s claims regarding their experience and work ethic. Use Facebook, LinkedIn, and other web-based tools to get a full 360 degree view on your candidates. And, hire through trusted social networks when you can in order to mitigate risk.

Groupon has become one of the biggest success stories of recent memory. Andrew Mason in a recent presentation has listed six reasons why he thinks Groupon succeeded and his other start up The Point did not. More importantly, these six points are his advice to aspiring entrepreneurs trying to build businesses.

1. You’re building a tool, not a piece of art. Mason suggests that you don’t get blinded by vision, as he was with The Point. Groupon has been the total opposite, very focused on hooking the customer within the first few seconds.

2. Recognize and embrace your constraints.

3. Have a growth plan.

4. The best tools aren’t always that cool. Groupon chose e-mail because it’s simple and universal.

5. You’ll probably fail. Mason suggests that you have the fear of failure in the back of your mind because it’ll help you confront reality and shape your decisions towards building a viable product.

6. Quit now. Sometimes you have to let an idea go.

It can happen anywhere–at an amusement park, zoo, school field trip, or even your local shopping mall. Your attention shifts for a moment, and suddenly your child or loved one has wandered out of sight.

So put the odds in your favor for a safe return, with SafetyTat. SafetyTat is a fun and colorful kids temporary safety tattoo. When applied to the arm of your child or loved one, SafetyTat provides a highly visible form of identification that stays in place even when wet! This is a great idea, with strong market potential.