Start Co. Expands Hub for Entrepreneurial Activity in Memphis’ Downtown Core
Expanded offices triples initial footprint and increases density of creative workers in downtown Memphis MEMPHIS, Tenn. (May 20, 2016) – Start Co., the Memphis-based venture development organization, today announced its expansion to the sixth floor of 88 Union Ave., increasing its current footprint by 50 percent to more than 13,000 square feet. The additional 4,500 square feet on the sixth floor will house Start Co. operations and offices for staff and more seasoned startups, allotting the Start Lab significantly more space on the second floor for growing accelerator operations. Additionally, high speed fiber will also be installed throughout the offices to deliver the fastest download speeds possible, a critical factor for teams who are leveraging technology platforms, resources and in some cases, building businesses online. “This expansion gives the Memphis entrepreneurial community even more options and resources that are needed during the critical phases of acceleration. It also increases the density of entrepreneurial activity and creativity in the Downtown Core,” said Eric Mathews, Founder and CEO of Start Co. “In addition, the expansion will give more founders the opportunity to work at the Start Lab post-acceleration, giving them a longer runway before taking off on their own.” The space on the second and sixth floors will give startups such as Code Crew, Preteckt and Graph Story dedicated co-working facilities so they can focus resources on moving from product launch to product success to business success before making a commitment to a long-term commercial lease. Over the last two years at
5 Takeaways from Founders Dinner with Brad Silver
On Monday, May 23rd, Quire CEO Brad Silver came to talk to our accelerator teams at the weekly Founders Dinner. Quire seeks to make the deep resource of doctor-patient interactions more quantifiable and transferable by translating clinical notes into useful, searchable data. With an abundance of experience in management and entrepreneurship, Mr. Silver shared his knowledge of the difficulties that come with starting a business and managing a team of employees. Here are five key takeaways from his talk with our founders. Make sure your team is right “Slow to hire, quick to fire.” This may sound a bit ruthless but when building a company, you have to be extremely careful that every member of your team is a good fit. Mr. Silver emphasized that you must be purposeful about your culture and not be afraid to drop a team member that is disrupting that culture if you want to build a successful business. Part of your role as a manager is to shield your team’s stress It’s your team’s job to focus, but it’s your job to keep them focused. If you want your team to be productive you have to take some of the burden of stress and responsibility off their shoulders. That also means serving as the chief supporter and barrier breaker within the company. This may seem like a lot of responsibility, but as the manager you have to be stronger than the rest of your team. You have to “find it within yourself to stay
Alumni Spotlight: Q&A with Front Door
A graduate of the 2015 Upstart accelerator program, Front Door is changing the game in real estate. Founder and CEO Jessica Buffington, a former real estate agent, saw a problem in the industry and decided to correct it. Front Door’s mission statement states: “We believe that selling your home should be a simple process and one that does not drain your wallet. We match homeowners with real estate professionals who are the best in their class. Our network of agents have already agreed to fully represent our homeowners and sell their home for one flat price of $2,500, instead of a 3% commission fee. Because everyone deserves to sell their home with peace of mind and save money in the process.” We sat down with Jessica and asked her a few questions about the business and their experience in the Upstart accelerator program. Q: Why did you start Front Door? What problems did you see that needed to be addressed? How does Front Door address them? A: Front Door is founded by real estate professionals who have worked the grounds in the industry. Over the years we saw a huge pain that could not go ignored; real estate was not affordable nor innovative. So, we set out on a mission to empower homeowners to keep more of their home equity and revolutionize real estate once and for all. Front Door was born and within three months of launching, has already saved home sellers $151,000 in commission fees and counting.
Slovenia Entrepreneurs Move to Memphis to Continue Building Chore App
HomeyLabs (Memphis, TN) – A start-up company from Slovenia, Europe joined Start Co’s summer accelerator program, Upstart, a cohort for women-led startups. Their iOS and Android mobile app – called Homey – gamifies household chores for families, motivates kids to do chores and enables easier chore management for parents. The team behind Homey decided to come to Memphis after they discovered the majority of their users come from the Mid South. The app launched 5 months ago but the story began long before that. It started when the founders were living together as students. They had the same problem many families face: nobody was doing their chores!! And that’s where Homey began. Truth is, there is a demand. Right now, 61% of parents in the US pay allowance to their kids and 89% of them require their kids to work for money. With it clear that small rewards and recognition are great motivators for kids, their business idea was born. When the beta version launched, parents started reaching out to them and before long they had hundreds of families waiting in line to try Homey. It’s getting hard to reach children with paper chore charts, especially since they spend so much time on their smartphones. But Homey is fun, motivating and social. Homey’s biggest advantage: it works with photos, so kids have to take a photo of each chore they do. The photos motivate kids to do a better work and but they also show parents what’s actually being done around
Summer of Acceleration Launches in Memphis with 18 Teams Across Seven Accelerators
More than 50 startup founders and students will build businesses in downtown core MEMPHIS, Tenn. (May 2, 2016) – EPIcenter, hub of the greater Memphis entrepreneurship movement, and Start Co., a member of the Global Accelerator Network, together with ZeroTo510, have today announced the teams that will participate in this year’s groundbreaking ‘Summer of Acceleration.’ This will be the first time in the region that six industry-specific startup accelerators and one student accelerator will journey together through rigorous entrepreneurial startup programming led by the region’s top accelerator experts to grow and develop their business. The teams, listed with their respective accelerator, hail from around the world and include a diverse mix of apps, platforms and initiatives: EPIcenter Logistics Innovation Accelerator, sponsored by FedEx, was created to help startups bring innovative logistics products and technologies to market. It is comprised of the following teams: o NovoNav — Provides a personal navigation platform that solves the issue of “Last 100-foot” navigation in areas that are not mapped. o Roundabout Markets — Brings technology to the pawnbroker industry to create a national marketplace for pawn shops, increasing market exposure and streamlining product marketing and delivery. o iShipdit — Expedia-like platform for matching less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments to unused space that exists on trucks every day. o Magneto Innovations — 3D-printable magnetic sensors that can be created on demand and to user specifications for a variety of applications. Seed Hatchery, Memphis’ first accelerator, is one of 50 full members of the Global Accelerator Network and
Unprecedented Community Collaboration Recruits Businesses to Memphis
More than 50 startup founders and students will grow their businesses through seven accelerators in joint partnership MEMPHIS, Tenn. (Apr. 19, 2016) – For the first time, EPIcenter, Start Co. and ZeroTo510 are today announcing a partnership of six industry-specific startup accelerators and one student accelerator that will host more than 20 technology-based teams from around the world and 12 students from seven universities in Memphis this summer. The joint accelerator program will kick off on May 2 and is operated by EPIcenter, hub of the greater Memphis entrepreneurship movement, and Start Co., a member of the Global Accelerator Network. The 100-day-long “Summer of Acceleration” will culminate in the region’s largest Demo Day on Aug. 11 at the Halloran Center in Downtown Memphis. Teams that participate in any of the seven accelerators will collectively experience the rigorous entrepreneurial startup programming curriculum, have access to potential customers, mentors, and industry partners, and be able to network with investment capital groups. All teams will also spend time focused on industry- and sector-specific curriculum activities in each individual accelerator cohort. “We’re not aware of another market executing this kind of entrepreneurial collaboration, especially through student and industry-specific accelerators – industries in which our region has a competitive advantage,” said Leslie Smith, President of EPIcenter. “Having more than 50 founders of startups coming to Memphis to participate in these accelerators this summer puts Memphis on the map as a vibrant destination in which to start and grow a business.” Applications for the accelerators were
The Benefits of Staying Small
At first it may seem that entrepreneurs are facing insurmountable competition from huge multinational corporations. They assume that because their established competitors have larger budgets and more manpower that they are better positioned to be competitive in the marketplace. Start ups face many other challenges to such as few customers and low credibility, that are inherent in all new businesses. However, these do not always need to be disadvantages. There are many different ways that startups can utilize all the factors working against them and turn them in their favor. In his chapter, “Do More Faster”, David Cohen discusses several different ways start up companies can do leverage these apparent obstacles to their advantage. Start ups don’t have the bureaucratic baggage of larger corporations. Bureaucracy slows down larger companies by discouraging risk. Risk takers have a higher chance of a political fall in a large established business because when they are wrong they usually are fired or lose credibility. In a good start up environment the opposite of this happens. Risk taking is encouraged, and failures are not looked down upon. They are seen as lessons. Start ups can better adjust to their customers’ input. One of the best qualities of startups is that they can be so open minded to what their customers want. An example is how one startup began as an image sharing website, but when its customers started using it for something totally different (embedding photos on other sites) they were able to shift at
What I’ve Learned in My Time at Start Co.
When I began my internship at Start Co. in January, I was just a business major in an internship class looking for something interesting to be a part of. I knew very little about entrepreneurship and what it takes to build and grow a startup in today’s fast-paced business world. But I came with an open mind and a desire to learn, not only because I was interested, but also because my college career is winding down faster than I could ever have imagined and now is the time to learn if I’m going to survive in postgraduate life. What I have learned in the almost two months I’ve been an intern at Start Co. is that an idea is just the start of building a company. Of course it’s important to find an area of consumer need and a way to effectively fill that need. That’s a critical step in the startup process. But a great idea is a dime a dozen. What it really takes to be successful in the entrepreneurial world is passion and a drive to succeed. There have been a million great ideas that you have never heard of — or that somebody else ended up doing better — because their creators were not driven to make them succeed no matter the obstacles. Every startup team that works at Start Co., from Preteckt to Front Door, has that drive and that is how they have gotten as far as they have with their companies. They
Upstart Accelerator graduate Feather raises $250K in follow on funding
More than $15 million in funding raised for Start Co. client and portfolio teams since 2011 MEMPHIS, Tenn. (March 9, 2016) – Start Co., a member of the Global Accelerator Network that operates industry-specific accelerators each summer, today announced a new $250,000 investment for Feather, a women-founded online service that helps families find, hire and manage quality in-home care for seniors. Feather, formerly CareCurrent, graduated from the 2015 Start Co. Upstart accelerator program. The investment comes from Hayseed Ventures, a Fayetteville, Ark. based venture capital firm that focuses on turning startups into thriving businesses through a combination of capital and mentorship to help those early stage companies develop profitable online customer acquisition strategies. Hayseed Ventures was founded by John James, M.D., a serial entrepreneur who has built half a dozen consumer internet companies, most notably raising over $100 million in venture capital as Founder and CEO of Acumen Brands. “We are proud that startups like Feather have grown post acceleration by connecting with the right resources and partners necessary to raise their next round of funding,” said Mara Lewis, managing director for Accelerators at Start Co. “Feather is a success story from our women-led accelerator program and stands as an important example of the startup momentum happening in Memphis and the broader women-in-tech movement.” Feather plans to use the investment to scale their operation in Fayetteville, Ark. and further optimize service delivery to seniors and those family members that care for them. The company’s software matches screened caregivers with families
Start Co. accelerator graduate Preteckt raises $300K
Seed Hatchery 2015 graduate introduces predictive vehicle maintenance technology MEMPHIS, Tenn. (Feb. 2, 2016) – Start Co., a member of the Global Accelerator Network operating industry-specific accelerators each summer, today announced a new $300,000 capital raise for Seed Hatchery graduate startup Preteckt, a vehicle maintenance technology that monitors the health of commercial trucking fleets. This investment continues the Start Co. tradition of bringing together talent, investors and ecosystem support for startup success. “Preteckt has demonstrated an exceptional ability to scale and poise their business for success,” said Eric Mathews, CEO and founder of Start Co. “We are proud to accelerate a logistics startup, as this is such an important industry for our Memphis economy.” Preteckt was founded in Toronto by Peter Bassa, Sasha Kucharczyk and Ken Sills and is the first smart vehicle technology for fleets and drivers. The Preteckt software monitors all parts of a truck to predict specific part failure up to 30 days in advance, decreasing vehicle downtime by 30 percent. By avoiding the situations that cause unplanned downtime, trucks can be on the road longer and create more revenue. Most recently, the company finalized a contract for TransCarriers to implement the tracking software into their fleets across the U.S., increasing vehicle uptime by 3.3 percent and increasing profits by more than 35 percent. “We’re so eager to bring our technology to new and existing customers in the coming months, helping them harness critical fleet data to reduce costs and maximize efficiency,” said Peter Bassa, CEO and