Bootstrapping – the startup metaphor for a self-sustaining business that proceeds without external help. This is a story about bootstrapping – real bootstrapping, like, live with your parents, and rent a crappy office bootstrapping. It’s holding out on paying yourself until you start making money, on the way to a multi-million dollar revenue business bootstrapping….
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If you have ever made one frustrating phone call after another to plumbers, or house cleaners, or wedding photographers, trying desperately to find someone with reasonable prices, Chicago-based startup OpenChime is just what you need. Their online platform enables consumers to request price quotes from service providers of a host of services, thus making your…
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Today Groupon filed a S-1 with the SEC to raise $750 Million. Morgan Stanley will lead the underwriting of the IPO. To save you time, we have pulled out some of the interesting data points from the SEC filing that reports Groupon’s financials and other details pertaining to the business. So here it goes, Groupon…
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With 2008 being the first elections that utilized social technology like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for political campaigns, we named Barack Obama the first Tech President. We expected that to continue in 2012, so we were excited to see the news that longtime Tech Cocktail supporter and former Threadless CTO Harper Reed is the CTO…
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Last month, Tech Cocktail introduced our readers to AirRun, a location-based job hub that lets you outsource anything and gives a ton of job opportunities to people looking for work. Since AirRun’s launch last month, they’ve been growing quickly, with 3,500 users and climbing. People are having fun with the app, with fast food delivery…
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Tomorrow, May 24th, Northwestern University’s Farley Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation (FCEI) will host the third annual Entrepreneur@NU Conference. The theme of the conference is the Emergence of the Midwest as an Entrepreneurship Hub. Tech Cocktail is excited to be a media partner and involved in the day’s events. The event will have speakers from…
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Just a few hours ago in Chicago, over 100 of Illinois’s up-and-coming entrepreneurs gathered for the unveiling of the new Illinois Innovation Network. Among the announcements were the creation of Startup Illinois and the formation of the Illinois Innovation Network, both efforts to support and accelerate growth of Illinois’ high-growth entrepreneurs. Illinois Governor Pat Quinn…
Read MoreChicago-based Iconicast has launched Smurks, a new app to help anyone, including children with autism, accurately express their emotions online. Available for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, users can easily communicate their feelings via digital communications. It’s a very clever app, actually: it allows you to morph a face into an exact expression of…
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Culture is becoming more and more a part of the everyday conversation when it comes to starting and running a business. Culture – we’re not talking about what’s hot in pop culture or which celebrities are getting married to whom, but more the large cultural shifts that are happening within organizations. Mark Drapeau of Microsoft…
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We all know that selecting the right wine can make a great impression. The new iPhone app, Wine Guy On Demand, is your personal guide to pairing fabulous food with equally fabulous wine. Wine Guy On Demand gives you access to a real, certified sommelier who will help you make wine selections when you need…
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We are always proud to hear good news from startups that we’ve previously showcased at our events, and yesterday’s announcement that social travel site Gtrot is partnering with Local Offer Network to bring daily and local deals to travel brought cheers from all of us here at Tech Cocktail. This exciting new partnership will help travelers…
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Failure is something that we all face everyday. It’s how we react to failures that makes us who we are. Startups are a constant flow of successes and failures. Micah Baldwin, the CEO of Graphic.ly, has most recently created community around digital comics and worked at various startups through the years. Micah joined us at…
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Goodbye, frustrating apartment searches—HelloRent! Chicago-based HelloRent is changing the way people search for apartments online by helping people find the best available apartment in the least amount of time. When you’re moving to a new city, looking for a place to live sans roommates, or upgrading your lifestyle, the last thing you need is additional…
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In it’s second year, the Chicago startup accelerator Excelerate Labs has just announced its new class. The program runs from June to September and offers $15K to $20K in funding and mentorship throughout the summer months. Last year, Excelerate Labs launched ten startups as we previously covered on demo day. In the six months since…
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The Kellogg Tech Conference was held on April 9th and had an accompanying Chicago-wide hackathon that started on April 8th and wrapped up at the end of the conference. The theme for this year’s conference was Connecting Through Innovation and had talks on everything from mobile development to networking, business memes to social change, startup…
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Now businesses have a fun and user-friendly way to attract new customers and to keep loyal ones happy and engaged. Pegmo is a startup based out of Chicago that has created a new way for businesses to interact with their customers. Pegmo’s platform is fun and interesting. When a business creates an account, they are…
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Two months after the iPad 2 debuted in March, around 40% of users surveyed said their iPad was their primary computer, up from around 30%... Read More
There are a number of startup accelerator and incubator programs in the United States. We are fans of these programs (not to be confused with... Read More
We are excited to announce the participating startups for Tech Cocktail's South by Southwest (SXSW) event: #Startuplife Celebration presented by .CO. It was one of... Read More
With our Startup Mixology Conference coming up next week followed by our classic Tech Cocktail DC Summer mixer which will showcase a handful of early-stage... Read More