Raise your hand if you’ve worked at hourly retail or hospitality job. Yeah, a lot of us have. Remember filling out paper applications and scheduling interviews with the manager – which of course meant you had to travel to their location at least twice? A new DC-based startup called JobOn wants to change that decades-old…
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Whether you’re selling tickets to a small yoga class or a large concert venue, this process can be synonymous with headache. On one hand, you have the customizable software option, but that’s a massive upfront cost. On the other, you can use a third-party client, but they’re going to ask for a large slice of the pie….
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If you were one of 999 who RSVP’d to attend DC Tech Meetup: Social Media Edition this past Wednesday, then you got a chance to enjoy Peter Corbett’s interview with Haroon Mokhtarzada, Co-Founder and CEO of Webs.com – “the world’s largest do-it-yourself website-creation solution,” which was acquired by Vistaprint in December 2011 for $117.5 mil. If you…
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If you are a startup founder or small business owner, it goes without saying that you are severely crunched for time. How does a platform that brings together a powerful web presence, social networking, e-commerce, and business management tools in one place sound? Pretty good, right? Last night at our DC Winter Mixer, I got…
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This past Wednesday, 20+ young entrepreneurs gathered across a 4-location telepresence, with one startup in each location pitching their concept and receiving feedback from the collected brainpower. The Startup Telepresence Roundtable at DC’s AT&T Innovation Center was a part of DC’s Social Media Week. The startups that participated included: E[nstitute] of New York, NY, a two-year…
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Last summer I wrote about ParkingPanda, a mobile, real-time parking discovery tool that lets users rent out their underutilized spaces to a community of drivers. Since then, ParkingPanda has grown in Baltimore and will be launching in Washington, DC in about one month. I checked in with co-founder Nick Miller to hear about what’s new…
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Proving that DC is a hotbed of entrepreneurial spirit and creativity, we will be showcasing 12 startups at our DC Winter Mixer that offer everything from a fun way to find and share quotes to an affordable e-Ticketing software solution. Meet the founding teams of the startups and other tech enthusiasts as we mix, mingle,…
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Eric Bell wants his company to become the trusted source of financial information for Generation Y. With information on saving money, managing debt, and investing for the future YoBucko just might be it. Young people are going online more often to shop for financial services, but there isn’t a single place where they can learn…
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In the weeks and months leading up to elections, news outlets conduct poll after poll and jostle to predict who will win. What if they had predictions updated minute by minute, based on an even larger audience? This is the idea behind ElectionGauge (no working website yet), a DC-based startup that analyzes Twitter response to…
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On Monday night, Rosetta Stone hosted an event at Barcode as part of Social Media Week in Washington, D.C. The title - “Interactive Culture: Food, Drinks, and Social Collaboration with Rosetta Stone” – caught my attention. In the description of the event they were boasting ”a night of international culture and interactive collaboration,” and they completely lived up to their promise. Shavanna…
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As we evolved as humans, we relied on our gut instinct to survive, going from “Um, there’s a lot of roaring coming from that corner of the jungle – maybe I’ll take a different route” to “Wow, this guy is a little aggressive – no date number 2 for you, crazy dude.” Relying on instinct…
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Through the years, Tech Cocktail has inspired a number of people to take action in different ways, whether it’s to start a company, get involved in local events or share their entrepreneurial experiences right here on TechCocktail.com. So we’re excited to share this story from one of our new writers, who was so inspired by…
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As an enthusiastic writer and reader, I’m excited for the release of Quotogram, an app for discovering, organizing, and sharing quotes. You can view recent, popular, or your friends’ quotes, and search by author, keywords, and tags. If your favorite quote is nowhere to be found, you can submit it (or correct any misquotes). The…
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Entrepreneurs tend to have really interesting back stories, but I’ll go out on a limb and say it’s super rare to meet one who went from attorney to retail manager to entrepreneur. “I started working at Best Buy because I kept asking my little brother for discounts,” said Will Fuentes, CEO and co-founder of Lemur…
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Chito Peppler served for 20 years in the U.S. Navy, but lately he has traded his uniform for the casual dress of the entrepreneur. “After serving in the military, I wanted to start my own business. I knew how to take orders – now I wanted to be able to make them,” says Peppler. Peppler’s…
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This morning HelloWallet announced that they closed $12 million in Series B funding. Chicago-based Morningstar, Inc. invested $6.75 million and DC-based TD Fund (TDF) invested $4 million. Existing investors and new investors also participated in the round. Morningstar and HelloWallet plan to co-market their services to employers and 401(k) providers. I had a chance to…
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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
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
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
Coming off of one of our biggest Tech Cocktail mixer events in Chicago this past week, which showcased 14 early-stage start-ups, we thought it would... Read More