Earlier this month, the Kairos Society announced the Kairos 50: 50 innovative companies founded by undergraduates. Partnering with the United Nations and the New York Stock Exchange, Kairos held a global summit in New York City where the companies pitched to business leaders and press. The Kairos Society is a not-for-profit foundation – with branches…
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Last year, Compass Labs, a social media advertising service, was one of the featured startups at our SXSW Accelerator Kickoff event. Last week, this San Jose-based startup announced a $6 million round of funding from New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Presidio Ventures. Not a bad year. The company’s focal product, the Compass Labs IQ (CLIQ) platform, is an advertising tool which…
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Yesterday Stitch Labs, the inventory management, invoicing, order fulfillment, contact management, reporting and analytics platform for small businesses, announced a $1 million round of seed funding from the Silicon Valley based True Ventures. “We’re excited to be investing in Stitch Labs,” said True Ventures managing partner Phil Black. “Our mission at True is to support…
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Lots of entrepreneurs in DC – including the team at Tech Cocktail – are skipping happy hours and giving up time we’d otherwise spend sleeping to pursue our dreams and help build Washington’s startup ecosystem. But are we doing it wrong? According to a new report from FounderCorps and StartupVirginia, we may be. The way…
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Proving that you don’t have to be San Francisco/Silicon Valley-based to have a successful startup, eTripTrader, which we showcased at our first Tech Cocktail mixer in Boise, Idaho last year, has grown their company every year since their launch 10 years ago. They support over 17,000 aircrew and ground-based employees through their SkedFlex and Crew Companion product and…
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Last week I wrote about the difficulties startups have had cracking the online dating code. While there is definitely room for improvement, no one has quite gotten there yet. During my research, I was introduced to Laurie Davis, founder of eFlirtExpert.com, who said the biggest problem she’s seen with online dating sites is the huge…
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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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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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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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Last week, I accomplished a lifelong goal when I published my first book (an Appalachian Trail Book). But allow me to back this story up a bit. March 2011 I was self employed as an Internet marketer, making good money, residing in the vacation destination that is San Diego, CA, and working part-time for the…
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It’s finally here! The first StartupBus will be leaving Washington, D.C. during the first week of March and will head down to SXSW with about 25 lucky “buspreneurs,” hackers, hipsters, and of course hustlers! “StartupBus is an invitation-only community of hackers, hustlers and hipsters passionate about startups who compete in an annual hackathon-style competition on buses traveling…
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If you’re single, today sucks. There is no escaping all the ooey-gooey-makes-you-just-want-to-barf ads and promotions for Valentine’s Day. As our lives become increasingly busy, it seems that the easiest way to meet people is online, a fact that many entrepreneurs have also noticed. So much so, that online dating sites are almost a dime a…
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Though you may be more familiar with Kayak, Priceline, Travelocity, and Expedia, Calabasas-based CheapAir.com has been around longer – since 1989 – and after talking to founder and CEO Jeff Klee, I think they’re better than the competition. Despite being in a crowded marketplace, they are constantly looking for ways to innovate – and that…
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The #2 team in the conference is the Whitman Vikings, who played the conference-leading, defending state champion Churchill Bulldogs this past weekend. The two teams had played 4 weeks earlier in a hotly contested, down-to-the-wire game that ended with a late tie breaking goal for the Bulldogs. On that night, the undefeated Bulldogs handed the…
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Last week I got a chance to listen to Paul Singh from 500 Startups talk about raising money at The Fort. First of all, I have to say that almost every sentence Paul uttered could have been used as a quote on its own. Below are the best ones, which I broke down into 3…
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Imagine using your media center as a server for your startup. You’re sitting there, watching Netflix, and suddenly, everything goes down. You realize your server just got hit because the Denver Post started using your startup. It happened to Paul Kenjora, and he proceeded to raise $1.5 million for that very same tech startup…in Arizona….
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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