We like to share. We share what where we are. We share what we’re doing, and who we’re doing it with. We share what we’re eating. We share what we’re watching. We share what we’re listening to. But there seems to be no consensus favorite service to share what books we are currently reading. Readmill…
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Pho is a traditional Vietnamese soup; the broth is simmered for hours and then served everywhere from restaurants to street stalls to trains. One day, the founder of Pho Ta, an upscale soup chain in Vietnam, sat down for a meal at one of his stores. To his surprise, the waiter said they couldn’t serve…
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Last week, a new Facebook application borrowing on Second Life’s theme of an alternate, digital reality, announced it’s launch. Much like Second Life, Dot Friends is a virtual landscape where friends can hang out, chat, buy virtual products, but .Friends ties in a Facebook users’ profiles, allowing a more seamless transition into their offline worlds. “While…
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You know that prime commercial location on State Street that keeps on churning out failed businesses? First it was a Moe’s Southwest Grill, then a Fudruckers, then a Goodwill, now it’s vacant again. The developers just can’t seem to figure out what the people want. At best, though, running an in-depth competitive analysis and digging through an…
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Son Tran’s business card labels him as the customer experience officer of Tiki.vn, one of Vietnam’s top online booksellers. When I asked him about that, he told me it means CEO, but different. “I’m ultimately responsible for the experience of each and every one of Tiki’s customers, either online or offline,” he said. Passionately focused…
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“We were looking for an idea that would change the world,” Nextdoor founder Nirav Tolia told me during a guided tour of the members-only site. “We started this a year and a half ago when we realized there were no locally-driven social networks that connect neighborhoods – and neighborhoods are the original social networks.” Following…
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I don’t know anyone who makes New Year’s resolutions – and sticks to them – at least for longer than 2 weeks. It’s so easy to say “I want to eat better or exercise more or stop drinking like it’s New Year’s Eve every day,” but with broad goals like that, actually making those changes…
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With cash-strapped governments and businesses spending less on R&D in the wake of the economic crisis, innovation may be in jeopardy. Meanwhile, some capital-intensive startups struggle to borrow from friends and family or secure investment from VCs. This was true for entrepreneur Dan Gutierrez, who was building a cloud-based database service called HostedDatabase.com in 2000….
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In the United States, Rebecca Black’s “Friday” is just bad music. In Vietnam, songs like this have a name – “disaster music,” or tham hoa am nhac. And I’m told it’s even worse – crazy-looking singers, like Asians with blonde mohawks, belting out nonsense lyrics and dancing. Yet somehow this music is a big hit,…
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What if food experts reviewed the best restaurants in your city and gave you a discount? Blackboard Eats is doing just that in LA, NYC, Chicago, and San Francisco, with plans to launch a new city in the spring of 2012. “Don’t consider us a deal site; instead an intersection between motivating perks and journalism,”…
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No, you didn’t read that headline wrong. BodyShopBids, a new Lightbank-backed Chicago startup, is helping provide auto repair estimates directly from photos you snap from your phone. Basically, if you have any external damage to your vehicle, you snap a couple of pictures – along with a brief damage report – and submit them to…
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A new site designed to make that tough decision of where to eat tonight a bit easier for restaurant-goers and food lovers has launched in DC. From the Food Network, the reservation site CityEats is partnering with Graffiato’s Chef/Owner, Mike Isabella, and competing directly with OpenTable. CityEats’ innovative cloud-based technology attempts to make reservations easy…
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Immersion is the way to go in learning a new language – but if you’re past the period of being an exchange student or can’t pick up and leave your life for months at a time to live in another country, you’ll need to find a new route to proficiency. Sure, there are a lot…
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If you are struggling to find a stylish gift for your vegan sister or animal-rights- activist brother, head on over to Fashioning Change, a just-launched Netflix-type recommendation site for stylish green shopping. Co-founded by Adriana Herrera, who has married her marketing and product development background with her interests in human rights, environmental, and education causes,…
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Judging by the user feedback at SoulSynch, the answer the above question appears to be yes. This San Diego-based startup developed a self-service, personalized online solution to help people improve the way they think and talk about their relationship. “I have many friends and colleagues that have gone through a divorce or are in a…
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Earlier this year, Nik Bauman was trying to figure out what to do next. He had cofounded artisan food marketplace Foodzie and been named one of Businessweek’s best young tech entrepreneurs of 2009. Should he get a job as a developer or consultant or plunge into another startup? “I look at business like a craft,”…
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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