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20 Stanford Students Quit School To Work For This Payments Startup

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stanford students

Two years ago, a 19-year-old Stanford student named Lucas Duplan took a break from school to create a startup.

Over the next few months, 20 students from Stanford quit school to follow him.

The startup is called Crinkle.

The Wall Street Journal's Amir Efrati wrote a longer story about the company. He says, "The service is supposed to let people quickly pay each other or pay for products at stores using any smartphone, and without requiring retailers to upgrade their payment systems."

Despite plans to employ 60 people by this summer, Crinkle's first product doesn't come out until this fall.

The payments space is insanely crowded.

Big companies like eBay, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google all want to have us using our smartphones instead of our physical wallets. The space is also crowded with well-funded startups like Square and Stripe.

Meanwhile, consumers seem content to use plastic credit cards online and offline.

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19-Year-Old Alex Godin Nearly Flunked Out Of High School To Found A Startup

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Alex Godin Dispatch

It's been more than a year since 19-year-old Alex Godin left high school to found a startup, Dispatch.

Godin is known as one of the youngest person ever to be accepted into TechStars, at 17, and the son of marketing star Seth Godin.

Curious about how he's doing since Dispatch raised nearly $1 million last year, Business Insider caught up with him recently.

Godin's young life is already the stuff of tech dreams. These days, he's working full time at his company with cofounders Gary LosHuertos, Jesse Lamb, and Nick Stamas.

But it hasn't always been easy. He nearly flunked out of high school thanks to his startup.

At the start of his senior year, Godin was working at Dispatch after school until midnight, sleeping only a few hours a night.

He was so sleep deprived he kept dozing off in class. One day, the vice principal called him into his office and told him he was failing a class. The principal warned Godin that if he didn't pick up his grade, he wouldn't graduate. Godin stepped it up as best as he could.

"At the end of the semester, I ended up just walking out [of school] and not asking if I got the grade or not," he laughs now.

Lucky for him, he got the passing grade and graduated.

In fact, his grades were good enough to get into NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study. Not ready to leave Dispatch for school, he deferred college for a year. When the year was up, he still wasn't ready to go to college, but a second year of deferment was only offered to people in the military.

So he persuaded NYU that running a startup is as rigorous as military service and got them to give him a second year deferment.

While many may think that 19 is a bit young to jump into the enterprise world, Alex is a firm believer in his own path.

“In this industry, a college degree doesn’t help as much for credibility and you don’t need a piece of paper to get someone to listen to you,” he says.

And people are listening. Dispatch is a project management/email replacement tool that competes with products like Basecamp and Asana. It already has a small but growing base of business users.

UPDATED: We originally reported that Godin was the youngest person ever accepted into TechStars. But Zak Kukoff was accepted into TechStars at the age of 16 for his startup TruantToday.

Raunaq Singh is an 18-year-old self-taught coder and a senior at Hightstown High School.

SEE ALSO: MISSING OUT ON BILLIONS: These 10 People Made Some Of The Saddest Choices In Tech History

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It's Finally Normal To Start A Company In London

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Big Ben, London

A few years ago, the startup scene in London was non-existent.

Now, it's bustling. Joanna Shields, CEO of London's Tech City Investment Organization and former Facebook VP of EMEA told reporters this morning, "The energy is intoxicating."

Techstars London's managing director Jon Bradford agreed. The pair sat on a panel this morning at Google's campus in East London and explained what's changed in their city: the attitude. 

"What's different today than two or three years ago is the startup ecosystem in London has a vibrant community," Bradford said.

Techstars is one of the top startup accelerator programs in the world. It was founded by David Cohen in Boulder, Colorado and has spread to multiple cities throughout the United States. London is the first city the program has expanded to overseas.

Bradford says Techstars noticed the change in England's perception towards entrepreneurs, and thinks it's a great place to find international innovators.

"Being a startup in London today is really normal," he said. "Previously it was, 'Look at that freak. He's working for himself and chances are it isn't going to work.' It's pretty cool. People stare at this building [Google Campus] and they say, 'Look at them, they work for other people, and it's weird.'

"Techstars looks at London as much more internationally friendly country than the U.S. itself," Bradford said. "They're looking at how to get to more exciting international teams, not just UK teams. And there's access to government here. They will actually sit and listen to what's asked of them."

The startup scene in London recognizes its still behind U.S. hubs, such as New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Silicon Valley. But London is undoubtedly up-and-coming.

Facebook opened its first international office in London at the request of its employees. Spotify has a big presence in London. Yammer, Stripe, General Assembly and BuzzFeed all have office space in London too. Google is also opening a major £1bn space in London's King's Cross area that will be 750,000 square feet. Its East London campus has only been open one year, but it has already held 166 events for about 60,000 people in the tech community.

London startups are starting to get national recognition. Summly, founded by a 17-year-old in England, was recently acquired for $20-30 million. Today another London startup, Mendeley, was acquired for about $100 million.

Disclosure: London & Partners, a not-for-profit backed by London's mayor, paid for me to visit London and explore its Tech City.

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Reid Hoffman Invests In A Startup Building A Simpler, Better, Mobile Version Of eBay

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Sold Tony DeVincenzi Matthew Blackshaw

A new startup named Sold is building an application that offers a better way to sell your old stuff than eBay.

Take a few photos, answer a few questions, and they find a buyer, send you a box and pick up the item at your door.

Sold doesn't really compete with eBay or other online marketplaces. It's an iPhone app that makes use of them all.

Here's how Sold works: You fill out a short form about the item you are selling. Sold scans the form and then asks you to take four pictures of the item, giving you tips on what to show in the pictures.

Employees at Sold look at the pictures to verify that the info you wrote about it is accurate and the item is in good condition. They list the item on eBay or another site for you. When it sells, they send you a box with the shipping address of the buyer. The money is deposited in your account.

The truly cool thing about it is that it turns everyone into a "power seller," as cofounder and ex-Microsoftie Matt Blackshaw describe it.

For instance, did you know that you'll get the most money for your old iPhone if you sell it on eBay but you'll get more money for your DSLR camera if you sell it on camera site Dppreview.com?

Did you know that you'll get more money for your iPhone on eBay if the phone is turned on in the picture you post?

That's the kind of knowledge Sold uses to sell items at top prices, Blackshaw says. It makes its money by charging a small fee to the buyer as part of the transaction.

The site was built by three tech wizards from MIT MediaLab: Blackshaw, Tony DeVincenzi and Dávid Lakatos. It's backed by an undisclosed seed round from LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman at Greylock; Rich Miner at Google Venture's Boston office and Antonio Rodriguez of Matrix. Some famous angels chipped in, too, like HubSpot founder Dharmesh Shah and Data Collective VC Matt Ocko (known for investing in Zynga, Facebook, LivingSocial).

SEE ALSO: The 10 Biggest Tech Companies You've Never Heard Of

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Two Andreessen Horowitz Big Wigs Tell Us How CEOs Screw Up Most

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ken coleman

Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz just announced that it's hired another special advisor.

It's Ken Coleman, the former CEO of ITM.

Coleman has had a long career in the Valley, with stops at Hewlett-Packard, Activision, and Silicon Graphics.

He's met a lot of important people along the way.

For example, 26 years ago, he hired Ben Horowitz into Silicon Graphics.

Or at least, one of Coleman's reports did. Horowitz says Coleman was his "boss's boss's boss's boss."

Despite the huge gap in responsibilities, Coleman availed himself as a mentor to Horowitz.

Now, Horowitz has asked Coleman to do the same thing for a new generation of Valley talent.

Horowitz says that's one way Andreessen Horowitz strives to differentiate itself from the many other Valley VC firms: "through superior mentorship."

Yesterday, we go the two on the phone for a minute. 

We asked a bunch of questions.

The one that got the most interesting answer was "What's the biggest, most common mistake Startup CEOs make managing?"

Horowitz: 

One big mistake that startup CEOs make is assumptions about people from different backgrounds.

If you're an engineer, it's very easy to assume all your employees are like engineers culturally, and that your human resources design will be the same across the company. Sales guys are very different from engineers.

Coleman:

[Sometimes CEO don't understand that] this is a people business. What's important is…getting the people thing right. Hiring the right people. Having an ability to make a change that hurts someone's feelings. 

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Real Estate Billionaire Is Making A Giant Bet On Detroit

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Dan Gilbert Quicken LoansMulti-billionaire Dan Gilbert, the founder and chairman of mortgage lending giant Quicken Loans, is in the middle of one of "the most ambitious privately financed urban reclamation projects in American history," according to a recent New York Times profile. 

After years of decay, he's trying to revitalize two square miles in the heart of Detroit. Gilbert has already sunk $1 billion into the project, bought some 3 million square feet of real estate, and he's only just getting started.

In part, it's an intensely personal project. Gilbert grew up outside of Detroit, and heard constantly from parents and grandparents how great the city was in its heyday, only to see it get worse and worse. 

On the other hand, should his billion-dollar gamble pay off, he could make a truly spectacular profit.

Why he might succeed, despite the odds

Because the city's in such bad shape, Gilbert and his partners have almost free reign to carry out their vision. The city's mayor, Dave Bing, told The New York Times that his job "is to knock down as many barriers as possible and get out of the way."

Through his real estate company, Bedrock, he's renovating buildings and aggressively courting tenants. 

He's already brought 80 startups into buildings he owns, and has moved 7,600 of his employees downtown.

People who have worked with Gilbert are enthusiastic.

"We have 12 people working for Detroit startups and organizations with another 15 or so on the way this year," Venture For America Founder Andrew Yang told us. "We wouldn't be there if not for Dan and his efforts to revitalize the city. He has single-handedly turned it into an environment where anything seems possible. It's pretty amazing what you can with both will and resources, and he's got plenty of both. He's giving rise to a whole new vision of Detroit."

Detroit Dime BuildingTo combat the city's dicey reputation, Gilbert has built a command center in one of his company's buildings where security guards watch live video feeds.  

And he's participating in massive public works projects, including a light rail system underwritten by him and other business leaders.

If he succeeds, and manages to boost property values, he could make an incredible profit. Nothing illustrates that better than his purchase of The Dime Building. It was designed by Daniel Burnham, the architect behind the iconic Flatiron building. The 330,000 square foot building cost him only $15 million. 

Massive obstacles, and one big problem

It's difficult to overstate how difficult a job Gilbert's taking on. The city's been a poster child for poor management, corruption, and decline. 

Large parts of the city are empty or burned out, and as many as 8,000 homes are abandoned each year. At rush hour, even the streets of downtown are pretty much empty. 

The city's population has declined from 2 million to around 700,000, spread thinly over a massive area. It has $14 billion in debt, and its finances are so bad that the state of Michigan appointed an emergency manager. 

And even if Gilbert succeeds, the area's economy is still fundamentally weak. Even as the auto industry starts to recover, there are few other positives, and most industrial jobs are gone for good.   

Additionally, some worry that Gilbert's narrow focus will create, at best, a tiny oasis in the safest and most developed part of an incredibly poor city. There's a massive hunk of the population and land that he's simply not addressing. 

In some ways, Gilbert's efforts mirror Tony Hsieh's $350 million effort to rebuild Downtown Las Vegas. But as hard hit as that city was by the collapse of the housing bubble, it hasn't seen anything like the half century of decline in Detroit. 

Gilbert may manage to change downtown for the better, and expects significant results in the next four or five years. But if it takes more than a billion dollars and someone as committed as Gilbert to even begin fixing two square miles.

What would it take to fix the remaining 137 square miles? 

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A Prominent Silicon Valley Investor Is Talking About The End Of Ownership

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Is ownership over? An important Silicon Valley figure thinks maybe.

Yesterday, Y Combinator partner Paul Graham tweeted:

Y Combinator is a Silicon Valley incubator famous for launching and investing in some of the most valuable and successful startups going right now.

Graham is a head honcho there. 

That makes him worth paying attention to.

The job puts him in constant contact with the Valley's most successful entrepreneurs, investors, and CEOs. Also, as one of the people who gets to decide who gets into Y Combinator, he plays a big role in shaping where things are going.

So what companies is Graham looking at that would cause him to say such a thing?

Here are some ideas:

  • Salesforce.com pioneered something called software-as-a-service, where large companies subscribe to cloud-supported enterprise applications instead of buying licenses or creating software in-house. Lots of startups copied the idea on a literal level. Now some are copying the theory behind it: that subscribing to a product is better than owning it for both the company that makes it and the consumer.
  • Zipcar is only the best known car-sharing ownership replacement service. Another Valley company the early adopters out there are already using is a called Lyft, a ride-sharing service. With it, you can use an app to summon someone willing to give you a ride for a couple bucks. There's also Uber, which makes an app you can use get cab to your location in minutes. 
  • NetJets is the Zipcar of the skies. For $600,000, you can get 50 hours of private plane usage per year. If that sounds expensive, look up how much it costs to buy a used Gulfstream. Then look up gas prices.
  • Seamless is a take-out delivery service that very popular in New York. I use it two or three times a week. You open up an iPhone app and complete an order in two minutes. It already knows your credit card number if you've used it once, and the tip gets included. If Seamless doesn't seem like an ownership alternative to you, watch a season of Downtown Abbey and think about how, instead of building a kitchen staff for your apartment, you can use Seamless to share a dozen different kitchens with your entire neighborhood.
  • Spotify makes buying an MP3 from the iTunes store seem silly. Netflix already did the same for movies and TV shows. 

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A Startup Called Repost Is Taking Re-Blogging To A Whole New Level

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John Pettitt

Traditional journalists often complain about new media sites aggregating their stories and re-blogging the content.

So a new startup, Repost, will likely enrage them. 

Repost is geared toward publishers who want to make it easier for others to distribute their content. 

"Yes, there are lots of sharing services," Repost founder and CEO John Pettitt writes on the company blog. "But here's the thing, they don't actually share the content. They share links to content. VERY different." 

Repost allows you to embed articles on your site with a simple embed code, very similar to how you would embed a YouTube video. The embedded content includes all the photos, links, and other media included in the original post. It also automatically matches the layout of your site.

From the publisher's side, they can simply add the Repost button to their site, right next to the social buttons for services like Facebook and Twitter. Repost says its goal is to help publishers get content to go viral.

Already, Repost has more than 4,000 publishers on board, including Fox Sports, PandoDaily, and NewsRight.

Here's what a Repost looks like.

Why Is It So Hard to Share Content? (via Repost)

Yes, there are lots of sharing services. But here’s the thing, they don’t actually share the content. They share links to content. VERY different. If you want to take an article from one site and publish it on another, you have to find a person, get permission, and then manually copy it. Assuming…

 

SEE ALSO: This 1-Year-Old Event Planning Startup Ought To Terrify Ticketmaster

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7 Tips For Picking The Right Cofounder

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As they say, there are a lot of fish in the sea. Finding the right fish or partner can appear to be simple. Two best friends get an idea, decide to create a business and build their business and grow wealthy beyond imagination.

That’s how the story goes, right?

Unfortunately, most partnerships end poorly. Hence, picking the right co-founder is a complicated decision and important decision that could determine the fate of your venture.

To help simplify your decision process, here are seven tips for starting a successful business partnership.

1) Yin & Yang. Don’t pick someone just like you.

The ideal business partner shares some similarities with you, but also has a completely different set of strengths, opinions and habits. You are going to spend a lot of time together, so having a balance in personalities and business strengths is crucial. Quick personality tests like Meyers Brigg, Strengthsfinder 2.0, or the DISC profile are simple ways to compare characteristics and most importantly, understand differences. There is no “perfect” combination revealed from these tests, but awareness of each other’s tendencies, strengths and personalities can be invaluable in fostering a successful working relationship.

2) Travel. Test your compatibility on the open road.

So, you think you have chosen the right partner? Great! Now, put the new relationship to a quick test before you commit. Travel together! The longer the trip, the more you will learn about your true compatibility. However, a quick weekend camping trip can be sufficiently revealing. Going on the road will unearth true characteristics and effectively test your ability to coexist, work together, compromise and have fun with each other. If you are actually committed to growing your startup, enjoy this vacation because it’s probably your last for awhile. If traveling reveals potential issues or signs of incompatibility, you may want to reconsider before continuing forward.

Despite going to high school together, I had spent a minimal amount of time with my partner, Jaspar Weir, before deciding to start a business with him. Fortunately, a six week backpacking trip throughout Europe helped me realize we make a great team.

3) Have a plan. Write it down.

Take a moment to make a plan, both personally and professionally. Consider some important dreams, wants and goals to share that forecast one, five and ten years from now. Both you and your partner should complete these separately and share results. Personally, I am in favor of the Prometheus method of planning.

Jaspar and I did this before starting TaskUs and our visions were quite different. We acknowledged the differences in vision and collaborated on a compromise, creating a shared vision from which we could create an actionable plan. To this day, we have a weekly meeting every Monday at 5pm to discuss and hold each other accountable for personal and professional goals.

4) Have a partnership agreement.

Creating an operating or partnership agreement is an expensive and arduous process, but it’s necessary. Partnerships, just like new businesses, have a diminished success rate. As strong as your relationship is now, outside circumstances can threaten and ultimately end partnerships. Avoid feelings of regret and stupidity in the future by proactively structuring an agreement that is fair and protects both parties. This process may also bring some important issues to surface. Dealing immediately with any disagreements will pay dividends in tougher times.

5) Divide and conquer!

Having a partner dilutes your equity, so make sure you increase your output! While we strive to maintain a workplace that fosters collaboration, we avoid redundancy by clearly defining our separate roles and responsibilities within the business. Hold your business partner accountable for goals within their respective department, but don’t get in the way. Two people equals double the output. Anything less is wasteful.

When Jaspar and I started TaskUs, we both wanted to be responsible for sales. However, I compromised and took ownership of operations. I was hesitant at first, but now I recognize this was the right decision for the growth and success of our business.

6) Communication is the key!

Communication is the key to any healthy relationship, business or otherwise. Partners should be able to speak honestly and openly about everything in the relationship, from a professional and personal perspective. When schedules become hectic, communication is the first casualty. Just like a marriage, a partnership needs to be worked on every day. Schedule a daily walk for 5 minutes outside of the office, a weekly breakfast or monthly hike. Consistency is key, and the result is singular vision and complete trust. Having a routine will allow you to express concerns and address differences before they become an issue.

Sending a google calendar invite to my partner that I see several hours every day seemed foolish at first, but several mistakes stemming from miscommunication quickly taught us the value of scheduling times to meet face-to-face.

7) Have fun!

Starting a company isn’t necessarily about a “big exit”, fame or millions of dollars. Most would argue differently, but building a business is about the entrepreneurial journey. Having a co-pilot along for the ride can be rewarding and ultimately keep you sane. Make sure that even difficult times are utilized as learning experiences. Celebrate your failures and enjoy every moment of the ride.

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The 23 Coolest Small Businesses In Detroit

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green dot stables detroit businesses

Detroit was one of the hardest-hit cities in America during the recession.

Its auto industry, which helped build America's middle class, needed multiple government bailouts.

Unemployment rose to 20% in the city in 2011, but could have been as high as 50% if you include people who stopped looking for work. 

But every bad situation has a silver lining. The lack of enterprise and abundance of failed businesses left great opportunities for newer and cooler businesses.

From restaurants and bars to bike shops and tech startups, these are the coolest businesses in Detroit.

Are You A Human

Website only

What it is: A tech startup

Why it's cool: When submitting a form online, most websites often have a human verification step where you type in a series of numbers and letters. This technology is used to prevent bots from submitting the form over and over.

Are You A Human uses mini games to verify that you are in fact a human, which leads to 40% more submissions than the typical CAPTCHA technology.



AutoBike

Website only

What it is: A company that makes bicycles

Why it's cool: This isn't your average bicycle. Autobike has come up with a new feature that lets your bike change gears automatically.

Now you can ride without pressing levers, and you will always be in the perfect gear.



The Batata Shop

511 West Canfield

What it is: A restaurant that serves homemade comfort food made from sweet potatoes

Why it's cool: The Batata Shop makes all of its food from scratch using fresh, homemade ingredients. Batata means sweet potato, and the restaurant uses sweet potatoes in many of its recipes including in their waffles, pancakes, and biscuits.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Whatever You Do, Don't Start A 'Video Discovery' Startup*

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YouTube's Hunter WalkWith the vast number of videos uploaded and shared on YouTube, many entrepreneurs have sought out solutions to help people find and manage relevant content.

But Hunter Walk, the former YouTube head of product, says video discovery products are typically flawed, and are not scalable businesses.

In fact, Walk predicts that Waywire, Cory Booker's startup that recently pivoted to a "Pinterest for video," will struggle. 

That's because generally speaking, startups like Waywire aren't building products that form new habits.

Here's why some of them don't fare well, according to Walk:

  • "Verticalized content needs context not just collections." Startups that try to create a video site for cooking enthusiasts, for example, isn't enough, Walk writes. People want a full-on community with editorial content, videos, and comments. 
  • Sites or apps with horizontal content need to make it easy to search, curate, and browse. All three are equally important.
  • "Social video is not a standalone product, just a signal." Some startups pull all the videos from your social feed into one product, but strip out the context and conservation around the video. Walk says, "These failed as standalone products because (a) social graph != interest graph and (b) removing the context and conversation took social videos and made them non-social. Fail."
  • Monetization is rough when you're merely embedding someone else's video. It's not like you can put another ad in a video hosted on YouTube or Vimeo.

Head on over to Walk's blog to read comments from Chill founder Brian Norgard, and other entrepreneurs in the video discovery space.

Update: Business Insider has been in touch with Waywire and wanted to clarify Waywire's vision. The company is not a video discovery startup. Instead, discovery is a portion of their vision for a global video network of socially conscious content.

SEE ALSO: The 22 Key Turning Points In The History Of YouTube

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How These Public School Teachers Made $4.4 Million Selling Lesson Plans Online

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deanna jump

Teaching is by no means a very financially rewarding profession.

Even though teachers are doing one of the most important jobs in society, full-time public school teachers make a mere $56,069 per year on average.

That's where Teachers Pay Teachers comes in. 

The online marketplace for course materials and lesson plans has attracted 1.8 million teachers, whom have collectively sold more $30 million worth of materials online.

The top 10 sellers on the platform have generated more than $5 million in sales, netting around $4.4 million in total. Deanna Jump, pictured above, currently earns more than $80,000 a month.

Teachers Pay Teachers features course materials for grades ranging from preschool to the collegiate level. But Teachers Pay Teachers Head of Product John Yoo says they have seen the strongest interest in the K-12 sector. 

On the high school level, Yoo says Tracee Orman's material on how to integrate "The Hunger Games" into the classroom has been widely popular.

"She's not only become seen as the expert in using the Hunger Games in the classroom," Yoo says. "She's done what I think all good teachers do, which is marry the things that kids are interested in and turn it into really good curriculum. You know, use what they're interested in to draw them into the classroom."

Yoo notes that not all teachers have found the same success as the top 10 sellers. In order to be successful on the platform, Yoo says they encourage teachers to leverage social media to get their name out there.

"Teachers by nature need to share with each other," Yoo says. "That's part of what it means to be on the job. [...] Whether you're experiences or new, you need to figure out how to teach things in ways that resonate with kids."

Business Insider got in touch with many of Teachers Pay Teachers's most successful teachers to learn more about their experiences.

Amy Lemons: "Through the funds I made from this business we were able to adopt our first child."

Teaching experience: Seven years teaching 4th grade, 1st grade, and now 2nd grade.

Sales: $309,000

Amy Lemons on TPT: "TpT has been such a blessing to so many people that I know. One of the greatest aspects of this business is the connections I've been able to make with other teachers all over the world. It literally is a community and has helped improve so many classrooms through networking and collaborating resources. The biggest traffic source for my store is my blog: stepintosecondgrade.blogspot.com. I started blogging almost two years ago and never imagined the impact it would make.

The biggest blessing of TpT has been our adoption this past year. Through the funds I made from this business we were able to adopt our first child, a three year old cutie from the Congo. Everything else TpT has done is so small in comparison to the blessing of bringing our family together. However, the extra income has allowed me to purchase things like books, classroom supplies, research materials, and so much more for my classroom.

We really do believe the Lord has blessed us so much. The blog has been a great source of traffic, but the blessing of TpT is nothing short of a miracle from the Lord in our lives."



Melissa Kozerski and Nicole Farrar: "Every penny has gone into her children's college fund."

Teaching experience: A combined 26 years teaching grades 1-6

Sales: $313,000

Melissa Kozerski and Nicole Farrar on TPT: "It has been inspirational and incredibly rewarding to see people all over the world use our ideas and lesson plans in their classrooms. We truly love helping other teachers. Creating lesson plans for other teachers has also helped us become better teachers in the process!"

Kozerski and Farrar say they collaborate on their ideas and work together to create innovative, high-quality lesson plans. They also use all of their lesson plans with their second and third grade students. 

What they've done with the money: Farrar says every penny has gone into her children's college fund, while Kozerski has saved the money, "nothing fancy!"



Jodi Durgin: $326,000 in sales.

Teaching experience: Jodi Durgin has taught Preschool, Kindergarten, 1st grade, 2nd grade, and 3rd grade. Durgin has taught 3rd grade for six years now. 

Sales: $326,000

Jodi Durgin on TPT: Durgin could not be reached for comment, but we will update this piece if we hear back from her. 



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Two Women Raise $3.5 Million For A Controversial, Girls-Only App That Objectifies Men

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Alexandra Chong LuLu founder

In London, two long-time friends Alison Schwartz and Alexandra Chong have an app that helps women anonymously gossip about men. 

On Lulu, men aren't allowed in, and women can anonymously rate them without their consent.  The men, who are all guys the women know via Facebook, are rated on a scale of one to ten. Their profiles are automatically pulled in when the women they know access Lulu. When rating a man, women are prompted to share how they know him (friend, ex-girlfriend, etc), then asked to check off all the good and bad qualities about the man that apply.

The tone is playful and funny. Quality hashtags include #Big Feet and #One Woman Man for pros, and #Obsessed With His Mom and #Napoleon Complex for cons. The women can see how many people have favorited a profile (people following that man's profile for real-time updates and alerts), and how many women have viewed the profile. 

The app purposely has no free form spots, so the women can't get too nasty. This also helps protect Lulu from some lawsuits.

The app reads like a quiz in an issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. There's even a "Dear Dude" portion of the app that lets women ask men anything. Editorial Director Alison Schwartz says thousands of submissions come in all the time, and that engagement rates are really high with the content. Many of the women ask follow up questions too.

The company is led by Schwartz and Chong, who first met during summer vacations in Jamaica where they both had family. They each attended law school and, while in London, Alexandra fell in love with startups. She called Schwartz, who was working in New York with a book publishing company, and the pair started plotting Lulu.

The idea for Lulu came from a post-Valentine's day brunch. Chong sat at a table of women who were friends and friends of friends, gossiping about everything from the men in their lives to trusted dermatologists. She wanted to find a way to harness that gossip and voice, which women magazines have successfully done, online.

lulu"If you put even one guy in the mix, the candor of that conversation changes," Schwartz told Business Insider. "We thought there was a real opportunity to tap into informal girl talk and gossip."

Lulu began as a desktop product in December 2011 with $950,000 in funding, but last summer the founders realized it needed to be mobile-first. They re-launched Lulu for iOS and Android last June and raised another $2.5 million in February. Investors include Yuri Milner, Jawbone co-founders Hosain Rahman and Alexander Assely, Path's Dave Morin, Passion Capital and PROfounders Capital. 

Since mid-January, 80 million profiles have been viewed on Lulu, 12 million searches have been conducted, 7.5 million reviews have been read, and there have been 6 million user sessions. Lulu says users come back on average eight times per week.

Regardless of its tone, the app inherently draws controversy. A number of men have complained about their profiles but there haven't been any lawsuits filed yet. Schwartz says her team immediately removes men's profiles if they write in and complain. She also says men will go through great lengths to get into the app to review their feedback, including changing their sex on Facebook to female. 

Schwartz says her developers are experts at finding the digitally sex-changed men and sends them a notification: "Dude, you're a dude, but we love you anyway." They're also sent a link to a men's Lulu app, where guys can update the profiles women see. 

Although Lulu was founded in London, the 14-person team has been marketing its app on college campuses throughout the United States. They started with Florida State and have been finding sorority leaders to push the app. Schwartz says their power users browse the app seven hours per week. As a result, Lulu has popped up in places the founders didn't initially intend, including Colorado and Arkansas. Chong and Schwartz heading to New York City in the fall to further push the app in the states.

"We definitely feel this is about female empowerment and collective wisdom," Schwartz says. "We also feel boys are just the beginning. We'll win the trust of our girls here and then take them into other verticals."

Here's what Lulu looks like:

lulu

lulu

Now Watch: The Overly-Attached Girlfriend Explains How To Become A Viral Internet Star By Age 21

 

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Grooveshark's CEO Is Making A Comeback After 'Getting Punched In The Face 10,000 Times'

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The last couple of years were rough for Grooveshark CEO Sam Tarantino. 

The span of time between 2011 and early 2012 was "a year of getting punched in the face 10,000 times," Tarantino tells Mashable's Seth Fiegerman

Tarantino went through a series of blows during that time. First Google pulled the Groveshark app from Google Play because of complaints from record labels. And then Spotify launched in the U.S. in July 2011, effectively taking away some of Grooveshark's users. But that wasn't even the worst of it. Universal Music Group, along with all of the major record labels, had filed a federal lawsuit against Tarantino and his team for uploading copyrighted songs by the end of January 2012.

Now, Tarantino is "literally broke" and trying to lower his rent. But he's going full force ahead in trying to revive Grooveshark from a tumultuous time. 

Just yesterday, Grooveshark launched a new streaming service called "Broadcast." It lets anyone act as DJ by streaming playlists in real-time. DJs can even break up songs in the playlist with their own interpolations.

There are obviously still competitors, but Tarantino says if big players like Apple, Google, and Amazon enter the streaming space, it could push record labels to come up with "sustainable" licensing fees. 

SEE ALSO: Now, Amazon Is Reportedly Working On A Spotify-Killer

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13 Hot London Startups You Need To Watch

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lulu dating app

We recently visited London and toured the startup scene there. We met with investors and executives and found out which early-stage companies are buzzing abroad.

While there are large, promising tech companies coming out of London (Hailo and MindCandy to name a few), we're highlighting very early stage startups that few people have heard of but are up and coming. 

With some more work, they could grow to become the next big things in tech.

Disclosure: London & Partners, a not-for-profit funded by the city's mayor's office, paid for my trip to London to explore England's startup scene and Tech City.

YPlan helps you find what's going on in your city tonight. Pay to attend an event in two taps.

Founders: Rytis Vitkauskas, Viktoras Jucikas

What it is and why you should care: YPlan launched in February 2012. It's a mobile app that curates events going on in your city tonight and lets you pay for a ticket in two taps. Right now it's only in London.

Funding: $1.7 million from BaltCap, Sherry Coutu, Tom Hulme, Peter Read, Gi Fernando, Andy Phillipps, Brent Hoberman, Robert Linney, Wellington Partners, Octopus Investments

Website: yplanapp.com



Citymapper is a transportation app for London that tells you how to get places by foot, car, or Tube.

Founder: Azmat Yusuf, who formerly worked for Google

What it is and why you should care: If you're familiar with HopStop, Citymapper is a lot like that. The iOS app helps people get around London by giving driving, Tube, and walking directions. It also shows how long it will take to get to the destination and, if you're walking, how many calories you'll burn getting there.

Funding: Connect Ventures, Peter Read

Website:Citymapper.com



MOVES uses your phone's sensor and location data to determine how much you've run, walked or biked in a day.

Founders: Sampo Karjalainen, Aleksi Aaltonen, Juho Pennanen, Jukka Partanen

What it is and why you should care: MOVES is a free mobile app that tells you have much you've walked, biked or run in a day. It looks at sensor and location data from the phones and displays the data on a user-friendly map and in a daily storyline. The app has already been downloaded more than 1 million times. Unfortunately, we're told it's not as accurate as other activity tracking tools like Fitbit or Fuelband. One person told us it's less accurate by 40%. And because the app is always on, it drains battery life.

Funding: $1.6 million from PROfounders and Lifeline Ventures

Website: moves-app.com



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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After Success In Israel, Microsoft Launches More Accelerator Programs (MSFT)

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Tzahi Weisfeld

On Monday, Microsoft's second class of Israeli startups graduated from its Windows Azure Accelerator program

The program, started about a year ago, has been such a hit that Microsoft is launching at least two other international Accelerator programs modeled after it, Microsoft's Tzahi Weisfeld, senior director of the global startup group, told Business Insider.

These will be in India and China.

At this point, Microsoft isn't talking about a U.S. Azure accelerator because Microsoft is already working with TechStars Seattle, Weisfeld told us.

With the 13 new startups launched this week, Microsoft has graduated 26 Israeli startups and is claiming success on par with TechStars and Y Combinator. Graduates have "raised an average $900,000" in seed money from U.S. and Israeli venture capitalists, he said.

There is one big difference between Microsoft's program and the others: Microsoft doesn't personally invest and it doesn't take a stake, Microsoft's Rob Craft, senior director of Cloud Strategy, told us. 

Startups are not required to use Microsoft technologies or to develop products for Microsoft platforms. But, since the point is to launch startups on Microsoft's cloud, Azure, the company gives them $60,000 worth of free Windows Azure service for two years plus three years worth of Microsoft software (Office, Windows Server, development tools).

We talked to one of the new graduates, Pixtr's Aviv Gadot, cofounder and CEO, who confirmed that Microsoft isn't pushing its own wares beyond Azure. Pixtr is a mobile video editing app that runs on the iPhone but not on Windows Phone. The founders use don't even use Windows PCs. They use Macs.

Microsoft also has plenty of competition. There are more than two dozen accelerators/incubators in the "startup nation" of Israel, including the Campus Tel Aviv"hub" program run by Google.

(Disclosure: Microsoft paid some of the travel expenses for Business Insider to attend a cloud computing event in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.)

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Why US Companies Are Drooling Over Israel's Amazing Startup Scene

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Israel gadget shop

U.S. companies and investors are falling over themselves to get a piece of Israel's startup action these days.

There are at least two dozen accelerator programs in the Tel Aviv area, including some run by Microsoft and Google.

It seems like every U.S. VC has at least one Israeli startup in its portfolio. Some even have full offices here, like Battery Ventures, Benchmark, Bessemer, Sequoia, according to the Mapped In Israel startup map.

With 4,800 startups in the country today, Israel is known as the "startup nation." That's more startups per capita than any other country, and No. 2 in actual numbers after the United States (not counting those who claim the tax shelter Cayman Islands as their home).

Of those 4,800, about 700 are VC backed. The rest are bootstrapped, Microsoft's Tzahi Weisfeld, senior director of Microsoft global startup group in Tel Aviv, told Business Insider.

What makes Israel startup heaven? Weisfeld explained:

  • The Israeli culture breeds lots of "risk adverse" people. Although Tel Aviv is a safe and friendly European-like beach town, Israelis live with the daily "pressure" of neighboring countries that wish them harm. That makes them tough.
  • Israelis tend to speak their minds. The tech scene is tight so it's not a matter of who you know (they all know each other) but what you know. It's an industry-wide meritocracy.
  • People launch careers a little later in life and with more worldly experience than in the U.S. and Europe. They usually do the required military service before going to college (3 years for men, 2 for women). They sometimes take a year of travel after the military.
  • Israel has a lot of world-class engineering schools. (However, Israel has the same shortage of women entering tech fields as in the U.S.)
  • Military service tends to make them experts at certain types of tech like "machine vision," where computers can understand what they "see." For instance, Microsoft's Kinect is built on tech licensed from the Israeli company PrimeSense.
  • Israel is a huge hub for semiconductor R&D.Intel employees 8,300 people there. Apple, IBM, Motorola all have similar chip R&D facilties. 

It all adds up to a nation of people who can create hardware, gadgets and apps and who have the confidence to leave good jobs and launch companies.

(Disclosure: Microsoft paid some of the travel expenses for Business Insider to attend a cloud computing event in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.)

SEE ALSO: WHO'S HIRING? These 10 Tech Companies Have The Most Job Openings

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The Next 'Megatrend' In Startups

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Social commerce and wearable tech are just a couple areas where entrepreneurs have been innovating.

Now another big trend is emerging in tech. SV Angel, an early stage investor in hundreds of startups, says it's going to start investing  heavily in a "Health Informatics," the intersection of biology and software.

The firm's partner David Lee says he'll be looking for startups that are working on ways to diagnose and cure diseases. He's also eager to invest in startups who are working to improve patient care and medical research.

A few startups that already exist in the space are Flatiron Heath, which is working on a data platform for oncology, and Sherpaa, which provides companies with affordable health care and round-the-clock access to doctors. 

"The catalyst of this trend is the cheap, abundant data of two types - medical and molecular data," writes Lee. "Cheap, abundant data combined with new ways of measurement and analysis leads to technological breakthroughs."

Lee is also a cancer survivor, so he's especially eager to see technology tackle medical issues.

"I believe that great software companies in the mold of Google, PayPal and Palantir will help make cancer a chronic condition and quite possibly, cured," he says.

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A Rising Tech Star Convinced Jack Dorsey And Eric Schmidt To Take A $1 Million Chance On Her

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Ruzwana Bashir peek

Sometimes, when you meet someone truly captivating, you know that person is destined for greatness.

That's how it feels when you meet Ruzwana Bashir, an enthusiastic, bright-eyed, Londoner who's working on a startup, Peek.

Peek isn't what's special about Bashir. Candidly, it's an average startup idea in a crowded space. Peek wants to be a one-stop shop for tourism and activity booking online. The site is beautifully designed and looks like Airbnb, but there is no shortage of trip-planning apps and experience-driven sites. It's difficult to scale and manage a startup that relies on local businesses. For some of Bashir's vendors, a profile on Peek is their business's first website.

If anyone is up to the daunting task, it's Bashir. Bashir, 29, attended Oxford University and began her career at Goldman Sachs, then Blackstone. She's the first British Asian woman to become President of the Oxford Union, a debate society that has yielded a number of politicians and prime ministers.

Bashir attended Harvard Business School and joined the New York startup scene under Kevin Ryan at Gilt GroupeFrom there she went to Artsy and was a member of the founding team. She ran marketing and business development and sat in on investor pitches. There, she became acquainted with tech executives such as Google executive Eric Schmidt.

Once she was familiar with the inner workings of startups, there was one last thing Bashir needed to start a company: a technical co-founder.

A friend introduced her to an engineer who was passionate about travel and ready to start a new venture, Oskar Bruening. Bruening graduated from MIT and worked for VMware and Symantec. He then worked for a startup backed by Benchmark Capital and SV Angel, Pipewise.

The pair met for coffee one afternoon in New York. Bashir says they instantly hit it off and scrapped all their plans that afternoon to whiteboard Peek. Later that night, Bruening and Bashir attended a friend's party together and the co-founder relationship was solidified. 

Bashir's bubbly persistence has helped her move the startup forward. The spellbinding founder flew to Portland, for example, where the owner of the domain Peek.com lived. She told him she was in town and asked him to coffee. By the time the meeting was over, the owner agreed to give her the domain for an affordable price. A single word domain like Peek would normally go for millions of dollars.

Finding investors to back Peek wasn't an issue either, even though Bashir was a first time entrepreneur who didn't have a product made. She and Bruening raised $1.37 million from Eric Schmidt, Square founder Jack Dorsey, Ben Parr, Khosla Ventures and SV Angel. Six months later they launched the website.

Now Peek has launched in eleven cities with 1,000 businesses using the platform.

Whether or not Peek will be a success remains to be seen. But Bashir's personal success seems like a sure thing.

SEE ALSO: 13 Hot London Startups You Need To Watch >

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Meet The CEO Who Lived In A Taco Bell Parking Lot And Now Runs A Cool New Startup

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Taro Fukuyama

AnyPerk CEO Taro Fukuyama made a major decision in August 2011.

He and his co-founders decided to leave Japan to seek investment for their dating startup, Mieple. 

Their first stop: Silicon Valley.

"I felt like if you come to Silicon Valley, you can raise any money you want," Fukuyama tells Business Insider.

They eventually did raise money, but it didn't happen overnight.

When the Mieple team arrived in the U.S, they spent the first three days sleeping in a minivan in a Taco Bell parking lot in Redwood City, Calif. They would have stayed longer, but a Taco Bell employee eventually told them to leave.

So Fukuyama and his co-founders rented a cheap motel in San Francisco. and stayed there for three months. But there was only one bed, and no one wanted to sleep on the floor. So they succumbed to squeezing in to bed together.

"We had no idea when we could raise money or start making money so we wanted to save as much as possible," Fukuyama says. "I mean, it's doable but I don't want to do it ever again. It's funny because if you start a company, you feel like you can change the world in the future. Anything you are doing, you feel like it's worth it. Even if you're living in a car, you feel like some day it's going to be worth it."

Despite their less than ideal living situation, Fukuyama and his team met with hundreds of investors, but couldn't get anyone to bite. After a couple of months, they were almost ready to call it quits and head back to Japan. But then something life-changing happened.

When TechCrunch Disrupt rolled around in September 2011, Fukuyama knew that he had to be there. But tickets for the esteemed startup competition and tech conference cost nearly $3,000. Fukuyama says he explained to TechCrunch that he was an interpreter, so they let him in for free. And it was at TechCrunch Disrupt where everything started to turn around.

Paul GrahamFukuyama spotted Paul Graham, founder of the prestigious Silicon Valley startup factory Y Combinator, while at Disrupt. He asked if he could pitch him Mieple, and Graham said yes. Graham, who was intrigued by both Fukuyama's product and his story, decided to introduce Fukuyama to other patners.

"That changed our lives," Fukuyama says.

A few months later in January, Fukuyama and his team entered Y Combinator as the program's first-ever Japanese startup

But just three days in, the Mieple team decided to pivot because their numbers weren't improving. Fukuyama says he was inspired by companies in Japan working on products with similar ideas. So he saw an opportunity to bring that type of business to the U.S.  

Enter AnyPerk.

AnyPerk officially launched in March 2012 to provide employees with perks in fitness, entertainment, travel, team building, and much more.

The platform is designed to save employers money, while also increasing productivity and employee happiness in the work environment. The goal is to help startups and companies retain and attract top talent by providing high-quality perks that employees at companies like Google and Apple get.

AnyPerk is still a long way from success. A similar company, Betterworks, raised $10 million at a $100 million valuation and failed 16 months later. But initial signs for AnyPerk look good. So far, AnyPerk has 250 partners on board offering perks including Equinox, AT&T, Verizon, and AMCIt currently has 2,500 customers including Pinterest, Quora, and Hulu.

AnyPerk has raised $1.4 million from Digital Garage, Ben Lewis, Michael Liou, Cyberagent and Shogo Kawada. Fukuyama would not specifically comment on revenue, but he says the company is making money and is nearly profitable. 

SEE ALSO: How One 'Epic Failure' Led To A Massive Hit In The App Store

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