A million visits isn’t cool, you know what’s cool?
One billion visits.
And RetailMeNot has achieved that major milestone with 1 billion visits to its site since it launched in 2006.
“We want to take a moment to recognize this important event in the timeline of our history and thank all the consumers who visited RetailMeNot over the years,” Cotter Cunningham, CEO & Founder of WhaleShark Media, the operator of RetailMeNot, said in a news statement. “Shoppers have trusted RetailMeNot since the site was founded in late 2006 to help them save money while they buy the items and services they need and want. We remain more committed than ever to finding new ways to help consumers keep more money in their pockets.”
The RetailMeNot Mobile App has been downloaded more than 3 million times.
Founded in 2010, WhaleShark Media, based in Austin, has received $300 million from several venture capital firms including Austin Ventures, Google Ventures, and Institutional Venture Partners.
Since its founding, WhaleShark Media has evolved into a profitable and quickly growing company, generating 30 percent growth in site traffic and 50 percent revenue growth. WhaleShark Media’s rapid growth stems, in part, from a series of major acquisitions of other coupon vendors, most importantly RetailMeNot.com, the single largest online coupon site in the world, and VoucherCodes.co.uk, the UK’s top online deal site.
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Andy Keil has some projects he just hasn’t had the time to finish.
So Keil, head of products at Handsome, launched Finish Up Weekend.
It’s an invitation-only event that takes place at Chicon Collective, a funky new co-working space in downtown Austin. The tag line for the event is “Let’s get shit done.”
Already, Keil has signed up 40 people to participate in Finish Up Weekend, which is sponsored by Rackspace and Vintage Heart Coffee.
Keil hopes to finish up a print magazine for his music site, Popstash.
“That’s just one of the projects I have in the works that isn’t yet complete,” he said. “I need help with the layout of the magazine from a printer.”
Keil moved to Austin from Chicago in November with whatever stuff he could fit in his car. He slept on a friend’s couch and after a couple of weeks he met with the CEO of Handsome and landed a job.
His inspiration for Finish Up Weekend is to get all of the right combination of skills in the right place to tackle unfinished projects. That means collecting Web developers, illustrators, copywriters, mobile developers, engineers, videographers, photographers and designers.
“I jokingly call it a selfish event,” Keil said. “We spend a lot of our time working on other people’s stuff this is our chance to work on our own stuff.”
Finish Up Weekend is not the place for someone who has a business idea to come and get free labor, Keil said.
“Some people are doing projects that have been years in the works,” he said. “Some people are just coming to work on their own projects. Some people are coming to only help other people.”
Finish Up Weekend is about collaboration and community, Keil said.
“We’re not giving out free help,” he said. “We’re building a community.”
Josh Sklar, founder of Heresy, thinks the advertising industry is broken.
“In the late ‘80s the business was still sexy, it was still like the Mad Men days,” Sklar said. “The client would come to us and we would work together and we would build something.”
Then over the years, ad production became more of an assembly line that sucked away the creativity.
“You are just doing production for other people’s ideas,” Sklar said. “How did the business go from being something so many creative people in the world wanted to be a part of to something where you’re just forced to do schlocky work to make some money?”
Sklar asserts that the entire industry is about to fall over a cliff.
“The future was not just bleak but dire,” he said.
So Sklar and his friend and former colleague John Lambie decided to take action. They’ve created “Digital Doesn’t Matter,” a “manifesto, a book, in interactive, feature rich digital and standard hardcover formats.”
Digital Doesn’t Matter is not just a book, but a lasting platform that can be updated and changed with the focus on what went wrong with the advertising industry and ideas on how to fix it.
“We didn’t want to write a book that is out of date,” Sklar said.
They’ve already conducted more than 100 interviews with marketing and branding experts who have shared their “insights, anecdotes, experiences, frustrations, opinions, and perspectives.”
Sklar and Lambie have launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $30,000 for the project. They’re almost half-way to their goal with 152 contributors and 24 days remaining. They need the money to create the iPad app and to self-publish the book on Amazon in digital and hardcover formats.
“Everyone who works in the business sees where it’s going and what it used to be like,” Sklar said.
Sklar and Lambie have worked in the advertising industry for more than 25 years and they’ve worked in senior executive positions within top 10 global agencies.
“We know the story and the challenges from the inside out as most recently evident in our positions running WPP’s Enfatico agency to service the Dell worldwide business,” Sklar wrote in a post. “But, more to the point, we know and have access to successful, brilliant people all over the world who are even more experienced, in even more impressive positions and who know exactly what is going on and what needs to change.”
Rackspace in San Antonio recently claimed the 34th spot on Fortune’s annual list of the 100 best companies to work for in the United States.
And if you watch this video, you’ll see why it’s a fun workplace.
Rackspace, once a startup, now has more than 4,600 employees worldwide. Most of them work at the company’s headquarters, a refurbished mall on the Northeast side of San Antonio. The video, which Rackspace published on Friday, already has more than 25,000 views.
MediaBistro reports on the Harlem Shake phenomena which took off a week ago after “a video maker named Filthy Frank took an infectious beat created by a producer named Baauer and invented a kooky dance sequence.” Since then, hundreds of Harlem Shake videos have popped up online.
And Bill Blackstone, community outreach leader for the Rackspace Austin office sent a link to their Harlem Shake video.
“The Austin office is WAY more fun. ;),” Blackstone wrote in an e-mail.
And the Austin Rackspace version
Tim Rothwell and
Brett Berman, co-founder of UMeTime
Tim Rothwell, one of the co-founders and managing director of UMeTime, recently answered a few questions about the new startup, which launched last week in Austin.
The company has been under development for a year and a half.
UMeTime has raised $862,000 and is seeking an additional $500,000, according to Rothwell.
Q. What is UMeTime?
A. UMeTime is a tool that allows businesses to connect with local customers in real-time. Business owners are in complete control of the technology, and can use it however and whenever they’d like … speed up their slow hours, fill empty chairs and tables, and sell a new product or service.
UMeTime delivers local customers into the door, so the chances of them turning into a repeat customers is much greater. Plus, merchants can test the effectives of their campaigns with UMeTime’s Merchant Management Tool Suite, which provides real-time analytics and reports.
Think of UMeTime as a marketing solution rather than a daily deal service.
UMeTime is also a free mobile application that connects consumers with local businesses and deals that are happening around them right now. With the “Blast Out” technology, users have the ability to receive notifications from all Food and Beverage merchants that are running specials at any given time in their immediate area. “My Tab” is a consumer’s personal filter tool to customize their “deal-feed” and choose individual merchants that they want to receive instant offers from.
No more spam, no more distant offers, and no more Botox specials! Support local Austin businesses and connect like never before!
Q. How did you come up with idea?
A. I moved up to Los Angeles following my studies with Brett Berman, who has been my best friend of 12 years and business partner in UMeTime. It’s quite funny how we came up with the concept of UMeTime. The very first bar that we went to was a hip place on Abbot Kinney in Venice Beach. We were shocked when our beers were $9 a piece, given that we were absolutely broke! Our solution at the time was to subscribe to all of the daily deal sites to receive all of the best offers from businesses in our local area. Within a few days we quickly realized that this was a mistake as our email inbox began to overflow with Brazilian Bikini Wax-type offers from “local” businesses that happened to be 45 minutes away. UMeTime, in the early days, was built to be the ultimate happy hour guide, where merchants can post real-time specials throughout the day, depending on
their slow hours and types of drinks/food specials that they want to “Blastout!” Of course, it has evolved since then, but our core remains the same … put the merchants in charge of their offers and the terms, and put the user in charge of their “deal-feed.” UMeTime is the hyper-local technology that connects the two.
Q. Why did UMeTime move from Los Angeles to Austin?
A. I’ve been coming to Austin for the past 3 years. I have good college friends that grew up here, and we would travel to Austin every opportunity we could. (ACL, Halloween, UT Football games). For a few years, I remember telling Brett how awesome Austin is, and giving him detailed reports on my trips. Finally, in November of 2011, we took a trip here from LA to scope it out and get a feel
for the technology scene, and how it differs from CA. This city began to grow on us, we knew there was something special about Austin. Over time, we recognized that this city would be the best market to launch the technology. Some of the most dedicated and loyal people out there, Kyle Nathanson, Dan McKernan, and Kristian Zak made the move with us to launch the company. The great part about it is that we are all best friends, so it’s been a great experience for us to do this together.
Q. Who’s your competition?
A. Of course the big Daily deal companies come to mind, such as Groupon, Living Social, etc. The issue for the merchants is that the terms of the offer are not in favor of the local merchant. The customers redeeming these specials are what we call, “one night standers”, or bargain hunters who are there to redeem an insanely discounted, long-term offer and rarely visit the merchants
again. 9 out of 10 businesses require marketing solutions that are targeted to deliver local, loyal and regular customers on terms that do not cannibalize their current profit margins. The market response of the early entries to the “discount” marketplace, including household names such as Groupon and Living Social, deliver distribution channels for deeply discounted offers BUT only on terms and conditions that the merchant cannot possibly sustain.
Q. What are your plans for the company during the next year and the next few years?
A. We are excited to be launched in our first market, Austin, Texas! Our immediate goals are to get some traction in the market and observe how local merchants and users engage with the technology. We strongly feel that college-based markets will be UMeTime’s sweet spot, and we have identified many ways that we can strategically integrate ourselves with the University and it’s students. Our 1-year goal is to have a strong presence in 10 University-based markets by the end of 2013, and by the end of 2014 we want to be in 60 markets, while exploring international expansion.
Q. Who makes up your team?
A. Tim Rothwell – Co-Founder/Managing Director, Brett Berman – Co-Founder/Managing Director, Donald Clark – COO, Kristian Zak – Community Marketing Director, Dan McKernan – Director of Digital Marketing and Advertising, Kyle Nathanson – Sales Director/Campus Marketing, Robert Varela – Business Development & Sales, Michael Hernandez – Business Development & Sales, Tyler Reynolds – Business Development & Sales, Diego Hernandez – SEO & Graphic Design, Genevieve Andretti – Customer Support.
Q. How is UMeTime financed?
A. Friends, Family, and Angels
Q. How does UMeTime make money?
A. UMeTime charges the business when we deliver a paying customer in the door, which is when the business wants it, on their terms, and selling the inventory that they want to sell. For every customer that UMeTime
delivers during a “Blastout” (1-3 hr deal campaign pushed to a 2-mile radius), UMeTime charges $1. For each “Deal” (Longer campaign that receives increased visibility, and instantly notifies customers who are “following them”), UMeTime collects 25% of the revenue on the deal, and releases 75% plus any overspend to the merchant. In the future, we may implement a monthly subscription fee for the use of
Blastouts.
Q. Anything else you want to make a point of that we haven’t asked you
about?
A. We have recently moved our team and business operations to Austin from California. We feel that Austin is the place to be, and we look forward to building technologies that benefits local business and Austinites. The startup community has been great to us, and we now know why this city is so special and a great market to launch a business.
Q. What’s your favorite local startup resource?
A. The Austin Chamber of Commerce has been great to us, and has opened many doors for UMeTime. We are very thankful to them for what they’ve done, not only for UMeTime, but for the city of Austin and the startup community.
Texas Entrepreneur Network has been a great resource for UMeTime and has allowed us to get plugged in within a short time. They’ve provided an “Austin Resource” section, which pretty much breaks down everything tech going on in Austin and resource links for startups. The Capital Factory has enabled UMeTime to meet a lot of great people, and has abundant resources to assist startups at any stage.
BY IAN PANCHEVRE
Reporter with Silicon Hills News
“Of everything which we possess there are two uses,” Aristotle noted some 2,300 years ago. “One is the proper and the other, the improper or secondary use of it.” For Aristotle, the proper use of a shoe would be to wear it on your feet. Whereas the “improper” or “secondary” use of a shoe would be to exchange it for something else. “The same may be said of all possessions, for the art of exchange extends to all of them,” Aristotle continues.
Certainly, the Kyrgyz, a tribal group in Kyrgyzstan, would understand Aristotle’s sentiment. Among the Kyrgyz, horses are not only good for riding, but also for exchanging as their primary unit of currency. And when a deal can’t be done by exchanging an even number of horses? The Kyrgyz throw in some lambskins as change.
Despite the wisdom of Aristotle or the traditions of the Kyrgyz, barter economies haven’t been in fashion for several thousand years. There are obvious reasons why modern economies operate off a common currency. But one San Antonio startup is forcing a serious rethink of the full faith and credit we place in traditional currency.
“Money may not be the most efficient way to value things,” explains Steven Quintanilla, the founder and CEO of Kirpeep.com. “It’s funny because we have come so far as a society, but we still use an archaic system of exchange.”
Kirpeep, a recent recipient of a $25,000 investment from the Geekdom Fund, is an exchange engine. By tapping into a potentially vast and hidden market of exchange opportunities, “Kirpeep will do for exchange what Google did for search,” Quintanilla predicts.
The problem that Kirpeep is attempting to solve is one of measuring the value of an object or service, which is inherently subjective.
“Buying power and utility can be maximized via an economic system that is based off of what things are worth instead of what they cost,” Quintanilla elaborates. This sounds good in theory, but in practice a system needs to be established for enabling exchanges in an open market.
And that’s where Kirpeep comes in.
Kirpeep powers exchanges through a simple, four phase process. The Locate Phase involves identifying an exchange by searching or browsing for an “offer” that a user has posted, or an unmet “need” that another user can satisfy. Offers and needs can be either goods or services. Once a potential swap is identified, the users – more fondly known as Kirpeepers – message each other and begin a bargaining process in the Agree Phase. When an agreement has been reached, the two parties enter the Perform Phase, where the exchange occurs. Once the parties complete their obligations, the R2 Phase prompts each participant to rate and review the experience along four key metrics.
When asked for examples of exchanges on Kirpeep, Quintanilla fondly recounts the story of a web developer who traded his programming services with a local auto body shop. The auto body shop received a flashy new website. And the web developer? A 1986 Cadillac Coupe de Ville.
“I think it’s the future of a new economic system,” boasts Ana Rodriguez, a self-described power user who exchanged logo design work for a professional photo-shoot. “We are already witnessing a change in how we collaborate: people work online, many don’t even carry change and use their card to make purchases… I foresee many starting to embrace the barter/exchange/trade philosophy and Kirpeep will be the place for that.”
Kirpeep, an abbreviation of the phrase “keep it real people,” was conceived by Quintanilla back in 2008, while he was an undergraduate at MIT. While pursuing contract work, Quintanilla became frustrated with the lack of reliable platforms for exchanging services and goods with one another. The anonymous nature of Craigslist destroys accountability, rendering potential exchanges shady at best. Whereas Taskrabbit is narrow in focus, only allowing for odd job services in exchange for cash. After an extended period of revisiting the concept and tweaking the technology, Kirpeep publicly launched in November of 2012.
Early activity has been encouraging for Quintanilla and the Kirpeep team. Moreover, Quintanilla assures that an array of new features will be deployed in the near future. Kirpeep is currently looking for development and business talent to join the team. And Quintanilla hopes that a recently launched crowdsourcing campaign will secure more capital.
Although it may be a while until Kirpeep.com finds adoption in rural Kyrgyzstan, Quintanilla believes it’s only a matter of time until Kirpeep realizes its vision. Until then, Kirpeep will continue powering local exchanges, one after another.
Disclosure: Geekdom is a Sponsor of Silicon Hills News
By SUSAN LAHEY
Reporter with Silicon Hills News
The competition among the finalists at Friday’s Texas Venture Labs Investment Competition was fierce. But the winner, recipient of $135,000 and entry to the Global Venture Labs Investment Competition, was Seismos, a company that uses CO2 and sound waves to free up incremental amounts of oil reserves left underground after drilling.
The two other winners were GluTact, a company that plans to bring to market a contact lens that reads glucose levels in diabetics, and BeatBox Beverages, an Austin company that creates volume quantities of party drinks that appeal to the Millennial generation.
The competition was held by Jon Brumley Texas Venture Labs accelerator at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center. The judges, Isaac Barchas of Austin Technology Incubator, Morgan Flager of Silverton Partners, Shelley Hossenlopp, Spot on Sciences, Robert Reeves, Datical, and Jerry Sullivan, a retired venture capitalist, were instructed to judge solely on the basis of which company they would invest in, if they had $1 million to invest in one company. All entrants were Texas-based companies.
Friday’s competition was the final five, whittled down from 60.
Seismos
The winning company had one clear advantage: They were developing software to be used on existing machinery in a space worth $4 trillion, which soundly trumped the profit potential of other competitors. Team members pointed out that two-thirds of oil tapped in drilling remains underground, trapped in the rock. Even freeing a small portion of that oil, they estimated seven percent, could result in billions of dollars of profit for oil companies as well as 60 more years of oil production for the U.S. Various methods of extracting the oil have proven environmentally dangerous and expensive.
One method that is less damaging than, say hydraulic fracking, is releasing CO2 into the ground where the oil is, releasing the oil. But in the process, CO2 gets stuck and increasingly smaller amounts are available for recycling. The problem, oil industry executives and engineers confirmed for Seismos, is that they are “operating blind” and can’t see where the CO2 is going or where it’s stuck. Seismos is preparing to license a software technology invented by a scientist at Berkley University that uses sound waves to map the path of the CO2 as well as the location of oil underground. The process would cost oil companies about $3.5 million per year as compared to about $38 million per incident of current mapping technologies which require a well to be shut down for a period of weeks. Presenters were looking for an infusion of $2 million, beginning with a $500,000 investment.
Seismos was the last presenter, seeking money to obtain the license and conduct testing. After the group’s presentation, the judges were silent for a moment before several of them said it was “an excellent presentation” and Shelly Hossenlopp noted it sounded “almost too good to be true.”
The group had a relationship with the scientist who discovered the power of the sound waves and is preparing to sign a license agreement. One of the other groups that won, GluTact, isn’t quite so close to claiming the technology it hopes to bring to market.
GluTact
GluTact presenters pointed out that one in ten Americans currently has diabetes and by 2050 the Centers for Disease Control projects, the number will be one in three. Consistent monitoring of glucose levels is crucial for managing diabetes but current methods require people to prick themselves, draw blood and use a glucose monitor and test strips. It’s messy, the test strips cost roughly $1 each, and it’s not something people want to do in front of others. Because it’s a hassle many diabetics just don’t do it.
Tear fluid, however, also accurately reads glucose levels. Researchers at the University of Washington have invented a contact lens whose outer ring reads the levels and sends a radio signal to a card that registers what glucose levels are when the person looks at it. The cost is approximately the same as existing monitoring methods. GluTact seeks to bring the technology to market. The group is planning to seek funding from sponsors in the medical device and healthcare fields and is hoping to secure the patent for the lens.
BeatBox
The third leading team is BeatBox. The Austin company has created an alcoholic beverage that meets what it says are the three requirements of Millennials—good taste, good value and high alcohol content. Millennials, presenters said, are all about to be of drinking age. They’re not content to throw a party with a keg of beer. Men buy most of the alcohol for parties and they want to serve beverages that will appeal to women. The company’s first offering is a raspberry-lemonade flavored drink with an orange wine base that tastes like vodka. The company has already obtained all the necessary licenses to create the drink, has a manufacturing plant, a top-tier packaging partner and has hired a law firm and a distribution company. It was seeking a $100,000 loan at 11 percent interest to be paid or converted to stock after three years.
The other competitors received honorable mention.
Intelligent Menu
Intelligent Menu is a restaurant app that would perform the functions of other apps, allowing customers to identify specific food items by location, make reservations, and order food from their own phones using a QR code. The app would provide detailed analytics to restaurants. The analytics would pinpoint the success of specific food items and highs or lows could help restaurants identify the cause of falling or rising customer satisfaction. Who was cooking at that time of day? Who was serving?
The group’s research showed restaurants could improve table turnover by seven percent by giving customers control over the ordering process. Customers would also be likely to purchase more high margin items items like appetizers, desserts and alcoholic beverages.
EduSex
EduSex is a company that repurposes content from the CDC into a sex education app geared toward adolescents. It begins with gestures as harmless as hugging and evolves from there. Parents can choose which information they want their children to have on the app and preferences are saved with a login. Presenters said their main target audience was divorced dads who didn’t know what their spouses were teaching their sons and feared their sons were experiencing shame around sexual feelings.
Research shows, presenter Harry Lindner said, that most of these conversations take place in cars when “Parents don’t have to make eye contact and the kid can’t leave.”
The group plans to extrapolate the idea to other formats, such as books and other topics like bullying and drugs.
Silicon Hills News Reporter Andrew Moore interviews Wimbo Music’s Chief Technical Officer Greg Cerveny in the first episode of Slice of Silicon Hills. The show is recorded and produced at the Silver Fox Studios at Geekdom in downtown San Antonio.
If you’re interested in being on a future show, please send us an e-mail. The goal of the show is to shine a spotlight on Austin and San Antonio technology companies and entrepreneurs and those visiting the area to participate in local incubators.
Rackspace Hosting has received a $2.5 million job training grant from the Texas Workforce Commission.
The San Antonio-based company will use the grant, in partnership with Alamo Colleges, to train 1,000 new employees, as well as current employees.
Rackspace will be hiring the new workers in San Antonio, Austin and Dallas and paying them an average hourly wage of $25.38, under the terms of the grant.
The announcement is being made at a news conference this morning at Rackspace’s headquarters with TWC Chairman Andres Alcantar, Alamo Colleges Chancellor Bruce Leslie, Rackspace’s Chairman Graham Weston and its CEO Lanham Napier.
“We’ve committed to hiring 1,000 new employees in the next two years,” said Duane La Bom, Rackspace’s director of training and development.
The grant will be used to create and provide a new online curriculum on cloud-based technologies. The training will be for technicians, Linux administrators and software developers.
“It’s no secret that the shortage of these skills exists today,” La Bom said.
The research firm IDC reported that 1.7 million cloud computing jobs went unfilled last year and that’s expected to grow in coming years, he said.
Rackspace is also partnering with Geekdom to launch the Open Cloud Academy to provide training to veterans and the public on Cloud Computing technologies. The first class will start training at the end of February. The official ribbon cutting for the Cloud Academy, which is based at the Weston Centre in downtown San Antonio, is March 19th.
This is the second Texas Workforce Commission training grant Rackspace has received. In 2008, Rackspace got a $4.7 million grant to provide training to more than 3,000 Rackspace employees.
Rackspace, with 4,600 employees, is the second largest cloud computing provider worldwide. It launched the world’s largest commercially-operated open cloud platform in 2012.
