February 26th, 2013

How A Teacher Turned To Technology To Solve A Thorny Problem And Raised $100K

The clincher, the thing that made Quick Key go viral, was a poorly-lit video of an excitable guy holding his iPhone up to a Scantron page, one of those test pages you used to fill out in school. He thumbs through page after page, making comments on students’ performance as the app scans the page and instantly reports a grade. The video was amazingly compelling. The creator, Walter O. Duncan IV→ Read More

November 14th, 2012

NightPrivy Lets You Bid On A Bottle Full Of Bub

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As a degenerate clubber, I often find myself back in the VIP where I enjoy fine libations and the company of many ladies. But what about the pain point of knowing which club to visit and how much to spend on bottle service? NightPrivy has a solution. → Read More

November 8th, 2012

ShiftHub Brings The Freemium Web Model To Old-Fashioned Time Cards

Back in high school when I worked at Arby’s, I was very careful to punch in and out using an old, mechanical time clock. Now, however, I suspect I’d use something ShiftHub. This app, by a pair of charming Torontians (Torundians?) who have experience in retail, branding, and mobile, is an all-in-one system for throwing away time clocks altogether. → Read More

July 28th, 2012

Review: Cerevellum Hindsight 35 Rearview Biking Computer

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We’re very lucky that the creator of the Cerevellum is even alive. Evan Solida was a competitive cyclist until a major accident in 2007 left him unable to ride. After years of plastic surgery and physical therapy, he was able to get back onto his bike and now builds unique cycle designs, does contract work, and just released his first product, the Hindsight 35.

This unique device is essentially… → Read More

July 24th, 2012

Noodlecrumbs Is A Crowd-Funding Platform For Thinkers, Not Doers

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With successes like the Pebble smart watch, crowd-funding is becoming more and more attractive to startups. But maybe you aren’t even at the startup stage in your idea. Maybe all you have is an idea and a computer. That’s where Noodlecrumbs comes into the picture.

It’s a new type of crowd-funding for those of us who don’t quite know how much we need to make the dream a reality. In fact… → Read More

May 16th, 2012

The Junkman’s Dilemma: How The Internet Has Changed How We See History

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Back in in 1999, just as Ebay was coming into bloom, William Gibson wrote a piece on his experiences buying expensive watches online. He called the article My Obsession and it details his youth as a picker in the 1970s.

He writes:

When I was a young man, traversing the ’70s in whatever post-hippie, pre-slacker mode I could manage, I made a substantial part of my living, such as it was, in a… → Read More

April 19th, 2012

Chocomize Now Shipping To The UK, Potentially My Belly

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We first wrote about Chocomize not realizing the importance of disruption in the bespoke chocolate space. After trying a sample of their produce today at the New York Tech Day, however, I’ve decided that this is probably the best start up in the whole world, barring that one that lets you connect with friends and family and share photos and stuff. And also that other one with the birds. That one… → Read More

April 11th, 2012

TC Live From The Richmond Mini-Meet Up

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Here we go: it’s the last night of our whirlwind Virginia tour and this time we’re in Richmond, home of the Fan District, Altria (everyone’s favorite tobacco company), and our friends at Snagajob. It looks like this town is just starting to unwind a little and consider entrepreneurship as a viable alternative to the corporate life, so we’re pretty excited to be here.

We’ll be doing full posts… → Read More

April 9th, 2012

Valley to Detroit: Motor City Woos Laid-Off Yahoo Employees

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Last week, Yahoo announced that it would cut 2,000 jobs. Given the employee shortage in Silicon Valley, most of the qualified engineers that lost their jobs in this round of cuts will likely land on their feet pretty quickly. For those who just had enough of the Valley, though, Detroit-based Quicken Loans and its family of companies is offering these former Yahoo employees (and anybody else who… → Read More

April 9th, 2012

Reminder: The TC DC Mini-Meetup Is Tonight

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Just a reminder: today is the most important day of the year. It’s TC DC Mini Meet-up Night! We’re here in DC and we’re looking forward to meeting with you all at RFD (810 7th St NW) at 6pm for some networking, some fun, and some start-up talk.

I’ve been doing these things in the US and Europe for a few years now and my style is very laid back and very organic. This is a very informal event … → Read More

April 4th, 2012

Need A New Name For Your Website? Why Not NameStation?

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You’ve dropped out of college, met a dude who is totally into PHP, and you’re ready to build a startup. Where do you begin? With a name, silly!

That’s where NameStation.com comes in. It’s basically a naming tool for creators and creatives who need to build a bunch of odd names on the fly. In the short time I spent with the app, I found a few great website names including a name for my new… → Read More

April 2nd, 2012

WalkMe Walks You Through Websites

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A Tel Aviv startup, WalkMe, aims to do for your website what your UX team should have already done: make it easier for your users to understand. The service creates little pop-up bubbles over various points in order to lead your users through a typical interaction, be it a bank website or a complex social tool.

These aren’t videos that run in the corner. Instead, every time you complete an… → Read More

November 27th, 2011

“Will It End Very Badly?” Probably Not.

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Editor’s Note: Guest contributor and early TechCrunch writer Steve Poland (@popo) currently is exploring raising a fund to join the “overcrowded” early stage investment market. His last contribution was The New Early-Adopter Addiction: Turntable.

Last week at David Kirkpatrick’s Techonomy conference, Sean Parker said “Little startups are ridiculously overfunded. The market is ridiculously… → Read More

December 17th, 2010

Dynamic Eye's LCD Sunglasses Darken Only Where Needed

Someone call 50 Cent. A Pittsburgh-based (say hi to Bruno Sammartino for me, guys) start-up called Dynamic Eye has developed a pair of LCD sunglasses that only work when they have to. The idea of dynamic lenses isn’t exactly new, but Dynamic Eye’s specific implementation is worth a mention. → Read More