Entrepreneurship : Innovation + Job News

Filling out applications -- for a loan, for a job, for a college -- can be tedious and often fruitless work. ApplyRapid is changing that. Their two-way mobile search engine connects recruiters and applicants based on shared data points.
 
A college basketball coach, for example, might be looking for a point guard (with an admissable GPA and SAT score). Meanwhile, a student-athlete and their family might be seeking a certain athletic division, academic program or scholarship. With iMatchAthletes.com, created using the ApplyRapid platform, both parties can leave Google behind and search for their "best fit" by setting criteria in selected fields. The system ranks resulting matches, and aggregates game footage and sports news according to user specifications.
 
"The students are playing, practicing and studying in the dark," says Donta’ Bell, founder and CEO of ApplyRapid. "They have no idea what the coaches are looking for, so how do they prepare?"
 
ApplyRapid -- which is based in the Waterfront Technology Center in Camden -- has also leased their platform to iMatchTalent.com, a human resources site, and iMatchBizOpps.com, a site that connects businesses and vendors. All three sites have been alpha tested and anticipate beta release in the coming months. The company is currently working with the Camden County Department of Economic Development on a local business-to-business purchasing program using iMatchBizOpps.
 
"There are so many silos of information that are all over the place," says Bell. "Right now, everybody has their own database. We universally globalize information collection so that there’s a standard format."
 
Source: Donta’ Bell, Apply Rapid
Writer: Dana Henry

With explosive growth in recent years, Philly’s tech and innovation scene gets plenty of local coverage. Nonetheless, Developing Philly, a weekly web series, has found a new angle. Rather than update viewers on what's happening now in the startup world, the series explores where our tech community came from and where it's headed.
 
Created by filmmaker David Dylan Thomas and web developer Maurice Gaston, the project was inspired by mutual observation. When the co-producers and longtime South by Southwest participants met in 2009, people with different skill sets were starting to connect at local events such as BarCamp and CreativeCamp. The tech culture, it seemed, was becoming more energetic and creative.
  
Now in its first season, the seven-episode series explores the scene's origins. Topics have included tech in the '90s, groundwork efforts (including BarCamp, IgnitePhilly, Philly Startup Leaders and Philadelphia Area New Media Association) and the coworking trend. Episodes are released every Friday.

Initially, Gaston and Thomas weren’t sure if the subjects would be fictional, technical or entrepreneurial. Early conversations with Alex Hillman of Indy Hall and Sean Blanda of Technically Philly led them to more and more under-the-radar leaders, and the focus became clear.
 
"I started out expecting to tell a technology story," says Thomas. "It became more of a business story, but then it grew into a story about community in general. What’s unique about the Philly tech and innovation scene is how collaborative and supportive it is."
 
Source: David Dylan Thomas and Maurice Gaston, Developing Philly
Writer: Dana Henry

Technology has changed how business is done – many companies are adopting lean startup principals, non-traditional marketing strategies and cultivating relaxed cultures. Interactive Recruitment Consultants (IRC), an employment agency for creative digital businesses and professionals based in Old City, has adapted the hiring model to meet those needs.

"With our clients, it's really more of a partnership," says Adam Heagy, founder and CEO of IRC. "With everyone we work with, we have several meetings. We're not afraid to give bad news or constructive feedback."

Heagy admits that staffing agencies can have a bad reputation. A client will often meet with an agent once, fill out some paperwork, and wait for the agent to return with an offer. IRC provides a range of custom services to companies and contractors, including digital branding and social media, and assistance with online portfolios. They've even acted as an outsourced human resources department, providing job offer letters and employee orientations.

Before starting IRC, Heagy worked for 15 years at a large staffing agency. In his off hours, he enjoyed finding friends the right job and grew that hobby into a business.

IRC celebrated their first year anniversary with their highest grossing month to date -- $300,000 in April sales. They currently serve fifteen technology companies in the Philadelphia region and have been placing multiple contractors per week. They plan to hire two to four employees over the summer.

"No matter what the economy, or how the market is doing, there's always a strong demand for technical professionals," says Heagy.

Source: Adam Heagy, Interactive Recruitment Consultants
Writer: Dana Henry

For Philly's burgeoning community of indie game makers and enthusiasts, GameLoop is a chance to swap ideas, learn techniques and make new contacts in a growing industry. Philly's second incarnation of this event takes place at University of the Arts' Terra Hall on Saturday, May 18.

Dubbed an "unconference," GameLoop has no set agenda. Participants propose and decide on talks and roundtables at the beginning of the day during an open floor discussion.

"[The local gaming community] has brought together programmers, artists, musicians, designers, modelers -- you name it," says organizer Ray Merkler. "A rapidly growing indie game scene needs events like this to share ideas and create new relationships."

GameLoop originated in Boston in 2008. Merkler brought the concept to Philly in 2011, after meeting founder Scott Macmillan at the PAX East gaming show in Boston. Philly's first GameLoop drew 80 people, including leaders from Boston, New York and Baltimore. Topics covered included 2-D and 3-D design, prototyping, and business models, but Merkler says GameLoop isn't just about development or the industry. For example, someone looking to build a new narrative into a classic game, such as Dungeons and Dragons, is welcome to share.

"You can attract new talent into your city, or you can take the talent you already have and let it interact in new ways," says Merkler. "GameLoop tries to do the latter."

Source: Ray Merkler, GameLoop Philly
Writer: Dana Henry

Thanks to the power of Google Analytics and online databases, businesses now have volumes of precious data about their customers. The hard part is figuring out what all those numbers mean. 

Enter RJMetrics, a company that creates custom business intelligence software for large e-commerce sites, translating obtuse numbers into real-time metrics. Now, with the beta launch of their "dashboard," RJMetrics is going a step further, handing the metrics back to the clients so they can use the generated charts and tables to inform timely marketing agendas.
 
Typically, if an e-commerce site wants to know the value of a customer over time or how much revenue their Facebook campaign is generating, the answers require complex calculations.

"The kind of analysis that people want to do or have been doing takes a painstakingly long amount of time," says Matt Monihan, UX designer for RJMetrics. "We take that workflow away -- you have a chart that's constantly updated with new data that you don't have to manage."
  
Founders Bob Moore and Jake Stein developed RJMetrics while working for the VC firm Insight Venture Partners where their jobs included gathering metrics on potential investments. After creating countless Powerpoint decks, they realized their process could be automated and that the findings would be invaluable to businesses.
 
Their signature offering, cohort analysis, identifies consumer behavior among groups. Customers who purchase on a certain date, for example, might have a projected lifetime value. Illustrating and responding to these patterns is increasingly critical as online businesses focus on longterm customer relationships.
 
"People care more about customer lifetime value because that data is now available," says Monihan. "There's been a ton of data for as long as e-commerce companies have existed and it's been dormant. Now people can unlock the data."

The company launched in Camden in 2009, but moved to Center City last year to make room for new growth -- their workforce grew from 15 to 26, and their client base has doubled to 130. They are currently hiring for positions in software engineering, programing, marketing and sales, and product management.
 
Source: Matt Monihan, RJMetrics
Writer: Dana Henry

Thanks to an innovative partnership with Wash Cycle Laundry, Neighborhood Foods CSA will soon begin delivering its food shares from urban farms to subscribers via bicycle.

This past year, the Merchants Fund introduced Neighborhood Foods CSA to Wash Cycle Laundry, a wash-and-fold two-wheeled delivery service. Both businesses are new, local, independently-run and invested in creating quality jobs while advancing sustainability. Cross-promotion seemed natural, but Wash Cycle had a better idea.
 
"The more we thought about it, the more we thought it made sense to do delivery," says Gabe Mandujano, founder and CEO of Wash Cycle Laundry. "We've gotten really good at hauling things around town. For us, it's the first time we've hauled anything other than laundry."
 
Neighborhood Foods CSA, a project of Urban Tree Connection, provides shares comprised of seven to ten varieties of produce sourced from two multi-acre farms -- 53rd and Wyalusing in West Philly and one in South Philly -- supplemented by a small Lancaster farm. Add-ons include fruit from Breezy Acres Farm and Beechwood Orchards, bread from Four Worlds Bakery, jam from Green Aisle Grocery, honey from local beekeepers and coffee from La Colombe. In their first year, Neighborhood Foods provided 68 shares over the course of 22 weeks. By offering delivery service from Wash Cycle Laundry, they expect to serve 100 customers from May through October.
 
"Our hope is that by offering delivery, it will make the CSA more attractive to a new type of customer," says Mandujano. "A lot of people like the idea of local food, and might even be willing to pay a little bit of a premium for it, but can't get to a pickup site every week."
 
At the partnership's inception, Wash Cycle Laundry obtained a $50,000 loan from Patricia Kind Family Foundation and increased their workforce from 12 to 16 employees. They expect to grow to 30 employees by the end of this year.
 
Source: Gabe Mandujano, Wash Cycle Laundry
Writer: Dana Henry

Cramming the development of a smart, thoughtful minimum viable product into a grueling 52-hour session requires the passion and stamina often associated with athletic competition. Fittingly, the team behind Slopes, a performance app for snowboarders and skiers, took a come-from-behind victory in the fifth Philly Startup Weekend, held April 26-28 at Workbridge Associates in Center City.
 
Curtis Herbert, developer and founder of Consumed by Code, had been discussing the concept with fellow snowboarders since January. "When you're on the slopes, you want to track your stats," he explains. "How fast were you going? Were you going faster than your friend?"
 
Yet Slopes faced an uphill battle at the competition. During Friday's round -- when 50 presented and 110 participated – the concept did not receive enough votes to make it to the next round. After the setback, Herbert joined Tim Li, Jiate Zhang and Liwen Mao in a different team. The new collaboration eventually dropped their original pitch and chose to design Slopes instead. Their winning product is akin to Nike+, using GPS-capacity to track individual stats including speed, distance and calories burned.

During Startup Weekend, the team established user needs, the back-end GPS-processing, and identified runs and ski lifts that affected the data. Their user interface garnered an impromptu award for "best design."
 
In second place was Adventures of Bob, a game that encourages kids to eat well by featuring a super hero who grows stronger through smart dietary decisions. DesignSync, the third place winner, helps graphic and user interface designers transfer work created with proprietary software (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign) to clients and teammates who don’t have those programs using Dropbox.
 
Organizers Chris Baglieri and Melissa Morris Ivone -- who have been with Philly Startup Weekend since the beginning -- said this event was marked by a growing comradery. When they needed to reconfigure the wifi, a sponsor picked up the tab; when they ran out of beer, an organizer made an emergency trip. In the final hours, when most participants were operating on red bull, beer and sheer will, teams tweeted messages of support for one another.
 
"You see some of the turmoil a team goes through," says Baglieri. "Then you see them present, and you’re like, ‘Oh, you guys are all over this,’ but 12 hours ago, they were freaking out."
 
Source: Curtis Herbert, Team Slopes; Chris Baglieri and Melissa Morris Ivone, Philly Startup Weekend
Writer: Dana Henry

In 2010, Lance Portnoff placed ninth among fifty contestants at the Motor Assisted Bike Death Race in Tuscon, Ariz., on a bicycle he designed and assembled himself in the basement of his Fairmount home. Shortly after, he earned a patent for the design -- dubbed "Da Bomb" -- and launched Design Logic Bikes.

The company makes heavy duty cargo bikes with built-in electric motors that travel up to 50 miles per hour (20 mph, legally). The frame includes a carrying rack that can hold up to 150 pounds, allowing the bike to haul anything from camping gear to humans over the back wheel. These are bikes built to do more than just get a person from place to place.

"The rear of the bike basically has a built-in rack," says Portnoff. "With most bikes you’d have to buy an accessory and bolt it in."

In mid-May, Design Logic will release a cargo bike, "Da Phat," with tires 4.8 inches thick. In addition to the built-in rack, the frame has a hitch that allows the Da Phat to move a small automobile trailer.

"There's a new trend in bikes within the last few years called a 'fat' bike with big fat tires," explains Portnoff. "A couple of manufacturers make bicycles with that size tires. We’re pretty much the first cargo fat bike."  

Design Logic plans to keep their operations lean (they outsource the machining). In addition to the new release, Portnoff is organizing an electric bike racing team. 

Source: Lance Portnoff, Design Logic
Writer: Dana Henry

In July 2010, Rassa Vella, founder of DeTours, returned from a trip to Paris with a new idea for exploring Philadelphia. Vella decided that a Segway -- a two-wheeled standing vehicle common in Europe -- could give tourists a more intimate view of the city compared to a traditional bus or carriage outing. DeTours open its fourth season this month and runs tours through October.

Since launching with just one guide, the company has grown to 13 employees and a full-time operations manager. DeTours has doubled their fleet to 15 vehicles and offer up to five tours per day. Trips cover Philly's murals, South Philly cheesesteak tasting and Center City sights. Stops include the Betsy Ross House, the Liberty Bell, Elfreth's Alley, Franklin Court and the Avenue of the Arts.They also cover contemporary Philly, including the Comcast Center, the Cira Center and urban parks. Longer trips go off-road on the Schuylkill River Trail.

"It's not just Betsy Ross," says Vella. "We integrate the present and the future along with the past. It's who Philadelphia is -- it's immersion."

Vella says the tours have grown increasingly popular for family gatherings and corporate outings. DeTours also serves larger private events and offers on-campus Segway demos at Temple student events. In the coming years, she hopes to open two other offices in the Greater Philadelphia region. 

"You can cover as much ground as you would on a bus, but you're experiencing it from the view of a pedestrian," says Vella. "You’re in the neighborhoods -- you're hearing, seeing and smelling them."

Source: Rassa Vella, DeTours
Writer: Dana Henry

Even when it’s not Philly Tech Week, the region has an ever-growing schedule of hackathons and startup events. Despite the crowded landscape, Philly Tech Breakfast has already racked up over 200 members -- including local notables from Philly Startup Leaders, Technically Philly and Drexel's ExCITe Center -- and they haven't even held their first meetup yet.
 
The group will meet every third Thursday in Mitchell Auditorium at Drexel’s Bossone Research Enterprise Center. The morning will feature three-to-six presentations from local tech innovators. According to Enterprise Law Associates' Gary Smith, a founding sponsor, Tech Breakfast is "technology agnostic," meaning that folks working on any tech-driven enterprise -- be it a videogame platform or a medical diagnostic device -- are welcome to participate.
 
"We wanted focus more on the fact that the companies are early-stage and in technology than on the fact that they're in a particular vertical," explains Smith.
 
By joining the greater Tech Breakfast network -- a listserv boasting thousands of members from Baltimore, Washington D.C., Columbia, Md., and Northern Virginia -- Philly can engage a broader community. A venture capitalist from Northern Virginia, for example, is more likely to build relationships and invest in a Philly software company if they belong to the same community.
 
"We’ll become part of a larger flow of information," says Smith. "There's a lot of talk about that, but not a lot of practical facilitation of that."
 
Current sponsors include Namsa, a medical product consultancy, Outlook.com, Technically Philly and Bizelo, an inventory management company for e-commerce. The event was organized by Bizelo founder Ron Schmelzer.
 
While these breakfasts are free to the general public, they are tailored to tech startup members and supporters. Meetings start April 25 with presentations from AxisPhilly, SnipSnap and Acclaim, among others. 

Source: Gary Smith, Enterprise Law Associates 
Writer: Dana Henry

If the fact-check frenzy of 2012 presidential campaign proved anything, it's that political statements will never again go unscrutinized.
               
Jumping ahead of the content-data curve, ElectNext is launching the Political Baseball Card. The "card" -- a widget that appears at the bottom of online political news articles -- offers three types of information on relevant politicians: biographical facts, legislative record and data on who's financing their campaign. The company has developed relationships with forty of the top national news outlets, including the Economist, the Washington Post, Comcast and NBC. They recently launched the Political Baseball Card on Philly.com, PoliticsPA and PolicyMic.
 
"Data's really become an important part of news coverage," says ElectNext's Dave Zega. "We're leveraging data as a content component -- as a way to really get people data that's relevant and engaging right at the moment they need it."
 
Since launching in 2011, ElectNext has built the country’s largest political data repository by partnering with watchdog organizations including the Sunlight Foundation, the Center for Responsive Politics, GovTrack and Follow the Money.

While these organizations give vital insights into federal policy makers, local politics can be more abstruse. According to Zega, ElectNext works with individual municipalities to gather records on city council members and other politicians. They started in Philly and are in the process of establishing partnerships in New York City. In the coming years, they hope to represent the one hundred largest U.S. cities.
 
ElectNext closed their latest funding round with $1.3 million in investment and seeks a Rails developer. 
 
Source: Dave Zega, ElectNext
Writer: Dana Henry

DreamIt Ventures -- the Philly-based accelerator that helped launch SnipSnap and CloudMine – is tackling a particularly challenging industry: Healthcare. DreamIt Health, which launched April 8, focuses solely on companies in healthcare IT.
 
The accelerator’s first class features ten companies including AirCare, a company developed by VenturePact that helps minimize re-admissions through mobile nursing; Osmosis, a tool that helps clinicians retain vast amounts of knowledge during medical training; and Medilo, a mobile healthcare card that details benefits and eliminates the need for forms.
 
Accelerator programs like DreamIt help validate business assumptions, minimize startup risk and guide businesses to market. With healthcare startups, that process is more complex. Aside from needing to comply with changing regulations, these companies deal with a market that's behind heavy hospital doors -- data is often difficult, if not impossible, to access. DreamIt has addressed these challenges through collaborative partnerships with Penn Medicine, the region's largest provider, and Blue Cross Blue Shield, the largest insurer.

Mentoring for the nascent companies will include time with industry experts who can explain the behind-the-scenes aspects of medical operations. Each company will also receive a a stipend of up to $50,000.
 
"It's about understanding the operational systems and getting access -- potentially to the systems themselves, but also to the experts,” says Karen Griffith Gryga, managing partner at DreamIt. "We provide the payer-provider element as well as access to the operational systems, the data and other resources that are often difficult for these companies to access."
 
Companies also need to navigate conflicting interests between payers and providers. Fortunately, those parties do agree on the need for improved quality of care and tools that enable patient self-management. An app regulating daily nutritional habits, for example, could help individuals treat their diabetes or obesity. The payer and provider also share an interest in big data management systems that can help hospitals treat more people.
 
"Now, more than ever, there is this desire among the different constituents of the healthcare ecosystem to find a way to work together in a much more collaborative fashion," says Griffith Gryga. "Hopefully that will continue."
 
Source: Karen Griffith Gryga, DreamIt Ventures
Writer: Dana Henry

At one point, Philadelphia wasn't a city but a cluster of municipalities and townships. When Joan Decker, commissioner of Philadelphia's Department of Records, started working on PhillyHistory.org -- a location-based search engine for over 100,000 archival photos -- locating historical addresses was a problem.

Azavea, a local company that specializes in the creation of geographic web and mobile software, helped out with the project and quickly realized that this issue -- constantly changing addresses -- is a problem not only in Philly, but in cities around the world.
 
To make historical records more accessible to archives, museums and libraries, Azavea is creating GIS-enabled tools that will solve the address issue. The Temporal Geocoder project will use an open-source platform to collect historical addresses and develop prototype software to geographically tag them. Azavea's proof-of-concept phase -- which will be developed for Philadelphia -- recently received a $150,000 Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Science Foundation. As the project develops, Azavea plans to hire public history specialists to help with the archives.
 
“We've become accustom to the idea that you can type an address into Google Maps, or some other map based application, and find the location," says Robert Cheetham, founder and president of Azavea. "That's not the case for anything going back more than a few decades. Addresses and intersections have all been changing over the course of the city's history."
 
Cheetham says the Temporal Geocoder could assist with matters related to property, epidemiology and family history. In the grander scheme, the project represents a new frontier for digital searches.
 
"This is a real opportunity to explore what some people call 'old knowledge,'" he says. "We've grown accustomed to Googling something and accepting that that's the sum of human knowledge. In many cases, it's really just a tiny snapshot. There’s an enormously rich trove of experiences and knowledge in the archives all over the world."
 
Source: Robert Cheetham, Azavea
Writer: Dana Henry

In 2010, when SA VA opened its doors in Center City, the apparel company set a new standard for sustainable production in Philadelphia. Not only were the clothes made from environmentally-conscious fabrics, they were also manufactured -- at fair wages -- directly above the store.

Now Sarah Van Aken, founder and CEO of SA VA, is taking that local ethos national. In February 2012, Van Aken launched a wholesale line that is currently showcased in boutiques in 15 states. To keep up with production, Van Aken has moved her design studio to The Loom in Port Richmond.

The decision to go wholesale is part of Van Aken's efforts to hone her brand. The business -- which got its start selling men's custom shirts and uniforms for high-end restaurant employees -- has been developing lifestyle "collections" for women. After the initial success of the wholesale line, Van Aken reconsidered her business model.

"We used to be able to design a few things and put them in the store," says Van Aken. "I realized there's some traction here and we have the capacity to really be a distinct brand."

To bolster the shift, Van Aken created a board, an advisory board and hired a brand manager and three additional national sales reps. SA VA also contracted six neighborhood sewing companies. According to Van Aken, those moves allow her focus on clothing design.

"It doesn’t matter if it's made in Philadelphia, sustainable, organic or anything if it's not great fashion," she explains.

SA VA's wholesale division recently completed its first round of financing. While staying small is common among sustainably-minded businesses, Van Aken says growth is exactly what the fashion industry needs to bring back high-quality, domestic textile jobs. She credits the Philadelphia Fashion Incubator, Philadelphia Collections and Philadelphia Works Inc for their work locally on that front.

"We used to have a huge industry [in Philadelphia]," she says. "What really became clear to me is that I can actually create more jobs by growing faster and working with other [local] companies that are experts in different areas of manufacturing."

Source: Sarah Van Aken, SA VA
Writer: Dana Henry

Last Tuesday, local university research in healthcare technology got a big boost. As a third component in the StartUp PHL portfolio, the University City Science Center's QED Proof-of-Concept program -- which invests exclusively in medical research from Greater Philadelphia’s academic sector -- was awarded a $500,000 loan from Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PICD) Penn Venture Fund program.
 
QED -- the abbreviated Latin phrase Quod Erat Demonstrandum (proven as demonstrated) -- provides grant money and private sector guidance to help promising studies establish early stage proof-of-concept for commercial application, a cumbersome phase of the research-to-product process. Since 2009, the program has awarded $600,000 annually, divided into $200,000 grants for life science projects and $100,000 grants for research in digital healthcare, a growing field where life science meets information technology. 

According to Stephen Tang, President and CEO of the Science Center, university settings are ideal spaces for developing broad-scope medical science, thanks to their insulation from commercial interests. A diagnostic company, for example, might build a device to detect Alzheimer's disease. Meanwhile, a university has the freedom to research the molecular identity of the disease which can inform a range of diagnostics and treatments.
 
"The theory on innovation is you have to have very divergent thinking before you have convergent thinking," says Tang. "It's that very divergent thinking that [the Science Center] is trying to tap into and help to converge on commercial opportunities."
  
Past QED participants -- representing 22 regional institutions including Penn, Drexel and the Wistar Institute -- have gone on to launch promising companies. Vascular Magnetics, producers of a drug delivery apparatus created by Dr. Robert Levy, a professor of pediatric cardiology from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and his QED business advisor Richard Woodward, recently raised $7 million in their first round of financing. UE LifeSciences Inc., a medical device company that commercialized research in breast cancer detection by  Dr. Wan Shih of Drexel's School of Biomedical Engineering, eventually received a $878,422 grant from the Pennsylvania Department Of Health's Commonwealth Universal Research Enhancement (CURE) program.
 
While the "Eds and Meds" capital has long been hailed for life science achievements, Tang sees digital healthcare as the next frontier. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, massive amounts of medical records have to be digitized. Furthermore, the bourgeoning field of Genomics -- the science of transcribing an individual's genome to detect genetic disease -- will require terabyte-sized data transfer and manipulation. 
 
Accordingly, the 2012 QED program made awards to mobile healthcare apps developed at Rutgers University. The $500,000 PICD loan -- which is repaid via licensing royalties and revenue from successful projects -- will expand QED within city limits, boosting Philly's role in the health IT industry. 
 
"[Philadelphia] has one of the largest concentrations of healthcare facilities, hospitals and doctors, as well as academic research," says Tang. "We're betting big that that domain will distinguish Philadelphia from other metropolitan areas in the world."

The University City Science Center has partnered with Flying Kite to showcase innovation in Greater Philadelphia through the "Inventing the Future" series.

Source: Stephen Tang, University City Science Center
Writer: Dana Henry