REPP Offering Free Profiles for Brandery Community!

Have you ever wondered if your online date really was being truthful or if that person coming over to your house from Craigslist is a convicted felon? Well a Brandery graduate can help ease your worries, and for a limited time, it’s completely free!

REPP was founded in June 2012 and is located in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is the first and only company to allow users to create verified online profiles that are easily embedded and shareable, using a patent pending process.

Using your full name, date of birth and address, REPP develops personalized quizzes only you would know, searches national records to retrieve your criminal record, allows you to confirm and add your social media sites to your profile, and soon, will verify your profile photo. Once your profile is set, share it with others and ask to see their REPP.

REPP recently launched a beta version of their platform and is offering free
profiles to the Brandery community!

For more information, please visit www.myrepp.com or email [email protected]

COMPANY UPDATE: PINGAGE

As much as we enjoy interacting with our companies during the summer sessions, we especially love watching them succeed post-launch. One of our 2012 graduates, Pingage, has experienced tremendous success since Demo Day and is this week’s featured company!

Here is a blog post written by Pingage President and Co-Founder, Bob Gilbreath:

Celebrating our Launch with Stories and Client Success

We recently announced the official marketing launch of Pingage, our new Pinterest marketing optimization platform. After months of quietly toiling away, we are finally proclaiming to the world that we exist. For some companies this would be a cause for a major celebration and spawn a lavish party. Not at our office. We cracked a few Wohlschlaeger home-brewed Belgians, of course, but what we really celebrate is driving amazing results for our clients. Now we get to start celebrating those results more publicly—and attract companies that are ready for a completely new model of social media marketing.

Michael went back to the basics of how people use Pinterest. He started with great content, adapted it specifically for Pinterest, developed algorithms to time when pins are placed, tweaked landing pages to drive conversion, and created new analytics software that he used to gauge results from daily experiments and make improvements for the next day of pinning.

I joined Michael as co-founder, and we prepared to approach large brand marketers with our new product. We wanted to disrupt the current marketplace and unlock the vast potential of social media marketing by bringing two new benefits: First, we chose to develop a system that reduced the work of brand marketers. Second, we decided to only charge for results—just like a media buy. This combination leads to a powerful win-win loop: The more work we do for clients, the better the results, and the better the results, the more we grow together. Pingage is great service, powered by software, and paid as media. No one in the marketing space offers this combination.

In the past six months we have been quietly working with a handful of companies—ranging from e-commerce startups to billion-dollar CPG brands. Several brands and agencies have reached out to learn more. They are waking up to the possibilities of Pinterest, yet searching for a new model.

We find it incredibly exciting to sell something that solves this challenge, and scale up the technology that Michael developed in his basement to bring great content to millions of consumers’ lives each day. It’s also a blast to be able to add awesome members to our team and brilliant investors to our roster as we prove success.

On we go!

Bob Gilbreath, Pingage

We are extremely proud of the company’s success and look forward to its continued growth.

For more information on Pingage, please visit their website.

The Brandery, in conjunction with the Scripps Howard Foundation and the EW Scripps Digital division, are looking for a startup passionate about disrupting the news media industry.

Learn more about the partnership here.

Come share your business idea at the final Brandery Office Hours tomorrow from 4-6. RSVP here.

Apply now! The final Brandery deadline is May 1st.

Several of our Brandery graduates have experienced tremendous success and are hoping to expand their teams! See below for a list of available positions:

ROADTRIPPERS

Designer

Roadtrippers is seeking a motivated and creative graphic/interactive design intern with strong skills in layout and typography, and UI.

You will be:
• Producing layout for promotional materials.
• Sharing your eye — and talent for — typography, layout, and color.
• Creating design standards and style guides
• Improving uniformity across our products and the web.

You must have:
• A strong portfolio (if it’s not online or if it’s ‘coming soon’ it doesn’t exist)
• Adobe superpowers
• The ability to work fast (process only matters at school, here it’s about product)
• A laid back vibe, and a sense of humor (but still know what hard work looks like)

Extra points for:
• Front-end dev experience: HTML, CSS, jQuery

Interested? Email Chelsea Koglmeier ([email protected]) with your resume and a link to your portfolio.

Software Engineer / Web Developer

Roadtrippers is looking for a talented and passionate Software Engineer to help us build solutions to fragmentation problems in road travel planning. You will be developing key features of our web application.

You must have:
• Software development experience. And be very, very good at it.
• Have experience with Rails, JavaScript, Python, Java, PHP, Node or other scripting languages.
• Versatile in development skills across client, server and database admin
• A good sense of humor
• Not have a ‘stick up your arse’

We use:
Ruby on Rails; Backbone.js; jQuery; CoffeeScript/JavaScript; MongoDB; PostgreSQL; CSS (SASS/SCSS); Google Maps; Cloud Computing (Engine Yard, S3 etc); Mac OS X and Linux; Cucumber, RSpec and Jasmine testing frameworks; Agile, scrum methodology

Bonus points for knowing:
Test driven development, MapReduce and in depth MongoDB/NoSQL, Geo / mapping development and APIs, Ruby on Rails hosting setup and management, iOS / Mobile, Single page web app development, Being a challenging foosball player

Interested? Email Chelsea Koglmeier ([email protected]) with your resume and why you’d be a good fit with this position.

REPP

Junior Web Developer

OVERVIEW
REPP (www.myREPP.com) is an online identity verification company located in Cincinnati, Ohio. REPP is a 2012 Brandery graduate and was named one of CNBC’s World’s Most Promising Companies and has been featured in The Huffington Post and Cincinnati Enquirer.

OPPORTUNITY
REPP is looking for a Junior Web Developer to help in the development and testing of our Identity Management and Background Check service platform.

Primary responsibilities would include:
• Troubleshooting bugs
• End user support
• Application testing
• HTML & CSS development
• JavaScript development on both the client and server side (Node.js)

Required Skills:
• At least 1-2 years experience using HTML & CSS
• At least 1-2 years experience using JavaScript
• Ability to work on a team
• Excellent interpersonal skills for end user support
• The desire and flexibility needed to work at a small startup
• Dependable, Organized, and Resourceful
• Eager to learn, quick to do, and self-directed

CONTACT [email protected] for more information!

Check out what SocialThreader has been up to since Demo Day in October 2012:

As much as we enjoy interacting with our companies during the summer sessions, we especially love watching them succeed post-launch. One of our 2012 graduates, SocialThreader, has experienced tremendous success since Demo Day and is this week’s featured company!

The company’s CEO, Vinay Murthy, describes SocialThreader as a tool that “increases the effectiveness of digital marketing by leveraging social media in ads and websites. It allows seamless integration of a brand’s social content from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs and websites as well as consumer and influencer voices from social platforms.”

Quite simply, SocialThreader is a platform that threads all of a brand’s social (earned), web-based (owned) and digital media (paid) together into one seamless experience. It can be embedded on websites and linked to other sites. The tool was initially piloted with Bush Beans and will soon be used by a variety of different brands.

SocialThreader not only threads content, it also allows brands to curate and target specific consumers and measure time on sites, page views and uniques. This enables brands to maximize the acceleration of social engagement for their entire portfolio. The tool is fully customizable and the team continues to add new features.

SocialThreader was recently awarded a “Digital Innovation Project” from Procter & Gamble. Vinay and his team will work with the ethnic marketing group at P&G to roll out social integration of their owned and earned content on their .com site. The company was also selected by Kroger, a major national grocery chain, to promote their organic brand of products and has entered into a partnership with a market leader in commenting platforms for distribution of social content for brands.

We are extremely proud of the company’s success and look forward to its continued growth.

For more information on SocialThreader, please visit their website or email [email protected]!

Join us for one of our upcoming events and classes!

Wednesday, March 20, 4:00 to 6:00 PM at LPK: "Agency Pitch Event" hosted by the Brandery! Cincinnati’s world-class startup accelerator, The Brandery, has organized a special Agency Edition of their Demo Day. You’ll hear 7-minute presentations from 6 start-ups, and have an opportunity to speak with them in more detail. Each offers a digital solution that will help give you the edge to knock your next client presentation out of the park! Agencies, startups, and marketers are welcome to join us.

Register Now!

Wednesday, March 20, 5:30 to 7:00 PM: “Startup Financials, Part 1: Business Models” presented by Keith Johnson, CEO and Founder, Petbrosia. All are welcome, even those who are “allergic” to Excel!

Register Now!

Thursday, March 21, 7:00 to 8:00 PM: “Brandery Yoga” hosted by Moksha Yoga. Learn how to handle and diffuse all of the stress caused by the startup world.

Register Now!

Friday, March 22, 4:00 to 6:00 PM: “Brandery Office Hours!” Come talk to Brandery staff, graduates and mentors about the application process and how you can get more involved. You bring your ideas, we’ll bring the beer!

Register Now!

Monday, March 25, 5:30 to 7:00 PM: “Compelling Content Marketing” with Melyssa St. Michael, VP of Search and Emerging Media at Rockfish Interactive. Learn how to build content that that your consumers care about from the ground up.

Register Now!

Wednesday, March 27, 5:30 to 7:00 PM: “Startup Financials, Part 2: Analogs & Research” presented by Keith Johnson, CEO and Founder, Petbrosia. All are welcome, even those who are “allergic” to Excel!

Register Now!

Thursday, March 28, 5:30 to 7:00 PM: “Communicating for a Change” with Dave Dorr from Epipheo Studios. Learn how to tell a story that compels people to take action!

Register Now!

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to learn something new!

We are pleased to announce that we have been selected as General Assembly’s exclusive Viewing Partner in Cincinnati. As part of the program, we will be offering the community a certain number of online videos every month! We will congregate in The Brandery to watch the screenings of the classes, discuss the materials, and brainstorm ways in which we can all use the information in our day-to-day lives.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with General Assembly, General Assembly is a network of campuses that empower individuals through education in technology, business, and design. We are very excited to offer you their educational content and hope that the videos introduce you to things you wish you knew and help you hone things you need to brush up on.

Some of the topics we plan to cover include:

1. How to Teach Yourself to Code

2. Introduction to Web Design

3. Getting Started with Facebook Advertising

“Facebook has nearly one billion users. With an audience that large, there is an amazing opportunity to scale your business using the Facebook platform. This class is designed for everyone from startups to big brands that want to achieve better results from their Facebook marketing efforts.”

4. Monetizing Your App

“So you’ve got an idea for an app? Awesome! But how are you going to turn this puppy into a real business? There are options galore: charging for it, selling virtual goods, or everyone’s guilty pleasure, running ads

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Online identity fraud is a PROBLEM.

A problem made exquisitely clear with the Manti Te’O hoax that has been parading around the news for the past few days.

The truth is: Online identity fraud is commonplace. It is 1) a problem for people online dating; 2) a problem for people engaging in peer-to-peer, ecommerce platforms; 3) a problem for anyone traveling via sites like Airbnb or Couchsurfing. With increasing numbers people developing relationships over the internet, there needs to be a way to increase security and transparency.

REPP is a solution.

The platform allows users to create a profile that includes a background check, photo verification, and social media listing, so that people can have confidence their interactions are truthful and they are not putting themselves into a dangerous situation by meeting someone in person.

Sign up for their Beta now.

More updates from our 2012 graduates! Below are some post-demo-day-developments from FlightCar, SocStock and Impulcity.

SocStock (Founder Jay Finch) launched their online platform to a solid crowd at the Know Theater in Cincinnati. They generated a significant amount of excitement on both the small business and consumer ends. Over $50,000 in Socstock has been offered to the community to date.

Impulcity (co-founders Hunter Hammonds and Austin Cameron) are gearing up for their public launch. After raising a seed round shortly after demo day and completing a successful beta run, the team rebuilt their app to be faster and simpler. Impulcity will launch their own local event series, starting in Cincinnati, to promote their app and create awesome events. Check in for updates on their event series developments!

Accelerators are now a staple in the tech startup scene. Want to know where it all started and what the ecosystem looks like now? Below outlines some key dates and statistics from the big accelerator programs. stats pulled from ">http://www.seed-db.com/accelerators

2005: Y Combinator was founded in Silicon Valley by Paul Graham. They have graduated over 466 companies and the average raise is $2,072,978 per company. Some of Y Combinators notable graduate companies include Airbnb, Dropbox, OMGPOP, and Reddit.

2006: Modeled off Y Combinator, Techstars was founded in Boulder, CO by David Cohen, Brad Feld, David Brown, and Jared Polis. Over the next 8 years, Techstars expands it’s programming to include accelerators in Boston, Seattle, NYC and San Antonio. Techstars Boulder (the first TechStars) has graduated 65 companies with an average raise of $1,715,846 per company.

2007: To kickstart the entrepreneurial scene in Europre, Seedcamp founded in London. In total seedcamp has graudated 72 companies with an average raise of $634,156 per company. Seedcamp has stepped forward as the “international accelerator” program and mentored companies from over 35 countries.

2010: As one of the first thematically based accelerators, Brandery founded in Cincinnati, OH with an emphasis on utilizing the marketing and branding talent of the region to accelerate startups. The co-founders included JB Kropp, Rob McDonald, Dave Knox and Brian Radke. The Brandery has graduated 26 companies with an average raise of $442,307 per company.

January 2011: As a way to bring together the accelerator programs across the country, Tech Stars launched the Global Accelerator Network in conjunction with Obama’s Startup America Partnership, linking 22 accelerator programs internationally. The GAN network has expanded to over 50 accelerators

May 2011/August 2012: DFJ Mercury, Tech Cocktail, The Kauffman Fellows and the Kellog School of Business ranked accelerators based off a variety of quantiative and qualitative program results. In their two studies, the aforementioned programs ranked in the Top 15, as well as i/o ventures, Kicklabs, Excelerate, AngelPad San Fran, AngelPad LA, 500 startups, DreamIt Ventures, NYC Seedstart, and Accelerator. Out of the 15 programs, only Excelerate Labs (Chicago) and The Brandery are midwest based programs.