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Author: foundersunfound

SUMMER UNFOUND 2019 PROFILE 25 /100: BANDWAGON

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Profile 25 : Bandwagon

About

Based in South Carolina, Bandwagon builds solutions that help event venues identify each fan in attendance so that personalized game-day experiences can be delivered. The company uses proprietary, blockchain technology to trace individual attendee data from point-of-purchase through event day and beyond—regardless of where fans buy their tickets. This also allows customers to easily transfer, sell, or gift tickets easily.

Founder Story Nugget

“I wanted to use sports as a platform to help connect people. I believe sports allow folks regardless of their background, ethnicity, or religion to connect with each other, especially when they’re pulling for the same team. As a first-generation American, my family’s Jamaican. I remember growing up not having all the things my classmates had in their lives. However, I knew sports allowed us to feel like you’re in the same place in life. Sports gave us all that common factor. Watching and cheering for the same team is why we started Bandwagon. When I finished my MBA, I knew I wanted to help fans to have a better experience with each other on the day of the event.”

~ Moguldom article, by Ebony Grimsley-Vaz, September 2018

Summer Unfound 2019 Profile 24 / 100: Pilotly

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James Norman, Founder + CEO

 

 

Profile 24 : Pilotly

About

Pilotly is building the big data pipeline behind media entertainment. 

Pilotly is working to solve the problem that today’s content creators waste nearly a billion dollars a year on videos that either never find an audience or never find proper distribution. Their technology platform enables media publishers to run digital focus groups at scale with precise audience segmentation, to collect and aggregate data that displays instantly to an online dashboard. 

Pilotly’s technology creates meaningful engagements between content creators and global audiences so that creators can gather detailed feedback at scale that can ultimately better their business outcomes.

 

Founder Story Nugget

James Norman is a serial entrepreneur who built his first company at the age of 16, an aftermarket automotive e-commerce site called MJH Sound.com. While he previously may have been known as a visionary in automotive product planning, over the past 8 years he has become a thought leader in the media and entertainment industry, particularly in over-the-top media and consumer video consumption behaviors. In 2008, James founded Ubi Video, one of the first aggregators of all things streaming video. After Ubi was acquired by an MVPD, he moved on to develop GroupFlix, an a-la-carte streaming service. His latest venture is Pilotly, a consumer insights platform that enables content creators to get feedback from audiences at scale. ~Up Next Podcast

“My beginnings are far from Hollywood. I was born in Lansing, Michigan and around Detroit. I’m a Gearhead. Back in the mid-nineties, I actually had built my first website where we sold car audio online, and I did that all the way through college where I was doing Electrical Engineering at the University of Michigan. At that point, we transitioned to L.A because at that point we were building entire cars for manufacturers…things you could call tricked out cars.” ~from the Pilotly website

 

 

Summer Unfound 2019 Profile 23 /100: SoLo Funds

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Profile 23 : Solo Funds

About

SoLo brings the power of financial collaboration through a mobile lending exchange that connects lenders and borrowers to provide affordable access to loans under $1,000. They offer free financial literacy courses on topics like budgeting and planning for retirement. The company has helped more than 100,000 people through hard times, connecting them to lenders to cover the cash emergencies life throws at all of us. Based in Los Angeles, the team is working to rid the world of expensive and predatory payday loans.

Founder Story Nugget

“Why they ask me for $50, or $150, or $200…what can that really do for them? I didn’t realize that was the difference between putting gas in the car and making it to work and not getting fired. That was the difference between lights on, lights off.” 

“When I looked at the numbers, I quickly realized that, at that time, 76% of the country is paycheck to paycheck…And then the bigger stat to me was that 47% of the country doesn’t have $400.”

~GHOSH with Jamarlin Martin, Episode 11 April 2018

 

Summer Unfound Profile 22 / 100: The Mentor Method

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Janice Omadeke, Founder + CEO

 

  •  Janice Omadeke, Founder + CEO
  • thementormethod.com,
    @thementormethod
  • Founded 2015
  • Backstage Capital

Profile 22: The Mentor Method

About

The Mentor Method is a social enterprise that provides curated mentor matches, connecting the next generation of tech leaders with change-making mentors at the top of their game.

​Their process focuses on people and value-fit first, to foster authentic, lasting connections. The result is stronger teams and inclusive workplace cultures.​

Transform today’s entry and mid-level talent into fearless leaders for tomorrow ready to tackle the most complex business challenges. With an inclusive, next-generation culture rooted in mentorship, they’ll be 100% engaged along the way.

 

Founder Story Nugget

Omadeke’s career success is a world away from the life her parents came from. Originally from the DRC Congo, her parents grew up in absolute poverty and came to the United States with three children, barely knowing any English, to provide their children with a better life than the one they had left behind. She is the first entrepreneur in her family. “I have no excuse not to push myself. How could I not try when they put everything on the line for us?”

“If we want to see more minorities in leadership positions, we have to change the way we provide opportunities to future leaders.”

~from Naturally Curly

 

Summer Unfound Profile 21 /100 : GOODR

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Profile 21 : GoodR

About

Goodr is a sustainable surplus food management platform that leverages technology to reduce food waste and combat hunger. The company views hunger as a logistics issue and not a scarcity challenge. 

“Powered by blockchain technology, Goodr provides a secure ledger that tracks an organization’s surplus food waste from pickup to donation, delivering the competitive advantage of real-time social impact reporting analytics. Goodr is the only food waste management company that is in compliance with the IRS through a blockchain-enabled platform and mobile app that empowers organizations to unlock significant tax deductions by donating surplus food that ends up in landfills, ultimately contributing to the environmental crisis.”

Founder Story Nugget

“What I remember most about that day, was this bright light, shining in my eyes, from this empty refrigerator. This is the day that hunger became deeply personal to me. I was shocked that one of my friends – someone who had defied all the odds – was the face of hunger. Savannah was college-educated, well-traveled, had led a successful career, and married the love of her life. She simply fell on hard times.”

~ Hunger is not a question of scarcity. | Jasmine Crowe | TEDxPeachtree017

 

Summer Unfound Profile 20 /100 : Squire

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Profile 20 : squire

About

Squire’s mission is to ease the hassles of getting in and out of your favorite barber’s chair, paying for their services, and exploring the best shops in your city. 

Squire has a booking and payment platform that connects people with great barbers nationwide. Squire is also the premier management platform for barbershops. Using Squire, barbers are able to better engage their customers, process bookings and payments and better market their business through Squire’s “barbershop discovery” capabilities.  With headquarters in New York and a presence in major cities in the United States Squire, has quickly become a market leader in technology solutions for the barbershop industry nationwide. The company recently raised an $8 million Series A round led by Trinity Ventures. 

Founder Story Nugget

“Songe LeRon and Dave Savant have been going to barbershops since childhood. In 2013, the friends recognized something about the beloved experience: it hadn’t changed in years. Though the service provided while in the chair is exceptional, barbershops have notoriously long and unpredictable wait times, they typically work as cash-based businesses, and they tend to lag behind today’s high-end salons in terms of technology.

“Men get haircuts every few weeks, and no one was addressing this space,” LeRon says. “We realized that if customers are going to get a haircut anyway, then we could find a way to make it a better experience.” “

~Diversity in Action, November/December 2017

 

Summer Unfound Profile 19 /100 PopCom

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Profile 19 : POPCOM

About

PopCom is an automated retail technology company providing software solutions for kiosks and vending machines to collect customer data. The company equips entrepreneurs and brands with future-ready retail solutions that allow rapid retail expansion, incredible customer experiences, and powerful sales data.

Founder Story Nugget

“Like many companies, PopCom is a company that was born out of necessity. Our founder and CEO, Dawn Dickson, created the company after her own struggles to find vending machines that could sell her roll-up flat products (flatoutofheels.com) at high-traffic areas like airports. Also absent was the data she relied on to track and monitor traffic and conversion rates through her website and shopping cart; analytics, email collection, retargeting, remarketing–arguably the tenants of successful sales growth–were not possible with traditional “dumb” vending machines. Dawn then assembled a team that came together to change automated retail forever: PopCom was born.”

~PopCom website

 

Summer Unfound 2019 Profile 18 /100 Goalsetter

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Tanya Van Court, Founder + CEO

 

  • Tanya Van Court, Founder + CEO
  • goalsetter.co, @goalsetterco
  • Founded 2015
  • Backstage Capital, Financial Solutions Lab, Pipeline Angels

Profile 18 : Goalsetter

About

Goalsetter is a goal-based savings and gifting platform, made just for kids and powered by those who love them.

Goalsetter was created to make the next generation of kids financially healthy and all-around happy. Parents and kids work together to create a savings account, set a goal, and save for it. And, research shows that kids who are early savers will be lifetime savers. 

Friends, aunts, uncles, and loved ones can help kids reach their goals by gifting GoalCards. Saving money is not only important — with Goalsetter, it’s also intended to be fun.

Goalsetter has been recognized as an awesome way to teach kids the power of saving.

 

Founder Story Nugget

Goalstarter’s Founder, Tanya Van Court’s daughter Gabrielle told her mom that she only wanted two things for her 9th birthday: a bike and enough money to start an investment account.

Tanya went from being an Executive at Nickelodeon to helping kids and families learn how to save money. Because, more than anything, she wants every kid to have a shot at a great life. 

~from the Goalsetter website

Summer Unfound 2019 Profile 17 /100 CareAcademy

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  •  Helen Adeosun + Madhuri Reddy 
  • careacademy.com, @careacademyco
  • Founded 2013
  • Backstage Capital, TechStars, Right Side Capital Management, Rethink Education, LuminaFoundation, Pipeline Angels

Profile 17 : CareAcademy

About

CareAcademy develops evidence-based online classes to help both professional and family caregivers provide excellent care at home so older adults can live independently.

CareAcademy provides home care agencies with a best-in-class online education platform that delivers engaging video-based classes and real-world scenarios that walk through aspects of the caregiver experience. 

Approved classes are based on state mandates, client needs, and your caregiver’s learning path.

Founder Story Nugget

“When Madhuri and I created CareAcademy, we saw that there was a lot missing in caregiver education. At CareAcademy, we sought to fill the void with fresh, relevant classes to engage learners, a dynamic platform that personalizes learning, and the extra set of hands home care agencies need to increase productivity.

So, we started CareAcademy in 2016 with a simple idea: to empower caregivers to learn how to deliver the best care to older adults with the support, guidance, and compassion needed to improve their quality of life.

We would then make it easy for caregivers to “upskill” and continue their education over time so they could better serve clients as needs changed and advance their careers.

The result is a better caregiver, a better home care agency and a better way to care.”

~CareAcademy website

Summer Unfound 2019 Profile 16 /100 Mars Reel

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CEO Brandon + COO Bradley Deyo, Co-founders

 

Profile 16 : Mars Reel

About

Mars Reel Media is a Mobile Sports Network that produces highlights, profiles and other content covering the high-school basketball world.

Mars Reel is designed for 13- to 24-year-old viewers and features, short highlight videos with cool music delivered to their mobile devices. Mars Reel reaches 25 million millennials every month.

Mars Reel also offers an Academy that lets young athletes workout with the best trainers in their region–with the opportunity to get discovered by Mars Reel scouts, trainers, staff, and videographers.

Founder Story Nugget

Brandon and Bradley Deyo founded Mars Reel in 2010, when they were themselves high-school basketball players living in Maryland.

“Bradley Deyo, co-founder and COO of Mars Reel Media, said the partnership with USA Today Sports has helped it significantly expand its reach to attract a whole new base of high-school basketball fans. “As we continue to expand our distribution network, we are particularly excited to be working with the team at USA Today Sports to produce unique, story-driven content,” he said.”

~Variety