If you were designing an “undo” button for a 5-year-old, who can’t read, what would it look like? The traditional back arrow makes just about zero sense to a young kid. The team at Kibooco, an app that helps kids create their own story books, spent literally hours pondering this question. They came up with…
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Finding the right startup team can be the difference between a tense office culture, constant interruptions, and passive-aggressive emails and days full of high-fives, heads-down work, and happy hours. At GROW Conference, Vancouver’s premier startup event with over 800 attendees, a few speakers reminded us how a solid team can be the foundation for everything…
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Vancouver startup CineCoup has reached an agreement with Cineplex Entertainment, Canada’s largest theatre chain, to bring popular indie movies into their theatres. Theatres traditionally shy away from independent films because they are a mixed bag, full of a few blockbusters like Paranormal Activity and many duds. That means most indie films go straight to DVD…
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Startup Weekend, the 54-hour race to build a working product and pitch to judges on Sunday night, came to Vancouver this weekend. The event jumpstarted 17 ideas, from planning routes to selling tickets to epic Pokemon-style networking battles. And contrary to popular belief, few people pulled all-nighters – although “maybe that’s just the Vancouver mentality,”…
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On her second week on the job as Yahoo’s new CEO, Marissa Mayer announced that lunches in the company cafeteria would be free. A longtime offering at Google, Mayer’s previous employer, the free lunch symbolizes a company’s commitment to its employees: they no longer have to rush around in the morning throwing a sandwich into…
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As an entrepreneur pitching to angel investors, you have a lot on your mind. You have to nail your pitch and anticipate their questions, all while staying cool and charismatic. Preparing your pitch is of paramount importance, and a crucial component of this is knowing exactly who you’re pitching to. We’re here to help. Tech Cocktail’s…
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This year, Stanford University turned things upside down with experiments in the “flipped classroom.” For a few courses in biochemistry and computer science, students watched their lectures online and did problem solving, discussion, and practice during classroom time. According to the school, biochem students enjoyed the course more and attendance rose from 30 to 80…
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When KarmaHire’s virtual career fair opened at 11 a.m. on July 24, their servers immediately crashed – the website was down because too many people were trying to access it. How did the Vancouver startup go from have-not to hotshot in 6 months? KarmaHire’s goal is to change the way companies hire employees. They were…
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In a typical demo day, each of the companies graduating from an accelerator gets a few minutes to pitch their idea, show off their wit, and hopefully win the hearts of investors. But today, the startups from Launch Academy are under more pressure: they have just 60 seconds to catch the crowd’s eye. Only the…
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In 2011, mobile security firm Lookout located 9 million lost smartphones. In the process, they learned a thing or two about how people tend to misplace their phones – namely, between the hours of 9 pm and 2 am, in places like coffee shops, bars, and offices. But that’s little help when you’re scrambling through…
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A Thinking Ape’s social games are “thin veils over really amazing chat rooms,” says cofounder Kenshi Arasaki, a former Amazon engineer. “Our games are just excuses for people to socialize.” The Vancouver startup is the creator of games like Kingdoms at War and Party in My Dorm. When I asked Arasaki what he enjoys most…
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I visited Vancouver’s A Thinking Ape on a Wednesday afternoon, just in time for lunch: Peruvian subs from a deli across the street. People milled around the open-concept office, sitting on red bean bag chairs and couches with gorilla pillows, drinking chicha morada. A Thinking Ape is a Y Combinator-backed games company founded by 3…
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Unbounce’s Noob Guide to Online Marketing is a massively massive infographic (see below) that teaches the basics of online marketing. It took months to create, and it’s been hung in the 500 Startups office, translated into different languages, and used to start whole marketing departments at other companies. This Noob Guide is just one of…
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Angel Pui grew up “running around” and sometimes working on her family’s factories. She comes from a line of entrepreneurs: her grandfathers worked with toys and electronics, and her father ran factories. And while the assembly line may seem like the antithesis of innovation, Pui has learned a great deal from it. As the founder…
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On February 15, 2011, a Red Cross employee – obviously having a lot of fun – accidentally broadcasted this tweet from @RedCross rather than her personal account. (See the full story on CNN.) But what VP Community Dave Olson was most alarmed about was the little HootSuite marker: the rogue tweet had been sent using…
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Following President Obama’s signing of the JOBS Act, startups are now waiting for the SEC to finalize crowdfunding regulations. But what if crowdfunding – of a sort – were already possible? The JOBS Act’s equity-based crowdfunding goes beyond the crowdfunding available on sites like Kickstarter, because investors can actually make a profit – not just…
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Two months after the iPad 2 debuted in March, around 40% of users surveyed said... Read More
This post is part of Tech Cocktail’s “Healthy Entrepreneur” series,... Read More
This post is part of Tech Cocktail’s “Healthy Entrepreneur” series,... Read More
After two and half years of helping to foster entrepreneurship, the Startup... Read More
Lux Alptraum is a woman of many talents: writer, sex educator, and CEO. Her... Read More
