"We can help young entrepreneurs with crazy ideas build fast-growing, high-growth companies here in Northeast Ohio," said Jennifer Neundorfer, co-founder of FlashStarts. But "they need capital to make their dreams a reality."
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Nichelle McCall's BOLD Guidance mobile app helps tech-savvy but disorganized teen-agers keep track of all their college application requirements and deadlines via smartphone.
Charley Burns' Legal Funnel marketing service helps lawyers more easily find new clients by maximizing their online profiles. Shivang Desai's BranDR offers a similar service, but tailored to physicians in the U.S. and in India seeking new patients.
And AJ Nold's Ohio Independent Cinema helps independent filmmakers find a broader audience for their movies by pairing them with local restaurants and other potential venues.
They were four of the 10 newly hatched companies introduced to potential investors on Monday by FlashStarts, a Cleveland-based start-up accelerator that that plucked their ideas from more than 500 aspiring entrepreneurs.
View full sizeNichelle McCall, founder and chief executive of BOLD Guidance, talks to investors about the mobile app she created to help harried high-school students keep track of their college application deadlines via smart phone. She said more than 4.28 million students a year apply to college, juggling about 99 tasks each to apply to an average of nine schools. Her app lets parents and guidance counselors check on students' progress."The real goal is wealth creation for the entrepreneurs, for investors and for the region," said Jennifer Neundorfer, managing partner and co-founder of FlashStarts.
"We can help young entrepreneurs with crazy ideas build fast-growing, high-growth companies here in Northeast Ohio.. (but) they need capital to make their dreams a reality."
Monday's demonstrations, which took place before a live audience of more than 200 at NPR IdeaStream's Westfield Auditorium, were also broadcast online (click to watch).
Andrew Yang, chief executive and co-founder of the nationally acclaimed Venture for America, called the entrepreneurs "more precocious versions of myself at their age." Comparing the companies to infants that have been lovingly nurtured by FlashStarts' local mentors, he said: "Whether these infants grow to be prosperous adults depends on you and the people watching."
Venture for America, a nonprofit organization similar to Teach for America that recruits top college graduates to work for promising start-ups throughout the U.S., just expanded into Cleveland this year. The eight VFA graduates, called fellows, arrived last month and will spend at least two years working for and learning the ropes from local start-ups.
"Too many of our country's top college graduates are heading to (careers in) finance, consulting and law, and not enough are engaged in building job-creating enterprises," Yang said. "We have too many people processing and not enough building things."
View full sizeAudience members listen to and applaud pitches made by 10 FlashStarts entrepreneurs seeking investors willing to help their ideas grow into full-fledged companies. More than 200 attended Monday's presentation, which was also streamed online.Yang said young people would absolutely move to cities like Cleveland if they could get the experience they're looking for. And for those who've turned down job offers with substantially larger paychecks, he noted that their $38,000-a-year VFA salary goes a lot further here.
Monday's Demo Day was also timed to coincide with new rules by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission allowing start-ups to publicly advertise that they're raising money and looking for capital.
"For the first time in 80 years, you are now able to legally advertise for investors," said Charles Stack, co-founder and chief executive of FlashStarts. Whether via a newspaper ad, a blimp at a sporting event or a YouTube video, all are now legitimate ways of reaching out to the more than 9 million accredited investors nationwide, Neundorfer said.
Stack celebrated the change via Twitter, by tweeting: "@FlashStarts seeks accredited investors for 2014 Venture Fund. Visit http://www.flashstarts.com/invest/ for info" shortly after midnight.
While the SEC has loosened its restrictions on advertising, it has imposed new requirements that start-ups verify accredited investors via tax records or other financial credentials provided by a third party.
That sparked the idea for another start-up called Crowdentials, which offers a Certified Accredited Investor program to companies who need such verification but don't have time to sift through documents. Its slogan, according to Co-Founder and Chief Executive Richard Rodman, is "We take care of compliance while you take care of business."
View full sizeAJ Nold, chief executive and founder of Ohio Independent Cinema, started her company to help independent filmmakers find more venues to show off their films, in part by matching them with local restaurants interested in hosting dinner-and-a-movie promotions. AProofed, which matches students looking for help on their papers with online editors willing to provide tips and feedback.
Curiosidy, which creates a story-telling intranet to help coworkers know more about each other so they can better communicate and work together.
Smooth, which gives people the tools to see how their current income, debt and spending habits are affecting their personal financial futures.
RegulatoryBinder.com, which helps hospitals convert their paper binders for clinical trials into regulatory compliant online binders.
And Synthetic Intelligence, which promises "products and consulting that greatly increase the speed of Big Data processing," but didn't make a presentation.