Bodeefit Making Window Users Sweat It Out

Bodeefit, a Microsoft BizSpark company cofounded by Adam Griffin and Blake Miller, is an app designed to bring CrossFit-inspired workouts and paleo diet meal ideas direct to Windows 8 users.

It’s popular with travelers unable to regularly attend CrossFit classes; since its workouts involve only one’s body weight, workouts can be done practically anywhere. Bodeefit is also ideal for others. Busy entrepreneurs whose unpredictable schedules preclude attending a class at the gym with regularity benefit from being able to access its workouts anywhere. And individuals just don’t want to join intense – and intensely public – CrossFit workouts at the gym quite yet can do CrossFit-type exercises

In helping users follow a structured workout regimen and cook paleo meals (Bodeefit also delivers paleo-inspired recipes and shopping lists) wherever they are, this app stands out from the field of other virtual fitness tools. Rather than tracking user activities, Bodeefit directs users, acting as an actionable reference tool.

“It’s sort of like a personal trainer,” commented Miller. “And we’re getting a lot of traction.”

Indeed. The Windows 8 app already has 15,000-plus subscribers for its free email service. For an app that only launched last December, BodeeFit’s popularity has grown fast.

Griffin brought in the idea for BodeeFit to Think Big Partners, a Kansas City accelerator where Miller’s a partner. Miller was eager to support the idea given his personal connection to CrossFit: he says he lost 60 pounds in the past year and a half thanks to the exercise system. There was another connection, too: Miller and Griffin were childhood friends.

Once the duo had reconnected over their passion for CrossFit, they teamed with Juli Bauer, the brains behind PaleOMG.com, an incredibly popular blog devoted to lifestyles around the paleo diet. Bauer shared story about BodeeFit on PaleOMG, where it resonated quite well with the audience.

“Our Facebook page just exploded” shortly thereafter, recalled Miller.

The company’s paid service will cost $14/month and includes the Windows 8 Surface App. As with any startup, Miller and Griffin have their work cut out for them. But they’ve been selected as Microsoft BizSpark companies – meaning Microsoft has helped fund the company. And it’s probably also safe to say that if half of their personal passion for CrossFit (Griffin is a certified instructor and Miller is working on his certification) carries over into their devotion to their app users, the company will have nowhere to go but up – and fast.

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A Match.com for startups, PitchCastr seeks to connect investors with entrepreneurs

(by TimSampson 3/8/2013 10:29:20 AM)

Rejection is hard enough in the business world. But do you really need to fly across the country just to be told “no?”

The folks at ThinkBigPartners.com don’t think so, and they’re poised to soft launch a new service at South By Southwest this year aimed at cutting out the time startups waste courting the wrong investors while making it easier to connect with the right ones.

“It’s a frustrating process,” said Herb Sih, co-founder and managing partner of Think Big. “We watch a lot of our entrepreneurs spend money to get on a plane, fly across the country to meet with investors who may not even be interested in what they have to say, just to get a rejection. There has to be a better way.”

You can find Pitchcastr at SxSW, see http://pitchcastr.com/sxsw/

Sih and his partners hope they’ve found a better way in the form of PitchCastr. Something of a Match.com for start-ups and venture capitalist, the site lets financial backers browse through a catalogue of pitch videos posted by nascent business owners looking to secure capital.

Online for nearly a month now, the Kansas City-based entrepreneurial incubator hopes PitchCastr can break away from the pack at SXSW Interactive this week in Austin, Texas. The key to doing this, Sih said, is to distinguish the new service from similar funding-based operations like Kickstarter.

“The scope is a lot bigger than Kickstarter,” Sih said. “We’re not just looking to raise funds for our entrepreneurs. We want to connect them with serious investors who will make a commitment.”

The promise of PitchCastr is two-fold. It’s designed to let entrepreneurs cast the widest possible net for funding, while simultaneously helping investors sort through just the pitches that interest them.

Start-ups post a brief video pitch online (no more than 10 minutes). From there, financiers look through and select the ones that pique their interest. If enough investors show interest in the same idea, the entrepreneurs can then schedule a live “demo day” in which they can teleconference with all the interested backers simultaneously.

“I think this is going to cut down on a lot of travel time and a lot of wasted time,” Sih said.

PitchCastr is a logical extension for Think Big, a company that prides itself on moving startups quickly from the incubator stage to financial self-sufficiency. The National Business Incubation Association reports that most startups spend an average of 33 months in a business incubator or accelerator firm.

But from its inception in 2010, Think Big has been focused on revving up the process. Based out of a 20,000 sq. ft. office in downtown Kansas City, the firm has already served nearly 400 clients, with an emphasis on establishing revenue streams within 90 days.

“On average, start-ups are spending 2-3 years inside incubators,” Sih said. “That may have been fine at one time. But in the tech world, your market could be gone in 2-3 years.”

In addition to helping investors, Think Big is also helping to boost the profile of Sih’s hometown of Kansas City as a hotbed for technology startups. Though it may seem like an unlikely location, Kansas City has been integral in nearly doubling the number of start-ups in the Midwest, according to Venture51. The town was also chosen as one of the pilot cities for Google’s fiber optic program because of all the startup activity. Think Big also partnered with the city’s chamber of commerce last year to host its first startup conference. PitchCastr is a Microsoft Bizspark company, using the Windows Azure platform.

“There’s more going on here than people might realize,” Sih said. “And in this day and age, it’s easy to connect and start a tech company from just about anywhere.”

And with the arrival of PitchCaster, that’s just the point that Sih and his partners are hoping to make.

Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark providing Software, Support, and Visibility to Software Startups.  Visit microsoft.com/bizspark for more information.

 

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25 ways startups can use Bizspark day 25: Share it within your Community

I’m a few days late on my last post, and I’m ok with that because something on the bizspark blog inspired me to consider a different angle on Bizspark membership.  In the first 24 posts we looked at some free software and services, with a focus on how they could help you in your startup venture.  Douglas Crets made a good point in his blog post last week about bizspark membership:

But the greatest thing that you receive — if I may humbly submit it — is membership.  Not entitlement. Not access. Not reward.  Membership.  You belong. You are a tribe of people that has found other people, and other problems to solve.

This turned my thoughts towards other aspects of bizspark that aren’t strictly receiving a service or thing for free.  The 25th way startups can use bizspark is to share it within your community.  Tell others about aspects of bizspark that have benefitted your startup.  Take the conversation beyond “free software” to the specific aspects of your membership that provided you with value and help them get started.

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New Azure Feature: Filter Portal by Subscription

Just visiting my Azure account today a noticed a new feature that allows you to filter the subscriptions in view.  This is very helpful for those of us who are administrators on more than one subscription.

newazurefeature

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25 Ways, Day 24: Cross-Platform Management of Source Code and Agile Projects

BizSparks have access to Team Foundation Server, Microsoft’s application lifecycle management (ALM) solution.  TFS helps startups integrate their builds and agile projects across several IDE’s and platforms.  If you are a Eclipse developer you can access TFS from within Eclipse, edit and manage work items, and check-in code.  As far as TFS is concerned all code is created equal.  If you don’t use Visual Studio or Eclipse you can still interact with TFS via command line tools that run on Linux, iOS, and Windows.

 

If you will recall in my first post of this series I discussed Pluralsight.  If you need help or training on TFS there are more than a few courses available to you here.

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25 Ways Software Startups can use BizSpark, Day 23: Find Talent on oDesk

Your startup is like a finely tuned machine, each member hand picked for their talents and vision, however, it may seem like you cannot scale your talent and time to meet the amount of work that needs to happen.  You may need to bring on temporary help, get some expert design advice, or hire an expert for a new platform you don’t have deep experience in.  As a BizSpark you get a $100 credit on both oDesk.

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25 Ways Software Startups can use BizSpark, Day 22: Find Talent on ELance

Your startup is like a finely tuned machine, each member hand picked for their talents and vision, however, it may seem like you cannot scale your talent and time to meet the amount of work that needs to happen.  You may need to bring on temporary help, get some expert design advice, or hire an expert for a new platform you don’t have deep experience in.  As a BizSpark you get a $100 credit on both ELance.

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25 Ways Software Startups can use BizSpark, Day 21: Connect with a Large and Growing Community of Startups

BizSpark Connect

Visit the BizSpark Map for quick visual  of the BizSpark community worldwide.  BizSpark Connect is the official community portal for startups, network partners, offers and investors.  You can use Connect to make announcements about events and share your startup’s profile for visibility.

Social Media

The BizSpark team is actively engaged with the community via several social media channels.  News and related information is continuously shared via BizSpark’s twitter account @bizspark.  For deeper engagement join the linked in group here and/or engage in conversations at the facebook page.

BizSpark Blogs

Featured startups, accelerator news, and events large and small are covered in the BizSpark team blogs.

Here’s a quick link summary:

  1. http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/NewsAndEvents/Default.aspx
  2. http://twitter.com/bizspark
  3. http://facebook.com/bizspark
  4. http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1790961&trk=hb_side_g
  5. http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/ConnectLanding.aspx
  6. http://blogs.technet.com/b/bizspark_group_blog/

 

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25 Ways Software Startups can use BizSpark, Day 20: Share Notes Between Devices and Teammates

Via MSDN BizSparks have access to Office 2013 and part of the Office suite of tools is OneNote 2013.  OneNote makes it easy to take notes; you can take audio or video notes and embed within mixed content documents, use a stylus and allow handwriting recognition, insert images, you name it.  It’s perfect for research, for example, researching and collecting ideas and content sources for a blog post.  But often notes are only as useful as your ability to share them with others and get feedback, or perhaps even collaborate together on a single notepad.

First, as a BizSpark, you’re good to go on Windows 8 with the full OneNote 2013 product, but there are many other places to download and use OneNote…meaning your notes can be used and edited by anybody:

  1. Windows 8 store – a version of OneNote for touch screen devices (free).
  2. Windows Phone – comes installed on the phone.
  3. iTunes store – versions for both iPhone and iPad
  4. Android
  5. SkyDrive – you can create and edit OneNote documents on the web

So anybody with a browser and network connected device can  collaborate on OneNote’s, or from a native app if they have one of the 4 platforms I’ve listed.  Begin a note on your phone, when you get home continue editing it from your desktop, then share it with a friend who reviews it on SkyDrive.

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25 Ways to use BizSpark, Day 19: Use your Windows Phone Developer Account Token

BizSpark members receive a one-time, 12 month developer account to the Windows Phone Dev Center which normally would cost $100 (USD).  This enables you to publish apps to the windows phone marketplace, set a price for your application, and potentially make money if you charge for your app.

If you are a BizSpark or MSDN member, go to http://msdn.microsoft.com and click on “Access Benefits”.msdnexample

 

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