Chrisfino Kenyatta Leal seemed to be the only black person around when he first turned up for his job at the co-working space in 2013. Mr. Leal is the rarest of migrants, having leapt from one of America’s bleakest, least-admired ecosystems to one of its brightest and most-admired ones. After serving 7 years in prison, he entered a new world after accepting the job offer. He has risen quickly to become RocketSpace’s manager of campus services. Read More>>
Monthly Archives: February 2016
Eat Your Beer: Why A San Francisco Startup Is Making Granola Bars From Spent Brewing Grains
Two students Dan Kurzrock and Jordan Schwartz from UCLA had started baking and selling bread made from spent beer grains, since their junior years. These breads still had a lot of fiber and protein. Upon graduation, they officially launched their business called ReGrained and switched from baking bread to granola bars as bread was too labor intensive. Read More>>
Why buy buttons haven’t taken off…yet
Buy buttons were a big topic last year and in battle , all of the major industry players were racing to develop their own version, promising that this feature could help retailers accelerate online sales.
This year, however, they are not really moving the needle for retailers as they are supposed to. The reason behind this can be attributed to two things: First, social does not drive enough traffic to ecommerce sites. Secondly, buy buttons have not yet become a habit for online and mobile shoppers. Read More>>
This Startup Just Launched With A New Way to Turn Seawater into Hydrogen
Florida based startup Joi Scientific has developed a technology that can turn sea water into hydrogen. CEO and founder Traver Kennedy describes the technology as a process which “happens in nature.” Joi Scientific wouldn’t disclose any details about the process that the company uses to make the hydrogen. But Kennedy said that the tech could create hydrogen “on demand,” where and when a customer would want it. Read More>>
How Zenefits Crashed Back Down To Earth
Human resources startup Zenefits developed a software program that new recruits can download and run which would speed up the process of becoming a licensed health insurance broker in California — a mandatory credential for their work selling insurance to small businesses. The Program enabled Zenefits employees to spend less than the legally mandated 52 hours in pre-licensing training.
This institutionalized cheating got caught up when Parker Conrad, the 35-year-old co-founder and CEO, was forced to resign over what the company described as widespread failures of regulatory compliance. Read More>>
Delivery Costs Are Devouring Food Startups
Food tech industry is growing these days but pretty web design and polished communication strategies aren’t enough to build a sustainable food business. It comes down to perishability: Fresh food breaks tried and true delivery models. Read More>>
Did Pricing Strategy Contribute to LinkedIn’s Market Meltdown?
LinkedIn’s share price hit an air pocket on February 5. The immediate cause of the correction was the collision of poorer than expected US job data and slower projected growth at the company.
LinkedIn runs three businesses. Recruiting, Sales Enablement and Professional Subscriptions. Earlier this year LinkedIn did some serious work on its pricing and offers. Most importantly it raised prices for its flagship Recruiter offer. Read More>>
JetBlue Sets Up Venture Capital Unit
JetBlue Airways has set aside a “multi-million dollar investment” and has launched a venture capital unit that will invest in technology startups in the travel and hospitality industry. The unit, JetBlue Technology Ventures, will operate from the GSVlabs campus in Redwood City, California. Read More>>
The Tiny Startup Racing Google to Build a Quantum Computing Chip
Rigetti Computing, a two-year-old startup is trying to build the hardware needed to power a quantum computer, which could trounce any conventional machine by tapping into quantum mechanics. It aims to produce a prototype chip by the end of 2017. The plan requires Rigetti to make leaps of science and engineering that have so far eluded government, academic, and corporate labs.
Rigetti has so far raised $5 million in funding and employs about 15 people. It provides best environment for solving the big challenge of scaling up qubit technology, and the company hopes to raise more money and add employees as needed.Read More>>
Mirren’s ‘Simply Put’ Highest-Rated Super Bowl Spot
According to comScore’s second-by-second ratings of the Big Game, the highest-rated commercial moment of Super Bowl 50 went to the unlikely contender of actress Helen Mirren’s tongue-in-cheek “Simply Put” spot for Budweiser. Mirren’s spot indexed a 116 whereas the average spot indexed at 100. Read More>>
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