entrepreneurship : In The News

Time magazine's Techland digs into Paoli-based search engine challenger DuckDuckGo, its commitment to user privacy and minimal aesthetic.

On Valentine’s Day, DuckDuckGo started to record more than a million searches a day. Sure, Google averages a billion, but that’s not bad for a company that previously consisted of a single employee (Weinberg recently upped that number to the full-time equivalent of six or seven staffers).

Original source: Time
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CNN includes Chuck Sacco's story, including co-founding PhindMe Mobile in 2007 and merging with Movitas in Bryn Mawr two years later, in a feature on managers who strike out on their own.

Another way Chuck Sacco, the PhindMe Mobile founder, helped his business: He discovered that teaching an entrepreneurship course at Drexel University was a great way to meet low-cost interns for his young business. Never taught before? Not a problem. Break in by volunteering to speak at a business-school class. Colleges and universities have an insatiable appetite for adjunct professors like Sacco, who also happens to have an MBA -- from Drexel.

Original source: CNN
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The Hamilton-Wenham Chronicle catches up with local native Nate Trunfio, an Eastern University grad who founded the Philadelphia consumer electronics accessory startup Caseinitiy with some friends.

The marketing genius for the company, he draws on his marketing and management knowledge gained during his tenure at Eastern University in Philadelphia and selling insurance as a first job after graduation.

The young entrepreneur works for Caseinity during his free time, when he isn’t working fulltime as a mortgage loan officer at a local Philadelphia bank. Caseinity is being funded in part by Trunfio and through Kickstarter, an online funding platform that uses a threshold pledge system for creative projects.

Original source: Hamilton-Wenham Chronicle
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Shopping Center Business takes a stroll through Center City Philadelphia, finding a bright spot for U.S. retailers via redevelopment and growing assets.

Meanwhile, Walnut Street -- Center City’s high street shopping district -- and its surrounding streets continue to pick up additional retailers who want to capture the city’s affluent residents (Philadelphia has the third largest CBD residential population following New York and Chicago). Center City District estimates that a business located on the 1400 block of Walnut Street can expect to see an average of greater than 2,000 people per hour. The Center City District estimates retail demand within one mile of City Hall is $710.9 million per year. Center City has a population of nearly 180,000, 73% of which have at least a bachelor’s degree.

Original source: Shopping Center Business
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Berwyn-based B Lab is leading the push for Benefit Corporation legislation in Oregon, reports Sustainable Business Oregon.

The legislation would provide a legal framework for companies to register as a company dedicated to providing a public benefit. The designation would be available as an option alongside C Corporation or S Corporation.

Similar legislation has been passed in California, Vermont, Hawaii, New York, Maryland and New Jersey and is pending in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and the District of Columbia.

Original source: Sustainable Business Oregon
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Smart Planet brings us up to speed on Postgreen and its new home construction innovations.

With one house sold and three in the works, the Avant Garage project on Memphis Street is among Postgreen’s most expensive undertakings. (The base price of an Avant Garage house is $355,000.) Each home has a roof deck and a two-car garage. To cater to the neighborhood’s artists and professionals, the garage situates vehicles in front of each other, rather than side-by-side, and has a second door opening to the backyard. The idea is to create space suitable for a studio or workshop.

Original source: Smart Planet
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As part of a feature that names eight reasons why incubators are better than business school, DreamIt Ventures is among the hottest startup destinations.

The incubator puts up $5,000 for each company, and another $5,000 for each co-founder. It takes a 6% equity stake in return. DreamIt also works with Comcast Ventures to run the Minority Entrepreneur Accelerator Program (MEAP), which funds and mentors minority-owned startups.

Original source: Forbes
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TechCrunch reports on the inaugural class of Blueprint Health's startup accelerator in New York City, which includes Philadelphia-based Meddik.

Led by Tim Soo and Ben Shyong, Meddik is a search engine for health that ranks results based on a user’s symptom set, clinical attributes, and demographics.  Tim is a Penn medical student and programmer who built Invisible Instrument, a Wiimote & iPhone gestural-based instrument that won an MTV Award.  Ben is a Web-developer and programmer, having built a real-time transit tool for the Philadelphia transit system and started a bubble-tea restaurant.

Original source: TechCrunch
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BEAR Oceanics, a Collegeville-based technology and research company, hopes to make inexpensive, algae-based biodiesel fuel for transportation by harnessing ocean winds and sunshine, reports MSNBC.

The robotic farms would turn algae sludge into 5 gallons of biofuel per day with a sped-up version of the geological process that created Earth's fossil fuels -- all without the risks of drilling for oil or fracking for natural gas.

"At this point, you've turned biomass into a biofuel, and you haven't used any chemicals, so that you don't have a toxic waste stream," said Rudy Behrens, an engineer at BEAR Oceanics. "We can do this on a large scale without disrupting the food chain or creating a hazard."

Original source: MSNBC
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VentureBeat covers the Wharton School's Innovation Tournament, in which MBA students aim to create an internet business in four days.

At the end of the workshop, the organizers announced the winners of the Innovation Tournament. Each team won on a specific metric, such as most pageviews for the business website or best real world application.

The team that won based on pageviews and marketing created Chow4You, a service that helps you find meals based on nutritional value and dietary needs. Rohan Mirchandani, the acting CEO of Chow4You, said, "The workshop was focused on learning the steps to take to make a business viable, especially focusing on user experience, which I found to be the most important topic." The program is just a prototype now, but based on his experience in the course, Mirchandani said he felt confident that he could launch Chow4You as a real business.

Original source: VentureBeat
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