These are the Top 35 Startups In Tech that TechCrunch missed out on – April 2013 edition.

As always, if you have a startup, or know of one that should make it here, leave a comment below!

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1. Perks

Perks is perfect for those who use Twitter as a marketing tool for their business. Perks is the premier Twitter automation tool. We find valuable followers, curate your friends, direct message potential clients, and give you deep analytics. Optimizing your twitter account on your own is time consuming though, and we understand that your time is valuable. Let Perks handle the messy part so you can focus on your business.

2. PogoSeat

PogoSeat is a mobile app that gives fans the freedom to upgrade their seats at any time during a sports game or concert. We allow fans to see a map of the stadium and we recommend the best unused seats, letting fans instantly purchase an upgraded seat. We also provide venues with the tools to craft a more engaging environment for their fans, fill empty seats and gather data to improve the fan experience.

3. CamFind

CamFind is a “Point, Shoot and Discover” app that’s designed to give its user the ability to photograph any object, have it identified by the application and then be prompted with the following: Internet search results, related and similar images, price comparisons and online shopping, related places and address finder, and movie trailers.

In addition, the application boasts many time-saving functions, such as: QR and barcode reader, voice search, language translator, ability to save an image to camera roll and upload images from the camera roll, and text search.

CamFind is available for free download in the AppStore.

4. Hovr.it

Hovr.it makes it easy to find online retailers for the things you love! Simply hover over an image of a product, and using image recognition, we will find retailers offering you similar items.

5. Fynch

Fynch is an Android application that enhances your Twitter experience by automatically analyzing your timeline for interesting patterns of activity.

It does this using data mining and machine learning to identify extremely high rates of activity, trending topic mentions, and tweets of less active users in your following list. Whether you follow hundreds of people or just a few, looking at a timeline full of mentions, hashtags and links is very difficult for the brain to parse. Fynch intelligently provides a more curated experience by decomposing your timeline into smaller sets of tweets that are easier to consume. Fynch also works seamlessly with the official Twitter app and Falcon Pro, allowing you to access the more standard functions of Twitter.

6. Airwalk-Design

Airwalk-Design was built so that designers could not only find design inspiration, but also collect it. We’re not talking about social-bookmarking; instead, our users can connect with Dropbox, saving design inspiration both remotely and locally. Not only that, we also want weigh-in on designs and work out what really inspires people. Our writers cover many areas of design – featuring artists, rounding up the best, and sharing thought-provoking opinions on the most exciting topics.

7. Pave

Pave is a community where people create teams that unlock the potential of young careers through an innovative social-financial arrangement.

8. Chorus.im

Chorus is a new HTML5-based messenger app that enables users to text chat for free on any device with a browser. Unlike other “walled garden” messenger apps which only allow users to communicate with other existing members, Chorus.im lets you send messages to any person or group.

Users can select from their contact list and immediately start text chats with friends, co-workers or clients, who in turn don’t need to download anything or even register to text back. Chorus.im is the first messaging product that provides a frictionless on-boarding experience for new users and a borderless texting experience for regular users.

9. Flowboard

Flowboard is a storytelling and presentation app that allows anyone to make side-scrolling publications with images, text, videos, links, and photo galleries. Whether you have a story to tell, an idea to share, or a presentation to give, Flowboard allows you to create & present right from your iPad, or share to any device. Flowboards are fun, stylish, and entertaining.

10. Walley

Wally is a minimalistic “store your plastic cards”-app without all the bells and whistles. There’s been a formidable boom of “wallet”-apps that connects to all kinds of services, but Wally remains simple, yet truly useful.

You simply snap a front and back picture of the card you want to put in your Wally, and there you go. When at your favorite store, just open up Wally, show the cashier the card and you’re done.

Wally requires no registration or login. Just download the app and you’re good to go.

11. ConquerFit

Conquerfit is a mobile application that connects health conscious individuals with businesses they’re sure to love. Users can quickly and easily explore healthy restaurants, gyms, adventure companies, hiking trails, and more. They can search for locations by name, city, or detail which is ideal for both the traveler and the health and fitness focused local.

The Conquerfit FIT Feed provides a constantly updating stream of articles, tailored to each user’s interests with a wide selection from the best health & fitness blogs on the web; all optimized for mobile display. Users can earn FIT Points for making healthy choices and sharing them on social media with their friends. These FIT Points will soon be redeemable for deals and discounts, providing a platform for businesses to reach new customers and reward loyal customers.

12. EQuala

EQuala allows you to automatically listen to the music that your friends are listening to. EQuala automatically builds your music profile, as users simply login, follow Facebook friends or EQuala users, and slide to play the music. It’s that easy!

13. Discobo

Discobo is a Q&A to find the best products for anything.

14. myMzone

myMzone helps you find authentic products from artisans and have them delivered to your front door. myMzone wants to take you closer to the artisans and traders that gave you memories that are unforgettable and made local markets an inspiring place.

15. AdEspresso

AdEspresso helps you manage and optimize your Facebook Advertising in a very simple manner – saving you up to 40% on your advertising costs.

In just a few minutes anyone can create and publish hundreds of Facebook ads, split testing all of them down to the pictures, titles, and targeting options.

You can then analyze data with a very simple dashboard that immidiately highlight you best ads and audiences.
AdEspresso is now in public beta and free to use for everyone!

16. Stampsy

Stampsy is a sharing platform for creative and compelling digital content. You produce the content, we give you an easy-to-use touch interface so you can arrange your text, shapes and photos into beautiful integrated layouts called Stamps. Once your Stamp is completed, share it with the growing Stampsy family, export and share it with your own network, or open up to the whole online creative universe.

17. Bidvoy

Bidvoy browses finished eBay auctions according to your search term and shows you the value of your product combined with other statistical insights. Bidvoy also shows you the best time to purchase/sell your item. All in all bidvoy is a must-have tool for all eBayers and in general for all people that buy/sell products frequently.

18. Pollfish

Pollfish is a survey platform which provides access to millions of targeted users. A user just creates a survey and get results anywhere, anytime from real people and no predefined panels. Checkout for example how US citizens changed their feeling on security according to our latest survey here.

19. Scriptogr.am

Scriptogr.am puts your words on the web as quickly and easily as can be. Working with your chosen environment, from the app you write with to the café you sit in, Scriptogr.am stays out of your way until the moment you’re ready to publish.

Put simply, Scriptogram is a tool for generating simple, elegant, static weblogs and blog posts by reading Markdown files stored in your Dropbox folder. The team is currently located in both Stockholm, Sweden and Palo Alto, CA and is working really hard on next generation of Scriptogram (2.0) – stay tuned. Follow us on Twitter for all the latest updates.

20. Design With Benefits

Design With Benefits is an online store that curates products from small businesses that are making difference. We sell clever, design-driven products that are at the intersection of design and social responsibility. We built the site on the premise that there’s a growing market for products that matter, do good, and that have a compelling story behind them. Our favorite feature is the ability to filter/search products by the social good that they are doing, in categories like recycling, the environment, poverty, education, equity and animals.

21. Ackwired

Ackwired is an online marketplace for buying and selling established websites. We are an aggregator and self listing platform allowing you to sell your web startup or established online business to investors and entreprenuers.

22. Bucketlistly

Bucketlistly helps you unlock achievements in real life and share them with friends. Turn your life into a game by capturing your greatest life events, get tips and tricks from others, and share your greatest moments with your friends on social networks. If you want to achieve more, give us a go and always remember, you only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.

23. Outpost

Outpost is a search engine that aggregates listings from many peer to peer websites such as Airbnb, Ridejoy, Vayable, etc. and lists them into one place. Users can plan their trip using sharing economy services only and compare prices between the appropriate networks.

The service allows them to book rideshares, places to stay and activities at the most affordable prices available. This new way of travelling is based solely on non-commercial services and allows users to discover unique experiences at their destination that no commercial service can offer. Human hosts, drivers and guides that are eager to show you the secrets of their city make Outpost the new way to travel.

24. Joist

Joist is a new tool for contractors that allows you to estimate, invoice, record payments, and manage projects from anywhere. Impress clients, close more sales, and save time by building estimates and invoices on the spot. Joist is FREE to Download and FREE to use – Available on iPhone/iPad and the web.

25. Dropin

Dropin is a totally innovative type of cloud music service, dedicated to the music world. A music studio integrated into the browser, where the specific goal is to make the composition and editing of music tracks social, by providing artists with online tools and social mechanics. This is the ideal environment to produce, promote and sell tracks or music albums, and to promote events or brands.

26. Flyzoo

Flyzoo is a free, elegant social widget to engage your website’s visitors.

27. Notism

Notism allows you to share your designs, gather feedback in REALTIME from your co-workers or clients, create interactive prototypes and boost up your creative workflow today.

28. Roamer

Roamer is an app that drastically reduces roaming charges while traveling. It utilizes the mobile operator’s infrastructure of the country you’re visiting and allows you to keep your regular phone number for both incoming and outgoing calls. Roamer ensures excellent call quality, while elements of VoIP technology reduces the costs of calls when abroad by 90%.

29. Friend Of A Friend

Friend Of A Friend is a website designed to provide a convenient way for singles and non singles to match, meet and mingle with friends and friends of friends. At FOAF, we don’t use algorithms (because they don’t work). There are no time-consuming questionnaires (because they are annoying), and no strangers (because they can be scary). Just your mutual, trusted friends (with up to three degrees of separation).

30. PintoFeed

Pintofeed is the world’s first intelligent pet feeder that will program itself around your life and the wellness of your pet. Feed and monitor your pet’s food consumption and habits directly from your iPhone.

31. Stocksy

Stocksy is a new concept in the world of stock photography: An online marketplace owned collectively by its photographer-members and dedicated to paying them the maximum fees possible for their work.

32. Instabridge

Instabridge is the simplest way to use and share Wi-Fi. Access your friends’ Wi-Fi networks simply by clicking their names, easily manage access to your own network, and sync passwords between your phones and tablets. You can even access hotspots shared with the community all over the world.

33. Hacker’s Coffee

Hacker’s Coffee is a simple web app to help you connect with other hackers in your area. Meet someone with complementary skills and talk programming, business, or whatever else. Maybe you’ll even find your co-technical co-founder!

34. FlickFlyer

FlickFlyer is a new classified ads app that believes in better communication between buyers and sellers by adding video into selling your stuff.

35. Heet

Heet is a completely new way to discover, read, and search for news. Instead of going through long lists of headlines to find news that matter, Heet analyzes every news source out there and brings you the hottest trends.

Get the free app for your iPhone here.

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If you have a startup or know a friend with one that you think should be here, leave a comment below or email me at franco[at]startupplays.com!

We applied to Kickstarter four times for our second Kickstarter application – all but the last were rejected.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, many things have changed since the first time we applied.

The first time around, Kickstarter just wanted the idea. They cared little – if at all – about execution. But after being burned so many times, they’ve changed their approval process.

There’s a greater focus on whether you will actually do it and your commitment level. We applied with a bare bones application similar to the one from last year. We hoped to flesh it out once we were approved.

That didn’t happen.

Since we were waiting on the acceptance to start on the video, we delayed it much further than we planned to. This forced us to work fast so we could meet our expected launch date on Monday.

Luckily I was able to pick up a few Video Hacks in order to get things done. Here are four tips to create a great Kickstarter video:

Footage

We didn’t have time to create the footage and we felt we needed something more professional. The first time we did Kickstarter we accomplished this with panning photos. But now, due to the increased quality from competition we had to find another way to increase quality.

After a few hours of research I found it. There are sites where you can purchase videos, but the average rate is $80+ per clip. However, for Kickstarter you only need web quality videos which can easily be found for $20. It doesn’t look great when you blow up the screen, but its perfect for mobile and desktop viewing. We used footage.shutterstock.com

Audio

Don’t have friends who can record a professional track for you? Or maybe you want to avoid purchasing an expensive audio library.

The solution is simple and easy to use.

I went to audiojungle.net. There you can search by the ambiance you wish to create as well as the top tracks. The total cost was only $14 for a great motivational soundtrack.

Editing

Editing will always require legwork. Either you learn it on your own or you have someone do it for you. In order to do it cheaply and quickly there are two options. You can use elance or odesk to hire someone outright.

Just make sure to have the script and story board so it’s easily put together. I used Microsoft Word and highlighted with comments the title of the clip I wanted used so the timing was synchronized.

The other way is to rely on your network. I highly recommend volunteering at entrepreneurial events. I had found the person who edited our video by mentoring at Startup Weekend in Chile. I’ve kept in touch and with his help we were able to edit and finish the video in only two days.

Personal Shots

There’s no way around this. You need to get shots and audio of yourself. You could do a voiceover using voicebunny.com, but I believe that loses the connection with your backers.

So how do you do this without spending hundreds on a videographer?

I highly recommend www.borrowlenses.com. Here you can get a professional high quality audio recorder rented for $80 for three days. Similarly the camera will run you only $80. This is MUCH cheaper than buying it or hiring someone.

This is our second go around and as always there’s a bunch to learn. Whether we succeed or fail will have a lot to do with the work & prepartion in the past two weeks. Hopefully these hacks will help you launch a successful campaign.

You can check out our current Kickstarter Campaign here and my guide to on how to raise $10,000 dollars on Kickstarter in 4 Weeks.

Take a look at some of the best startups that should be on your radar!

1.Postach.io

Postach.io is the blogging platform powered by your Evernote documents. It’s like Tumblr for your Evernote account. If you have notes in your Evernote, then you’re ready to publish to the web with Postach.io. Simply sign up, connect a notebook, and tag notes as “published” to put them live. It’s that easy!

2.Hinge

Hinge is an app that introduces you to your friends’ single friends. You log in through Facebook, and every day at noon Hinge shows you a batch of single, local friends of friends. Rate how interested you are in each person, and if you’re both interested in each other we’ll introduce you via email.

3.Swayy

Swayy lets you easily share the best content your audience wants to consume based on their engagements, interests, and reaction.

By curating a variety of news, blogs, videos, infographics and more – Swayy makes the task of sharing content easy, quick and efficient!

4.Sibme

Sibme is a private video collaboration platform that simplifies classroom observation in schools. A teacher, using their iPhone or any other recording device, can record themselves teaching and share the video with their peers in a private and secure environment, receiving feedback on their instruction. Sibme is useful for instructional coaching, training new teachers, professional development workshops, and even evaluating teacher applicants in schools.

5.Dubbler

Dubbler is the newest social network and the only one that has your voice. Dubbler is a fun, free, way to share your personality with your friends on Facebook and Twitter without worrying about word counts. Go beyond text or typing, and share your full personality by recording a Dub, transforming it with one of our fun filters, adding a cool photo, and then sharing it with your friends.

With Dubbler you can record up to 60 seconds of fun audio – sing original songs, tell funny jokes, practice your karaoke, Dub a mini podcast, make music or ringtones and instantly share them via email, Facebook or Twitter. Get creative and use your Dubs to capture important moments and voice your opinions in a way that text and typing can’t. So tell like it is on Dubbler, and Be Heard!

6.Rawporter

Rawporter allows you to share your favorite photos and videos on Facebook and Twitter. We add a protective layer with our watermark and copyright card so your valuable content isn’t used without permission. To license your photos and videos, just add a few keywords and a price tag. Then media outlets, bloggers or even ad agencies could pick up your latest upload.

7.Kahootz

Kahootz is an interactive calendar that allows users to easily organize, share, and discover other calendars from any source. Import all of your favorite calendars from your kid’s school, soccer team, church, or other social media sites into one place. When a change is made to a calendar, all that follow are instantly updated. Follow your favorite team, restaurant, or department store and always be in sync with promotional events, deals, and sales. Any time, anywhere, your always in Kahootz.

8.Dragdis

Dragdis is the simplest way to collect things you discover online. You can collect images, videos, texts or links with one drag&drop action!

Later, find things you saved really fast on dragdis.com with the help of dragdis contextual search.

9.HyperComments

HyperComments is a superfast commenting system (loading speed is 400 ms in average) that allows to comment on text fragments. Readers simply select a word or a text fragment that caught their attention and comment on it. The fragment is highlighted and clickable.

Highlighting attracts readers’ attention. HyperComments will engage audience in a discussion and encourage them to comment more. Mobile version, SSO, social integration and a number of other great features you can find in HyperComments.

10.Shopulse

Shopulse is a private sale site that provides customers a seamless way for them to buy from the world’s best boutiques at up to 70% off retail. Not only can they follow their favorite boutiques for exclusive sales with deep discounted items, but Shopulse also creates a very personalized shopping experience; customers only sees items that matches their style, size, and buying preferences.

11.Media Spot Me

Media Spot Me is where journalists discover experts to interview. It’s about what you know, not who you know.

Journalists save time, work with vetted profiles and find new voices. For experts media attention is publicity that is more powerful than advertising.

12.WeddingWoo

WeddingWoo offers a fresh approach to create beautiful and simple wedding websites.

13.Keyzio

Keyzio is a real estate app “Where every house is for sale”. Buyers and sellers connect directly and then Keyzio connects them with experienced local service providers to close the deal at a fraction of the cost.

14.Yappem

Yappem is a new social network offering users real value rewards for their content regarding daily experiences with brands and businesses. Users earn coins for their online activity, which can be exchanged for real value gift cards to their favorite stores.

Yappem offers users a unique platform featuring multiple patent-pending categorization process, which allow users to select between four different posts: experience post, compare post, suggestion post and support post. Yappem also integrated “missions” which encourage users to experience the real world and then report back via Yappem for additional rewards. Yappem is a free download and is available for iphone and android users.

15.Drungli

Drungli is an addictive flight search engine for spontaneous travelers. The very platform for the wanderlust kings and queens of the road. What makes Drungli great is its simplicity, the beautiful interface and its inspiring background pictures brought by serial travellers.

Last but not least its powerful engine brings super quick results putting your regular travel search engines sites to shame. Not only helps you to find the cheapest routes, but it also lets you set different alarms if the destination of your dreams goes under a certain price. Right know covers only EU, but plans for a global coverage are on the way.

16.Hashdoc

Hashdoc is an online social library of professional documents, where it’s easy to discover, organize, and share documents that are most relevant to you. Use our subscribe feature to see new content from users and topics that match your interests. Whether you are looking for templates, white papers, articles, samples, or more, Hashdoc makes it easy to find and keep useful documents.

17.Grand St

Grand St is a new market for creative technology. Every other day we choose a new product to highlight. It gets posted to our website and emailed to our users. We don’t drop ship – everything comes directly from our warehouses, so you can get it right away!

18.Squidee

Squidee allows you to send your developers or clients a link, and show them the changes instead of explaining the changes.

19.Growple Meet

Growple Meet is an interactive tablet that helps customers discover your new items, meet & play with other patrons, and create kick-ass moments at your venue!

20.PicTapGo

PicTapGo The simple, yet smart, photo app that conforms to your style. Don’t let its easy interface and no-fuss approach fool you – this is one powerful photography tool.

21.Fetch.me

Fetch.me allows you to easily create beautiful collections and share them with your friends. Collections are the best way to keep track of your favourite photos, videos, links and memories. You can even sell access to the collection directly to your followers and consumers.

22.Pajap

Pajap is not just another DIY mobile apps service. We’ve developed a new technology that allows you to create full featured 100% native and hardware accelerated mobile applications. Pajap applications don’t use html5 components. Compared to native applications, html5 applications are sluggish and don’t respect each platform.

23.NBT

NBT is a hub for music related news, articles and interesting links.

The user submitted links model is not new, we’re not pretending this is revolutionary, but we wanted a central place to easily see what’s going on in the music world.

Please join in, submit music related links that you find interesting, and with enough people there will be a wealth of new content to discover.

24.GotSyncMusic

GotSyncMusic is a highly curated catalog of kick ass tracks from independent artists available for licensing in film, TV, video games, and commercials.

25.Povio

Povio is a mobile communication app that uses photos to communicate and engage, because photos are the easiest to create and consume.

26.Citibuddies

Citibuddies helps you discover new activities and new people. Get relevant info in real time, based on what you love. For free.

27.LimeTree

Limetree is a place where you gather moments of your children’s lives to be delivered to them one day…

28.GetQuantify

GetQuantify is web based collaboration application which brings together project & task management, time-tracking, reporting and invoicing. No more need for multiple applications.

29.FlyingFlips

FlyingFlips creates amazing artist-designed FlipFlops. Each pair is produced and sold with a commitment to giving back.

30.WhyWait

WhyWait is connecting restaurants with their best customers and customers with their favorite restaurants.

31.Kitchen.ly

Kitchen.ly allows you to open your kitchen for reservations and meet foodies in your area. Experience truly authentic, local cuisine and a whole new way of eating out.

32.Peek

Peek is a smarter way to find connections with people at an event.

33.Mixture

Mixture is a rapid prototyping and static site generation tool for designers and developers.

34.Crowdfynd

Crowdfynd allows you to quickly browse or post found items near you, by specific address, or by keyword.

35.Groupie

Groupie allow you to meet new people & stay in touch with friends, explore groups on any topic or create one of your own, and talk about anything, with anyone, anywhere.

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If you have a startup or know of one that should be included here, please leave a comment below or email us at info[at]StartupPlays.com!

If you’ve founded a startup, you’ve probably encountered one of the following challenges:

The Disappearing Cheerleader
Initially excited and enthusiastic about how your solution will change the world, they start missing meetings, not following up on things they said they’d do, are slower responding to emails.  They’re on the to the next shiny object, and things get awkward.

The “All In If It Works Out” 
Cautious from the beginning, you get the impression that this character is hedging her bets… Putting in enough time to be part of the team if it takes off, but keeping that day job, not changing their Linkedin Profile, or forgetting to mention your new super-awesome project at the latest meetup.

The Big Talker
This is the uber-connected person who can open any door with their massive contact list.  But once you need their help, the contacts aren’t so quick to help, or aren’t as strong as you were led to believe.  Or, worse, excuses are made why you’re not really “ready” for intros yet – and you get the feeling you’ll never be “ready” enough.

Allergic to Work
Despite an epic startup weekend, life gets in the way of getting stuff done.

It happens.  And if you’ve ever started a company, it’s probably happened to you.  Next is the awkward conversation “that-should-have-happened-a-long-time-ago” and ensuing equity renegotiation that at worst can kill your startup – and at best dilute your company unnecessarily.

Ugh.

Which is why I love Mike Moyer’s concept of splitting startup equity based on a “grunt fund” and distributing equity on a rolling basis based on contribution.  Although it can be difficult to assess relative value to time, money, deals, overhead, it allows a new team to compensate early impact by attributing more equity.  It’s what Mike calls “Slicing the Pie”.

The concept is simple – the more you “invest” in the company, the more pie you get.  The equity distribution shifts over time, so if you have someone who works hard at the beginning (earning 20% equity for example) but disappears, their shares get diluted as other members of the team continue to drive the business forward.  It’s fair to both parties.  It can help you avoid the awkward conversations and place value squarely on actual contribution.

Check out Mike’s guide on how to implement a “grunt fund” in your startup.

Slicing Pie Intro Video for Start-up Plays from StartupPlays on Vimeo.

Alas, I was discouraged when I could only read the first response to a post – the others were “smudged” so I couldn’t read them (it was actually a different topic, but to illustrate what they do):

I was interested in the answers, so I decided to “log in”.  Quora helped prompt me with the two mega buttons on the right side of the screen (not to mention the big blue buttons in the main area):

Well I have about 350 accounts with different services online – sometimes I use social login and other times I use email.  Given the prominence of the buttons, I assumed that I probably used my facebook account to login previously, so I clicked on that.

Well, it turns out that I didn’t use my facebook to login in the past.  So what did Quora do?  They created a brand new account for me.

Ugh.  That’s frustrating, but whatevs – no big deal right?

Except, then I started getting all of these emails from people I know with the subject line “So and So is now following you on Quora”.  As I write this, less than an hour later, I have received 48 emails – 4 of them before I even received my “Welcome to Quora” email.

Hold on… wait a second… how did all these people find out that I just “joined” Quora?

They found out because Quora sent an email out to everyone I am connected to on facebook telling them I was following them on Quora. 

Odd because:

1. I didn’t give them permission to see which of my friends were on Quora
2. I didn’t explicitly follow anyone
3. They never told me any of this would happen when I clicked on the facebook button

I didn’t give them permission because they never asked me.  In fact, they didn’t tell me they were going to do anything.  Here is the facebook message that popped up when I “authenticated” Quora:

Look, I get (better than most) the pressure to get more users and to make your web application sticky.  But this practice is deceitful and wrong.  Hiding content to force people to signup (its not your content) and then automatically reaching out to all my friends by saying I was “following them” is akin to impersonating me to get my friends back to your website.  It’s wrong, deceitful, and just sneaky.

Not to mention that now I have two Quora accounts that is sure to confuse friends.

I like what Quora does, and there’s good content on the site.  I haven’t decided whether to cancel my account(s) yet, but I did decide to logout and write this blog post.  After logout, here’s the screen I received:

I’m still logged in on 9 other browsers, even though (this time) I explicitly logged out???  Seriously, WTF Quora?

Startups put it all on the line day in day out – and the reason is simple. Passion. Their passionate about their users, their industry, and their solution. We’re passionate about the ecosystem and building better startups faster.

So join us and celebrate the startup spirit with 35 of the top lesser known startups who are just as passionate as the bigger ones found in TechCrunch – someday they’ll be there too.

1. Koken

Koken provides photographers, designers, artists and creative DIYs with a system to manage, edit and publish web sites of their work. Koken is also a development platform for web designers and developers to build themes, plugins, and custom sites for their clients. The software is free, and may be downloaded and installed on your own web server.

2. Sendy

Sendy is a self hosted newsletter application that sends emails via Amazon SES. Gone are the days of sending expensive newsletters. Sendy lets you take advantage of Amazon’s low cost, high quality email infrastructure while at the same time giving you useful features like, subscriber management, beautiful reports, client access, custom fields and autoresponders.

3. tlk.io

tlk.io is a web chat that is open to anyone and channels are owner-free. To create a new chat channel, just enter a name in the channel field above. Then, after joining, you can share the URL to invite more people.

4. Raygun

Raygun is a cloud based error tracking service to automatically record, track and report on errors in your software. It takes only a few minutes to integrate into your code base and you get the benefits immediately – real time intelligent notifications, trends on errors, smart grouping of errors and in depth information about each error that Raygun has tracked. Resolve software bugs faster and save the sanity of the software developer by giving notifications sooner with the information the developer needs to fix it quick!

5. BodeeFit

Bodeefit is a health & fitness application that provides daily body weight workouts & weekly Paleo recipes, meal plans, and shopping lists. Our workouts find their roots from traditional crossfit workouts and are designed so you can workout anywhere and anytime with no equipment needed. Our apps also make it incredibly easy to keep track of your workout, Log it, and share them with your friends.

6. Testin

Testin allows you to easily test your mobile app on several devices with just a few clicks.

7. Wimi

Wimi is a cloud-based file sharing and project management platform for SMBs and entrepreneurs. Wimi simplifies file sharing and data centralization, as well as easing projects management. Wimi syncs all your data (files, calendars, tasks, contacts) in one single place.

8. Hubba

Hubba is a big-data platform that gives brands unprecedented insight into what consumers care about and then delivers unique product stories to retailers, e-tailers, search engines and third party mobile developers. In addition to curating the internet’s richest product data set, Hubba is able to capture unique insights into the relationships between brands, retailers and consumers. You can follow @hubba on Twitter for their latest updates.

9. Nowork FM

Nowork is no-nonsense private intranet you and your gang will actually love and use. It is built around link sharing and has links shared inbox and folders, group reader and discussion chats. The app developers labeled it as Unfair Competetive Advantage for Your Gang, as you can grow your team stronger by sharing fun things with your team, or by build your company’s knowledge base.

The join-via-link invite system even lets you use it as a community space once you make your join link public. Try it today!

10. Jumpshare

Jumpshare is a beautifully designed file sharing service that lets you preview over 200 file formats in any browser, on any device, anywhere in the World. Files are organized into folders and these folders are intelligently named based on their content. Jumpshare lets you share files in real time; you don’t have to wait for upload to finish and can share as soon as you add the files.

Jumpshare lets you share files anonymously; simply drag & drop them on to the home page and start sharing. Files shared anonymously are deleted after 7 days. If you want to keep your files forever, create a free Jumpshare account which will give you 2GB storage space and other file management features.

11. PhotoPoll

PhotoPoll is the first mobile app that allows users to group and share multiple photos in a feed for instant polling. Available now for free on the App Store, Photopoll for iPhone and iPod touch uses patent-pending technology that enables users to select two to five photos from their device, Amazon.com and Instagram, and post in a central feed for friends and others to vote on their favorites.

12. DashBook

DashBook Dashbook is a contextual and customizable mobile information dashboard that allows you to layout all of the relevant information you consume during your day. This information is shown in a series of “dashes” contained within your own personal Dashbook. Each “dash” is a gateway to a piece of real-time information tailored to you. Imagine being able to view all of your social feeds, your local weather, traffic for your daily commute, your favorite news sites, and even where to find the closest cup of coffee…all in one easy to use app. Well with Dashbook you can! In addition, we are creating an open specification for third party developers to create their own dashes.

13. Swogo

Swogo is a free online service which helps consumers make expert purchase decisions in just 60 seconds. Our users simply have to answer a short series of easy-to-understand questions on what they’re looking for. From this, we can find the best product for them, alongside a tailored explanation as to why it suits their needs. We believe that it’s quicker, easier, and less biased than talking to an expert in store.

Swogo is currently still in beta testing in the UK, but quickly expanding to the US market in early March 2013.

14. Quoterist

Quoterist is a visual media discovery engine for your favorite movies. Find quotes, fan art, fan blogs, trailers & merchandising from your favorite films & TV shows.

15. Shnarped

Shnarped takes fans behind the scenes by connecting them with their favorite professional hockey players. By creating dynamic player profiles that combine bio and contract information, current and career statistics, and twitter feeds into one place through an iPhone app (an Android version is coming soon). Fans can interact with pros by sending them a ‘pound’ (like a fist-bump) with a message, and pros that are verified as regular users can see these messages and show their appreciation by sending a pound-back to the fan.

16. Represent

Represent allows you to create a beautiful résumé in under 5 mins and get one step closer to your dream job.

17. Giphy

Giphy is an animated GIF search engine. Find & share your favorite animated GIFs!

18. Setlist

Setlist is the easiest way to discover local shows using artists in your Rdio collection.

19. FanMix

FanMix is your social inbox. Easily manage all your social conversations on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, comment threads, and everywhere else from one dead-simple inbox, just like email.

20. Crocagile

Crocagile is an online project collaboration & task management workspace. Simple enough for anyone, but engineered for agile developers & creatives. Sign up to experience how the first horizontal workspace can change your perspective on getting things done.

21. Kidoteca

Kidoteca is a company that creates games, toys and apps for small children. It aims to be entertaining and educational at the same time, bridging the gap between boring educational apps and entertaining apps that don’t add much to the child education, it solves the problems of the children, that want fun, and of the parents, that want to educate their children using something that easily attracts their attention and is easy to use, like tablets and smartphones.

22. Milled

Milled subscribes to thousands of mailing lists so you don’t have to. Shop new brands, save money, and have a clutter-free inbox!

23. Osmek

Osmek allows you to build your site in any programming language, or framework, on any server. Distribute your content to one site, or fifty, in JSON or RSS, as custom templates, or XML. With your content tucked snuggly in the cloud, you’re free to develop your way.

24. Joi.im

Joi.IM is a beautiful real-time group chat referral system embedded directly on your website for your users to invite their friends to come to the site and chat privately right where they are.

25. SellSimple

SellSimple makes selling a breeze! Simply snap a few pictures, enter your details, and instantly sell your item on multiple marketplaces, social networks & text / email.

26. Froont

Froont runs in your browser and allows to see the designs in the same way users will see it. No more misleading font renderings. Test it on any device right away.

27. BOX’NGO

BOX’NGO is an online marketplace for students. Connect with other students from all over the world and your own local campus to buy from others online, sell your stuff to make money quickly and easily, and trade with other students from your campus.

28. TaggTo

TaggTo is a new way to discover and share real-life product experience. It’s like product reviews in an easier, more fun, and more trustworthy way.

29. Sponsorshive

Sponsorshive is a new social saas tool matching brands with sponsorship opportunities through event organizers.

30. Coderbits

Coderbits is a network for software developers and designers that automatically builds knowledge portfolios using 50+ data sources. Portfolios are built using source code, packages, designs, education, organizations, and much more.

31. Quiver

Quiver is a mobile inventory management and sales tracking app. We help booth owners at cons, festivals, and markets instantly see and adjust to customer demand.

32. Pictaag

Pictaag allows you to upload a pic, tag it, share it, and make money. Tagged products are linked to merchant websites.

33. Autotag

AutoTag automatically suggests great keywords and lets you edit, customize and save them quickly and easily to your personal images.

34. Browser Details

Browser Details gives you your own branded site to send your clients to – they click one button and their browser version, operating system, and further information about their setup get sent right to your inbox. No hassle, no misunderstandings.

35. Connect5

Connect5 is a professional networking platform that recommends micro-events (up to 5 people) based on interests, skills, industry, and education.

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If you’ve got a startup or know a startup that should be listed here, please leave a comment below or reach out to me at franco [at] startupplays.com. Thanks!

If you haven’t figured out what to get your startup for this valentine’s day, how about some Startup Steroids?  Here’s a 40% off discount code, today only:  BNPLOVE

1. Britely

Britely is the fastest way to capture the best ideas you read, and keep them where you can see them.

- Use Britely to collect ideas you love from your favorite blogs and tweets.
- Learn more by seeing all of your favorite takeaways in one beautiful, effortlessly organized place.
- Be a thought leader and gain followers by collecting great ideas as you read them.
- Discover the best ideas on the web by following other cool smart people.

Britely is like Pinterest for ideas. A light and beautiful alternative to Evernote, Britely makes it simple to capture ideas as you read and put them in a place that you’ll actually be excited to revisit.

Britely is currently an invite-only beta. Go to www.britely.com to request your invite.

2. StampReady

StampReady for Mac allows you to easily edit, debug, save and export your custom designed E-mail Newsletters.
No coding knowledge is required to finish a template. Easily send Test E-mail to you or your client and use their debug tools to increase open and click rates.

The founders of StampReady are full time authors on Themeforest.net, a marketplace that offers Premium E-mail Templates. Their focus is to make E-marketing just a little easier.

3. Kapture

Kapture is an iOS app that rewards you for taking and sharing photos of the moments you love with your friends. The Kapture platform turns anyone taking a photo into a brand ambassador- allowing merchants, businesses and brands to benefit from the billions of photos taken and shared monthly via social media. For sharing a Kapture moment via Twitter or Facebook, users are instantly rewarded with items ranging from discounts to physical goods – which they can redeem instantly, save for redemption at a later date, or gift to their friends.

4. flatsies

Flatsies is a concept sharing tool for designers to present their designs to clients. Upload your designs to Flatsies and forget creating PDFs or attaching designs to emails and hoping they show up ok. There’s both a free and pro version ($6/month), both of which feature powerful features like batch uploading and retina-ready support. Pro features include customisable branding and password protected projects.

5. Bidsound

Bidsound is developing and offering online business solutions for the music industry. With our first product ‘ArtistRequest’ we’re striving to help artists, promoters, event organizers and agencies to streamline booking requests and to create more business opportunities.

6. What Next

What Next is your new go-to app for events. Plan your next night out. Get to know what events are going on around you. See what your friends are up to. Find more interesting places to go to with your date. What Next gives you stuff to do, places to go and moments to experience. Put a ding in your universe.

7. Bugsnag

Bugsnag is the best way to find and fix crashes in your web and mobile apps.

Crashes always happen, even in the best developer’s code. Bugsnag’s plugins automatically detect errors in your code and notify you by email, sms, in your company chat room or even create a ticket in your issues system.

Bugsnag can automatically detect crashes in all languages and frameworks, including Ruby on Rails, Node.js, iOS, Android, Django and Unity.

8. PushBullet

PushBullet allows you to easily push a file from your browser to your Android phone (Jellybean OS only).

9. Yumani

Yumani is a new, non-traditional online shopping platform that gives buyers the ability to request specific products and allow sellers to compete for their sale. As the only website of its kind, Yumani was founded in 2012 to give cost-conscious consumers – many of whom are tired of searching for the lowest price on an item they need – a new kind of retail destination. Yumani is free to join for buyers and sellers alike and does not require any listing fees like many other e-commerce sites.

10. Namemesh

Is finding the perfect name for your site a pain? Well, NameMesh is here to the rescue!

NameMesh is a smart name brainstorming & domain search engine that provides the most relevant suggestions by doing an exhaustive analysis on your keywords using 6+ million words network, covering 20+ methods including synonyms, related words, portmanteau, prefixes, suffixes, mix words, tld hacks and fun words, all with an intuitive search interface which makes naming fun and easy.

11. Filesquare

Filesquare helps you to create interactive prototype easily and beautifully. It’s available as a web or iPhone app to allow you to easily share your designs and collect comments.

12. BetterMe

BetterMe is an app for people who will try anything to be a better person. The app an evil alarm clock that hopes to humiliate you. Click snooze and BetterMe will post a message on Facebook showing all your friends that you are weak willed.

The app works because once that alarm clock sounds, you know subconsciously that the world is watching. It is the ultimate motivator to jump out of bed in the mornings. Version two of the app will have added features outside the realm of alarm clocks. Stay tuned.

13. Recon.io

Recon.io is a brand monitoring tool built for Twitter, designed to find only the important tweets. It analyses every tweet it finds using custom built algorithms, and determines the sentiment, whether it’s a support issue (e.g. “Hipmunk didn’t save my flight searches from yesterday”), feature requests (e.g. “Hipmunk is great, but I wish they’d let me add more than 3 flights”) and any user questions.

It also tracks mentions in the press and can alert you whenever investors mention your brand. It also presents clean data, by removing tweets which are likely to be spam.

14. ChilledLime

ChilledLime is the new way to quickly crowdsource opinions and a simple, quick way to get feedback on your decidable questions.

15. Weekdone

Weekdone is the hassle-free employee status reports platform. Automatically get an email digest of what your employees and peers have accomplished and what problems the project has encountered.

Sign up for a free account at Weekdone.com

16. Plover

Plover gives professional photographers tools to work smarter so that they can concentrate on their craft. This allows them to put their energy and creativity into telling a story and lets Plover do the rest.

The service allows photographers to showcase their work in beautiful designs, earn an extra revenue stream by selling prints and products, securely back up their work in the cloud, keep track of clients, and view detailed stats about everything.

17. EnergyMobile

EnergyMobile is devoted to building smart, functional, beautiful apps that simplify and save energy. Checkout some of their latest iPhone apps (currently for Ontario, Canada).

18. The Swizzle

The Swizzle leads users through a simple process to safely unsubscribe users from unwanted email subscriptions, ridding inboxes of clutter that can be overwhelming. Once the clutter is gone, users can then choose to receive a single “Daily Digest” email combining deals from their favorite brands into one simple email each day.

19. Icebergs

Iceberg is the perfect place in the cloud for your daily research, projects and online inspiration. Collect and organize websites, pictures, text, notes, files. Enjoy your research again!

20. Intoloop

Intoloop allows you to easily create beautiful interactive timelines you can share on the web. Follow what’s important through time. Life is full of stories and Intoloop’s timeline is the easiest and smartest way to tell those stories. Create your free account now.

21. Rbutr

Rbutr is a browser plugin which hand delivers opposing arguments and rebuttals to whatever page you are looking at. Think the page you are reading is full of it? Or ever wondered why anyone would disagree with the position you just read? Click on rbutr and open a rebutting article. Or if one hasn’t been added for your page yet, request one be found, because you can be sure that someone, somewhere has already argued against it!

rbutr is world changing because it destroys filter bubbles, it destroys confirmation bias bubbles and it forces the opposing online camps to actually engage with each others’ arguments, rather than constantly preaching only to their own followers. Imagine a future where no one is ever fed misinformation online, without immediate and easy access to a correction or counter argument.

22. Site44

Site44 provides absurdly simple web hosting by turning Dropbox folders into websites. Just store your HTML/Javascript/CSS in your Dropbox and it is published immediately. Site44 supports custom domains, redirects and custom MIME types at no additional charge. Site44 has a free Starter plan, and inexpensive Personal and Professional plans are available for sites needing additional resources.

23. ForkingRecipes

ForkingRecipes is inspired by the popular social coding site Github. Forkingrecipes.com allows users to create, modify, and track the evolution of a recipe. Users create a portfolio of recipes that can then be “forked” (copied) and altered by other users.

A differentiating feature of forkingrecipes.com is that every change made to a given recipe is tracked and can be viewed chronologically by any user. Recipes are ranked via a user voting system and users also have the option of following other users to more easily view their updates. Additionally, forkingrecipes.com is unique in that recpies are entered via a plain text format that allows user freedom over their recipe data.

24. Campaign On The Cloud

Campaign On The Cloud is a brilliantly awesome service that takes the pain out of marketing and promoting your brands, events and products. Manage all your marketing campaigns on Web, Mobile, Social and Video networks, yourself!!

25. AdProof

AdProof is the first test-driven advertising platform that lets ad buyers test before they spend. Ad buyers can now A/B test any ad group for just a $1. That’s a 98% costs savings when compared to running the same test on Google AdWords with an average CPC of $2.50.

AdProof is super fast. No more wasted hours waiting for data or approval of ads. You’ll get results back in minutes. AdProof supports all ad types. Test your PPC, display, and social media ad campaigns. AdProof supports all devices. Optimize your ads for desktops & laptops, mobile devices and tablets.

26. When I work

When I Work is the easiest way to schedule and communicate with your employees. Check or make schedules from the Android or iPhone app! No software or downloads needed.

27. Dingtone

DingTone is a mobile app for iPhone and Android that allows you to make unlimited free phone calls, send free text messages, and instantly share pictures, video and your location with friends, family, and other Dingtone users. Dingtone can also turn your phone into a real Walkie Talkie.

28. InstaPoll

Instapoll for iPhone is the fun, fast and easy way to get your friends to vote on just about anything you want!

InstaPoll is a photo polling app that allows users to create polls based on categories. Users receive votes and comments from their friends and/or users around the world. It is a fun app for engaging in current and popular topics, collecting statistics and sharing opinions.­ InstaPoll will initially launch for iOS based devices in February 2013, followed by an Android release in the near future.

29. Flights With Friends

Flights With Friends makes it easy for friends and family to find and book flights and hotels together.

30. Couple

Couple is the easiest way to stay in touch with the person you love, making it easy to share the little things in life with each other. It creates a timeline just for the two of you, where you can post cute video messages and photos that no one else will see. You can also chat, share sketches, voice messages, your location, and even let your partner know that you’re thinking of them with just the push of a button.

31. Deal In

Deal In helps you find the best deals with an easy to use app. Using Deal in all you will be able to search and to buy products you need easily, faster and on best price.

32. 4Chords

4Chords is a Guitar Karaoke App (for iPhone and iPad) and the first app launched by Musopia (a Finnish iOS development studio). FourChords combines guitar and karaoke in the new unique way and makes playing guitar easier than ever before. Forget difficult notes and tabs, knowing only a few simply chords is enough to play any song you like. Aspiring guitarists can be strumming around in minutes. FourChords backs up the guitarist with the melody and has the lyrics in the same display so the singers can join the jamming.

The future plans include similar apps for other instruments such as bass and piano and other high quality apps.

33. Zigg.be

Zigg.be turns any link or bit of text into a short, easy to say, and easy to type link.

34. Skypath

Skypath allows you to easily backup your Photo Library on your Android, iOS and Desktop devices in seconds. SkyPath will also securely store all of your content online, so you can access, manage, and share it from anywhere.

35. Plug.DJ

Plug.dj is a real-time social media experience combining music and video discovery in a fun and interactive online environment, complete with dancing avatars to match people’s personalities.

The plug.dj app makes it easier than ever to create parties with your friends and peers around the globe.

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If you know of a really great startup that shows plenty of promise and should be featured here, leave me a link in the comments or shoot me an email at franco[at]startupplays.com and I’ll get in touch!

Whether these people see themselves as “entrepreneurs”, “startups”, or simply want to follow a passion and see their dream product out there improving people’s lives, these savvy visionaries now have a way to get there.

But getting enough attention to be successfully funded in a sea of ideas is still harder than ever. That’s why Arden Reed‘s (a custom menswear startup from Chile) founder Carlos Solorios worked with StartupPlays to create a step-by-step guide that would allow anyone to raise 10x their crowdfunding goal and launch a startup following the crowdfunding method.

Carlos says: “Every Kickstarter campaign follows a funding curve. There will be a strong tailwind at the beginning and another push as you near the end of your campaign. In between, there’s a lull that makes every campaign manager nervous. This guide will show you how successful campaigns maximize the entire process and take advantage of the lull”.

But other than those initial sales from backers and early adopters, how do they get their products out to a wider audience? Enter Fundedgrads. FundedGrads is a marketplace for successfully crowdfunded products cofounded by Jennifer Carati. FundedGrads was developed to fill a void in the crowdfunding marketplace and to further support the people behind the startups.

We took a look at some of the cool products available at launch. Here are out top 10 picks:

1. Hidden – Hidden Radio

The award winning Hidden Radio & Bluetooth Speaker is the simplest, most powerful radio and wireless speaker for iPhone and iPad ever in a compact form.

Produced by two international industrial designers, HIDDEN is now based in San Francisco. You can find them on Twitter @hiddenradio

2. Revolve – Revolve Camera Dolly Pro

Revolve Camera Dolly is a platform for capturing smooth and dynamic video footage. The system includes a rail kit that allows the dolly to be used at any location to get smooth video even on rough terrain.

Check them out on Facebook

3. Kudo – KudoCase for iPad

The KudoCase provides a renewable energy source to your iPad and other electronic devices all from the solar panel case.

Give them a shout on Twitter @KudoCase

4. WineHive – Modual Wine Rack

WineHive is a modular honeycomb wine rack that can grow with your wine collection. It’s made in the USA from recyclable aluminum.

The WineHive was designed by John Paulick, an award-winning industrial designer in Philadelphia.

You can follow them on Twitter @WineHive.

5. Distil Union – Snooze

Distil Union has produced Snooze: the minimal iPhone alarm dock with functioning snooze bar!

Tired of fumbling with your iPhone alarm in the morning? Meet Snooze, the bedside stand with a big, functioning snooze bar.

You can follow them on Twitter @distilunion

6. SushiQuik

SushiQuik is a lot more than just sushi, it’s a lifestyle, it’s a healthier way of eating. Whatever ingredients you like, you can roll them with SushiQuik.

This kit was designed so everyone can make a sushi roll the very first time. They took all the guess work out of it.

Follow them on Twitter for master techniques @SushiQuik

7. Capbuckle

Keep your lens cap secure without dangling cords or interference with pictures, lens or camera. The Capbuckle replicates the front of your SLR lens to make a good home for your lens cap. Just squeeze the locking feature in your favorite lens cap and place it in the Capbuckle for safe keeping during camera use.

8. Dream Cheeky – iStrike Shuttle

Dream Cheeky designed the iStrike shuttle is a flying Drone that connects directly to your iOS device via Bluetooth.

Play along with them on Twitter @dreamcheeky

9. Loog Guitars

The Loog Guitars are designed with the goal to make it fun and easy to play music. We also believe that when you build your own guitar you develop a deep connection with it, and that is why we ship your Loog unassembled.

Putting it together will only take you 15 minutes but it’s a profound experience that will help you understand and love the instrument.

The Loog is fun, cute and small, but it’s not a toy: it’s a real guitar. Check them out on Twitter @loogguitars

10. SpnKix – Rocket Skates

Spnkix Rocket Skates – World’s Smallest Electric Vehicle: SpnKiX are fun and cool motorized skates that put wings on your feet.

Blast off with them on Twitter @spnkix.

———-

If you have a great idea that you’d love to get funded, follow our interactive step-by-step guide to raising over $10,000 on Kickstarter in less than 6 weeks, get funded, and sell on FundedGrads today!

Question by Chad Halvorson from When I Work:

In my quest for publicity in the national blog circuits, I continue to hit brick walls. Our product is innovative, well designed and gaining traction. However, we are bootstrapped and it sometimes feels like until we raise money, nobody wants to talk about us; —even though we are growing and generating notable revenue from customers. Am I being too cynical or is there something to this? Seems like all you read about these days is so and so raised $X million, etc. Not much about the bootstrapped startups.

Meet our Pros:

Eric Eldon

Co-editor of TechCrunch

David Cohen

Founder of TechStars, the leading startup accelerator

Adrian Salamunovic

Founder of Canvas Pop, DNA11, and author of How to Get Media Coverage for Startups

Well Chad, here’s what the pros had to say:

Question: Why does TechCrunch cover so many startup investments?

Eric: We try to cover everybody. The bootstrapped startup stories are the best, but it’s hard for us to find them (which is something we’re working on). Meanwhile, raising funding is very difficult and plays a real role in helping a startup succeed, so it is news.

Question: Assuming all else is equal, how much weight does investment-backed vs bootstrapped play in your choice to cover a story?

Eric: “Bootstrapped” means many different things. A single person building an app that gets a little bit of traffic is bootstrapped, but there are millions of people starting tech-related businesses and it’s impossible to cover more than a fraction of them at any time. Funding is one of many reasons we’ll cover a company, but there are lots of other factors, like the space is growing fast, an interesting entrepreneur is doing something new, an impressive traffic spurt, a product that got one of our writers addicted to using it. Some writers also specialize in certain areas — Leena for payments, Josh for Facebook platform companies, etc. — so they look out for new startups.

Question: With the massive number of bootstrapped startups out there (and new ones launching daily), has it made writers more ‘numb’ to covering them / hearing from them?

Eric: We get lots of other pitches, too, particularly from startups with venture funding who hire communications professionals to email and call us. It can be overwhelming. But, we should do more to solicit bootstrapped startup ideas. Emailing tips@techcrunch with something in the subject line about bootstrapped can work.

Question: It used to be obvious when to pitch tech writers – launch, crazy anecdote, exit – do these still hold true?  When do you want to hear from a startup (specifically a bootstrapped one)?

Eric: Anything relating to core business success — evidence of traffic and revenue — because that’s the difference regardless of funding. Product pitches that clearly explain how the launch moves the industry forward from competitors also help us understand the story.

Our whole edit team watches tips@ so I’d say that’s the best way to go for now.

Question: Getting a mention in TechCrunch or Mashable used to mean ten thousand signups instantly and a mark of accomplishment for any startup.  With the massive increase in number of stories per publication + increase in total tech blogs (not to mention twitter, etc…), how much value is there in getting covered?  Is it as important as ever?

David: Techcrunch, Mashable, etc are fine, but have no long term effect. Literally everything is there so it’s almost a “check mark” vs any real advantage. It’s great PR, but it’s just a bump, not sustainable. Startups should think about a rhythm of PR.

Question: What advice do you give companies in TechStars (or other companies you advise) about getting press mentions? Do you recommend a specific stage to pitch? What other advice do you give them on pitching?

David: My advice to TechStars companies is generally to build a few high quality relationships and get to know those people. Make sure they’re coming to you on the topic you care about. Give everyone the stories that are meaningful, but build a few relationships that are very strong/deep to make sure you have a rhythm of mentions. Be genuine with the reporters, do it because you like them and want to help them and then really do help them. Be responsive to any reporter and stay away from “exclusives” generally speaking.

Question: How much do you think being investment-backed influences whether a startup gets media attention? Should it matter?

David: Being backed by known investors does help, with a halo effect. But my first company was bootstrapped with no investors and no real media. It was just a solid business and we executed well. There are multiple paths.

Question: What’s the most common mistake you see startups make when pitching the press?

Adrian: By far, the most common mistake is NOT researching the publication and most importantly the journalist you are pitching to. You need to know who they are, what they write about, and what they care about. Most importantly you should know what their readers are interested in and pitch accordingly.

Other common mistakes include sending journalists a “Press Release” without a custom pitch as an attachment, most journalists I’ve spoken too hate attachments and press releases that are long and wordy to read.

Question: What’s the most important part of pitching a story?

Adrian: Well, it might sound obvious but it’s the actual pitch email. Even more important is the subject line. After all if your subject line looks spammy, doesn’t make sense, or is too long it may never even get opened. A perfect subject line is on point and makes the journalist actually want to open your email.

Keep your pitches short! No one has time to read a 10 paragraph essay about how awesome your new product is. Three paragraphs is all you need:

Paragraph 1: Introduce yourself, build credibility and tell them why you’re reaching out to them. Maybe mention you’ve read a previous article of theirs that was relevant to what you are pitching.

Paragraph 2: What your story / pitch is and why their readers will care. You may want to include a link to what you are talking about, a live demo, video, or even a press release here.

Paragraph 3: Call to action: tell them what they can do next if they are interested. Here’s where you can offer them a free trial, a sample, an interview, or whatever your “hook”  is.

Question: What is the most successful way to get a writer’s attention?

Adrian: Let them know you’ve actually read a previous article that they have written that is relevant to what you are pitching. It lets them know that you’ve bothered to do your research. It doesn’t hurt to send them  a mention on Twitter too.

The best way to get a journalist’s attention is to pitch them on something that is relevant to what they write about and that’s currently hot. This is where coming up with great angles is so important.

Thanks to Eric, David, and Adrian for providing their great answers. As a special thank-you to Chad, we’ve sent him a free copy of How to Get Media Coverage for Startups – the most comprehensive how-to guide on getting published for startups.

Want more great answers? Ask us a question.