Startup Roundup: myYearbook generating $20 million in revenue yearly, 123LinkIt and Mailroom launch

Introducing Technically Philly’s Startup Roundup. Here, we’ll parse out the small pieces that make our greater Startup ecosystem thrive. We want to keep you in touch with the innovations that we can’t quite get to covering, but that deserve highlight. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.

DEFINITE READS

Mashable reports that myYearbook is generating $20 million in revenue per year, up 70 percent from 2008 and growing, with its base of 20 million users. The company’s virtual currency and virtual goods model was estimated early in its existence to be generating a third of the company’s revenue, as we’ve reported. myYearbook is focusing on expanding its partnerships with gaming platforms like Zynga and SGN with new hire Scott Levine, formerly the Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Sony Music Entertainment.

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Startup Roundup: Invite Media real-time ad buys, ListenLogic social media monitoring, Happy Cog not bored

Introducing Technically Philly’s Startup Roundup. Here, we’ll parse out the small pieces that make our greater Startup ecosystem thrive. We want to keep you in touch with the innovations that we can’t quite get to covering, but that deserve highlight. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch. Several of the tips in this week’s roundups resulted from a quick email to TP. Without further ado….

Updated 2/3, 12:26 p.m.: Rick O’Brien is SemperCon’s founder, not Max Sobol.

DEFINITE READS

Rittenhouse-based Invite Media, which suffered some setbacks early last year while in stealth mode, announced its real-time bidding platform for online display advertisements, partnering with AdBrite, AdMeld and PubMatic, according to a press release. Ad news org AdExchanger interviewed COO Nat Turner about the announcement. Turner is pretty excited about the development: “While there are frankly way too many ways to slice and dice and compare results given all of the factors present in display [advertising], there truly is a huge performance increase that can be garnered by [real-time bidding],” he says.

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Startup Roundup: Lifehacker has trust issues with Lose It Or Lose It, myYearbook donates to Haiti

Introducing Technically Philly’s Startup Roundup. Here, we’ll parse out the small pieces that make our greater Startup ecosystem thrive. We want to keep you in touch with the innovations that we can’t quite get to covering, but that deserve highlight. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch. Several of the tips in this week’s roundups resulted from a quick email to TP. Without further ado….

DEFINITE READS

Lose It Or Lose It founder Randy Schmidt offers insight into the how, why and how much of launching a startup Web product, and it doesn’t sound so daunting: Twenty-one grand and some serious, uhm, sweat equity.

Lifestyle-meets-technology aggregator LifeHacker ragged on Schmidt’s project, practically begging readers not to give money to the product. LifeHacker likely picked up the story when CBS3’s Nicole Brewer interviewed a contributor for her piece highlighting Lose It as a tech-savvy way to lose weight.

In light of the recent magnitude-7.0 earthquake in Haiti, New Hope’s myYearbook has pledged to donate at least $15,000 and up to $25,000 through its Causes social networking application this month. The company donated more than $250,000, contributed by members, to charities in 2009.

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First Round Capitol video hilariously awkward

First Round's portfolio companies belt out holiday tunes in the firm's latest holiday video

There’s a bit of a back story to this one.

Last month, before a First Round event in Center City, Technically Philly had arrived a bit early and began to walk down the steps of G Lounge to see if there were any other early-birds. Halfway down, we heard a chorus of voices harmonizing the phrase “We are First Round” and thought the venture capital company was pumping itself up like a football team before a game.

Turns out they were recording their part for the company’s yearly holiday video, featuring the firm’s portfolio singing, like Susan Boyle, to “I Dreamed a Dream.” Vid’s complete with reactions from “Britain’s Got Talent” hosts, near tears. It’s damn funny—and awkward.

Watch it after the jump and see local companies Monetate, MyYearbook, ClickEquations and Invite Media.

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Startup Leaders hosts second annual Founder Factory to mixed reaction

Founder Factory audience members were given a chance to offer advice, along with panelists, to startups like language-learning tool PlaySay.

More than 250 gathered throughout the day for the second annual Founder Factory, a sold-out gathering of entrepreneurs, investors and students organized by Philly Startup Leaders at World Cafe Live in University City Thursday.

The event was a chance for business-minded folks to gather, discuss, dissect and learn about the work they are doing throughout the spheres of startups, education and investing.

Presenters from Ben Franklin Technology Partners, Wharton Business School, Internet Capital Group, myYearbook and Monetate were rotated with fishbowl sessions— where young startups pitch their idea to experienced business people for advice—each ushered onto the stage to red and blue stage lighting and dramatic rock and jazz music.

During the afternoon, 150 attendees listened to entrepreneurial conversations while seated at long dining tables in front of the stage, standing at the bar, or gazing down from the mezzanine level, while a handful mingled in a nondescript lobby.
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Links: Innovation Philadelphia reflects on GCECS, Hugh Douglas speaks science and More

Updated 11/9/09 @ 10:22 a.m.: Added Innovation Philadelphia link

DEFINITE READS

• Venture Beat reports that New Hope-based teen social network myYearbook is pushing its virtual currency hard toward growth in its fresh profitability.
• Innovation Philadelphia gives its own review of their Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit held early last month. See our interview with Innovation’s chief Kelly Lee here. Read their additional blog post here.
• Keystone Edge has a Q&A with University City Science Center President Steven Tang.

After the jump, Lockheed in space again, Hugh Douglas chats about science and six other tech stories, including our best read piece of the week.

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Friday Tech Links: Fourth most innovative, BigBelly trash video and More

In which we link out to the tech news from Philly and elsewhere (when it matters) that slips through the cracks and make it way fun. See others here.

DEFINITE READS

• Innovation Philadelphia reports that our fair city was ranked the fourth most innovative U.S. city in a recent large survey by 2think2know. Philly lagged behind Boston, which was ranked No. 1 globally, San Francisco, New York and Washington D.C. We were 32nd globally.
• Good magazine hits Center City to talk the innovation surrounding the recently installed BigBelly trash cans that are showing up on our busy city streets. There’s a hotly edited video that includes Oscar the Grouch.

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Friday Tech Links: myYearbook cruises, other DreamIt Demo Day coverage and More

In which we link out to the tech news from Philly and elsewhere (when it matters) that slips through the cracks and make it way fun. See others here.

• The Inquirer’s Philly Inc. reports that your friends at BFTP recently invested $1.2 million in seven firms. One of those firms is West Conshohocken pharmaceutical company Immune Control, as Mike Armstrong reports, is working on controlling immune-cell activity.
• Armstrong also reports that Avid Radiopharmaceuticals has bucked an industry trend and moved to bigger digs inside city limits. They’re working on a product that can help research Alzheimer’s disease and scored one of the region’s most lucrative VC deals this year.
• PaidContent reports that New Hope social network myYearbook is still killing it. Read our interview with founder Catherine Cook.

After the jump, a strange video press release from the Inquirer’s owner, an interview with a DreamIt startup and five other articles you ought to read, including our best read piece of the week and how the competition handled the same story.

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Friday Q&A: Catherine Cook of myYearbook.com

Earlier this month, New Hope-based myYearbook.com founder Catherine Cook was honored as the number one young entrepreneur in the country by paidContent, according to a press release.

Cook has been loved by media since she and brothers Dave and Geoff launched the high school-focused social media site in 2005—when she was was barely old enough to drive—after deciding that traditional yearbooks weren’t making the cut in the age of new media.

The award was accepted with pride, we’re sure, but we wondered when one becomes a regular, old “entrepreneur.” After all, Cook isn’t sixteen anymore.

Could it be $10 million in sales and 9.8 million unique hits? Maybe being noticed as the third largest and only growing social media portal aside from Facebook would do the trick. Does a title even matter?

“I am 19, I do like having that added honor to it, but I feel like sometimes it’s glam’d up a little too much. When some people hear it they get some kind of skewed perception that you’re a millionaire and a big spender,” Cook told Technically Philly in a telephone interview.

“I drive a 1996 Mitsubishi Galant.”

We’d like to think that Cook might be considering an upgrade since the company recently decided to monetize its Lunch Money feature, a virtual currency with which users can purchase gifts for friends or donate to noble causes. One million fake dollars cost $9.99 real cash. Six months in, Lunch Money is making eight figures in sales, Cook tells us. Virtual gifts have become one-third of the company’s revenue.

We caught up with Cook to see what her and her brothers have been up to since launching the site almost four years ago, what’s happening with $13 million in venture funding raised last year, and whether the Cooks are rooting for the Phillies or the Yankees, after the jump.

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