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. Follow along with the Startup Roundup’s dedicated RSS feed. If you’ve got news to share, get in touch.

DEFINITE READS

We’re not sure how we missed this one, but nearly a dozen local well-known groups have come together to host an event with the American Society of Inventors, tonight at the University City Science Center, to talk about how to launch a successful entrepreneurial venture. We’d list all the organizations here, but gosh that’s a lot of text. Trust us, you know about ‘em. And it’s free, people.

MIGHT BE WORTH YOUR TIME

Corporate event-planning and management system StarCite, which we’ve covered in the past, has announced in a press release that it has been awarded a patent for its suite of SAAS software, patent number 7,523,385. Rest easy, VP Kevin Young. After all, the previous 7,523,384 patents were all awarded to Apple.

GIVE A GLANCE

VentureHacks tells you how to land a meeting with an investor by way of email. Read: Don’t be an idiot.

Alex Hillman announced at SXSW last week that he, with financial help from Grasshoper—a virtual phone service and entrepreneur empowerment resource—has launched an online book curration initiative to pen The Coworking Book. [Full Disclosure: Hillman is a TP sponsor]

Chatroulette scares us to death. We’re of the mind that it truly does signify the end of the Internet. But rather than get all philosophical on you, let’s talk hard numbers. RJMetrics—who damn well knows how to ride a trend—has some great data about what you’re likely to see in the average random video encounter. You’ve got a one in eight chance to see some R-rated action and an 89 percent chance it’ll be a dude deciding what that action is. Good times.

Startup Roundup will post weekly on Wednesdays until there’s not a Philly startup story left to link to on the Internet. See others here.

Jake Stein at left and Robert Moore at right of business dashboard firm RJ Metrics performing in their "Business Intelligence" rap video.

And now for something totally different.

You may be tired of the ironic rap video — we know we are — but sometimes an old idea can pass. Does this?

Jake Stein and Robert Moore, the two Ivy League-educated entrepreneurs behind the business intelligence dashboard RJ Metrics that opened up shop earlier this month, have broken from their cipher and put business on wax.

Stein, who lives in Center City, sings the hook and plays straight man to Moore in their single “Straight Outta Camden,” noting their recent move to the Rutgers University-Camden tech incubator.

Peep the video and score an exclusive download after the jump.

The track features lyrics about VCs and balance sheets on a beat from Adamack of New Jersey-based Open Minds Entertainment. Listen below, or download the track here.

Look out for all the killer lines, including: “You got a social app? Well, it’s a disgrace, look. ‘Cause even Facebook can’t even make money on Facebook.”

See their complete lyrics — with links, of course — on their company blog, The Metric System.

Digg it here, and get someone from our community some love — if they really want it.

Of the future, Stein, who seemed at least a little hesitant on whether this was a good idea, says, “Yes, unfortunately there may be something in the works, and, depending on the response from this, the group could come back for a reunion tour.”

RJ Metrics plans to help small and medium-sized businesses that collect data about their customers better use that information to chart user behavior.

So, is it funny or not? Is it two young, successful entrepreneurs having fun or an attack on professionalism? It’s bold, to be sure, think the risk will work out?

More importantly, what’s your favorite line?

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 reports on the retirement of Arthur Lendo, noted for taking tiny Rittenhouse-based Pierce Peirce College from regional “Oh, I didn’t even realize that was real college” to “if I heard of them it was because of their online education program.” Don’t give him too much credit, though. A Google search of “Pierce College” yields a California school first. ..Bah.

We get some Navy IT, the Flyers soar and three other tech stories you should read  including our most trafficked post of the week.

More:

• ReadWriteWeb gives a bit deeper analysis on Center City business metrics firm RJMetrics, which we reported open public business last week.
• The Inquirer reports blandly and insufficiently that the U.S. Navy has awarded a contract to set up and manage an IT equipment warehouse somewhere in Philadelphia. We’ll investigate.
• Paul Greenberg gives you too much information on his sports interests in the opening of a lengthy discussion of the succeeding promotions of the Philadelpia Flyers — including detailed use of the Web and tech.
  
• Perhaps the only thing worse than a Washington Post columnist writing a column in 2009 that begins with “I finally set up a Facebook account,” is that the Inquirer paid to actually put it in its “technology” section. Ew.
  

• Our Most Trafficked Story of the Week: RJMetrics mining business database information

Every Friday morning we make sure you didn’t miss anything if you spent the week trying to avoid your little sister’s college graduation, with Friday Tech Links.

At least two Ivy League kids graduated in 2006, took fat-salaried jobs at the same New York City equity firm and returned to Philadelphia to reach fame and fortune by mining data for the nation’s small businesses.

The story continues still.

Today is the public opening of RJMetrics, a business intelligence dashboard and brainchild of a pair of 25-year-olds with regional ties: Robert J. Moore and Jake Stein. They want to help small and medium-sized businesses that collect data about their customers better use that information to chart user behavior.

And like any good idea, it came to them while they should have been doing something else.

Back at that New York equity firm, they’d spend hundreds of hours hand perfecting data from a company’s database, deciding just what might be likely revenue projections and user-action based on available information. Their research was valuable, time-consuming and costly.

It’s been done that way for years, almost always in one of two ways, Moore says.

The real detailed work would be done by either an in-house database administrator paid a six-figure salary or a high-end business intelligence agent that has its own consultants to cobble it all together.

That personalized work is still valuable for larger, older and more established companies with multiple legacy databases. but many smaller, newer e-commerce companies driving less than $100 million a year in profits don’t have a cost-effective alternative — until RJMetrics, our Ivy League boys say.

They’ll focus their business on e-commerce and subscription-based clients. Their software, developed by Moore, segments a company’s customer set to find user behavior trends for things like likelihood of repeat visit or purchase, preferences and future actions. The company’s focus, Moore says, is any business with an e-commerce division, online subscriptions or any other business that collects user data, from social media sites to online newsletters. RJMetrics will be able to offered detailed assessments of trending user behaviors and likely preferences.

“This is valuable stuff at a far cheaper rate for people who really need it,” Moore says.

Watch their product demo below.

Last summer, Moore left the equity firm and began refining the software that could do those tasks more reliably and far faster. Stein followed suit in October — focusing on the user interface side of things. The team founded RJMetrics and began testing reliability and efficiency on the businesses of friends and known clients.

Turns out, the thing actually works, and they want to base their operations here, where it’s called a hoagie.

Moore grew up in Glassboro, N.J. and followed the local high school with four years at Princeton University. Though he spent two years in New York, his family and his high school sweetheart – to whom he is now engaged  - are decidedly Philly regional entities.

Stein grew up in North Jersey’s Morris County but got an education at the University of Pennsylvania. His girlfriend got a gig in Philly and has an affinity to the city.

Now, Moore is the primary programmer and Stein the primary hawker. Moore lives in Collingswood and Stein in Rittenhouse.

With those ties, cheap real estate, a certain uniqueness and a valuable urban hub, Philadelphia seemed like a simple choice.

“There were a lot of reasons pointing us this way. A lot of the best portfolio companies I’ve seen are not in Silicon Valley — they’re doing something special somewhere different,” Stein says.” We’d also like to play a significant role in the growing up of a tech scene, and we can do that here.”

“I like that.”