“There aren’t a lot of early stage investors in Philadelphia:” serial entrepreneur Rick Rasansky talks investment, startups and wives at Venturef0rth [VIDEO]

Rick Rasansky

Imagine sitting in front of an audience, entertaining a litany of personal and professional questions. Then imagine you don’t know whose asking each question because the audience members are submitting them anonymously using a software product you created.

Great. Now you have an idea of what it was like to be seven-time entrepreneur Rick Rasansky last night as he jovially participated in an hour-long Q&A session at Venturef0rth that was scandalously entitled “7 Startups, 4 wives, 1 entrepreneur.”

Using his own realtime feedback application Yorn, an audience of about 40 people, many of them also entrepreneurs, anonymously shot questions at Rasansky as he perched on a director’s chair and awaited the moderation of the coworking space’s cofounder Jesse Kramer.

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“55,000 people have visited ElectNext over the past three months:” Mashable

Mashable covers DreamIt graduate ElectNext, the OKCupid for political candidates (which recently hired a Code for America fellow):

The idea is simple: First, users are asked to pick three issues that are most important to them. Choices include immigration, abortion, foreign policy and nine other categories. Next, users have to answer at least 10 additional questions to find their political matches — the more questions answered, the more accurate the results.

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Michael Maher: Benjamin’s Desk founder wins Greater Philadelphia Veterans Network “Shark Tank” $5,000 cash prize

Michael Maher, a Naval Lieutenant and corporate coworking aspirant, is focusing his entrepreneurial efforts elsewhere.

Maher, who has started a handful of small businesses, won the Greater Philadelphia Veterans Network‘s “Shark Tank” business pitch competition last week to add another to his name, as ABC 6 reported. Maher beat out a field of five veterans-turned-entrepreneurs pitching business ideas to a panel of five judges, according to a release.

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17 leading NYC tech companies led by UPenn fraternity alumni, lists Business Insider

The New York technology community may have the University of Pennsylvania Greek system to thank for some of its most successful startups.

Turns out Penn’s fraternities don’t produce the stereotypical frat brother. At least 17 tech companies, mostly startups, in New York are either founded or led by Penn alumni, many of them former brothers in Penn’s various fraternities, according to ongoing coverage by Business Insider.

We have the companies from Business Insider’s list below, but it’s worth seeing the names, positions and frats they say they call home. So see their list here.

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PalmLing, Inhabi and Airtime to demo at Switch Philly: judged by Mayor Nutter, Josh Kopelman, Ellen Weber for prize pack

PalmLing, Inhabi and Airtime will be three of the five companies to compete at Switch Philly 3, the startup demo event that’s part of Philly Tech Week.

All will be demoing new products or thorough upgrades to services.

They will be joined by the winners of Startup Weekend and Mobile Monday’s demo events to round out the five demo companies — giving the chance for an idea to go from creation to launch during the week.

The event, presented by Novotorium and Morgan Lewis, will feature First Round Capital Managing Partner Josh Kopelman, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and Robin Hood Ventures Executive Director Ellen Weber as judges to determine the winner of a prize pack to help “switch” the startup into the city’s next great success.

The tech demo event will feature five local startups all competing for a chance to win a prize pack that includes space at local incubators like Novotorium, meetings with investors around the city and pro-bono legal services. The goal is to “switch” a local venture into the city’s next great startup success story while having a great time.

Get your tickets here.

DreamIt Ventures Philly 2012 Showcase brings seven startups to NYC

Seven Philadelphia-based startups traveled to the Big Apple yesterday to pitch a cast of New York investors at the Philly 2012 Showcase in New York hosted by DreamIt Ventures.

The companies — CloudMine, ElectNext, SnipSnap, Grassroots Unwired, Metalayer, Kwelia, and Spling — all participated in DreamIt Ventures’ Fall 2011 Philadelphia program and presented at Demo Day in December 2011. DreamIt hosted the showcase because a number of investors expressed interested in the December Demo Day, but were unable to attend, Kerry Rupp told Technically Philly.

All seven companies made company pitches, though, for some, the event was an opportunity to continue to pursue open rounds, while for others it was a networking opportunity to meet with potential investors and create relationships, Rupp said.

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What is a startup?: a Technically Philly definition

Turns out, despite the focus on them in technology news, there are lots of questions about what exactly a ‘startup‘ is.

Any new business might use the word as an adjective, but we at Technically Philly think we need a philosophy for what exactly constitutes a technology startup when we categorize and cover their work in the Philadelphia region.

Here’s our definition. Tell us what we’re missing.

• Broadly, a startup is a new business that is testing plans for scalable revenue.

Though not always, a technology startup typically has these common traits:

• Fewer than 20 employees
• Younger than three years
• Seeking or have secured early-stage investment, especially angel and Series A.
• Looking at scale of a product, rather than growth of a service
• Led by initial founders who describe themselves as entrepreneurs
• Focusing on disrupting existing processes through greater efficiencies
• Often involves technology solutions to create efficiencies through product over service

Loffles.com: consumer targeting and promotional giveaway site launches [VIDEO]

Loffles.com boasts that it is the best way to enter sweepstakes online. And now the company is live.

The site — the name deriving from the combination of ‘lottery’ and ‘raffles’ — offers users access to an updated catalog of prizes from familiar brands. Users watch a promotional video, answer questions — to show they watched — and gain entry to a drawing for, say, a Best Buy gift card, a Netflix membership or an Xbox 360. Each entry also earns users ‘loffles,’ which can be redeemed for other prizes or used for additional contest entry tickets.

Technically Philly first told you about Loffles, which has regional roots, in October, when the company quietly sought $500,000 in funding, and received $162,000. First listing the company in Gladwyn, where co-founder Brandon Yoshimura grew up, the startup has more formally set up its headquarters in Providence, Rhode Island, near where Yoshimura, 22, and his fellow co-founders met at Brown University.

The team has six other members, including the following: co-founder Steve Boland, 22, from Lafayette Hill, a graduate of Germantown Academy and Penn State; Chief Technical Officer Daniel Johnson, 29; Chief Marketing Officer James Kwon, 27; Director of Sales Vincent Tumbleson, 20, a junior at Brown; team developer Jake Buob, 20, a student at Johnson and Wales University and social media director Ashley Farquharson, 21, a student at UMass Amherst.

Loffles, which is actually incorporated in that tax haven of Wilmington, Del., is represented by Center City law firm Morgan Lewis and local PR agency Zer0 to 5ive and another co-founder is from Lafayette Hill and attended Penn State University. Though primarily in Providence, Loffles does have a small administrative office at 16th and Wood street where the team will “set up periodically,” said Yoshimura, an alumnus of the Haverford School.

Alexandre Scialom takes top prizes at Milken-Penn GSE Education Business Plan, NFTE sends winner to the White House

First place winner Alexandre Scialom smiled as he accepted his award plaque for his winning business plan, theCourseBook.

The following is a report done in partnership with Temple University’s Philadelphia Neighborhoods Program, the capstone class for the Temple Journalism Department.

theCourseBook, billed by its founder as “Yelp for adult education” won Thursday the two top prizes at the second annual Milken-Penn GSE Education Business Plan, netting San Francisco entrepreneur Alexandre Scialom a cool $50,000 $25,000.

Thursday’s event, held by the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, was a business plan competition that challenges young entrepreneurs to apply their innovative business ideas in educational formats.

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Scrapple TV: Marc Brodzik of Woodshop Films wants national ‘pirate TV’ network online [VIDEO]

Woodshop Films founder Marc Brodzik gives direction to Scrapple TV Sports co-anchor 'Hot Carl' during a recent shoot.

The following is a report done in partnership with Temple University’s Philadelphia Neighborhoods Program, the capstone class for the Temple Journalism Department.

A man in a suit and white beard with a deep baritone began to read the news in front of a green screen.

Suddenly, the bright ring of a cell phone broke the silence in the otherwise quiet recording studio. Marc Brodzik, who was standing behind the camera, wearing a faded Tide detergent shirt, shorts and flip-flops, reached into his pocket and with a grin pulled out his phone and shut the ringer off.

“Phones off, bitches.”

It is with that humor and laid backed demeanor that things are run at Brodzik’s Woodshop Films, a local video production company that started its own internet channel, called Scrapple TV, three years ago.

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