Before I get to the news, I want to start off with a quick story. Last night I was in the Blind Bear. Around 9 Eric Mathews brought in some of the entrepreneurs participating in Start Co.‘s accelerators. They’re less than 10 days away from Demo Day and no doubt they had been putting in long hours at the office up the street, practicing their pitches and doing other preparation.
I have an unspoken understanding with Eric that he’s welcome to send his entrepreneurs over to talk. It’s good for them to practice talking about their businesses in casual conversation, and they might get a mention on the blog. So, Eric sent a few people over. There was one entrepreneur I talked to for about 30 minutes. We got to talking about where she was from, how she started her business, how she found Start Co.
“I’m from Brooklyn,” she told me. “There were accelerator programs in New York that I could have joined. But I really liked what I saw in Memphis. So I decided to come here.” What a huge compliment for our city and for Start Co. Not many cities can compete with New York in that respect. Not many cities offer startup businesses the resources that Memphis does. We really have something special going on here.
Her business is called Play-tag. Play-tag is a smart tag for your dog. It lets you set a roaming range of 0-150 feet. If your dog gets outside of that range, you get notified via mobile app. Also, when the dog is out of range the tag activates a highly visible LED paw print, so people can see your dog and know it is missing. The tag stores vital information about your pet, and you can set an in-app monetary reward. There’s no monthly fee, and since Play-tag does not rely on cell phone networks it works almost anywhere.
Sounds like a pretty useful invention. I have two friends whose dogs went missing for a week this year, and I wonder if they’d have recovered their pets more quickly if the dogs were wearing Play-tag.
I learned about another startup last night as well and will mention it in a future post.
Speaking of entrepreneurship, it will be discussed at the South Main Association meeting tonight. Carlton Crothers, the CEO of Emerge Memphis, will speak. Where Start Co.’s startup businesses are just getting off the ground from the idea stage, Emerge is an incubator for startups that have grown to the point that they can pay rent for office space. The meeting will be at Cafe Pontotoc, 6 PM social, 6:30 presentation. Free for SMA members, $10 non-members.
From the Daily Beast: Meet the beer bottle dictator, the one man who approves every beer label in America.
The social media, smartphone era version of Kitty Genovese. (Look her up on Wikipedia if you don’t know who Kitty Genovese is)
A couple of friends of mine went to Midtown last night to try the new Robata Ramen and Yakitori bar, and I thought I’d pass along a tip they shared: Get the king mushroom skewers. “I didn’t even know there was a such a thing as a king mushroom,” my friend said. “But they were delicious. They taste like butter.”
Out-of-towners considering traveling to Memphis in the next two weeks: Might want to check out this deal at the Doubletree. You get two tickets to the Redbirds (who play across the street) and a bucket of four local beers.
Couple of Elvis events happening Downtown today: Ben Portsmouth: Acoustic Elvis is about to start playing right now (1 PM) at Jerry Lee Lewis Cafe. The semifinal round of the Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist Contest happens tonight at the Orpheum at 7.
IMPORTANT PBR NEWS: The Madison Growler shop inside Cash Saver on Madison has growlers of PBR for $4 today.
Getting a lot accomplished at work today. I will lead off at Flying Saucer today around 5:30, with Silly Goose as a backup location if needed.