Flashstarts Interns Sweep NOCHE Presentation Competition

One week ago, our twenty interns presented on their experiences working with our startup teams this summer at the NOCHE (Northeast Ohio Council on Higher Education) Entrepreneurial Internship Fair and Presentation Competition. We are so proud of all they've learned and accomplished with us this summer, and are also proud to announce that our interns represented five out of the six finalists in the presentation competition, and our developer intern Ibrahim Urooj Saeed won the competition. Congratulations Ibs!! Read more in this press release: [iframe src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/185432333/Press%20Releases%20-%20Website%20Hosting/Flashstarts%20Interns%20Sweep%20NOCHE%20Presentation%20Competition.pdf"] Learn more about our interns at the intern blog.
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Team Spotlight: GorMonjee

The food you eat makes you unwell. This fundamental truth not only made everyone in our office feel uncomfortable during Monday morning pitches, but lead to the creation of GorMonjee. GorMonjee provides users with customized nutrition advice to help them determine the healthiest foods to eat for each meal that will give them a balanced diet. The startup was founded by physician and healthcare expert Dr. Vivek Narayan, who shared what he’s learned this summer about entrepreneurship and himself. What attracted you to the Flashstarts accelerator? We were impressed with the nature of diligence while being screened to be accepted.…
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The NOCHE Pitch Competition

Last Friday, Flashstarts interns participated in the NOCHE (Northeast Ohio Council on Higher Education) Entrepreneurial Internship Fair & Presentation Competition. At the NOCHE event, there were over 70 interns from various companies throughout Northeast Ohio. Flashstarts interns had the largest presence, making up almost a third of the group. Upon arriving, interns were split up among six smaller presentation rooms, where they made their “personal pitch” - a five-minute presentation sharing their general internship experience and some projects completed along the way. In each room there was a judge who was involved in entrepreneurship in some capacity, whether working for a…
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Team Spotlight: Travel Later

Rob Holland has a thirst for travel. However, he struggled to maintain the budget that would allow him and his family to go on vacation every year. Vacations sometimes feel like an undeserved luxury when you’re busy with work and putting money towards groceries. However, vacations are necessary if you want enough energy to do your best work. After going three years without a vacation, Rob’s own budgeting struggles and his belief that everyone deserves to go on vacation lead to the creation of Travel Later. Travel Later is a payment solution to help consumers budget, plan and pay for…
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Meet an Intern: Sam Lowenkamp

If I had to pick the most defining element of the Flashstarts experience, I’d say it’s trust. You have to trust yourself to do work you probably haven’t been taught to do, the entrepreneurs have to trust you to work on their companies, and Flashstarts trusts you with all of the above. In short, they trust you to get your work done. Don’t all companies? Not exactly. At Flashstarts, you don’t clock in or out. You don’t have a supervisor, and you don’t have anyone checking on how you’re spending your hours. As long as you’re doing meaningful work —…
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Meet an Intern: Megan Valentine

Do you remember believing? Do you remember when dragons were real and Lego spaceships could whizz outside your window and a plastic eyepatch was all you needed to become a pirate?Child’s play, I know.But wasn’t there something extraordinary about being convinced that there was something more, something secret, something beyond the everyday?For children, magical worlds are easy to believe in. Imagining is simple, a natural reaction to sightings of hollowed logs and old tires and abandoned silos. As we grow older, imagination loses that simplicity. A mysterious, scribbled note dropped on the sidewalk becomes just another piece of trash. The…
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Meet an Intern: Rebeka Tannenbaum

I didn’t know what to expect when I disembarked from the 30-seat plane that I took from New York to Cleveland, Ohio for my internship at Flashstarts. Not only had I never been to the Midwest before, but I also had no idea what working at a startup accelerator with 12 teams and 20 other interns would be like. Eight weeks later, my internship is coming to an end. Looking back, what I’ve appreciated most about my time at Flashstarts is the variety and abundance of things to do. I tend to do everything fast – talking, eating, working, etc.…
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Team Spotlight: Lufthouse

Lufthouse was born when Joan Soskin and Lauren Wyeth, two Minnesota natives with a drive to create something meaningful, found each other in the right place and the right time. Together, they aim to leverage Bluetooth low energy (BLE) technology to address pain points in many markets. Using BLE technology and iBeacons, Lufthouse works to enhance user experiences with proximity-based, interactive information. Read on to hear from both Joan and Lauren about their experiences. What attracted you to the Flashstarts accelerator? Joan: Michael Dell is famous for his saying that "If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the…
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Week 10: A Unique UX

Authored by Social Marketing Intern Rebeka Tannenbaum With our second Demo Day two weeks away, this week at Flashstarts has been an exciting and busy one as teams work on their final iterations of their products and platforms. The focus this week seemed to be on user experience, which was not only the subject of our Food for Thought but has become increasingly important as teams hope to gain users, customers, and investors as time goes on and the accelerator program comes to an end. reMesh's Demo for Democracy On Tuesday, reMesh had a live demonstration with The Governance Lab @…
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Team Spotlight: Mango

Kevin Wang and Eric Vennaro met as students at Case Western Reserve University, became friends when they joined the same fraternity, and embarked on a professional journey when they decided to found Mango. Mango is a digital advertising platform to help colleges recruit international students. Wang and Vennaro are leveraging their strengths and passions to change the way universities market to potential international students. What attracted you to the Flashstarts accelerator? There's so much that Flashstarts offers us. There’s no way we would have made the progress we have made in the last two months without the guidance of Charles and…
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