Innovation & Job News

ReelGenie, a Maryland-based startup, is hiring two Rails developers. The company, which was a SXSWi Accelerator finalist this year, is in the late stages of a "significant" seed round of funding, according to David Adelman, ReelGenie's founder.

"We feel good about the amount," Adelman says. The initial friends and family round of funding included investments by private angels and professors from Wharton's business school, where Adelman attained his MBA.

ReelGenie lets anyone with photos and a story to tell create a movie. Adelman created the suite of tools on ReelGenie after he launched Reel Tributes, a production company that made client films for families and family businesses. "It's labor intensive to product a [quality] film," he explains. "People don't want to pay thousands." ReelGenie gives users the tools without the overhead of a production company. Adelman thinks current tools on the market, such as iMovie, are also labor intensive and lead to user frustration.

"We give people the tools to tell a great story and to engage and inspire others," Adelman says. The data for that content can come from any number of places, including online genealogy sites, family photos and stories that have been passed down through generations.

ReelGenie guides users through the video creation process, using templates to start. One feature Adelman highlights is the ability to record voice-over narration in the video. "You can hear people telling the story that goes along with the picture in their own voice," he explains.

In addition to recording birthdays, weddings, family stories and memories, ReelGenie has applications for sports teams, schools and other groups, such as military associations. Adelman hasn't finalized price points yet; current models indicate a per-movie model and a monthly subscription rate. He is also working on partnering with other organizations to offer ReelGenie services on their websites.

ReelGenie's need for a front-end and a back-end Rails developer come as the company is working to exit private beta at the end of the summer. Adelman anticipates additional hires over the next year.

LearnShark, the platform to help new employees onboard and become productive quickly and painlessly, has graduated from Acceleprise. LearnShark CEO Dhruva Rajendra reports that Acceleprise-facilitated demo days in D.C., San Francisco, Boston and New York are going well.

"It's different than showing up by yourself," Rajendra explains. "We haven't spent as much time in San Francisco and Boston as we have in D.C. and New York. New York has a great startup community. I know a lot of people there. Boston is known for doing enterprise technology."

LearnShark is built to work on top of internal social networks that companies are already using, like Yammer, Jive and Salesforce. New employees create individual "Learn Paths" within LearnShark, allowing users to learn the systems in use at a new job. When users have questions along the path, they can reach out to the appropriate people who actually use the systems they are learning, rather than HR representatives or trainers who may not know the answers.

"People are moving jobs more quickly than ever. There is a demand to onboard [employees] quickly and efficiently," Rajendra says. The faster and more efficiently new employees can be brought up to speed, the faster they can become productive. "LearnShark is intervention based," Rajendra says, "and it's designed to help with high turnover."

Rajendra is mulling his options now that LearnShark's tenure at Acceleprise is finished. "We're going to be in D.C. or Virginia," he says, "possibly at 1776 once a week, although we haven't approached them yet. We can stay at Acceleprise and pay rent. Because they're so focused on enterprise technology, it's a lot more likely that someone would walk in that we would want to talk to."

No matter which physical office he chooses, Rajendra himself is staying put. "Forty percent of Americans are expected to be contractors by 2020," Rajendra says; those contractors move around even more than employees, necessitating even more onboarding. "The number one place for that is D.C. In that environment, it makes sense for LearnShark to be here."

Encore, an email platform to connect users with brands and supporters with nonprofits, was accepted into the next Acceleprise class and will be moving in May 20. The move coincides with a shift in the business model.

Encore is a B2B site that helps nonprofits and now for-profit businesses aggregate user-generated content to create better email newsletters. Encore organizes the content—photos, videos, inspiring stories, Tweets, and more, uploaded by volunteers and staff—into a searchable, taggable library. Explains cofounder James Li, "Marketers can tag content by type, product line, location…to repurpose [that content] for other marketing."

The inspiration for Encore, Li says, came from the nonprofit world of newsletters and repeated "asks" for funding. "Volunteers are the ones who experience [things] every day. Communication people sit at the desk. They don't have the experience. The quality [of publications] ends up suffering; communications people end up writing a vague story because they weren't there. So we figured, let's crowdsource the stories to capture the excitement" from the people who are on the ground.

Li says that nonprofits using customer stories on Encore have found a greater ROI (return on investment) and a greater click-through rate. "The industry average click-through rate on a nonprofit newsletter is 3 percent," Li says. "With Encore, it goes up to 15 percent."

Encore is no longer focusing solely on small and medium-size nonprofits. "We want to work with larger nonprofits; we're also looking to build relationships with brands as well," Li says. For example, Li is meeting with representatives from sweetgreen to help turn the content generated by its users on Facebook and Twitter during its sweetlife festival into something more.

Li says Encore is different from Storify because it works on the enterprise level. "Storify isn't for external sources," he says. "There are elements of Storify [in Encore], but [Storify] is about embedded tweets. We're about reusing other channels."

Encore was accepted into accelerator programs in D.C., New York and San Francisco, but ultimately decided to remain in the District (Li finishes up at Georgetown this weekend). "We chose Acceleprise because of [its] enterprise focus."

Zoobean, a searchable platform for curated children's books, launches today. Cofounders and husband and wife team Felix Lloyd and Jordan Bookey are also announcing a funding round led by Kapor Capital, managed by Mitch Kapor of Lotus and Mozilla.

Lloyd, Bookey and a team of 10 curators have handpicked, catalogued and tagged 1,300 books for children ranging from ages two to eleven. To be included on Zoobean, Bookey explains, a book should be "one you want your kids to read to their kids—one you want to continue to keep in your library."

The idea for Zoobean came about when Lloyd and Bookey wanted to help their son get ready for the arrival of a new sibling. When they searched for an appropriate book to reflect their multiracial family, they came up empty.

The site allows parents, teachers and caregivers to search for books related to a specific situation, such as when you lose a pet or a special person. But it also works in a proactive way. "You can search for books on self-confidence or self-esteem," Bookey says, "qualities you are trying to stimulate in your kid."

Registered Zoobean users can recommend books and like book profiles, although Lloyd stresses that the site is not necessarily about fostering relationships among readers. "Keyword, A to Z catalog sites are a noisy world," he explains. "We are into curating books instead. When a book is suggested to us, we'll curate, vet, add it to the site, and let [the person who submitted it] know where it is in the queue."

For most of the books in its system, Zoobean points potential buyers to affiliate sites like Amazon. But Zoobean has created a subscriber model. For $14.95 per month, Lloyd and Bookey will send a curated title from the Love Collection (a Best of the Best group) to subscribers, along with free reading guides and reading activities. Subscribers can also order other Love Collection books and receive free shipping. Proceeds from sales of subscriptions will benefit youth literacy nonprofit organizations.

Lloyd and Bookey are planning to bring a developer on full-time in the near future. They hope to expand Zoobean, based in 1776, to include toys and games in addition to books.

SnapDash, a social app to make taking group pictures more fun, is officially launching for iOS next week. An Android version is due by the end of the week. The initial app is free, ad-free and completely different from the similarly named SnapChat.

"SnapDash is a creativity facilitator," explains Hanks. "Most people freeze when told to be funny on demand. And social media has become success theater. SnapDash is about being comfortable leaving that zone."

When users launch the app, they can choose among five categories including So Awkward, Creature Feature, That Just Happened, Bring Your A Game and Potpourri. The app then generates a "snaption" ("You're an angry velociraptor," or "You're the world's best lion tamer") and users have six seconds to react and pose for a picture.

The pictures can be edited and the caption is printed on the frame of the photo for context. Users can delete the picture, save it locally on their device's camera or choose to share it, either via the app's SnapDash feed (similar to that of Facebook or Instagram), via Facebook or via Twitter. But Hanks assures users SnapDash photos are saved locally and are only put on a server when a user chooses to put them there.

Hanks, who cops to a stint as an amateur stand-up comedian and credits classes with Shawn Westfall at DC Improv for unlocking his inner class clown, wrote 80 percent of the 550 snaptions currently available in the app, dictating them into his phone as he commuted to and from his day job as a corporate strategist for a company in Northern Virginia.

"I'm running out the clock," he says, referring to coming up with ideas for new snaptions. "I am fortunate to be surrounded by funny friends. And in time, users will be able to create their own snaptions, save them in a category of their own choosing and queue them up on demand. We're moving as fast as we can."

SnapDash is looking for summer interns to work on social media.

Transit Screen is expanding its reach. The company, which makes screens that show real-time bus and Metrorail arrivals, has formed partnerships with the Georgetown Business Improvement District (BID) and the Ballston BID to place screens in public areas and test whether they reduce pedestrian crowding and encourage the use of transit.

Transit Screen's devices aggregate data from most of the major transit agencies in the greater D.C. area, including Metrorail, Metrobus, Capital Bikeshare, Circulator, ART and PG The Bus. CEO Matt Caywood hopes to be able to integrate data from car2go and other point-to-point rental services in the future as well.

The screens are placed in public and retail locations to keep public transportation riders and commuters out of lines and off of platforms.

"We're solving a problem that no app on a phone or device does," explains Caywood. "You can understand the transit options around you at a glance. And [the screens] show [successive] arrivals. Knowing when later arrivals are coming makes a difference. And, if you are unwilling to wait or prefer to bike, you have that option."

According to Caywood, the partnership in Georgetown came about when Jonathon Kass was elected as its BID's transportation director. "He really wants to solve Georgetown's traffic and pedestrian problems," says Caywood. "The plan is to put screens in five to ten sites around M St. and Wisconsin Ave., in retail stores and bars, and measure the impact the screens have on pedestrian crowding."

In Ballston, says Ryan Croft, VP of business development for the company, there are plans to put a screen outside of the Ballston LaunchPad, the new business and tech incubator space. Croft hopes the BID will advocate for screens in Ballston's small businesses and hotels as well. "It's a win-win," explains Croft. "It improves the business ecosystem and builds more sustainable, walkable and bikeable communities."

Caywood says that Transit Screen, which grew out of a project he developed with Arlington County Commuter Services, has garnered "a tremendous amount of enthusiasm from developers, BIDs, end users, and people who want one for their home." Transit Screens are not available on the consumer market. A software license runs $1,999 per screen and users pay $50 in monthly subscription fees; multiple screen discounts are available.

Transit Screen will be launching a second location, in San Francisco, in July. Croft will be moving there to manage the second market. The pair has a tentative list of other cities to expand to, but isn't yet disclosing locations. "We're focusing on U.S. markets where there is open data," Caywood says.

Cor, the B2B corporate wellness platform based in the District, just hired a chief commercial officer and would like to fill two other positions: CTO and UX/UI designer. Company CEO Nicholas Tolson says the new hires will improve Cor's product and work to "engage people in health."

Companies that purchase Cor give their employees access to the site's features, which include group fitness challenges. The IT team could take on the marketing team to see who can log the most minutes of exercise or lose the most weight, for example.

Tolson likens corporate wellness benefits to unused gym memberships. "People have them but they don't go," he explains. "Companies spend a lot of money on wellness benefits—[planning] softball and kickball games, subsidizing healthy food in the cafeteria for example—and participation is insanely low, between 5 percent and 20 percent.

Tolson reports that once businesses start using Cor's platform, engagement with corporate wellness benefits rises to 70 percent.

"We're looking at the health crisis from the corporate level," Tolson says. "We want to reach the part of the population that isn't helping themselves—the people who aren't spending money on a FitBit or looking at fitness apps on their phone."

Two of Cor's most successful clients include Indiana University (IU) Health and the Loudon County Public Schools. According to Tolson, Loudon's employees collectively lost 4,000 pounds last year, and IU's Health workers lost 25,000 pounds.

The platform also includes recipes, workout and health tips, a social component (chat feature), and real-time statistics so users can graph their progress. On the company side, Cor aggregates data to determine the value and impact of a business' corporate wellness program. This, says Tolson, can motivate managers to reach out with incentives or to reengage with employees.

Tolson also says that Cor can be used as a "conduit" for information about other corporate wellness benefits, whether that means alerting users to the availability of flu shots or sending out invites for a lunch and learn session about creating easy and healthy meals.

Cor, which graduated from Acceleprise's first class in 2012, works directly with benefits brokers, traditional wellness companies and incentive and total rewards companies. "We want to make sure we're incentivizing in smart ways," Tolson explains. "It's not necessarily the thing [that motivates people]. It's the recognition."

Easy WebContent (EWC), the DIY website builder from from Arlington and Frederick–based HindSite Interactive, has launched EWC Presenter, a new presentation tool built in HTML 5. The tool, designed for web site owners who want to create complex content without having to learn code, is currently in public beta.

According to Payman Taei, director of operations at HindSite Interactive, Presenter marks the "missing piece" in the suite of DIY design tools for EWC. "It allows users to create presentations, information graphics, animation—any graphic-based visual—with a few clicks," Taei explains. "It lets you bring in the best features and effects from [Adobe] Flash without using Flash."

HindSite is a design firm and until 2008 or so, used lots of Flash in its designs. "Steve Jobs killed our Flash business," Taei says, referring to the Apple iPad's lack of support for the once-popular multimedia platform. The EWC team built Presenter because they couldn't find anything on the market to replace Flash across all platforms. "This tackles the segmentation of the industry," he explains. "The WC3 consortium has approved [HTML5]. We're using technology that's not going anywhere."

The public beta has allowed the EWC team to continually improve Presenter. "We've rolled out new features and new functionality, including six new widgets over the last six weeks," Taei says. The company will be moving to a subscription model over the summer; prices are not yet set but could be either monthly or yearly. Taei anticipates an annual subscription of less than $100 per year.

"We want to simplify the way content is created and the way creators engage with their audience."

Georgetown-based tech accelerator Exhilarator has invested in a new company, launched a services division, and is planning to scale the popular SwitchPitch event nationwide.

Exhilarator has made a strategic investment in LetsMoveDown, a seat upgrade app for sports fans, Exhilirator CEO  Michael Goldstein says. Goldstein reports that the startup is "already getting great traction with the Memphis Grizzlies, the Brooklyn Nets and University of Maryland."

Exhilarator focuses on companies that have consumer-facing products, as opposed to business-to-business startups. LetsMoveDown fits that model. It allows users to sell unused seats and to buy upgraded seats once the game has started.

Exhilarator has also launched a services division, so companies can purchase marketing help, business development, or a deck critique a la carte, without having to be a member of the accelerator. "An accelerator is a tough stand-alone business. It has a long lifecycle. So we decided to launch a services division."  He recently brought on a new employee to manage Exhilarator's services division, bringing the total number of Exhilarator employees to six.

Furthermore, SwitchPitch, the reverse pitch competition organized by Goldstein, is also growing in scale. Goldstein successfully launched a post-event platform to help the large companies that pitched at SwitchPitch organize their responses. "[The big companies] loved the idea. But they were overwhelmed with the response," he explains. "'I have 50 business cards. How do I navigate this now?' So we launched a platform for submission ideas."

"The platform provides an efficient way for large companies to find startups," Goldstein says. It also puts SwitchPitch and D.C. on the national stage. "Different players want to replicate the event." He estimates there will be at least five SwitchPitch events across the country before SwitchPitch D.C. 2014 takes place. "The concept has clearly resonated."

Instead of lumping all the companies together in one room, Goldstein sees vertical potential in the concept. "A social media track, a big data track…we should divide out by startup affinity rather than by industry. Healthcare, universities and so on all need the same things."

Expanding SwitchPitch is a big job, one that Goldstein would like to delegate. "I would love to find a passionate entrepreneur that would grow this thing big," he says.

Audax Health, a health and wellness technology company, is hiring about ten employees and opening a third office in Reston, Va. The company, which was founded in 2010 by Grant Verstandig, currently has locations in D.C. and San Francisco and has a staff of approximately 90. "We will easily be in the low 100s by the end of the year," says Tom Perrault, chief people officer for Audax.

According to Perrault, Audax provides a "point of differentiation" for health insurance companies. "So much of what [providers and health care companies] offer is commoditized," he explains. "We provide a way—a tool—for employees to stay healthy and well."

The additional office and staff will support the rollout of that tool--Zensey; it's currently in beta and is only available through providers and health care companies. Zensey is a web-based and soon-to-be mobile service that gives people access to health guidance and counseling. Perrault likens it to financial management website Mint.com; just as a user of that service platform uploads their financial data to receive guidance and advice about their financial health, Zensey uses data to help users manage their physical health and wellbeing.

"People don't like scolding, or being told to eat their beans," Perrault says, "so you have to incentivize them." One way Zensey motivates users is through the Battle by the Bay, a "healthy competition" that pits users or teams against one another to see who can complete a virtual racecourse first.

Currently Audax has partnered with Cigna to roll Zensey out to a select user group. According to Perrault, the company is talking with other health care organizations.

Perrault calls Zensey a "win-win-win. It's a win for employees, employers and health insurance companies." The tool fits into what Perrault sees as a larger movement of people taking control of their health, as evidenced by an explosion of wearable measurement devices such as FitBit and Jawbone's UP. JawBone recently announced its purchase of BodyMediaFit, which Perrault did not find surprising.

"[The acquisition] is a nice validation of the space we're in," he explains. "Between health savings accounts and the Affordable Care Act…the system is set up to incentivize people, to create savings for [both] people and the system. It's one more validation that this is the right space to be in."

MapBox, the custom mapmaking platform behind many of the apps on every smartphone, has launched several new features and is undergoing rapid expansion. The company, which was founded in 2010 by Eric Gundersen, currently has 30 employees and, according to Gundersen, has grown by 25 percent since January 2013.

"There's a lot of demand for us to push into fresh areas like satellite and multilingual support," Gundersen says, of MapBox's recent expansion. 

Foursqure, Hipmunk and Evernote are just a few of the apps whose maps are provided by MapBox. "The end user [of MapBox] isn't my mom," Gundersen jokes. "We don't build the apps. We provide a platform for app developers to create unique experiences for others."

One of MapBox's most recent projects involves reworking the map on Le Monde, one of the largest French-language daily newspapers. MapBox now provides a custom interactive map with labels in French for the paid online edition of the paper. "The ability to have a map in the local language is huge," Gundersen says. With the language markers coming from open-source data, MapBox will be providing Spanish- and German-language maps in the next few months.

He believes apps are trending away from using a single map provider (Google), marking a large change in the market. "We've been consolidating around a single map since 2005," he explains. "We're going to undo that consolidation over the next two years." 

Another recent launch for MapBox is Cloudless Atlas, a set of satellite images of Earth with no clouds. "We've made the clouds go away," Gundersen explains. "There are literally no clouds blocking [the Earth]. It's wicked clean. It's the most beautiful world map that's been designed." Cloudless Atlas was an enormous undertaking, requiring more than 40 servers and a half-million NASA images to construct.

MapBox is currently hiring designers, cartographers and node.js developers. "We'll probably hire another dozen people by the end of the year," says Gundersen.

Lynda Ellis, president and CEO of Capitol Concierge, recently received a 2013 Enterprising Women of the Year award from Enterprising Women magazine. Ellis received the award because of her company's growth in revenue, her leadership in the local and broader communities and her mentoring of other women in business.

"It was a great honor and a great surprise," says Ellis. "I thought it was national, but it was actually international. The award was for women who continue to mentor, coach and philanthropically make a difference. I met some really dynamic women at the award ceremony in Ft. Lauderdale."

Capitol Concierge is the nation's largest provider of concierge services for commercial properties. Headquartered in the District, the company serves more than 100,000 clients. Though Ellis wants to respect her members' privacy, she does reveal that Google is one of her latest clients. "They are an interesting client," she explains. "They are very focused on work-life balance and on retaining talent."

The focus on work-life balance is a trend Ellis sees across the board, and it marks a change in the type of services Capitol Concierge used to provide when she first came aboard in 1998 as the executive vice president. "We used to provide flowers, gift baskets, event planning services and tickets for events," Ellis says. "Now, we help with pet sitting, dog walking, watering plants, cleaning houses and taking kids from school to doctors' appointments."

She also attributes the shift to a change in demographics, as the "sandwich generation" is called upon to "work harder, work longer hours and do more with less. People have even less time than before," Ellis explains. "It's wonderful to know that we can make a difference in people's lives," whether that means picking Mom up from the airport and making sure there is food in her fridge or fulfilling more outlandish requests.

Such as? "The goat!" laughs Ellis. "We do anything anyone asks of us, as long as it's legal and ethical. There's a reason for that. One of our clients was having a big party for a friend in New York who was turning 50. He asked us to find a goat, transport it to New York for the party, deliver it and then find a comfortable place for it to live out its natural life after the party."

Ellis acquiesced, delivering the animal, complete with a sign reading "Happy Birthday, You Old Goat!" and bow around its neck. The goat then retired to a location upstate and lived a long life.

Looking forward, Ellis says that Capitol Concierge is anticipating international expansion in the first quarter of 2014. "We want to grow," she says. "That's our vision."

1776, the tech campus in the heart of D.C., held its grand opening Friday in grand style. Evan Burfield and Donna Harris, cofounders of the space, hosted a VIP reception for 350 invitees, which included a short "sparkside chat" panel, before opening the party up to an additional 650 people.

After enjoying an open bar and food from Union Kitchen artisans, including Meg Murray from Thunder Pig Confectionary and Sharon Boesen from Capitol Hill Cake Mom, among others, Burfield welcomed guests to the space.

"D.C. has been a place where inspired young people have come to change the world," Burfield said. "1776 is a place where revolutions begin…to attack problems and launch bold new companies. A million dollars used to be cool; a billion is cool, but it's even cooler to do something profound."

The campus, at 17th and L NW, has been operating unofficially for months, hosting events like SwitchPitch DC and Startup Weekend DC. Additionally, 1776 has already signed on 75 startups to use its coworking space. But Friday was the first night the DC tech community as a whole got a glimpse of the mostly finished campus.

David Panarelli, user experience manager at LivingSocial, volunteers as a mentor at 1776. "The space is fantastic," he said. "The open work environment really allows for cross pollination."

During the welcome reception, Harris explained that part of 1776's role is to bring the region's resources together. "The [startup ecosystem] spreads from Dulles to Baltimore. 1776 is about fixing that" by providing a centralized gathering place, she said. Harris cited "K Street, subject matter experts, and corporate executives who fly in and out of D.C." as additional "rich sources of assets" that should be brought together for the benefit of the startup community.

Steve Case, who cosponsored the event with his wife Jean, declared a "second Internet revolution, focused on improving education, health, government and technology." These categories, he stated, comprise more than half of the U.S. economy. "1776 is an epicenter to inspire and bring entrepreneurs and innovators together."

Mayor Vincent Gray and Deputy Mayor Victor Hoskins both attended the party. "1776, where revolutions continue!" quipped Gray, before thanking Representatives Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Joaquín Castro (D-TX) for showing support for 1776.

Issa, Castro and Case were joined by Greg Ferenstein of TechCrunch for a short panel discussion which touched on immigration reform for high-skilled workers, Internet sales tax, and the age-old question: "When did tech become cool again?"

Case pointed out that 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were started by immigrants. "It's critical to get them to come here," he said. "We have to win the global battle for talent."

Issa said that STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) immigration reform is needed. "We have an education system that does not reward the best and the brightest," he explained. "Every person with a STEM PhD comes in with five to ten jobs attached to them."

Castro allowed that "there are many different pieces to [reform]. We need reform that allows for more high-tech workers," he said, "while not betraying our values."

As for an Internet sales tax, Case said that he would prefer that online buyers didn't pay sales tax, "but it's a reasonable thing to do. I'm not surprised."

"Internet shopping is no longer a boutique activity," explained Castro. "It's time for review. The issue is just starting to gain momentum in Congress."

At times, the panel struggled to be heard over the crowd. After repeated requests for quiet, Ferenstein posed the following question to Case, one of the most seasoned tech entrepreneurs in the room. "Steve, you were in tech before tech was cool…. When did that happen? Why?"

Case, who has been a supporter of 1776 since its inception, explained, "It's not just tech. Entrepreneurship drives our economy. There are entrepreneurs in other sectors and regions that are drivers of growth. But almost every company is becoming a tech company. All are aggressive users of technology."

PhilanTech, the D.C.-based small business that aims to reduce transaction costs for administering grants, is having an exciting quarter. Dahna Goldstein, founder and CEO of the company, was recently tapped for MindShare, and PhilanTech itself was just named a "Best for the World" company by the nonprofit B Lab.

PhilanTech was founded in 2007 and was a beneficiary of the Pipeline Fellowship out of New York. It is a certified B corporation, which indicates that it is committed to triple-bottom-line sustainability. For Goldstein, that starts with "empowering people to work more efficiently. Foundations make $47 billion in grants to nonprofits annually," she explains. "Thirteen percent of that is spent on administering those grants. That 13 percent amounts to $6 billion."

Goldstein thinks that foundations and nonprofits should be delivering services instead of pushing papers. So she created a platform, PhilanTrack, to make managing the grant application process easier for both sides. "We reconfigure the grant information we receive from foundations," she says. Doing so allows nonprofits to save their information on the platform and reuse it from grant to grant. "We're streamlining the process."

Services on PhilanTrack include sourcing grant opportunities, researching foundations, managing relationships, and storing documents. Some services are free and other incur a cost. Prices are set on a sliding scale based on the size of foundation or nonprofit. For example, a small nonprofit (under $250,000 annual budget) would pay $250 for a one-time set-up fee and $55 per month for licensing.

According to Goldstein, there are 1,600 organizations on the platform. Clients are national and "all over the place," she says. "Everytime we get a foundation on board, all of the nonprofits [it supports] come on board too."

Goldstein hopes that the connection to her MindShare peers will help PhilanTech grow. "I'm super excited," she exclaims. "It's an amazing group of CEOs. As a first-time CEO, I'm excited to learn from speakers and other CEOs in the program."