TECHdotMN: News about Minnesota Startups

Four local tech entrepreneurs have banded together as Strike Force to package and sell their talents alongside their respective startups like Deals.by, MobileRealtyApps, Kipsu and Train Brain.

From wire frames to deliverable code, the group is experimenting with the goal of pre-selling eight day engagements for “rapid mobile and digital prototyping” at $50k a pop.

“Our aim is to create proof of concepts inside a larger organization that wants to bring new ideas to market, much like a nimble startup would when crafting a new product pitch or launch,” partner and designer Nate Kadlac tells me, describing the ideal customer.  “You’re not buying hours, but a quick and clear result…which isn’t for everyone, but yet is exactly what others are in need of right now.”

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Developer gone entrepreneur Jamie Ostheimer has come a long way since he stumped himself two years ago with a basic question:

‘Wouldn’t it be cool if you could program interactions on Twitter?’

A Virginia native living in Minneapolis, Ostheimer hooked up with local designer Nate Kadlac, and together started exploring possibilities.

Their answer, called Zingstring, is a web-based platform for brands and agencies to build pre-programmed conversation trees based on select keywords that are identified from within various social conversations. The service is powered by an automated layer of of intelligence that both listens and responds to customers’ messages via Twitter, Facebook, SMS, and others.

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After months of development, refinement and private beta testing, Startup Weekend Twin Cities offspring  Locate My Deal is ready to launch.

Positioned as ‘the one place to go for all the deals’, the experience is all about immediacy,  proximity and savings.

The free iPhone app/mobile browser (Android soon) aggregates and filters nearby deals, coupons and specials in real time from a variety of places –  Valpak, Money Mailer, Campus Special, Groupon, Living Social, etc., and also pulls in ‘free’ listings from Craigslist. “It’s an ever-growing list of sources,” explains co founder Aaron Kardell. “If there’s a deal that exists, it will be included — and if there’s not a deal listed, then it doesn’t exist.”

Do we really need another web-based deal company? Despite the plethora of choices consumers can choose from,  “Where is there a deal right now in my neighborhood and how do I know that I’m seeing all options” aren’t questions we’ve been able to confidently answer just yet.

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Whether it be against themselves or within their peer groups, programmers live for a good challenge. And the competition du juor is Node Knockout: a 48-hour hackathon (inspired by last years Ruby Rumble) organized and promoted by fortnight labs.

Starting last Friday at midnight (UTC) through Sunday at midnight, over 200 different teams of 1-4 people went heads down for the weekend to build the coolest web app using node.js,  an evented I/O framework for the V8 JavaScript engine with the purpose of providing an easy way to build scalable network programs.

Representing Minnesota in this battle for the best is a foursome led by Andy Atkinson who recruited complimentary talent including designer Nate Kadlac and developers Paul Armstrong and Zachary Johnson for the event.

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MinneSpark, the newest addition to the Minne* family, announced today the three beneficiaries of their first crowdsourced micro fundraising initiative.

Less than two months ago, MinneSpark kicked-off its innovative approach to funding early stage ideas, concepts, plans and prototypes. From the MinneSpark website:

“MinneSpark will award 1 to n grants of at least $1,000 to Minnesota-based teams who demonstrate to our trustees the ability to take that money and turn it into something real. This is about doing more with less, and building a profitable business from day one. Winners will get some help along the way in the form of mentoring from the trustees and services from sponsors.”

Fast forward: with over 30 entrants and roughly 6k raised in $100 increments via “trustees”, three winners have been selected to each receive $2,000 cash + $4,000 worth of in-kind services including:

• Hosting / internet access services from ipHouse
• 1 month of full-time coworking space at CoCo
• Months of Startup Saturdays at The 3rd Place
• Legal services from New Counsel
• Tax Startup Package Tax services from Kaiser Tax
• Backup Services from Crash Plan
• 1 year subscription to Milemarker Idea

The three winners are:

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