At Skimble, we love inspiring others to embrace a healthy and active lifestyle using some of the latest mobile tech innovations! It's an idea we think is worth spreading. Fittingly, Skimble's co-founder Maria Ly recently gave a TEDx Talk at her alma mater, the University of Waterloo, in Canada. Here's Maria's talk...backflips, twists 'n all:
Before hitting the stage, Maria met up with her impromptu stunt team consisting of three all-star gymnasts/dancers from the uWaterloo Cheer team.
They practiced for only a couple of hours before busting out their fit moves! From Right to Left: Olivia Turi, Amanda Whaling, Maria and Glynnis Marie Pardo. Thanks Samson Yan for teaming us up :)
Team Skimble is rocking out today! We're thrilled to announce that we will be as part of the inaugural Rock Health program this summer in San Francisco.
Our mission is to enable and empower an entrepreneurial cure for the relative lack of innovation in the health sector. The world of patient care and healthy living is foreign to the technological creativity found in social media, games and other verticals. Rock Health directly targets the gap between these ecosystems, enabling high-impact innovation. - Halle Tecco, Managing Director of Rock Health
We've been fortunate to grow organically thus far and lead with top free Healthcare & Fitness apps. We're pysched to continue to spread our active wings with the support and encouragement of the health and fitness community at large!
ChicMeetsGeek™ is an event designed to bridge the social gap between the cultural chic and intellectual geeks. Curious? They've officially launched their webiste and here's their promotional video for the upcoming event:
When you're not sharing 'action shots' in foreign lands, you're probably getting and staying fit at a local gym. Throughout the years, Gabe and Maria have been frequent gym rats at many of the Touchstone Climbing gyms across northern California.
The nice folks at Touchstone Climb have given the community the heads up that Skimble will be there in action and giving away some Skimble schwag including muscle and racerback tank tops - how sweet is that?
If you just want to come out and support your climbing friends, it'll be a fun time with free food and beer (when you're done climbing!). At the end of the night, they usually come up with a few 'creative' contests and give away prizes. During Maria's first ever TBS(3) competition, she bouldered a chair and won a free chalk bag!
Good luck to all and, remember, it's all about having fun and achieving your personal bests! Follow Touchstone Climb for the latest updates about new routes at all of their gyms.
The latest program on French station M6's show Capital gave a behind-the-scenes look at success and innovation from around the world.
The program included candid interviews with industry leaders such as Elon Musk of Tesla Motors and angel investor Jeff Clavier (@jeff) of SoftTechVC. Now you might be wondering, what's it like to live a startup life? In the program, you'll get a sneak peak into the startup life of Maria and Gabe of Skimble:
Although there isn't really a typical day for us, the camera captured us:
Here's us living the life of the bootstrapped startup, turning bedroom into 'office':
You might be able to download the segment with Skimble on Capital here. If you live in France and Switzerland, you can stream Skimble on Capital here. If you're already there and wondering, when will Skimble be localized for the French audience...well, with the help of some volunteers, we hope sooner than expected!
A couple days ago, I (Maria) sent out a tweet listing several women-led startups in response to TechCrunch's tweet asking for Twitter list suggestions. That inspired me to write about these female entrepreneurs, what they're starting up, and how they're staying active!
Samasource brings dignified, computer-based work to women, youth, and refugees living in poverty. They are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit social business that's in the seed stage after launching mid 2008. Samasource derives its name from the Sanskrit word sama, which means “equal”.
Former Principal at Charles River Venture, Susan is effervescent and driven. She has a lot of fun doing whatever she does. Susan was the former CMO of the Apache Software Foundation and has significant experience in online gaming. It's not too surprising she's taking on Ohai. next.
Ohai builds flash-based massively multiplayer online games (MMOG). They are venture backed by $6M and, with an impressive team, Ohai has just launched! Here's Susan presenting at Le Web about Virtual Goods and Ohai:
Rashmi is a fearless woman who writes a great blog and shares a candid perspecifve of the challenges for women raising money, She puts her Cognitive Psychology PhD from Brown University to work at Slideshare and within the tech community.
Gina is a social networking expert who was a former financial analyst for Goldman Sachs and most recently co-founder of Ning with Marc Andressen. She hold a Stanford MBA and she puts it to good use by evangelizing Ning and constently improving an already great product.
Ning is a service provider that lets you build social networks around any interest. Founded in 2004, launched in 2007, Ning has raised $119M in venture funding and has a massive amount of users.
Sandy and Elaine are the co-founders of Meebo. These two females and Seth Sternberg met at during their studies at Stanford. They all co-founded Meebo and continue to solve hard technical challenges.
Meebo is an ajax-based in-browser instant messaging program which supports multiple IM services. They've been around since 2004, raised nearly $40M, and have gained a strong following. As I've mentioned, these ladies are smart and here's Sandy sharing her experiences leading the technical team at Meebo:
Caterina is a fellow Canadian who is most known for co-founding flickr. She's tenacious, passionate about user experience design, and all around fun. I've met Caterina before and her startup life is an interesting one.
Currently, it's Hunch. Hunch a consumer web applicationthat helps users make up their minds. They raised a $2M series A earlier this year. Previously, it was flickr and you all know what happened there.
Regardless, I am a big fan of flickr and you can view a glimpse into my life via my flickrstream.
How does she stay active?
I've heard she works out at a fitness gym (ping me to update).
Joyce Kim and Susan Kang make up the female-duo being Soompi. Joyce is an attorney and was the former co-host of the GigaOM Show on Revision3. Susan builds the technology powering Soompi and is a prominent k-pop enthusiast known widely from Korea, LA to SF. Together they rock my Asian pop world!
Soompi is an Asian focused entertainment site, the largest English-speaking Korean and Asian website about pop, dramas, and celebrities. Back in the late nineties, Susan's original K-pop blog started taking off and, in 2006, Joyce and Susan decided to make it a real business. They are profitable through direct advertising and a premium 'Friends of Soompi' model. Here's a pretty random video they did, all in the name of entertainment:
Vicki is a firm believe of pursuing your passion and working on things that resonate deeply in your heart. I met her back in Canada, when I was working on my wee startup Kiwi Innovations (customized cell phones) and when she was the CEO of the NRG Group and KidsNRG, Canada's premier catalyst and supporter of youth entrepreneurship!
Shinyoung was the first female CEO in Korea, having built an education website, Bebetown, which was acquired by Iconsupe. She's got spunk, is not a follower, and will always be doing something entrepreneurial. Shinyoung attended Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU where she was often found prototyping new ideas such as the original Funji device.
Jen's been in the art and technology scene since the nineties. She owns an art gallery, actively writes on her blog called Personism and runs a quarterly photo competition, Hey, Hot Shot!
It's art, for everyone. 20x200 is an e-commerce site for art collectors. This site champions affordable art and so far they've raised a series A round.
Love being active? Love to travel? Love connecting with others in the real-world and online? That's the passion behind Skimble and we want to share our story and entrepreneurial insights with you. Join us tomorrow for a free/live/online class:
