Entrepreneurship : Innovation + Startup News

Lovers of WWII-era Americana should kick off their shoes and bop to this news: Retrocentric, a boutique that offers the combination of professional salon and photography sessions, also celebrates the glamorous pin-up styles of yesteryear.

The business' all-female staff works to ensure customers, non-models especially, are completely comfortable. All of its “retrofitted” photo sessions include selections from a classic pin-up wardrobe themed around clothing that was popular in the American Midwest during World War II, along with hair and makeup by Eros Salon.   

Founded by Sailor Gruzleski, Retrocentric will be celebrating its first year in Cincinnati later this summer. To help commemorate that achievement, the Retrocentric team is selling a 2013 charity calendar called “Pin ups for Pound Pups.” Featuring pin up girls with rescue dogs from local shelters, the proceeds will benefit Cincinnati’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Living historians like the Retrocentric team help preserve the rosier side of turbulent times in America. While most able-bodied men were overseas, the ingenuity and strength of the women left behind helped stabilize the homestead. By taking on jobs typically held by men, Gruzleski says, women found unique ways to preserve their delicacy and femininity while still struggling under society’s wartime duress. It's an important cultural footnote that's shadowed by the glamorous eye candy of Retrocentric’s portfolio.      

Eros Salon (featured at Bridalrama) is open for non-pin up related appointments inside Retrocentric.

By Sean Peters

It’s a good thing for everyone involved when artists find their niche. In Lindsay Nehls’ case, the Cincinnati music community provides the perfect home for her artwork.

Poster illustration and photography have been her chief projects as a commissioned artist. There’s a psychedelic joyousness to her drawings, which lends itself well to some of the bands she’s worked with. SHADOWRAPTR, her first album art client, recently released “Love a Good Mystery.” Nehls’ cover art is a mixture of hand-illustrated and digital art, a fitting accompaniment to SHADOWRAPTR’s jazzy, experimental rock music that, like Nehls’ work, is beyond convenient classification.

Nehls has worked with a number of other musicians, including locals like The Happy Maladies, Gorges, Whitfield Crocker and Majestic Man and Chicago’s Zamin. 

Nehls works out of her garage, which is heated by a potbelly stove in the winter. She’s currently working to master screenprinting, since T-shirt designs go hand in hand with album cover art. Nehls wants to be able to be a one-stop shop for bands.

Some of her fine art illustrations are available on Tumblr, which serves as her primary online portfolio. 

By Sean Peters

Arcade Legacy is a mecca for gamers, with more than 68 arcade machines ready to be played and no quarters needed. Gamers can pay at hourly or monthly rates. Arcade Legacy also buys, sells and trades pretty much anything that has to do with gaming and movies.   

Old-school and high-tech at the same time, Arcade Legacy is a veritable museum of video game history. Classics like the Missile Command arcade cabinet and the Jurassic Park pinball table sit in the same room as Guitar Hero. There’s also the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles side-scrolling brawler game, which could be found in nearly every respectable pizza place 25 years ago.

There are also more than 1,000 console games that guests can play on TVs or on a giant wall. Visitors can essentially visit  the coolest nerd on the block—in this instance, Jesse Baker. Baker, the store’s founder, grants them unlimited access to his massive gaming treasure room for a nominal fee.

Located in the sparsely populated Cincinnati Mall, Arcade Legacy is a beacon for dedicated gamers and shoppers. High demand for birthday parties and social events has led Baker to consider expanding his business to a larger location in the mall, which is undergong a major overhaul.

In celebration of its first anniversary, Arcade Legacy launched a mission to offer every single Nintendo Entertainment System game that’s been made—something like 760 titles—in alphabetical order. Baker has just hit the letter “B.” Since January, gamers have met at Arcade Legacy on Wednesdays for “Beat it or Die Trying.” Anyone can sign up to play their favorite games in the NES’ massive library and show off in front of a crowd.

By Sean Peters

Local craftsman Dave Behle and his wife Deb started Spoonin’ Jewelry soon after their retirement. The couple repurposes silverware into unique rings, pendants and bracelets. At first glance, it’s hard to tell that the pieces were originally used at dinner time.

Deb Behle worked in the University of Cincinnati registrar's office, while her husband taught industrial education classes. They were prompted to expand their business by their daughter, Caitlin Behle, who is a blogger and coordinator for SpringBoard ArtWorks. With her encouragement, Spoonin' Jewlery found its identity.

After a few years of perfecting his tools and technique, Dave felt confident enough to stand behind their offerings.

“Anybody can bend a fork,” he says. “The real challenge is finding the right way.”

According to Dave, Deb is in charge of polishing the silverware before he bends and twists the metal into jewelry.

There are so many challenges associated with this practice that Dave customized his own tools to help shape and size each piece. After years of practice, he says he can craft any ring to a specific size.

From floral rings to lavish silver bracelets with insets, the pieces are in no way kitschy or whimsical. They are, however, environmentally friendly — Spoonin' Jewlery really does reduce, reuse and recycle.

“A lot of silverware ends up at the junkyard because nobody wants to polish it,” Deb says. Instead, the Behles take forgotten pieces of silverware and turn them into beautiful and practical keepsakes.

After spreading their business through craft and trade shows — their next show will be in Paducah — Spoonin’ Jewelry has also found sellers, including Spotted Magpie in Over-The-Rhine and Fabricate in Northside. The Behles also operate their own small mom-and-pop shop on Etsy. 

By Sean Peters

3D printing is fast becoming an accessible, affordable way to create products, pieces and prototypes. Machine parts, toys and even jewelry can be printed quickly and with precision using 3D printing.

A new Cincinnati company is leading in the industry—3DLT—an online marketplace where users can purchase and download 3D printer templates. Using home printers or 3DLT's printer network, users can print pre-designed products in a variety of materials—from plastic to metal and even leather.

"We work with industrial designers across the world," says 3DLT's founder, Pablo Arellano, Jr. "They love to design, and we have them build these templates."

Arellano launched 3DLT at TechCrunch Disrupt NY in early May. The Cincinnati native is working with a team of co-founders to get the company off the ground. Arellano has founded several other startups, and is a former Procter & Gamble brand manager.

Arellano described the company as the iStockphoto of 3D printing.

"I'm a big fan of iStockphoto," he says. "I thought the next thing you can potentially download is 3D templates, and I wanted to be in that space. I've been working on this full-time for the past four months."

3DLT templates include bracelets, rings, mesh lampshades, eyeglass frames, shoes and iPhone 4S protectors.

The self-funded company is beginning to seek investors. 3DLT already has gotten national attention, and has been featured in TechCrunch, Wired, The Verge, Fast Company, Venture Beat and Popular Science. It's also a winner of the 2012 X-LAB competition, and has moved into the new Cintrifuse incubator.

Arellano believes most of the companies initial users will be commercial, but as 3D printer prices drop, more consumers will begin to print their own products.

"The prices are dropping very quickly," he says. "It's already happening."

By Feoshia H. Davis
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For many listeners, the best album sounds like a live performance, which sits perfectly well with Jacob Tippey of Ramshackle Recordings.

Tippey believes a song sounds best when recorded with limited interference—spared from a gang of overdubbed and mutated parts that can bury its soul. His work hearkens back to recording's early days, when one-take tracks were necessities because of limited technology and materials. 

“I believe in using the resources you have,” says Tippey, who views himself as a documentarian. 

He works to ensure clients record in the best possible setting for their sound. That could mean adjusting sound-absorbent panels to soak up or reflect the music in the walls of the Curtis, Inc., audio studio, or taking the client to the altar room of an 1800s church, the space he also calls home, to allow for a blooming natural reverb.

So far, Ramshackle Recordings has put down tracks with SHADOWRAPTR, The Happy Maladies and Till Plains. 

By foregoing the luxury of heavily altered and modified tracks, Tippey simplifies the recording process.

By Sean Peters

SocialPoint is a new web-based service that combines major forms of social media into one feed. Users can control what services they’re accessing with simple clicks, which helps make the management of personal profiles much simpler.

Created in Cincinnati, SocialPoint was developed by a local team of techies who wanted to make the social media experience more efficient.

“We found that we were spending a lot of time every day checking in with our friends on all our various social media sites, and that we needed a solution for ourselves, so we developed SocialPoint.Me,” says Chris Burnett, SocialPoint’s vice president of marketing.

SocialPoint makes it very easy to navigate between different profiles on connected accounts, which still provide the standard features offered by the original sites. For example, if you wanted to check your Facebook account, SocialPoint gives you the option to filter specific categories. If you are just interested in seeing photos uploaded by your friends, you’d select the preset on the easy-to-navigate sidebar. Your search can be as specific as you want. Plus, you're still able to chat with your Facebook friends with SocialPoint. 

Similar features are also available for Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+, FourSquare and AT&T.

While most social media apps are aimed at business owners who are more interested in tidying up their “online estates,” SocialPoint is intended for personal users who want to continue sharing and keeping up with friends in the many ways the expanding idea of “social media” allows.

A mobile app will soon be available, along with an early summer update with additional social media customization options.

SocialPoint’s office is in the heart of downtown, and all of their funding comes from Chicago West Pullman LLC, which is headquartered at 600 Vine Street. 

By Sean Peters

Grupo Xela is a marketing research agency that specializes in Hispanic demographics. Founded by Jose Cuesta in 2003, the company found success in Cincinnati by communicating an authentic and carefully researched Hispanic perspective to Procter & Gamble and QFact, among other locally owned businesses.

Originally from Colombia, Cuesta earned a BA in industrial engineering at Javeriana University. He came to Cincinnati in 1998, where he earned an MBA from Xavier University. Cuesta’s mother is originally from Cincinnati, and he was prompted by his family to move to the Queen City.

“You don’t go to Cincinnati unless you have a reason,” Cuesta says. “But there’s always a reason to go.”

After earning his degree from Xavier, Cuesta began working for Cincinnati Bell as a manager for various departments.

Cuesta founded what would eventually become Grupo Xela with his brother-in-law. Their first business attempt was as coffee distributors for regional restaurants, but their work in the city helped them realize the Hispanic community’s marketing potential. Prompted by the fact that Hispanics were the most rapidly growing minority in the country, Cuesta knew he could offer a very important perspective to P&G—Cincinnati’s powerhouse corporation.

By interacting with Hispanic panelists sourced from Cincinnati, Columbus, Louisville, Indianapolis, Chicago, Atlanta and Miami, Grupo Xela’s chief concern is gathering qualitative market research.

The company has since gone international, with a United States' headquarters in Cincinnati, and a Colombian office in Bogota, with plans to expand into more cities and countries soon. 

By Sean Peters

Xavier University graduate Matthew Dooley started his company, Dooley Media, in 2011. And on March 18, Dooley made his first full-time hire, Kirsten Lecky, whose focus is on client management.
 
Dooley Media specializes in all things social media, from strategy development and execution to measurement and education. It brings together some of the best and most creative minds in graphic design, development, copywriting and videography to work on social media campaigns.
 
“Our goal is to take what companies already do well and bring it online to shareable platforms that extend the reach and impact of their brands,” Dooley says.
 
After graduating from college, Dooley was a social media strategist for a local insurance company. As time went on, Dooley’s interest in social media grew, as did his client list, which he was managing on top of his insurance job and a course he teaches at XU about social media. After five years, he decided to take a leap of faith and start his own business.
 
Dooley Media works with both small businesses and Fortune 500 companies.

“While larger companies are blazing trails and have great success stories about using social media, smaller companies are underserved,” says Dooley. “They’re the ones that need the most help when it comes to social media. They don’t have the technical know-how or the money to invest in a social media strategist. It’s a unique opportunity for us to service them.”
 
Dooley comes from a family of entrepreneurs—his aunt and uncle both own businesses in Cincinnati, and his uncle was actually his first client back in 2010. And Dooley isn’t a stranger to starting businesses: He and his twin sister opened Flix, a DVD rental at XU, during their undergraduate years. He’s also part of nugg-it, a Cincinnati-based startup that is working on a wearable tech device that records “nuggets” of conversations, which will launch later this year.
 
“Dooley Media’s goal is to serve local businesses and optimize the conversations of those businesses, which will allow them to compete on a level playing field with larger companies,” Dooley says.
 
Dooley Media dabbles in all types of social media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, blogging, etc. But the platform differs from client to client, depending on the audience they’re trying to reach, says Dooley.
 
And when Dooley Media sends out proposals to potential clients, they do something a little out of the ordinary. “One of my friends does cakes, and we send along a customized cake with the company’s logo and the phrase ‘Life is sweeter with Dooley Media,’” Dooley says.

To him, it’s a way to get the conversation started, and puts the ball in the client’s court.
 
By Caitlin Koenig
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How does a dietician with a tendency toward the macabre end up creating sometimes shocking illustrations for local and national bands? Through a combination of nightmare-chasing exercises and a desire to break out of her routines.

Cait Pantano, who graduated from Miami University in Ohio, is now keeping busy illustrating her take on moments of extreme mental and physical sensation. Some are sexual; others show debilitating pain. No matter the topic, Pantano’s art reflects her observations in dark and often comedic drawings of the human body.

Her inspiration comes from a very personal space. “I have nightmares almost every other night,” Pantano says. So she took one recurring stress dream--one during which she loses all of her teeth--and drew the image to get it out of her head. “I don’t think I’ve had that dream again.”

Encouraged by her friends to share her work, Pantano's humorous and macabre sensibilities were met with enthusiasm when she she began uploading images of her illustrations to Tumblr. Soon, musicians began commissioning her to create their album art. Recent clients include Cincinnati's The Pinstripes and Wisconsin-based Daniel and the Lion.

By Sean Peters

During their careers as professional makeup artists, eventual best friends and colleagues Niki Mcclanahan and Megan Kelly felt their industry was straying too far from its roots.

"We felt it was becoming more about how much product you could sell," Mcclanahan says. "It was getting away from being fun and creative, and helping people find a look they never thought they could achieve."

She and Kelly joked off and on for a few years about striking out on their own, but by last spring, the joke became serious. After careful research and planning, they started Blink makeup studio. The freelance makeup artists have a shop in Northside International Airport, an eclectic retail, arts and entertainment space.

Blink sells its own line of handmade soaps, shower gels, lotions, bath bombs and essential oils. The shop also features an essential oil bar.

"We started from scratch, and did a lot of research on how essential oils and natural oils work," says Mcclanahan. "If a customer comes in to our oil bar, we can mix a custom blend right in front of them."

Among their most popular products is a brown sugar lip scrub. "People have really started using it all over their bodies because it's a very gentle exfoliant," she says.

Blink has recently expanded into the founder's first love—makeup. They've worked with an outside company to develop Blink's artistry makeup line. They're starting out small, offering products for eyes, lips and cheeks.

For their more environmentally-conscious clients, Blink offers mineral-based eyeshadows, a line they plan to expand.

Cincinnati is taking notice of Blink. It's was recently featured in CityBeat's 2013 Best of Cincinnati issue and in Cincinnati Magazine's Bridal Buzz blog.

By Feoshia H. Davis
Follow Feoshia Twitter

RentShare, an online service that allows tenants to pay their rents online, is set to become a standard for the global home rental industry.

Started largely with support from The Brandery, RentShare's Manhattan-based entrepreneurs came to Cincinnati to benefit from the area's powerful startup community. RentShare, only a burgeoning idea when it entered the Queen City, has emerged as a functioning business that was ready to change how people pay their rent.

Any tenant with Internet access can use RentShare. The service allows renters to simply split rent payments, along with bills and expenses (including house cleaning services in the future), with roommates. By helping to eliminate one of the most common frustrations among people who share apartments or houses, RentShare is designed to help irritated roommates who are sick of absentee payers or passive-aggressive notes left on their refrigerators.

In addition, since rental payments are the only use of paper checks for many people, RentShare helps to eliminate the hassle of having another type of payment option available for only one bill. By automatically sending your landlord a check in the mail, with a detailed status report of which tenants’ payment is accounted for, there is no change for the landlord, who doesn’t even need to be notified directly that renters have opted to use RentShare.

RentShare founders Ian Halpern, Christopher Toppino and Trevor Geis focused on catering to tenants, rather than the landlords. In fact, landlords are not required to register for the service, as long as the necessary information is supplied by the renters.

By Sean Peters

Novak Consulting Group was started on a dare.

Egged on by her husband and friends, Julia Novak felt compelled to earnestly pursue starting her own consulting business for leaders in government and non-profit communities. She began her solo venture at home, and has since hired staff around the country and progressed to working out of the Hamilton County Business Center. There, her consulting firm continues to serve clients all over the country.

While consulting with governments and nonprofits in public works, public safety, human resources, finance, planning and IT sectors, Novak Consulting Group aims to service more fields than other firms by working with a skilled team whose members offer a broad range of expertise.

With a background in city management, Novak has found success serving local governments across the United States. Having her own Cincinnati-certified small business has allowed her to take her talents to different types of clients. But her emphasis is in personalized service that suits each situation’s needs.

Expanding the office to the HCBC means dedicated meeting and collaboration space as well as increased support from other local ventures and small business advocates.

By Sean Peters

On April 12, Platform 53 is hosting a “jelly” for those interested in coworking. A “jelly” is a temporary coworking event that Platform 53 plans to host every two weeks.
 
Adam Dean launched Platform 53 in January 2012 at Northern Kentucky University’s Startup Weekend—but under the name 3C-Coworks. At the time, Dean was an intern at Bad Girl Ventures, and he saw a need for a coworking space in Covington. He partnered with Stacy Kessler, an ex-P&Ger whose background is in consumer understanding and strategy, and the name was eventually changed.
 
The name references the railroad and the impact it had on the area. The “53” refers to 1853, which is the year the Covington train station at Eighth and Russell was built. Platform 53 also symbolizes the role the group wants to play in the community, by being a platform upon which people can build their businesses.
 
“I was used to a traditional office setting and office resources, but then I started working at home and out of coffee shops, and I realized I needed something different,” Kessler says.
 
About 30 percent of the private workforce in the United States works independently, Dean says. “We want to create a network of opportunity in the area and be a hub for independent workers.”
 
Dean and Kessler have a vision for Platform 53’s physical workspace, which they’re hoping to secure by the end of April. They want to have an open work environment with a combination of phone booth rooms, meeting rooms and conference rooms, plus flexible desk options or dedicated office space for those that wish to have their own offices.
 
“We want to make people feel at home, and have a platform to celebrate successes and make announcements,” Dean says.
 
Platform 53 is for entrepreneurs, small businesses, independent workers and those with flexible work arrangements who want to run and grow their businesses and connect with others.
 
“To me, coworking is about ‘accelerated serendipity,’” Dean says. “You might not know what you need, but you’ll eventually see the opportunity by being around others.”
 
Currently, Dean and Kessler have had about 75 people show interest in Platform 53. And the group isn’t just tech-focused. “The magic happens when you bring together people from different walks of life,” Kessler says.
 
They’re looking for different skill sets but shared values among members.
 
“We want to be part of the startup corridor,” says Kessler. “The Brandery and Cintrifuse are in Over-the-Rhine, and UpTech and Platform 53 are here in Covington—we’re like bookends that connect the region.”
 
By Caitlin Koenig
Follow Caitlin on Twitter