Columbus/Central Ohio : Innovation + Job News

Software testing for dummies could be the title of a new Software as a Service (SaaS) product from Janova, a Columbus area start-up that could change the way web developers test their sites.

Janova, launched in September 2010, gives its customers the ability to use its cloud-based SaaS to test their web applications using plain English syntax rather than computer code, a breakthrough for such services.

This new technology allows any user, regardless of tech background, to create and automate tests for any web-based application. Until now, such tests were downloaded onto one computer at a time, taking that unit out of commission until the tests were complete. Only computer techs could perform the tests because they were written in computer code, and they were time consuming and expensive.

"The underlying advantage is English," says Jeff Lusenhop, founder and CEO. "Everybody understands it. Everybody can communicate across the team."

The other breakthrough is the reduced time required for the tests, says Lusenhop. With the old system of downloading tests, computers could be tied up for hours. Because Janova utilizes the cloud to run the tests, the time is reduced significantly.

"It's brought all of our (beta) clients improved efficiency in their testing. We can run 90 hours of tests a day in three hours and 15 minutes."

Nominated for a TechColumbus award only two months after its founding, Janova has created great excitement for its ease of use and speed. Users can access Janova from anywhere and receive detailed reports in a matter of seconds. The company has received more than 6,000 requests for a free trial of the service.

With 34 employees now, Lusenhop says he expects the company will begin aggressive hiring efforts to add 116 employees in the next three years, bringing its payroll to more than $10 million. Most of these jobs will be in sales and consulting.

Source: Jeff Lusenhopp, Janova
Writer: Val Prevish

IT Martini was created three years ago when the opportunities for IT professionals to connect in central Ohio were few and far between, says John Bishop.

Today, thanks to Bishop and co-founder Aladin Gohar, IT Martini -- a social and professional gathering for the tech-oriented -- not only has helped build a more robust network around the Columbus area, but has caught on in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Indianapolis, with more cities on the way.

"If you go back to 2008, it was a different kind of environment for professionals and for technology professionals beyond that," Bishop says. "And what I noticed in conjunction with Aladin Gohar was that there weren't a lot of opportunities for technology professionals to meet each other and engage one another as an industry."

That summer, Bishop and Gohar held the very first IT Martini. Two hundred people showed up to hear a speaker, socialize and connect. This month, IT Martini is celebrating its third year with a May 26 event expected to draw 1,000.

The format for an IT Martini event is straightforward, Bishop says.

"We try to stay as interactive as possible," he explains. "So we put on panel discussions and we tend to have panel discussions run concurrently with the social aspect of the event in a separate, segregated space. That way, people who want to be social can participate in the social aspect of the event, and if they want to participate in a little bit more of a discussion, presentation, industry-best-practice type of activity we have that for our attendees as well."

As IT Martini began to catch on locally, a sponsor in 2009 asked that an event be held in Cincinnati, Bishop says.

"And then last year we started to do not just Columbus and Cincinnati, but Cleveland and Indianapolis."

An IT Martini in Nashville is in the works, and there also seems to be interest in West Virginia, Michigan and Wisconsin, Bishop says.

Source: John Bishop, IT Martini
Writer: Gene Monteith

FlyMuch plans to role out a new service next month that will let travelers plan their next trip with the help of knowledgeable Facebook users.

The Dublin-based startup, which began working on a mobile app for travel in 2009, aims to fill a void, says Brian Zuercher, head of product and co-founder.

"There had been no service that had created a great user experience in terms of planning travel. At the heart of it was the consumer who says 'I'm getting e-mails from Travelocity and Orbitz and Hilton everyday for things I'm never going to do.'"

That resulted in an idea for an application that would aggregate the best travel deals and tailor them to individual users through a browser add-on. Zuercher and Jim Kamnikar, CEO and co-founder, "spent almost two years, both prototyping and iterating on the product with a parallel path of fundraising."

FlyMuch will offer a scaled down version of that vision in its first phase, Zuercher says.

"The product as it's going to stand when we release it is all about getting and giving recommendations for travel things like hotels, dining and activities for your trip," he says. "What we're able to do is see inside your social network of who's relevant to ask about a destination. Maybe they live there or have been there. And then you can solicit any of those people, and we create your own unique page for your trip. Those people can come in and make recommendations, and the bonus feature is that you get access to all those things on your iPhone."

Zuercher says FlyMuch will build on that simple platform as it engages with people and builds trust. Eventually, features that tailor deals for individual users and other bells and whistles will be added, he says.

The initial mobile app will be limited to iPhone, but "pretty quickly be available for DROID and other platforms," he says.

The firm is closing in on a $1 million series A investment round, about half of which has been funded by Ohio TechAngels, Zuercher says. That has allowed FlyMuch to hire eight full-time employees with the goal of employing around 20 in the next couple of years.

Source: Brian Zuercher, FlyMuch
Writer: Gene Monteith

You're sitting in an airport and your flight has been delayed. You've plowed through your concession stand copy of Newsweek and are bored stiff.

So, you do what any normal person would do. You start to people-watch. And some of what you see is, well, a little freaky. That guy in the camouflage hot pants, for example. If only your friends could see THAT.

Well, now they can, if you have an iPhone and download a mobile app from FreakJet.com that allows you to upload photos to the company's website.

"The problem we're solving is a consumer problem," says Mike Figliuolo, one of FreakJet's founders. "Which is boredom and nothing to do at the airport."

Launched two months ago, FreakJet is like People of Walmart -- with wings. While he acknowledges there's a fine line between posting a funny picture and being mean, Figliuolo says the site is not intended to hurt anyone.

"Nothing hateful, no folks with disabilities, no kids," he says. "If you post those, we'll take it down. And if your picture ends up on the site and you don't like it, just send us an e-mail and we'll take it down immediately."

Figliuolo says users have downloaded some 500 copies of the app so far, with about 100 pictures posted from airports all over the country.

Based in Dublin, FreakJet.com is about fun, but it's not just for fun, Figliuolo says. The company fully intends to realize a financial return. Right now, that's coming in the way of advertising, he says.

"But eventually you can do paid apps -- there's a gaming aspect of it that will be in version two, version three -- so there are big revenue pieces associated with it that are down the road.

Source: Mike Figliuolo, FreakJet.com
Writer: Gene Monteith

Event promoters hate unsold tickets. In Columbus, TiXiT has stepped in to help promoters solve that problem while offering buyers discounted prices.

The startup, with investment by the weBuild tech accelerator, "has sold tens of thousands of dollars worth of tickets " so far, says CEO Mike Figliuolo (also a principal at weBuild).

While the member base is currently small, he's encouraged by the conversion rate of those who buy tickets after opening an e-mail promoting an event.

"In traditional e-mail campaigns, for folks who sign up for membership sites and actually want to get that e-mail, you'll get a five percent open rate, you'll get a five percent click-through rate, and you'll get a five percent conversion to purchase rate," Figliuolo says. "We get a 30 percent open rate. On that 30 percent, we'll get 20 to 40 percent click-through. Of that 20 to 40 percent we'll get 20 to 30 percent to go into the shopping cart, and of that we're converting 10 to 30 percent to sales."

Members register for free to receive notifications of deals on various events. Alerts are sent by e-mail, text message, tweet -- however customers want them. 

"The value for consumers is it's free, and I can now go to one place to discover new events, buy things that I want to buy and get great deals, instead of having to go out and get a coke can for this discount, a copy of the newspaper for that discount, another site for that one," Figliuolo says. "Here are all the events in your geographic area."

TiXiT takes a percentage of every ticket sold, he says, noting that the company has done work with organizations like the Columbus Blue Jackets, CAPA, BalletMet, Jazzarts, and the Columbus Crew.

Figliuolo says the company is still in the pilot phase, launching formally only last year. As TiXiT learns what works and what doesn't, it plans to expand to other geographic regions.

Source: Mike Figliuolo, TiXiT
Writer: Gene Monteith

Ty Jacobs and three colleagues started FourthFrame eight years ago to supply software talent to its clients and to develop software products for the marketplace.

While Jacobs says FourthFrame has built a solid business doing just that, it's the success of the company's project management division � Simple Genius Apps -- that last month allowed Jacobs to quit his day job to devote full time as division president.

"A few years ago I started doing iPhone development and I developed some game apps," says Jacobs, who runs Simple Genius from his Pataskala home. "But there wasn't a whole lot of money in (iPhone) game apps unless you write Angry Birds, right?"

Then, the iPad was announced -- and it was a game-changer, Jacobs says.

"I knew it was going to be a whole new frontier for software, and so I started trying to think about what kind of niche I wanted to fill in that new space, and ended up settling on project management software because I have lots of project management experience."

The first Simple Genius app � SG Project -- launched in May 2010 and provided task-based project schedule management. Jacobs soon added an application for action item management and another for risk management.

"I was the first to offer a real project management app on the iPad," he says. SG Project Go was recently added for iPhone and iPod users.

Earlier this year, Simple Genius launched SG Project Pro � which combine those apps into a complete suite of tools. Since then, more than 17,000 units of the suite have sold in 65 countries, allowing Jacobs to quit his job as a director of IT business operations for Columbus-based NetJets and devote his full attention to Simple Genius.

In the near term, Jacobs says the company will develop some updates to the existing iPad applications and then begin working on a Mac version for desktops and laptops. In the long-term, Jacobs wants to grow Simple Genius beyond his one employee � himself.

"My vision is a software development company that has 10 to 20 pretty high-end software development jobs."

Source: Ty Jacobs, Simple Genius Apps
Writer: Gene Monteith

Christopher Hadad, a chemistry professor at The Ohio State University, is developing a drug that could ease the effects of a frightening world threat: a deadly chemical nerve agent attack.

Such an event is rare, but not just theoretical. One of the most memorable is a 1995 sarin gas release on Japanese subway lines that killed a dozen people and sent more than 6,000 to hospitals. These poisons can be released deliberately or by accident and have the potential to kill and severely injure thousands of unsuspecting people.

Hadad is working on a therapeutic remedy to the effects of certain nerve agents which, left untreated, cause uncontrolled secretions from the mouth, eyes and nose as well as severe muscle spasms that could lead to a quick death. This work, which is its early stages, is in partnership with the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

"We are developing a therapeutic for someone who's been exposed to a nasty chemical agent that creates biological aging effects that could lead to death," says Hadad, who has been working on the project for about a year.

Hadad's work relates to common organophosphorus (OP) nerve agents Tabun, VX, VR, Sarin, Soman, Cyclosarin and Paraoxon. There are treatments that can be used for these agents today, but they don't always work because of the short time frame required for effective treatment.

Using the Ohio Supercomputer Center resources in Columbus, Hadad is working on a molecular fix that could make treatment more effective.

"We are using a computational chemistry approach which could lead to rapid development of a good, viable drug that has the best chance of success and efficacy," he said.

Source: Christopher Hadad, Ohio State University
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

You can follow Feoshia on Twitter @feoshiawrites

Seeing her dog's paws discolored and irritated from harsh lawn chemicals, Chris Scott realized that she wanted to make changes to her own cleaning products business to make it friendly to the environment.

Res-Q Cleaning Solutions developed GOBioBased cleaning products in 2002 using plant-based solutions that contain no petrochemicals. Over the last year sales have jumped more than 100 percent as awareness of green products has increased.

"Our sales were strong even during the downturn," says Scott, who has owned the Reynoldsburg-based business with her husband, Steve, since 2000. "But this year it's really snowballed. We will exceed our sales goals."

The company makes cleaning solutions for industry, households, and zoos. They also manufacture all-natural shampoo for small pets and livestock. All packaging is recyclable as well.

In addition to selling their GOBioBased brand, Res-Q also manufactures cleaning solutions for independent labels.

GOBioBased is distributed across the U.S., says Scott, and she is investigating requests from European businesses to sell the brand as well.

Scott says she expects continued growth over the next several years as awareness of green products rises further and government regulations prompt more businesses and consumers to purchase green cleaning products.

Scott plans to add at least two more employees to her current five by the end of the year.

Source: Chris Scott, Res-Q Cleaning Solutions
Writer: Val Prevish

The University Clean Energy Alliance of Ohio was founded five years ago by Ohio's 15 research universities. The goal: to advance the cause of clean energy in Ohio in a collaborative way.

Since then, the Toledo-based organization has worked with a wide array of academic, government and business entities to further business-university partnerships in advanced energy and to encourage dialog on energy issues facing the state.

"The whole idea behind the alliance was to facilitate collaboration among the universities in their efforts to do research," says Jane Harf the UCEA's director. "And it's not the ivory tower research -- it's development and deployment. We really want to see these technologies make it to the marketplace -- commercialization and technology transfer."

While the organization started with the 15 research institutions, it has expanded its membership over the years to several community colleges and organizations like the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Ohio. Institutions such as the NASA Glenn Research Center and EWI (formerly the Edison Welding Institute) -- are also members.

Harf says that as part of its work, UCEA has engaged in a number of projects related to clean energy advancement, including a study on business and university collaborations, focus groups with businesses to assess the challenges and opportunities for clean energy and programs supporting the state's nine university-based Advanced Energy Centers of Excellence.

On April 26 and 27, the organization will hold it's fifth annual conference in Columbus, where it will showcase the work being done at those centers and work being done by students -- and at which it will offer breakout sessions on  a variety of topics including energy projects under way in Ohio, intellectual property issues surrounding university-business partnerships, policy issues around advanced and alternative energy and the opportunities and challenges of doing business in Ohio.

Also at the conference, the UCEA will roll out a new database that Harf says will provide advanced energy companies and others with current information about individual researchers and the work they do, programs of study available to those who are seeking degrees in alternative energy and on facilities and equipment available to businesses to further their technology development.

To register, go here. 

Source: Jane Harf, UCEA
Writer: Gene Monteith

When sign-ups started out slowly for BioOhio's 2011 Service Provider's Expo, the organization decided to get creative. The result: an online version of the expo, which began March 1, runs through April 28 and which at last count had nearly 60 virtual exhibitors.

Matt Schutte, director of communications for Columbus-based BioOhio -- the Ohio Edison Center charged with accelerating biosciences discovery, innovation and commercialization -- says the expo is a chance for shoppers and browsers in the biosciences to connect with product and service providers from within the state of Ohio.

"This is an outgrowth of a live expo that we held last year in March," Schutte says. "That event went well as a first year. This year, it was not hitting critical mass at the time that we needed to sign some facility agreements."

So, BioOhio partnered with online conferencing expert JuJaMa to build a virtual exhibition site. All exhibitors must be biosciences-based and have an Ohio presence, Schutte says. BioOhio members pay $50 and non-members $80 for the privilege of showcasing their companies.

As exhibitors, companies are able to send meeting requests to other expo participants, can send system generated messages and see the entire content of the site, Schutte says.

Shoppers can only see the exhibitors, but can register at no cost. The online aspects of the event have one big advantage over the live event, Shutte notes -- customers can come from all over the world. Earlier this week, nearly 170 shoppers or browsers were signed in to view online exhibits.

If the online expo goes well, BioOhio may extend the format to other focus areas, Schutte says.

"Maybe we'll extend this to some summits or some geographic or foreign partner sites -- who knows where that goes."

Participants can still register for the expo by going here.

Source: Matt Schutte, BioOhio
Writer: Gene Monteith

Neflix subscribers now have a faster way to add movies to their online queues.

CueThat, the latest creation of Columbus-based Big Kitty Labs, allows someone who comes across a movie title while reading online content to right click over it and instantly add the movie his or her Netflix lineup.

Dan Rockwell, Big Kitty's CEO, says the service was launched three weeks ago and "took off like crazy," accumulating 1,000 users and tracking 3,000 movie adds within the first two weeks.

CueThat will work with almost any browser, Big Kitty says. A plug-in has been developed for Firefox and Chrome and CueThat offers a bookmarklet that can be dragged from CueThat's website to Safari and Internet Explorer browsers.

Rockwell explains the advantage of CueThat is "immediacy."

"It's like a remote control for the TV," Rockwell says. "What that did for the TV is it let the person sit on the couch and change channels."

At present, there is no revenue model for CueThat, Rockwell says. Netflix does not pay Big Kitty for the additional traffic to its site, and no advertising is being sold. But Rockwell says CueThat, like some of Big Kitty's other projects, is foregoing profits now for potential pay-off later.

"It's kind of technology play, people play, in the sense of 'here's some folks that are thinking in this space and where does it go next?," Rockwell explains. "We're working on two other queuing type (projects). And we also have the analytics of what's being queued so we're gathering data. I feel like any time you're gathering data and analyzing people patterns you're sitting on something that could be interesting to a third party."

Next up?

"It's a hard one to do but I think we're going to try to do it -- library books. Where you can right click a book and automatically reserve it at the library."

Source: Dan Rockwell, Big Kitty Labs
Writer: Gene Monteith

Biobent Polymers, a new division of Marysville-based Univenture, has launched a new line of bioplastics that it says replaces up to 40 percent of the petroleum normally used in plastics manufacturing.

The key ingredient: soybean meal.

With funding from the Ohio Soybean Council, Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus developed new technology and collaborated with Univenture on the revolutionary new family of bioplastics.

"We named our new division 'Biobent' because we are definitely bending biology, taking a standardized way of producing a polymer and bending science to incorporate a biological component," explains Keith Masavage, chief of strategy and operations for both Univenture and Biobent Polymers.

The name of the new bioplastics line is Panacea. It's the industry's first bioplastic resin to maintain the characteristics of the base plastic while replacing up to 40 percent of the petroleum normally used in plastics manufacturing with soy meal, an unrefined agricultural co-product. According to Masavage, bioplastics -- plastics that incorporate renewable agricultural sources, such as vegetable oil, corn starch, algae, or pea starch to make them more environmentally friendly -- have been around for decades. Until now, however, desirable characteristics of the base plastic material, such as strength or flexibility, were compromised when agricultural co-products were added to the mix, and that adversely affected performance.

Masavage says the new material "is the only bioplastic that offers enhanced sustainability, high performance and a competitive price."

Univenture has the exclusive license to manufacture Panaca bioplastics.

Univenture, which has about 110 employees, has started purchasing equipment and hiring new people for its Biobent Polymers division.

"We plan to get up to 25-30 people in the areas of engineering, sales, marketing and general and administrative staff in the next 12-18 months," Masavage says. Biobent will occupy Univenture's available space, so there are currently no plans for a new or expanded facility.

Source: Keith Masavage, Univenture, Inc. and Biobent Polymers
Writer: Lynne Meyer

Developed by Dublin-based WD Partners in 1999 to give architects and engineers a better way to share project drawings and documents with clients and team members, Expesite has become one of the fastest growing companies in America.

Spun off in In 2003, Expesite has rapidly expanded its business solutions through acquisitions and partnerships with industry leaders in technology and within its markets.

Led by CEO Jeffrey Sopp, the company provides project management solutions primarily to the retail, restaurant, financial services and commercial real-estate industries, with nearly 350,000 users in more than 80 counties. With headquarters in Columbus, it also has offices in Los Angeles and Toronto.

According to Sopp, Expesite, has increased its workforce 10 percent this year to 45 and expects to grow further, projecting revenue growth of 52 percent 2011. The company has made the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Companies in America list four consecutive years in a row.

That growth was bolstered in 2009 with the acquisition of Hilliard-based Report Hawk, which Sopp says positioned the company to gain market share in the construction and/ real estate industry.

"By vertically integrating the two SaaS (Software as a Service) offerings, Expesite's solutions portfolio now spans from the largest retail owners to the smallest vendors/contractors," he says.

Last year's acquisition of VisionFM of Toronto "was an essential element of Expesite's strategic evolution into an end-to-end platform solution for real estate development and facilities management," adds Sopp. "This acquisition increased Expesite's market share, and provided clients with a unified view for project management and facilities management."

Expesite doesn't appear to be slowing down. Sopp says Expesite is considering three companies for potential acquisition in 2011 to expand its markets and better serve clients.

Source: Jeffrey Sopp, Expesite
Writer: Gene Monteith

Kevin Gadd believes there should be a way to give entrepreneurs and business schools resources that can work together for the benefit of new and emerging companies.

That's the thinking behind Venture Highway, a web-based service Gadd launched Dec. 31.

Venture Highway combines educational courses with tools gathered from Gadd's years of experience as a serial entrepreneur and former director of information technology commercialization at TechColumbus. The new company is backed by NCT Ventures, founded by fellow Digital Storage alum Rich Langdale, Gadd says.

Venture Highway's educational component hinges on curriculum developed by Sharon Alvarez at Ohio State University's Center for Entrepreneurship. Students will soon be able to access Business 290 online.

"Students will be able to sign into our website and see a weekly syllabus of what they're going to go through, and then they'll have readings -- content from Sharon Alvarez that she wants them to understand. The idea is that at the end of Business 290 the students will prepare an executive summary" of how they would establish a new business.

Gadd adds that he hopes "professors who are teaching entrepreneurism will see this as a novel, creative, fun way to teach entrepreneurism."

Students who have completed the course -- or non-students who are interested only in the other tools on the site -- can then tap site resources related to innovation, viability, planning, operations and exit.

"The final product from each of the modules is geared specifically toward sending it out to investment, or coaching, or somebody to get on your team," Gadd says.

Users currently can use the venture innovation tool and viability module; the others will be built out later, Gadd says. The innovation tool is free, while Venture Highway will charge between $100 and $200 for the other modules, as well as a fee for taking Business 290.

Source: Kevin Gadd, Venture Highway
Writer: Gene Monteith

When people ask who e-Cycle's biggest competitors are, the answer comes easily to Tonia Irion.

"The closet, the drawer or the warehouse," says Irion, e-Cycle's VP of marketing.

e-Cycle has risen quickly within the environmental industry by building its own niche recycling smart phones. While businesses (and individuals) are still likely to stash away their outdated devices, word is getting out that there's another option, Irion says.

Founded in 2005 by Irion and husband Chris (e-Cycle's president), the Hilliard firm buys up old wireless devices -- mainly phones, and primarily from businesses -- and either recycles them for parts (phones more than two years old) or wipes them of all data and resells them to overseas markets.

e-Cycle's services seem to have met a long-simmering need. The company's revenues rose to $3.5 million in 2009 over the previous year's $1 million, and Tonia Irion says the numbers for 2010 could be double that. The comapany counts 15 of the Fortune 20 companies as customers, as well as numerous small businesses and government.

Meanwhile, employment has risen from 29 employees at end of 2009 to 65 today, and e-Cycle wants to hire an additional 20 sales reps in the next three to four months.

That kind of growth placed e-Cycle 14th on the BusinessFirst Fast 50 list for central Ohio and ranked it 8th in its industry on the Inc. 500 fastest growing companies of 2010.

Irion says the growth is due partly to a good partnership with Verizon Wireless and partly to business practices that include investing in strong sales teams and "making sure every decision we're making is going to generate revenue for the company."

Source: Tonia Irion, e-Cycle
Writer: Gene Monteith