This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

It was cool to shake hands with astronaut Ron Garan at the NASA Space Apps Hackathon this weekend! Congrats to NYC SpaceCal and Tiny Sea Bots, who'll be going on to the global competition, as well as all the other honorees:  Droid Hopper, Chillin' On Mars, Versioning Goat, Asteroid Mapper, Star Map Sculpture, WhyWeExplore, Spacerac.es and Le Big Blue.

This Thursday is NY Tech Day (a.k.a. the world's largest startup event). Free mocktails from BuzzTheBar when you walk in! Don't forget the after-parties, like the Big Data bash with Knewton and Get Acquainted with Acquaintable.

This Friday is the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (ERA) Demo Day. Good luck to all!

Next week is the Digital Content NewFronts where the likes of Google, Yahoo, Hulu, AOL and others will be showcasing original video content. Also coming up on May 7 is Innovating for the Connected Home, Living Room & TV, hosted by Mashable, Verizon and the MIT Enterprise Forum. It'll focus on ideas for new products and services for today’s high-speed-connected home.

Deadlines: April 30 is the last day to apply for the Co.Labs and Target Retail Accelerator. The winner gets a cool $75,000 and the chance to work with a leading innovator in the retail space, plus seven finalists will get $10,000 each. Applications for Matchpoint East are due April 29. It's an exclusive opportunity for health-tech entrepreneurs to meet large stakeholders like Kaiser, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Aetna. Yup, that can open doors! Innovate Health is also inviting locals to develop commercially viable technologies for urgent healthcare problems. Deadline is May 2.

Plus, the deadline for the National STEM Video Game Challenge has been extended to May 1. Last but not least, don't forget that the 30 percent early-bird discount (code: 'garysguide') for the Funding The Best In Global Innovation Conference expires May 1.

If you go to lots of conferences and events (like I do), I'd recommend you check out an app called Bizzabo. Its goal is to maximize your networking and help you discover new business opportunities. With TechCrunch Disrupt and Internet Week coming up, this might be just the ticket!  :)

You know what I'm excited about? The CitiBike Share Program, that's what. I think I can see myself riding a CitiBike around town--though maybe wearing my suit and red tie and riding a bike sounds a bit crazy. But hey, this is New York City. Registration for the program is now open. They launch in May so get a jump on it, people!

And finally, today is April 22, so Happy Earth Day, y'all! Hopefully Elon Musk will soon figure out a way to get us to Mars. But until then, remember we only have one planet to live on. So let's take good care of it!

And now let's see what's going down in the Alley this week...

The Phat Startup Presents: Music Tech, Funding & Branding in Hip Hop
Q&A with MICK (previously known as DJ Mick Boogie), who has worked with some of the most talented artists in the world including Jay-Z, Eminiem, Alchemist, Talib Kweili and Mobb Deep.
Monday (Apr. 22), 6 p.m. @ SkillShare HQ, 407 Broome Street

Mobile Health: from smart phone apps and sensor streams to behavioral biomarkers
A discussion on mobile health followed by a reception. With Professor Deborah Estrin (Professor of Computer Science, Cornell Tech Campus and Professor of Public Health, Weill Cornell Medical College)
Tuesday (Apr. 23), 5 p.m. @ NYU Africa House, 14A Washington Mews

NYC Data Business Meetup #15
With Alex Hawkinson (CEO, SmartThings), Peter Semmelhack (CEO, Bug Labs), Jon Bruner (O'Reilly), Steve Schlafman (Lerer Ventures) and Phin Barnes (First Round Capital).
Tuesday (Apr. 23), 6 p.m. @ Bloomberg LP, 731 Lexington Ave, 7th Floor

Brooklyn Tech Meetup
With Aswini Anburajan (Director of Partnership Development, BuzzFeed) and Ky Harlin (Data Scientist, BuzzFeed). Demos by Montaj and Feely.
Wednesday (Apr. 24), 7 p.m. @ Brooklyn Law School Feil Hall, 205 State Street, 22nd Fl., Brooklyn

#techdrinkup - Open Bar Party - NY tech + SF tech for Immigration Reform
Helping raise awareness for March for Innovation, a seriously awesome cause helping steer immigration reform to help the tech community big time.
Wednesday (Apr. 24), 8 p.m. @ The Hudson Bond, 215 W. 40th Street

NY Tech Day
A massive science fair for entrepreneurs to exhibit their startups to thousands of consumers, investors, first adopters, job-seekers, major companies, press and media.
Thursday (Apr. 25), 10 a.m. @ Pier 92, 711 12th Avenue

NY Tech Day After-Party: Big Data Bash
With Knewton and BuzzTheBar. Complementary cocktails for the first 50 guests and 50 drink codes will be given away at the Knewton booth.
Thursday (Apr. 25), 5:30 p.m. @ Hudson Common at Hudson Hotel, 356 W. 58th Street

NYC BigApps Rackspace Pitch & Projects
Learn about telling stories, purpose driven development & nailing your pitches & projects. With Cameron Koczon (BrooklynBeta and TeuxDeux)
Thursday (Apr. 25), 6:30 p.m. @ Harvest, 16 W. 22nd Street, 8th Fl.

Business Development and E-Retail
With Amy Jain (BaubleBar), Dana Mauriello (Etsy), Amanda Peyton (Grand St), Adam Schwartz (Bustedtees), Justin Semine (Harrys) and Alex Taub (Dwolla). Moderated by Eric Batscha (AppNexus).
Thursday (Apr. 25), 7 p.m. @ AppNexus, 28 W. 23rd Street, 4th Fl.

Music Startup Meetup: Entrepreneur Stories - Rap Genius
With Mahbod Moghadam (Cofounder, RapGenius)
Thursday (Apr. 25), 7 p.m. @ Union Square Ventures, 915 Broadway, 19th Fl.

Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (ERA) Demo Day
By invitation only. Startups include Acquaintable, Cognical, Consignd, EasyPairings, Monaeo, Startist, Suitey, TheSquareFoot, Trendalytics and Vocalize.
Friday (Apr. 26), 8:30 a.m. @ IAC, 555 W. 18th Street

Start-Up City Conference
With Scott M. Stringer (Manhattan Borough President), Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures) and NYC Mayoral Candidates.
Friday (Apr. 26), 8:30 a.m. @ New York Law School, 185 W. Broadway

#ArtsTech Unconference
With Daniel Doubrovkine (Artsy), Kathryn Jones (Virtual Arts), Ariele Krantzow (Wix), Cesar Kuriyama (1 Second Everyday), Allison Goldberg & Jen Jamula (Blogologues) and others.
Saturday (Apr. 27), 9 a.m. @ AOL HQ, 770 Broadway

TechCrunch Disrupt NY Hackathon
The hack is back and better than ever!
Saturday (Apr. 27), 12:30 p.m. @ Manhattan Center, 311 W. 34th Street

Tribeca Hacks Festival
Discover the projects created over 48 hours at the inaugural Tribeca Film Festival hackathon. Cocktails and hors d'oeuvres will be served.
Sunday (Apr. 28), 6 p.m. @ Center for Social Innovation, 601 W. 26th Street, #325

More events on the horizon...
Entering the European Market: Lessons from Serial Entrepreneur & Investor Jos White on May 1 @ Venue
Office Ninjas Tech Mixer & Showcase on May 2 @ Alley NYC
Innovating for the Connected TV, Living Room and Home on May 7 @ Hotel Yotel
May 2013 NY Tech Meetup on May 7 @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
Funding the Best in Global Innovation III on May 16 @ SNR Denton
NYC Tech Picnic - 2013 Kick Off on May 19 @ Chelsea Piers, Pier 63
AngelHack NYC - Spring 2013 on Jun 1 @ Huge Inc

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

First things first: Stop reading this and go watch "House of Cards" on Netflix. Yup, it's that good. You're welcome!

Back? Okay! Hope y'all survived the weekend #snow-pocalypse (a.k.a. Nemo) and had a blast sledding in the park, hurling snowballs at each other and making elaborate snow sculptures. Here's an awesome Vine mashup of the storm that my friends Kelsey and Steve made.

Now that you've had your winter fun, it's time to get ready for spring. And that can only mean one thing: internships! That's right. It's that time of the year again, when bright-eyed young kids will be running around your offices eager to learn the ropes, change the world, and...err... get you your early-morning fix of decaf-grande-mocha-soy lattes.  So, who's looking for interns? Everybody, that's who! Squarespace, Metamorphic Ventures, UrbanDaddy, HowAboutWe, ff Ventures, MoviePass, Birchbox, Artsicle, Learnvest and many, many more.

Want $40,000, four months of free office space and access to Esther Dyson, Jeff Stewart, David Pakman and John Frankel? Well, duh. You, my friend, need to apply to the awesome ERA Accelerator, pronto! Deadline is March 7.

Speaking of accelerators, DreamIt is holding a meet-and-greet event next Wednesday, where you'll get to meet some of their partners, alumni and heavy hitters. In more accelerator news, west coast pirate Dave McClure and his merry band of 500 Startuppers will be coming ashore this Friday to give us all a little taste of what they've been building at their Demo Day. And in still more accelerator news, The New York Times Company  is launching timeSpace, a new incubator initiative to bring entrepreneurs to their HQ for four months to refine and grow their businesses. They're looking for three to five early-stage companies focused on the media space with a product launched. Deadline is February 19.

Applications to the 2013 TechCrunch NYC Disrupt Startup Battlefield are open. Deadline is February 22. TechCrunch is also holding a pitch-off competition + meetup tomorrow.

Congrats to the Drobe team for winning the Hearst Fashion Hackathon yesterday!

Don't forget, if you wanna help the city reinvent the payphone, submit your prototype idea by February 18. And if you wanna hang with Zac Posen 'n Dennis Crowley at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, I have an extra pass. Email me if interested.

AIPAC Technology Division is having its launch event on February 27 at Bloomberg HQ, featuring Dan Senor (co-author of Start-Up Nation: Story of Israel's Economic Miracle). AIPAC Tech's host committee includes Alan Patricof (Greycroft), Avi Fogel (NY Angels), Jordan Levy (SoftBank) and others.

Startup Bus (where you get on a bus with 30 strangers and hack your way across America) is going to SXSW. Here's your invite code. Got questions? Email Jon Gottfried, your StartupBus East Coast Conductor!

As you all know, red is my favorite color (gasp, surprise). And lately it's been everywhere, from the red carpet at the Grammys last night to the red roses many of you are getting on Valentine's Day and, of course, red is the color for Chinese New Year. To all my friends who celebrate, Gong Xi Fa Cai! (and hope you get lots of Red envelopes ;-))

And now let's see what's going down in the Alley this week...

On Deck Sports and Technology Conference
With rockstar list of speakers including Bob Bowman (MLB Advanced Media), Tiki Barber (former NFL), Alexis Ohanian (cofounder, Reddit), Ben Lerer (Lerer Ventures), Ryan Spoon (ESPN Digital Media) and others.
Tuesday (Feb. 12), 8 a.m. @ Bohemian National Hall, 321 E. 73rd Street

Cocktails & Conversation
85 Broads invites you for cocktails and conversation with Joanne Wilson (angel investor) & Rohini Dey (restaurateur).
Tuesday (Feb. 12), 6 p.m. @ Vermilion, 480 Lexington Avenue

TechCrunch NYC Meetup
60-second pitch-off competition for entrepreneurs looking to launch their product at the Disrupt conference in May. Plus there's beer. Enough said.
Tuesday (Feb. 12), 6 p.m. @ Santos Party House, 96 Lafayette Street

NY Enterprise Technology Meetup
Demos by Aerohive Networks, DataSift, MapR Technologies, Datadog and Videolicious.
Tuesday (Feb. 12), 6:30 p.m. @ Cooley, 1114 Avenue of the Americas

Startup Weekend Strategic Partnership Series
With Nancy Jo (VP Strategy & Biz Dev, Bravo Digital Media), Leora Schacter (VP Digital Strategy and Planning, Food Network) and Ryan Osbourne (VP Digital Innovations, NBC News).
Tuesday (Feb. 12), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly East, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Digital Disruption: Media in Non-Profits
With William Baker (President Emeritus WNET / Channel 13 PBS), Don Undeen (Media Lab, Metropolitan Museum of Art) and Suzy Gooch (Director, Metropolitan Opera).
Wednesday (Feb. 13), 6 p.m. @ McMahon Hall, 155 W. 60th Street, #109

NYC Real Estate Technology Startups Demos
With Efrem Weiss (PivotDesk), Oisin Hanrahan (Handybook) and Nate Friedman (Living There).
Wednesday (Feb 13), 6:30 p.m. @ TechStars NYC, 36 Cooper Square, 6th Fl.

Visas for Startups: A Panel on Immigration Policy and Entrepreneurship
With Jeremy Robbins (Director, Office of NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg), Michael Wildes (Wildes & Weinberg), Owen Davis (NYC Seed), Cyrus Mehta and moderated by Professor Jonathan Askin (Brooklyn Law).
Wednesday (Feb. 13), 7 p.m. @ Geraldo's Cafe at Brooklyn Law, 205 State St, 1st Fl., Feil Hall, Brooklyn

One Of A Kind Party
Open Bar / Clothes Donation by StartupThreads, Amicus, AlleyNYC & Coalition for Queens.
Wednesday (Feb. 13), 8 p.m. @ 1Oak, 453 W. 17th Street

Decoded Fashion - Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week
Keynotes by Zac Posen (fashion designer) and Dennis Crowley (Founder & CEO, Foursquare), as well as the fashion hackathon finale. The top three ideas will be presented on the runway and the winning app will be launched by the Council of Fashion Designers of America.
Thursday (Feb. 14), 9 a.m. @ Lincoln Center, 33 W. 60th Street

Columbia Business School 19th Annual PE/VC Conference
Keynote by Steve Case (chairman & CEO, Revolution and cofounder, America Online)
Friday (Feb. 15), 9 a.m. @ Alfred Lerner Hall at Columbia University, 2920 Broadway

HackInteractive
An education-themed, code-for-a-cause hackathon. Amazing prizes, access to awesome APIs, and delicious food. Hack the weekend to benefit CampInteractive’s programming. Hosted by Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian.
Saturday (Feb. 16), 9 a.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

More events on the horizon...
Social Media Week NY 2013 on Feb. 18 @ Metropolitan Pavilion
NY Tech for Local Business Meetups Social Media Week event: SoLoCo on Feb. 18 @ Wix Lounge
NYTECH Presents: Killer Strategies from the Worlds Greatest Innovators on Feb. 19 @ Morgan Stanley
Business Design & Tech Transforming The World on Feb. 19 @ Centre For Social Innovation Pop-Up Space
Funding the Best in Global Innovation II on Feb. 20 @ SNR Denton
Get To Know DreamIt - NYC on Feb 20. @ Bulls Head Tavern
NJ Tech Meetup 33 on Feb. 21 @ Howe Center
Unleash the Beast: How to Hack a Hackathon Save the World and Make Your Parents Proud on Feb. 21 @ Internet Media Labs
Fireside Chat with Kickstarter Cofounder Charles Adler on Feb. 21 @ Meetup HQ
Analytics Roundtable on Feb. 26 @ SNR Denton
AIPAC Technology Division: Launch Event w/ Dan Senor on Feb. 27 @ Bloomberg Tower
2nd Annual NYU Entrepreneurs Festival on Mar. 1 @ Tisch Hall
NYC EDU Startup Weekend on Mar. 1 @ Alley NYC

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of Gary's Guide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

iPhone 5 Day is coming, and you know what that means. That's right--long lines are already starting to form outside Apple stores all over the world as folks clamber to get their hands on the all new slimmer, lighter and faster iPhone 5. A shout-out to Gary's Guide member (and founder of a new social media startup, Vibe) Hazem Sayed, who is first in line outside the iconic 5th Avenue "Big Glass Cube" Apple Store. Go Hazem!

My friend Dave Lifson (product manager at General Assembly) along with Christina Chaey (associate editor at Fast Company) will be doing a free livestream this Wednesday at 2pm EST, on product management for non-product managers. You'll learn what it takes to turn your ideas into functional products. And did I mention its free? :) Oh, and everyone who registers gets a free copy of Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian's new e-book, Making Something People Love. So go sign up!

The new Cornell NYC Tech campus has started accepting admission applications for its beta class of computer science students, slated to start January 2013. Deadline is October 1.

And now let's see what's going down in the Alley this week...

Startup Roundtable 17
With David Aronoff (general partner at Flybridge Capital Partners)
Tuesday (Sept. 18), 6 p.m. @ Chadbourne & Parke LLP, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, 36th Fl.

PushStart + AngelCube Demo Night
10 companies from PushStart and AngelCube (two Australian-based accelerators) will exhibit their latest products. Featured startups include Adbiddr, Gimmequotes, Surfed.At, Tonight, Werdsmith and Wingman.
Tuesday (Sept. 18), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly East, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Brooklyn Tech Meetup
Demos by Temboo, Appreciation Engine and Bar & Club Stats.
Tuesday (Sept. 18), 7 p.m. @ Huge, Inc., 45 Main St., Brooklyn

GoGreen '12 New York
With Seth Pinsky (President, NYC EDC), Andrew Revkin (Pace University and New York Times), Cyrille du Peloux (CEO, Veolia), Pamela Gill Alabaster (L'Oreal), David Bragdon (Mayor's Office, NYC) and others.
Wednesday (Sept. 19), 9 a.m. @ The TimesCenter, 242 West 41st Street

Fashion Forward Conference
Bringing over 300 bloggers together for a one-day conference filled with fashion shows, style tips, informative panels hosted by industry experts, interactive stations and more.
Wednesday (Sept. 19), 11 a.m. @ 404 NYC, 404 10th Avenue

Product Management for Non-Product Managers w. David Lifson (General Assembly) and Christina Chaey (Fast Company)
Based on student submissions, Dave will walk through best practices for fleshing out ideas, identifying risks, validating assumptions, and ultimately launching a minimum viable product.
Wednesday (Sept. 19), 2 p.m. @ Livestream, Online

Digital Cocktails - The Power of Sound: Music Advertising and Brands
With Sharon Colombo (executive director, corporate marketing, JPMorgan Chase), Debora Koyama (VP marketing, L'Oreal), Elliot Lum (VP, Columbia Records), Eddie Martin (director of marketing excellence and CSR insights, Hershey Company), Josh Rabinowitz (SVP and director of music, Grey) and Mark Sherwood (director of strategy and head of integrated planning, Saatchi & Saatchi).
Wednesday (Sept. 19), 6 p.m. @ The Sony Club, 550 Madison Avenue

Art.sy Tech Talk
Art.sy will open their doors to the NYC engineering community for an evening of conversation around making technical choices at a startup from day one. This invitation is for software engineers/web developers only.
Wednesday (Sept. 19), 7 p.m. @ Art.sy, 401 Broadway, 25th Floor

Design for Manufacturing Summit
With Ping Fu (cofounder & CEO, Geomagic), Mark Hatch (CEO, TechShop), Stephan Clambaneva (Industrial Designers Society of America), Tara Stand (ITAC), Michael Greenstein (Polytechnic Institute of NYU), Benedetta Piantella (Adjunct Professor, NYU-ITP), James Wolff (Buildatron), Xanthe Matychak (Innovation Center, Rochester Institute of Technology) and Kostika Spaho (3D Printing Artist).
Thursday (Sept. 20), 3 p.m. @ Dumbo Spot, 160 Water St, Brooklyn

Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (ERA) Demo Day
Presentations by the Summer 2012 class of ERA including AngelPolitics, Bizodo, CaterCow , Glossi, HealthyChic, Houdini, Jetaport, MxHero, SaleMove and VidRocket.
Friday (Sept. 21), 8:30 a.m., by invite only

Startup Weekend NYC
A global grassroots movement of active and empowered entrepreneurs who are learning the basics of founding startups and launching successful ventures.
Friday (Sept. 21), 6 p.m. @ AlleyNYC, 500 Seventh Avenue, 17th Fl.

Mashable Social Good Summit
Speakers include Todd Park (CTO, United States), Forest Whitaker (artist & UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador), Nick Kristof, (columnist & two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, New York Times), Rebecca Moore (Engineering Manager, Google Earth), Hans Vestberg (president & CEO, Ericsson), Deepak Chopra (bestselling author & founder, The Chopra Foundation), Wendy Harman (director, social strategy, American Red Cross), Kathy Calvin (CEO, UN Foundation) and more.
Saturday (Sept. 22), 9 a.m. @ 92nd Street Y, Lexington Avenue at 92nd St

More events on the horizon...
Coming To America: Immigration Entrepreneurship & the Economy on Sept. 24 @ New York Law School
Enterprise Insights: Go Big (Data) Or Go Home on Sept. 25 @ Microsoft
NYTECH Presents: UX Cognitive Modeling Methods on Sept. 27 @ New York Institute of Technology
Entrepreneurs Roundtable 51 on Sept. 27 @ NYU Stern Room 2-60
Startup Grind NYC Hosts Scott Kurnit (Founder of Aboutcom / Keepcom) on Sept. 27 @ The Alley
Cleanweb Hackathon NYC on Sept. 28 @ AlleyNYC
NYTECH Presents: Content Marketing: Beyond Liking and Tweeting on Oct. 02 @ Anchin
Daniweb Presents: Advertising, Marketing and Media Mayhem! on Oct. 02 @ Slate Lounge
FOCUS100 Symposium and Pitch Bootcamp on Oct. 05 @ Ogilvy & Mather
Talk NYC Presents: 2nd Annual Tech Madison Avenue Conference on Oct. 17 @ Crosby Street Hotel
All Things D: Dive Into Mobile on Oct. 29 @ The Ritz-Carlton Battery Park

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

startups of the roundtable

The first class to graduate from the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator summer 2011 program nabbed funding from venture shops like First Round Capital, ff Venture Capital, High Peaks Venture Partners, Lerer Ventures, Lightbank and RRE Ventures. Today ERA announced its second class, a group of ten young companies, some of whom Betabeat has met before. (Although Dibsie, an interactive shopping catalog, was a finalist on Betabeat's first original webseries, The Pitch.) You can meet all the new startups and find their websites below. All the companies get a $25,000 investment, office space in Times Square and access to ERA's group of more than 200 mentors.

Appy Couple:

Appy Couple lets you quickly, easily, and affordably create a gorgeous mobile app to share all the excitement of your wedding with invited guests. The Appy platform populates a mobile app in real time, and includes features like picture uploads, virtual champagne, countdown, and geolocation.
www.appycouple.com

Cinchifieds:

Cinchifieds is the world’s simplest marketplace. Users catalog what they’re interested in buying or selling, and Cinchifieds does all the work, delivering matches directly to you. Cinchifieds makes buying and selling a cinch.
www.cinchifieds.com

Dibsie:

Dibsie makes it easy to find, organize and discover products online by integrating social networking with powerful search capability. Dibsie streamlines the process for discovering and sharing products by allowing users to search thousands of retailers and brands, then bookmark favorites for sharing through a mutually-curated catalog.
www.dibsie.com

LocalBonus:

LocalBonus allows consumers to use their existing credit and debit cards as their loyalty card at local merchants and gives merchants an easy way to deploy a rewards program to build customer loyalty.
www.localbonus.com

Pictorious:

Pictorious is a photo-sharing game that creates a fun way to explore the world, meet new people and earn awesome rewards and prizes. Pictorious also helps brands and merchants engage with and attract customers.
www.pictorious.com

ShareRebate:

ShareRebate is a referral tool that helps mobile app developers get more downloads. The referral tool seamlessly integrates into any mobile app and starts to offer users of the app rewards for recommending the app to friends and family.
www.sharerebate.com

Stray Boots:

Stray Boots turns the walking tour on its head through its cell phone-guided, interactive urban games in cities throughout the U.S. Stray Boots curates the games and delivers them to customers’ phones via its proprietary software, taking urban explorers on an adventure that’s more fun, engaging and flexible than other ways to explore the city.
www.strayboots.com

STYLYT:

Stylyt is redefining the way fashion brands acquire loyal fans. Partnering with contemporary and boutique brands, Stylyt launches collaborative fashion design campaigns that allow any user to customize an item in a collection, vote on user entries and even choose the winning design entry to be manufactured and sold.
www.stylyt.com

Wizpert:

Wizpert is a real-time platform that instantly matches people who need advice with experts who are qualified to provide it on a wide range of topics from parenting to relationships and nutrition. Wizpert offers immediate access to a simple, helpful form of human communication. Talking. www.wizpert.com

WowWombat:

WowWombat is an event sponsorship marketplace that provides an easy way for businesses to find and interact with their target audience. A business selects events to sponsor based on the demographics they want to reach and scale they can afford—while event organizers post event details to receive sponsorship.
www.wowwombat.com

Steve Gutentag from Sitesimon.

Betabeat moseyed up to Murat Aktihanoglu, the accented managing director of Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, after the program's demo day this morning in a basement auditorium at NYU's Stern School of Business. He had the overwhelmed, flushed face of a proud parent. "Oh, it was amazing," he said, eyes widening. ERA put its ten startups through 1,500 meetings, he had calculated, and all the companies have users and 80 percent have revenue. One of them had just signed up 35 cities and two Dubai landmarks: the biggest mall in the world, which serves 47 million visitors, and the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. 

"That was incredible!" said Brian Cohen, vice chairman of the New York Angels, ambushing Mr. Aktihanoglu at the podium. "Grand slam!" He pinched the director's cheek. "Murat is magical. He really is."

Mr. Cohen was impressed by the startups. "I go to all the demos," he said. "I was just at DEMO--I went to TechCrunch," he said. "This was quality."

The room was about three-quarters full--perhaps 300 attendees or so--including representatives from Union Square Ventures, TechStars, Founder Collective, Greycroft, Bessemer Ventures, and Bloomberg Ventures. Judging by the lines at the startups' tables, Public Stuff (who signed up the mall), Sitesimon and BuzzTable were the favorites.

Below are the startups and their raises:

Bespoke Post: Curated mail subscription service for products men want. Seeking $500,000.

Centzy: Comparison shopping engine for local services. Raised less than $100,000 of $500,000.

WebThriftStore: Provides a private label eBay solution for charities that enables anyone to turn their unused "stuff" into tax-deductible donations. Raised $625,000 out of $1.5 million.

BuzzTable: Establishes a direct line of communication between restaurants and customers. Raising $750,000.

Pricing Engine: A business intelligence service for digital marketers. Just started raising a $750,000 round.

LetGive: Provides a platform that connects application developers, charities and socially-conscious consumers. Seeking $750,000.

Parking Panda: A mobile real-time parking discovery tool. Has $50,000 committed for a $750,000 round.

PublicStuff: Enables cities to easily receive and manage service requests from citizens. Raised $100,000 out of $750,000 so far.

NumberFire: Analytics platform that uses quantitative modeling to analyze sports. Raised $400,000 out of $750,000.

Sitesimon: Analyzes browsing behavior and recommends web content with minimal user input. Raised $500,000, seeking $3 million.

Image via Barbara Haddock Taylor, Baltimore Sun

Here's a little anecdote to get the day started. Some dudes in Balitmore with a parking app and a panda for their mascot totally left that town and headed to the Big Apple when they landed a spot in the innagural ER Accelerator.

For anyone who's been paying attention, New York is throwing a sort of start-up summer camp this year, with half a dozen accelerators and incubators putting young start-ups through the paces. The L.A. Times, which doesn't even mention ER by name, seems blown away by the idea of a company getting $25,000 and a spot in Times Square.

"Baltimore might have had its own private accelerator in place this summer — Miller and Zilberbaum applied for it — but organizers couldn't pull together the necessary funding," that article intones.

In the last year three accelerator programs, Entrepreneurs Roundtable, DreamIt and Techstars, which was ranked as the #1 program in the nation by the Kauffman foundation, have all launched in NYC. HackNY, Big Apps and Founder Labs are also in the mix. The result is a critical mass where start-ups are drawn to the city even when they fail to win a coveted spot, knowing that a new opportunity might open up soon.

Feeling confused? Not to worry, Betabeat has created a handy guide to picking the right accelerator for your start-up.

Of course, Panda Parking might be equally interested in New York's other natural resource, tons and tons of cars, very limited space and alternate side rules that can only be deciphered by a smartphone.

Pausing, he reconsidered. "Ok, Dennis is a nice guy, and very smart, but I can't stand to see another photo of him at a party. That's not tech."

Detering was up on the third floor of Connolly's on West 45th for a party himself, the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator happy hour.

"I don't really know when a start-up stops being a start-up. I've been running my business for a decade, still sometimes people call us a start-up. I don't." Detering launched Event in September 1999, just six months before the dot-com bubble burst.  "We survived by the skin of our teeth. That's what I want to see, more bootstrapped, more lean start-ups, not just folks raising millions."

The ER Accelerator is one of many programs set to turn New York into start-up summer camp, providing fledgling companies with $25,000 in seed funding in exchange for a small equity stake. "I'm  profitable now, I'm married and so is my business partner," said Detering, gazing around the room at the gaggle of twenty-something founders. "Can a start-up be your midlife crisis?"

While the ER happy hour was going on in Midtown, TechStars NY was holding a happy hour for their summer program down in Union Square. "I mean, you've got to consider the whole transplant versus native thing," said Jonathan Betz, VP of engineering at Yext, and an ER Accelerator mentor. "Having roots in the city is valuable, even if they are more high profile."

Betz is a principle at Hudson River Angels, a band of Google and Xoogle engineers looking to leverage their expertise to help grow their portfolio companies. More recently he also began to try his hand at the online upstart creating waves in the seed stage community.  "I joined Angel List, of course," he admitted with a smile. "So far funded one venture through that. It really makes me feel like a conservative, watching this river of companies go by and deciding: no, no, no."

The investment Betz did make was in a company where he knew and had worked with members of the team. "I was at a startup in the dot-com days. I watched the rocket ships take off and come crashing back to earth. There were a ton of great ideas then that never got executed. I think investors today care less about ideas than they do about execution."