Startup of the Month: InContext Solutions

08/02/2012Amina Elahi

Built In Chicago and Marengo Hampshire Partners would like to congratulate July’s Startup of the Month: InContext Solutions! An award-winning technology firm, InContext Solutions, seeks to lead the industry in best in class analytics and market research. Their unique take on research centers on providing clients a way to test various scenarios in a virtual store with real customers before going to market.

For many companies, high costs or a lack of resources are obstacles in the path of testing hypotheses, meaning a lot of ideas never get explored, let alone realized. InContext Solutions wants to demolish that roadblock, making it possible for companies to virtually “see” how a store or product change would affect their businesses. Sophisticated 3D modeling and using the open expanse of the World Wide Web makes this possible in a way previously unthinkable.

In 2009, Tracey Wiedmeyer founded InContext Solutions with Bob Gillespie and Rich Scamehorn “with a vision to revolutionize how virtual simulations could be used by leading businesses across the globe.” Last November, Hyde Park Venture Partners and Hyde Park Angels co-led a $1.5 million investment in InContext Solutions, which brings their funding to date to a total of nearly $2.7 million. Today, they work with many Fortune 500 consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers and retailers, the kind whose products fall into consumers’ hands daily, to imagine new futures for their businesses.

Learn more about InContext Solutions’ business and goals via our Q&A with co-founder and CTO Wiedmeyer. Click here to read it.

Eat Your Words: Authorial Intrusion and Chiffonade

08/01/2012Amina Elahi

Devouring books and crafting meals is great–but sounding smart while you do it is even better. That’s why we’re teaching you to eat your words. In this new weekly guide, we introduce one literary device (PAPER) and one culinary term (PLATES) everyone should know.

Authorial intrusion (noun): a literary device whereby the author speaks directly to the reader, establishing a connection between him or her and the audience and making him- or herself a subject of attention.

Example: It could be said that Jon Ronson’s confessions in The Psychopath Test are a type of authorial intrusion, but this device is more frequently used in novels than non-fiction. A more typical example is that of Kurt Vonnegut, who was famous for injecting his perspective into his stories. Here’s an example from Slaughterhouse Five that demonstrates exactly this:

An American near Billy wailed that he had excreted everything but his brains. Moments later he said, ‘There they go, there they go.’ He meant his brains.

That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book.

Chiffonade (noun): the result of tightly rolling herbs or leafy vegetables and then slicing them into fine ribbons.

Example: In her mango pomegranate “murder” salsa recipe, Angie Jaime shreds her cilantro into a chiffonade before finely dicing and tossing the leaves into her mixing bowl (pictured above). The cilantro pieces turn out tiny, allowing them to impart flavor without leaving the eater with greens between his or her teeth.

More at PAPER/PLATES.

Braintree Adding 150 Jobs in Chicago, Focused on Being the Leader in Payments

08/01/2012Amina Elahi

Braintree, an online payments tech company that put its roots down in Chicago in 2007, just announced that it will add 150 jobs to their West Loop headquarters. Over the next two years or so, that office will triple in size–a change that would allow Braintree to take the lead in the payments space.

According to company CEO Bill Ready, there are two macrotrends ruling online payments today. The first is using a cloud-based infrastructure, which not only decreases the cost of starting up and maintaining a mobile or online business, it also gives devs the chance to build products instead of serving as maintenance people. “Payments is the last piece of major infrastructure that has not moved,” says Ready.

Mobile commerce–the growth of it, specifically–is the other trend on everyone’s tongues these days. With one in five ecommerce transactions taking place on a mobile device, the opportunity to capture inevitable growth in this space is huge. Today, Braintree processes nearly $1 billion in mobile volume annually.

Why is this so important? According to Ready, his company is trying to build something that would transform the mobile payments ecosystem. “Braintree’s goal is to build a payment platform that developers can easily build on top of, similar to what iOS did for mobile apps,” Ready says. “In payments today, there is still a confusing backend. We are building the tools that will allow developers to innovate on top of our payment platform.”

In which I poke fun at my inadequacies in the kitchen and idolize my mother

04/19/2012Amina Elahi

“Amina, yanh ao!”

What is wrong with this woman? She wants me to go over there?

“Jaldi se!”

Quickly? Okay, okay. Ten seconds to rinse my hands, 20 to the family room and…five full minutes to hear what she has to say? No, this is impossible.

As I’m standing there, trying to figure out how to stir my frying onions in the kitchen before inevitably receiving instructions from my mother in the family room, the fragrant cloud enveloping me turns suddenly bitter. I look down. What was a golden glowing nest a moment ago is now a charred tangle of slop.

Ruined. Again.