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Five-year-old startup Aviary made headlines Monday after Twitter unleashed its new photo filters and effects. Aviary provides the mobile-software development kit that Twitter uses to add photo-editing tools to its Android and iPhone apps.

Just minutes before Aviary CEO Avi Muchnick left his New York City office Monday night to celebrate (see photo of him and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey below), he gave Mashable insight into the news, which coincidentally came on the heels of Instagram introducing new tools, and disabling support for Twitter cards.

“We’ve been working with Twitter for a few months,” says Muchnick, who wouldn’t elaborate on whether recent Instagram developments influenced the timing of Twitter‘s unveiling. “We’ve kept things moving as it was always supposed to be moving.”

When asked whether Instagram swayed Twitter’s timing, a Twitter spokesperson told us, “No, we’ve been working with Aviary for months to introduce ways to edit and refine your photos, right from Twitter.”

Aviary, whose staff has grown to 21 employees since 2007, prepared for Monday’s news by tweaking a statistic on its website, updating the number of photos edited in Aviary to 2 billion.

Aviary also has 25 million active monthly users, and partners with 2,500 applications such as Flickr, Yahoo Mail, Imgur, Twitpic, Shopify, RockMelt and MailChimp.

“Our mission is to democratize creativity, so everyone can make photos look great,” Muchnick says. “For Twitter, we enhance the photos people tweet.”

Aviary started as a web-based tool before launching its photo-effects API last May, and then its mobile-software development kit last September. Those developments have helped Aviary rope in thousands of partners, which now include Twitter.

Aviary also released a Facebook app in January; it allows users to edit Facebook photos.

Meanwhile on Monday night, this happened:

Mashable toured Aviary’s NYC office earlier this year. Here’s a look back at the startup’s home, where “tiny fake birds peek out from fake shrubbery and perch on top of pipes.”

Image via screenshot from Twitter’s video announcement

Topics: apps-and-software, Apps and Software, Aviary, Hot Story, instagram, mobile, photography, Social Media, Startups, Tech, Twitter

The Spark of Genius Series is made possible by MicrosoftBizSpark. Each post highlights a unique feature of a startup. If you’d like your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: mor.sl

Quick Pitch: mor.sl features curated recipes from the top food bloggers and publishers around.

Genius Idea: Tell mor.sl what you like and how much time you have, and it will recommend the recipes that work best for you.

Let’s be honest—for many of us, cooking seems like more trouble than it’s worth. Why spend hours grocery shopping and slaving away in the kitchen when your favorite Chinese restaurant can deliver Kung Pao chicken to your door in less that 45 minutes?

According to mor.sl, a unique and personalized recipe site, cooking is less of a drag than you think.

It’s common knowledge that preparing food at home is more nutritious and less costly than dining out every night. The trick to non-stressful cooking is having a plan. This is where mor.sl comes in.

Tell mor.sl about your skill-level, tastes and allergies and it provides you with curated recipes that make sense for you. You can sort through options by prep time, type of cuisine or even main ingredient, so you can cook with what you have on-hand instead of shlepping to the store. Mor.sl also asks whether you self-identify as a carnivore or herbivore—vegan, pescetarian, no red meat—to better select dishes that you’re sure to enjoy.

The site stresses that cooking and eating requires us to utilize all five senses, making it a truly human experience. Preparing food for others also allows us to share and connect in a way that’s not possible over a restaurant bread basket.

Mor.sl currently focuses on recipes only, but intends to expand to provide grocery shopping and meal planning tips.

Would you use mor.sl too cook your next meal? Let us know in the comments.

Image courtesy of iStock, luchezar

Series presented by Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible byMicrosoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives software startups three-year access to Microsoft software development tools, marketing visibility to help promote their business and a connection to the BizSpark ecosystem, giving them access to investors, advisors and mentors. There is no cost to join, so if your startup is privately owned, less than three years old and generates less than U.S. $1M in annual revenue, sign up today.

This past weekend, I had the privilege to attend and keynote the World Domination Summit in Portland, Oregon. I spoke to a crowd of 1000 people that Chris Guillebeau and J.D. Roth had assembled for their event. Both gentlemen have a much larger overall following, but what I was witnessing, it felt, was Kevin Kelly’s famous 1000 true fans in living color.

1000 True Fans

This event is a must-attend event, if you are someone seeking to build a business of your own, especially if you’re seeking an uncompromising solopreneur lifestyle. Guillebeau and Roth attract all kinds of people who seek to live life on their terms and build business that meets their needs, interests, and criteria. And the attendees were every bit as powerful as the folks on stage. Take, for instance, the fact that this is the first conference that C.C. Chapman has paid to attend in years. I feel the same way. Jacq and I will go next year, no matter what.

The speakers reflected this, too. Jacqueline and I had a chance to talk with one of Jacq’s favorites, Danielle LaPorte, who certainly fits right into this tribe’s mindset.

It was just a very well curated, well-produced, well-attended, and passion-filled event. I’m writing this post solely to encourage you to get on the mailing list at the event’s website, so you might have a chance to get a ticket for next year. They sold out in minutes for the 2012 show.

Watching Magic

Oh, and one more thing. Some anonymous contributor (an attendee from the previous year) helped add to the profits that the event made. But Chris and J.D. didn’t bank these profits (I would have!). They put $100,000 into 1000 envelopes and handed everyone in the crowd who paid to attend $100 as an investment in them. Why? Because Chris is the author of the freakishly bestselling The $100 Startup (affiliate link), and of course, this is the perfect way to symbolize his (and J.D.’s) commitment to this tribe.

Watching 1000 people get an envelope with $100 with which to start a new dream was a touching and powerful gesture. I was truly blown away. Sure, $100 isn’t much, but have you ever attended a conference where that’s happened? Not me. And it won’t ever happen at mine, so to me, it was totally beautiful.

Hats off to Chris and JD and the over 80 volunteers and others who helped put together an amazing event. Put this on your calendar. It’s an experience you won’t soon forget.

The Spark of Genius Series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Each post highlights a unique feature of a startup. If you’d like your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Signature

Quick Pitch: iPhone app connects customers with sales associates 24/7.

Genius Idea: Leveraging mobile to provide an unprecedented level of customer service.

Though online shopping has undergone multiple transformations over the past two decades, the same can not be said for brick-and-mortar retail. Shoppers are still brought in using approximately the same marketing tactics (think direct mail catalogs, window displays, seasonal sales). Product is still refreshed at the same rates and customers still line up and check out, with few exceptions, at cash registers.

Signature, a mobile app company that bills itself as the “ultimate personal shopping assistant,” is looking to reengineer the way consumers shop in stores — namely, the stores of upscale clothing retailers. The San Francisco-based startup has partnered with Neiman Marcus to develop a custom iPhone app to better facilitate communications between stores and customers.

The app, called NM Service, is currently being piloted at four Neiman Marcus locations: San Francisco, Calif.; Palo Alto, Calif.; Austin, Texas; and Neiman Marcus’s flagship store in Dallas, Texas.

It has two interfaces: one for shoppers and one for sales associates. Shoppers are able to able to browse event schedules, new arrivals and promotions. As they browse, they can favorite products and even arrange for them to be placed in a dressing room ahead of arrival, Signature CEO David Hegarty tells Mashable. They can also make appointments and leave messages for associates, and see which ones are on the floor. A built-in QR code reader lets them scan signage for trend and product information displayed in-store.

Sales associates’ version of the app has tools designed to help them provide better service. They can view a shoppers’ online and in-store purchase history, helping them better understand their preferences and suggest items that might compliment previous purchases. They can also see which products a customer has favorited. They will be notified when a preferred customer arrives in-store, accompanied by a Facebook photograph.

All sales associates have been provided with iPhones and app training, Ginger Reeder, VP of corporate communications at Neiman Marcus, tells Mashable. Customers can learn about the app by picking up booklet instructions in kiosks around the store, and by speaking to their regular sales associates.

Hegarty says that future iterations of the app will be more personalized. Users will receive notifications about new merchandise based on their previous purchase history, and have the option to list not just favorite products but also favorite designers.

Beyond the custom app he and his team have developed for Neiman Marcus, Signature also has a general platform app which works with two Seven for all Mankind locations: one at Fashion Island in Newport Beach, Calif., and another in the Flatiron district of New York City. A few more retail partners will be onboarded later this year, and an Android version of the app should also arrive in time for the holidays, he says.

Signature currently has eight employees and has raised $1.1 million in angel funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Triangle Peak Partners, Amicus Capital, Don Hutchison and Dave Pell.

Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Bombfell

Quick Pitch: Bombfell sends fashion-challenged gents curated clothing suggestions each month.

Genius Idea: Real live stylists use algorithms and personal opinion (like what color works best with your skin tone) to ensure the best possible fit and style matches for users.

Calling all gentlemen. Does your wardrobe need an upgrade? The free-to-try website Bombfell wants to turn you into the hottest-looking guy you can be, $69 at a time.

The name is short for “Bombfellow”, which is the male equivalent of a bombshell, according to the company. Those who wish to reach Bombfell status but lack the time and dedication need only create an account—a team of stylists will do the rest.

The concept for Bombfell came about when friends and former Harvard roomates Bernie Yoo and Jason Kim realized they were relying heavily on outdated wardrobes, and lacked the time and energy to hit the mall.

With the help of Sarah Lee, a fashion-minded stylist, Bombfell was born.

After users create an account, supposedly, the team of stylists makes sure they know everything they need to make you look as good as possible. Each month, users are presented with one curated piece of clothing. If it’s a winner, the item can be purchased for a flat $69.

“Users provide a lot of information about themselves – body shape, skin tone, favorite brands, style preferences and much more,” co-founder Bernie Yoo tells Mashable. “We employ an algorithm on the back-end that suggests clothing recommendations to the stylist.”

A human expert still has control, however. Each item is initially selected through an algorithm; the final decision goes to a stylist. If they don’t think a shirt will look absolutely rad on you, the company says it will be vetoed, algorithm be damned.

“We’re building an experience from the ground up that fully takes advantage of being an online service and leverages data to create a personalized, scalable and affordable service that anyone can enjoy,” says Yoo.

Bombfell carries a number of well-known brands, including Ben Sherman and French Connection.

Would you sign up for Bombfell? Let us know in the comments.

Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

Job number one as an entrepreneur is landing the first 10 or so core employees. You need to have a clear idea of the kind of talent you want to attract, because this core group sets up your employee brand and your startup’s DNA. As a startup, you’re unproven. You need to have a clear sense of the different types of people you need in the company and how to unify them under a common culture with its own customs, beliefs, and procedures. You also need to be a leader who’s easy to follow, with a clear mission and a strong sense of the results you want to achieve. Your employee brand is the kind of people who represent your company’s values, work style, and personality.

Thinking in terms of employer brand and employee brand can be a powerful strategy for creating a culture that champions its people and helps them flourish. Having a strong internal brand can help grow your business, because you’re more likely to attract the best talent and everyone will feel challenged.

Creating A Growth Culture

You’re not trying to run a social club. Your goal is to win in the market. But to do that you need to create a special culture.

Make sure that you hire people who have skills, resources, and knowledge that you don’t have. Even the most well-rounded entrepreneur isn’t good at everything. You’ve got to figure out your shortcomings and fill the gaps with team members who have those aptitudes. Otherwise, it is unlikely that you’ll be around after the start-up phase. Make sure that you have people who can help you land business and bring in revenue–critical tasks in the start-up phase.

You need to create a workplace with the right amount of challenge and expectations, the right amount of freedom and control. You want everyone to be a growth agent empowered to do her job and help grow the business.

Studies show that the worst work environments are those in which people have little say over their day and always have to follow someone else’s orders. They feel like a cog in a slow-moving corporate machine and consequently don’t do as well as those who work in companies where people have more freedom to decide how to handle projects and assignments. According to these studies, money isn’t the key driver for most people. It’s working in an environment where people have the ability to grow and develop their potential.

Radical Creativity

How do you create a dynamic, innovative culture where it’s everyone’s job to come up with ideas and grow the business?

First, create a culture where it’s OK to fail. The most innovative people are the ones with the most ideas. Most of them are bad ideas that fail. Some companies are even rewarding risk-taking that fails with employee-recognition bonuses and trophies, or setting aside time in the week for new idea generation.

Second, set up the offices and common areas so that there is lots of mingling in the workplace. Contrary to the image most people have of the solitary inventor or entrepreneur, it turns out that most breakout ideas don’t come from loners. Innovative ideas aren’t solitary things. Most successful ideas come from people interacting with each other in environments where ideas are discussed and shared.

That’s why there is a long history of simultaneous inventions. Transformational ideas like the electric battery, the telephone, and the radio were all made by several people who came up with the same idea at practically the same time. Most of them didn’t even know each other, but they were plugged into what was happening in their industry and influenced by similar ideas, what some researchers call the hive mind. That’s the kind of culture you want to create for your business, with all your people, not just the senior people, reaching for innovative ideas.

You want to create a company where people are dying to work because it’s not just work–it’s fun and things are happening. To win the war on talent, many Silicon Valley companies offer elevated perks like free gourmet lunches and on-site haircuts and dry cleaning. You can take your pet to work at some companies; game-maker Zynga will even pay for pet insurance. (The company is named after the CEO’s dog, after all.)

Resist the Copycat Syndrome

Groupthink is when everyone in a group starts thinking alike, and it’s alive and well in the business world. Most entrepreneurs generally resist group-think and the copycat syndrome, but they can creep in as your company expands. People in the same company share so many of the same influences and belong to so many of the same clubs and organizations that they can even start to dress alike.

Don’t try to copy the competition’s culture no matter how successful they are. You want to stay on top of what your competitors are doing to be competitive, but you need to create your own company customs and ways of staying in the lead. The best way to be a leadership brand is to harness the creativity and business thinking of every member of your diverse organization. That can only happen when you encourage and reward out-of-the-box thinking and new ideas for making the business more competitive.

The business world is dynamic, so you have to be strong with your external customers and with your internal customers–your employees. Don’t leave an opening for a new entrepreneur to gallop on the scene with something new and steal away your best talent. You want your company to be the one everyone is clamoring to join. To do that, you need to:

· Make everyone a corporate entrepreneur who is a growth agent for the company.

· Encourage innovation and ideas at every level, especially the frontlines.

· Create a culture with customs and rituals that are special to your company.

· Make sure all employees know their objectives and key results

· Be easy to follow as a leader.

Image: Flickr user dvidshub

What do The Beastie Boys, Katy Perry, and PayPal have in common? They all pivoted.

When the Beastie Boys formed in 1979, they were a hardcore punk band that dabbled in performance art, a fixture at clubs like CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City. Their first full-length album, Poly Wog Stew, with bombastic minute-and-a-half paroxysms like “Transit Cop,” “Jimi,” and “Holy Snappers,” owed as much to the Sex Pistols as it did Dadaism. Always on the prowl for the absurd, they started rapping in rehearsals, mainly as a joke. But when they tried it during performances something magical happened: Audiences liked it better than the punk.

So in Eric Ries’ parlance, The Beastie Boys performed a “zoom-in pivot,” turning a feature of their product into their main offering. In 1983, they recorded “Cooky Puss,” their first track that incorporated elements of hip-hop, using a prank call to Carvel Ice Cream as inspiration. It quickly became an underground hit in nightclubs, so they added a DJ and layered hip-hop into their sets, until they had mastered a sound all their own.

Three decades and 40 million records sold later, the group was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Although the late Adam Yauch (MCA), along with Mike Diamond (Mike D) and Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock) were and are prodigiously talented, it’s likely we never would have heard of the Beastie Boys if they hadn’t pivoted to hip-hop.

Now, pivoting is usually reserved for businesses that do a triple axel into a new business strategy, but Patrick Vlaskovits and Brant Cooper, authors of The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development and the forthcoming Lean Entrepreneur, say it can apply it to whole raft of disciplines. In fact, many Lean Startup methodologies–pivots, minimal viable products, product-market fit–can be used as an analysis tool for consumer-packaged goods, finance and investment, social entrepreneurship, art–anywhere there is innovation. Pivots and the like are as relevant to musicians and artists as they are for startups.

The speed of today’s well-funded startups is brutal.

But it does allow for change in direction. This series explores those destiny-altering decisions made by companies that have gone on to great success. Read more about their course corrections–and alternate endings–here.

But what’s the difference between a pivot and, say, an “iteration” or “reset”? For an apt analogy they say you should turn your radio dial. “If you’re twisting the dial to tune into a new station, going from 98.5 FM to 93.1 FM, then you’re pivoting,” they say. “If you’re trying to tune into a strong signal, and switching from 98.7 FM to 98.5 FM, then it’s an iteration. A reset is a ‘leap’ to a new business model, and that change is not based on real validation or learning.”

That last part is key. Pivoting has to be evolutionary, based on sifting through the appropriate data. It’s at the heart of the “fail fast” concept. The sooner you realize a hypothesis is wrong, the faster you can update and retest it. “It’s paramount to understand that a pivot isn’t simply a change in one element of the business model,” they add, “but rather a change precipitated by something the founder has learned and validated to be true or untrue about a hypothesis she has tested.”

This, of course, is exactly what Adam Yauch and his Beastie bros did. They market-tested punk and when customers gravitated to a specific feature of the product (hip-hop) they pivoted to that. And they aren’t the only ones. Pop music and artist development are clearly domains where artists can be viewed as startups trying to find product-market fit. Vlaskovitz and Cooper, who say they’re working with L.A.-based music producers on how to apply these principles to artist development, point to Katy Perry as an example. She began her career as Katy Hudson, a Christian gospel singer, releasing an album aimed specifically at specific audience, and the album didn’t make the charts.

What did she do? She underwent a “customer segment pivot,” repositioning herself to reach a different audience by altering multiple elements of her business model, including:

• Her marketing/look: Christian girl-next-door to sexy pop princess.
• Her product/subject matter: Christian worship themes to edgy, sexually suggestive songs.
• Segment: Teens who listen to Christian soft rock to mainstream teenagers.

It wasn’t a smooth road. Between her first album and second, she was dropped by two record labels. Nevertheless, she persisted (like any good entrepreneur) and went from her Christian-themed debut album praising Jesus to “One of the Boys,” which featured the hit “I Kissed a Girl,” as well as three other Top 40 singles. The album, which boasts some explicit lyrics and themes, went on to sell more than 5 million copies.

Vlaskovits and Cooper are even willing to stretch Lean Startup methodology to Picasso, who, they say, pivoted from work that was photo-realistic to cubism and the distortion of the human form. They also see clear connections between musicians/artists and technology startups. Both innovate in uncertainty and endure financiers: Musicians have record labels and startup entrepreneurs have VCs, with both historically playing the roles of arbiters of good ideas. And because of digital technology, it’s cheaper than ever to record and distribute music and launch a startup.

“Musicians can and do build Minimal Viable Products starring themselves,” they say. “This allows for faster and better market feedback on how to inform their ultimate vision for success.”

In other words, while the odds may be stacked against her, that guitarist croaking Adele’s “To Make You Feel My Love” on the subway platform could be the next PayPal, which, like Katy Perry, performed a customer segment pivot that also paid off.

Adam L. Penenberg is a journalism professor at NYU and a contributing writer to Fast Company. Follow him on Twitter: @penenberg.

Images: ReadySetRocket

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Doodle.ly

Quick Pitch: Doodle.ly is a creative social platform for doodlers. Hand-drawn masterpieces created on Doodle.ly can be shared to social networks.

Genius Idea: Doodle.ly artists can draw straight on the website or sketch using the Doodle.ly iPad app.

For Doodle.ly co-creators Evan Vogel and Darren Paul, the social platform they dreamed up and launched in July 2011 — is the place for innovation, creativity and inspiration on the web.

The latest user-submitted drawings include doodles of bright flowers, dinosaurs and detailed sketches paying homage to Beastie Boys Rapper MCA, who died last Friday. The current number of doodles on the site stands at 32,000 — and counting.

Doodle.ly is a web application and iPad app that lets users draw whatever they want and effortlessly share creations to the web. It takes under a minute for someone with a Twitter and Facebook to sign into Doodle.ly as a new user. That’s when the magic happens. There are different pen tools and colors, all free to use, so the boundaries are endless.

Once the drawing, sketch or scribble is complete, doodles are shared on Twitter or Facebook automatically. The Doodle.ly team is working on building untethered account log-ins — to stop forced sharing. But for now, the world gets to experience all doodles created on Doodle.ly.

Vogel and Paul say they see most of the doodles that come through. These startup guys have high standards for their “highly skilled” userbase.

“We want to see the next Radiohead album or Time magazine cover created by doodlers,” Vogel told Mashable.

An application update released on Tuesday is intended to make the social platform more interactive. New features include a “like button” on every doodle. Plus, a resulting “popular section” for trending images.

These social features were inspired by Instagram’s internal system of “likes” and comments for the app’s filtered square images. There’s instant gratification in “likes,” Paul says.

“This is really meant to be fun,” Paul says. “The new features we are launching are socialization features. What the ‘like’ button does is take the app to the next level. You can like the doodle either by clicking the ‘like’ button or by double tapping the doodle. This allows the cream to rise to the top.”

The social platform is meant to be playful and positive. The hand-drawn aspect of this medium is special, says the creators.

“We can see people around the world using this as a way to share a love note to a loved one, wish someone condolences or just to doodle a creative idea,” Paul says.

Marketing teams are taking advantage of Doodle.ly’s simple drawing interface and sharing aspects. NHL team, the New Jersey Devils, recently used Doodle.ly on Fan Appreciation Night as a crowd-sourcing device. Hockey fans were asked to sketch a team-inspired doodle to feature on 17,000 Rally Rags for the first home game of the playoffs. After 10,000 votes were cast, the fan-submitted doodle was announced.

The Doodle.ly team says the social platform of doodles is opening up new avenues of marketing and reaching consumers.

The team, however, says they are currently not focused on monetization or partnerships. For now, the team is busy beefing up its product and working on releasing its API. Projects they have seen come out of their privately released API include a tool for collaborative doodles and a screen saver app.

“We really want this to be a worldwide platform that is ubiquitous and can live out potential we believe it has,” Paul said.

Are you a fan of web-based doodling? Tell us in the comments if this is a social platform you would use.

Images courtesy of Doodle.ly

Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

Vancouver startup FlyingFlips wants to build a community of socially conscious graphic designers.

The ecommerce platform lets shoppers vote for their favorite sandal designs, which they’d like to see become available for retail. The most-popular options will be manufactured and the artists will receive a portion of the sale proceeds.

“We’re trying to build a really good social network of graphic designers,” FlyingFlips designer co-founder Trevor Broad told Mashable. “We call it open source flip flops.”

The site, which is hoping to receive funding from Kickstarter, says its flip flops are eco-friendly, made from 20% to 30% recycled materials, and lets you trade in used pairs.

Once designers have submitted designs to the FlyingFlips community, the startup encourages them to share their submissions with their social networks to vote.

For each purchase made, FlyingFlips donates one pair of flip flops to a person in need in the developing world, through Soles4Souls and Fundacion A. Jean Brugger.

The Kickstarter campaign, which runs until the end of May, will fund the first run of flip flops and the creation of the online store. The store will launch one week into June, right after the Kickstarter ends.

FlyingFlips hopes to make eight pairs available by June — the two pairs advertised as Kickstarter rewards, five pairs crowd sourced by designers and one blank pair. Though the team was initially split on creating blank flip flops, lacking a crowdsourced design, they ultimately decided more people could join the buy one give one movement, if they offered a blank slate option.

Would you buy a pair of FlyingFlips? Let us know if you would back this project.

Bonus: Crazy Kickstarter Projects

Gertrude Stein once famously said of Oakland, “There is no there there.” Nancy Pfund, of the VC firm DBL Investors, makes a case for how modern Oakland is proving Stein wrong.

UNITED STATES
OF INNOVATION

New Ideas, New Markets, New Insights

It used to be, if you were serious about starting a tech company, you went to Silicon Valley. But emerging entrepreneurial hubs around the country are giving startups new options. In this series, we talk to leading figures in those communities about what makes them tick.

CLICK HERE to see how innovation takes many forms

Most urban centers like to describe themselves as “a city of contrasts”–but few actually clinch that description like Oakland, California. A sleepy tidal town whose redwoods were logged to build nearby San Francisco, Oakland’s fortunes accelerated in the mid-1800s, first as a supply depot for the California Gold Rush and then as the western terminal of the Transcontinental Railroad. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the city’s port fed Oakland’s immigrant boom until brisk drug trafficking rendered Oakland a violent-crime center and, more recently, the nation’s unofficial headquarters of the Occupy movement.

Now for the “city of contrasts” part: despite persistent crime and its homely sister status to the more glittering cities on the Bay, Oakland boasts world-class sports teams, rich urban culture (music acts born here include Sly and the Family Stone and Tupac Shakur), all at a sweet discount to pricy San Franicsco.

Business prospects are surprisingly rosy in Oakland, too. Home to Kaiser Permanente, Wells Fargo, and Clorox, the city ranks consistently among America’s most sustainable cities and as a result lures green-energy startups galore. Startups thriving on the East Bay include streaming-music site Pandora (whose IPO was a roaring success, even in 2011), First Solar, Sungevity, and other green-energy, tech, and life-science plays. We talked with Nancy Pfund of DBL Investors, a local VC firm with five Oakland startups in its portfolio, including Pandora. Here, she shares five things you need to know about starting a business in Oakland.

Oakland is hella’ green.

Oakland offers unusually deep support for startups in green tech. DBL co-sponsors StartupOakland, an annual event hosted in a freshly renovated Art Deco landmark, the stunning Fox Theater. Stop Waste helps local environmentally friendly startups get funding and other support.

There’s obvious synergy to be found when your neighbors intuitively understand the green thing. Among Oakland’s companies is another DBL firm, BrightSource Energy, a solar thermal energy provider whose galloping growth recently hit a snag as it abruptly dropped its IPO plans. Other Oakland green-energy plays include Solar Millennium, biodiesel producer Sirona Fuels, and EarthSource Forest Products, a sustainable timber firm.

Pfund lists other Oakland players ready to support startups of any industry. Nonprofit Inner City Advisors offers small businesses guidance from business plan development to funding. One PacificCoast Bank is a community-development bank committed to funding Oakland-based ventures. And then, of course, you can always hop on B.A.R.T. and wow some San Francisco backers.

The City’s New Office of Economic Development is another theoretical resource, although remember: California has a famously catawampus state government, now underfunded to a record degree. Proceed with caution.

Oakland lets you rub shoulders with the world’s best engineering talent.

“UC Berkeley and CalTech are up the street from Oakland. It also isn’t very far from Stanford or UCSF in the city,” Pfund says. “Wtihin ten miles of Oakland you’ll find a lot of horsepower.”

Although a lot of recent grads flock to San Jose for tech or San Francisco for life sciences, many others stay put in the Oakland-Berkeley area. According to Pfund, Oakland is (slowly) materializing as a talent mecca.

It’s easier to get to places in San Francisco from Oakland than it is from San Francisco itself.

Oakland grew up as a transportation hub, with a bustling international airport and the nation’s fifth largest port. Its position east of San Francisco and proximity to Highway 880 are all advantages. But Oakland also kills with its frequent ferries and B.A.R.T. (cummuter train) hubs.

Pfund drops a much-cited point in Oakland’s favor: “It’s easier to get to most places in San Francisco from Oakland than it is from San Francisco itself,” she says. Not just attractive to reverse-commuters, Oakland makes sense for residents of Berkeley, Marin County, and the peninsula. Bedroom communities east of Oakland, like Piedmont and Danville, are booming with formerly fed-up commuters whose travel-times are eased by Oakland’s outstanding connectivity. “Look at Google and Facebook,” Pfund says. “They offer vans because people don’t want to live in the Valley, and they don’t want to drive and there’s no public transit. If your workers want a rich urban experience, Oakland is a great choice.”

One of DBL’s portfolio companies, Revolution Foods, makes healthy, affordable lunches for public schools. Oakland’s centrality helped them grow rapidly; today, they deliver 120,000 meals delivered daily. “Whole Foods’ distribution center is nearby, which is a great help,” Pfund adds. “It’s useful to be near a freeway to transport the meals to the schools.“ (Revolution Foods ranked among our 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World in Food in 2012.)

Now for the caveat: Oakland is a tougher sell to diehard Palo Altans and residents of San Jose. Those two original epicenters of the tech boom still attract workers who need to live and work right on top of the action. However, for more seasoned (and commute-weary) tech workers settled in areas near Oakland, locating your headquarters in Oakland may actually come as a relief to the talent.

“Affordable San Fran” isn’t an oxymoron.

The numbers don’t lie: residential real estate in San Francisco proper runs as high as $1,000 per square foot in premium spots. In Oakland prices top out at $500 to $700 per square foot. Office real estate prices follow suit–if anything, the comparison is even sweeter. Grubb & Ellis rates Oakland as the seventh best office market in the U.S. and No. 3 for industrial office space.

Buy a bike (but don’t get too attached to it).

Oakland’s manageably hilly landscape and warmer weather (it’s consistently 10 degrees hotter than San Francsico) make it “a biking mecca,” Pfund says. That said, this is a city known for sky-high crimes–No. 1 in violent crimes in California in 2011. Guard your property and person accordingly, particularly in the dicey West and East Oakland areas.

Still, if you keep your wits about you and invest in bulletproof locks, Oakland can indeed beguile. The city has some great restaurants that won’t break the bank like more famous establishments in San Francisco. “So many great restaurants in Oakland have spawned from chefs leaving Chez Panisse and others up in Berkeley,” Pfund say. Imagine savoring buttermilk fried chicken at Brown Sugar, the sun warming you up for a day of gentle biking, water views flashing from every hilltop: not too shabby a way to recharge.

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Image: Flickr user Jeff Rosen