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Eight startup companies from around the world are in Syracuse working to get their ventures off the ground. They were chosen from more than 300 companies to be a part of the first StartFast Venture Accelerator Program in Central New York. This week, our Katie Gibas introduces us to a couple of sports enthusiast entrepreneurs who are combining their passion for athletics with their passion for advertising.

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SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Jordan Lester and Michael Triche played sports together in high school at Jamesville DeWitt. They both went on to play college athletics. But they say when they would go on the internet and see pictures of their sports' role models, there was something missing.

"With the LeBron James example, if I see a picture of him, I want to know who's sponsoring him. I want to know what he's wearing. I want to know where he got those jeans from, where he got those shoes from, where can I get a Miami Heat Jersey. When is the next game going to be on," said Michael Triche, the Streamspec CTO & Co-founder.

That's how the idea for their company Streamspec.com was born. They are able to allow users to scroll over a picture and find out more information relevant to the photo.

"We're transforming the static image on a webpage to an interactive and engaging experience for web users," said Jordan Lester, the Streamspec CEO and co-founder.

Triche added, "Once they hover over the image, they'll see the ad. They can interact with it. They can click on it to go to the page or they can see and watch the video that pops up. Or they can scroll off and not see it again."

Lester and Triche say it's also an improved form of advertising.

"Nobody basically looks at the ads on the top and side of the page. So what if we could make ads more relevant to the user by linking them to images because everybody sees an image on a webpage. And we're also allowing websites to monetize the static images on their webpages," said Lester.

With billions of images online, Triche and Lester say the possibilities are endless.

For more information, visit streamspec.com.

Eight startup companies from around the world are in Syracuse working to get their ventures off the ground. They were chosen out of more than 300 companies to be a part of the first StartFast Venture Accelerator Program in Central New York. This week, our Katie Gibas introduces us an entrepreneur that's making it easier for businesses and customers to build better relationships.

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SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- When Greg Hertzke went to break out his resume recently, he found it just didn't tell his story.

"It's 2012. And I'm basically trying to present myself like I did in the era of the type writer," said Greg Hertzke, the Canvita CEO & Co-Founder.

That's how Canvita.com was started. To use all that the Internet has to offer to create a better way to introduce yourself to potential employers and clients.

"We're trying to take the emphasis off of my list of job titles and my list of bullet points. Put the emphasis on the qualities that make me unique, like personality, ambition, creativity. Those kind of things just stay hidden in the list of job titles. We want to also take into account who you are outside of work, so it shows the whole picture, the whole you," said Hertzke.

Canvita will bring all your websites, like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Flicker into one place.
It also allows you to post video, photos and creative writing samples.

"It easily brings all your social presence into one spot. So if I'm making a call to a client, they can really get to know me from where I am around the web in one easy access, instead of them just Googling me and trying to search all over and find out who they'd be working with. We're really solving a connection issue. That the blind intro is really tough for a number of different areas," said Hertzke.

And Canvita's first customer: all the teams at the StartFast Venture Accelerator program.

Eight startup companies from around the world are in Syracuse working to get their ventures off the ground. They were chosen out of more than 300 companies to be a part of the first StartFast Venture Accelerator Program in Central New York. This week, our Katie Gibas introduces us a couple of entrepreneurs making it easier and cheaper to eat out.

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If you go looking for restaurants in Syracuse on a Monday afternoon, you may notice that many are closed. If they're open, they're usually pretty empty.

"Any time of the day, any time of the week, the pricing is pretty much fixed, despite the fact that demand fluctuates pretty drastically. There's a disconnect there, and there's a lot of money left on the table for both restaurants and consumers," said Paul Faguet, the BitePal founder.

That's where BitePal comes in. BitePal is a website and mobile app where restaurants can post discounts for certain days and times.

"Restaurants love it because it gives them all the control over the discount magnitude, the time period and days of the week, when those discounts are going to be redeemable, and the maximum number of deals that can be obtained by the user. Restaurants have full control over all these parameters and that really de-risks the whole solution for them," said Faguet.

So what makes BitePal different from Groupon or Living Social? First, they focus solely on restaurants. Second, customers don't have to pay for the discount. And third, it helps restaurants maintain positive cash flow.

"With Groupon, every customer that comes in makes the business hemorrhage cash pretty much and the business accepts that value proposition in hopes of receiving repeat visitors down the line. So that's a very vague non-measurable value proposition. With us, every customer is immediately profitable," said Faguet.

BitePal is established in both Ithaca and Syracuse. Some of the participating restaurants in Central New York are BC, The Mission, and Kitty Hoynes.

For more restaurant discounts, you can check out bitepal.com.

Eight startup companies from around the world are in Syracuse working to get their ventures off the ground. They were chosen out of more than 300 companies to be a part of the first StartFast Venture Accelerator Program in Central New York. Over the next several weeks, leading up to their demo day in August, we will introduce you to each of the companies. This week, our Katie Gibas introduces us a group of physical therapy students turned entrepreneurs using technology to provide better care for patients.

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Justin Lee and Mike Wehrhahn are physical therapy students, and during their clinics, they noticed patients weren't complying with their home exercise plans, and in turn, not getting better.

"The frustration, maybe it was more confusion than frustration. We felt that why are my patients not doing it. Is it my lack of experience? Is it something that's inherently wrong with me a as therapist? And as we kept gaining more experience on multiple affiliations, we came to realize this was a much bigger problem than us," said Mike Wehrhahn, the RevoPT Chief Operating Officer and Founder.

That's why they started RevoPT, a mobile app that allows physical therapists to take video of themselves demonstrating and explaining how to do the exercise correctly. They then drag the clips into a patient's library that can be accessed with a username and password on any device with the app.

"It also reminds patients when to do their exercises and asks patients how they feel after they do the exercises. So it's able to track compliance and track progress of how they feel," said Justin Lee, RevoPT CEO and Founder.

Lee and Wehrhahn say making sure patients are able to do the exercises correctly at home is the only way they will recover.

"The patient doing their part is crucial to rehabilitation. I could be the best physical therapist and treat you in the clinic, but if you're not doing your part and your not doing your exercises at home, outside the clinic, then it's really going to delay the progress," said Lee.

Wehrhahn added, "These patients aren't getting better, and more than that, it's sucking money out of our health care system, in terms of patients requiring follow up MRIs, injections, surgeries that maybe they didn't need because physical therapy is a valuable thing, and if patients comply with their physical therapy, they'd definitely be able to get better."

After just launching a few weeks ago, the RevoPT app is already being used by 15 clinics and gyms in Central New York.

Right now, the app is only available on Android, but an iPhone app will be out in the near future.

www.MyRevoPT.com

Eight startup companies from around the world are in Syracuse working to get their ventures off the ground. They were chosen out of more than 300 companies to be a part of the first StartFast Venture Accelerator Program in Central New York. Over the next several weeks leading up to their demo day in August, we will introduce you to each of the companies. This week, our Katie Gibas introduces us to a photographer turned entrepreneur who's using his skills to making professional photo sharing easier.

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SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Timothy Beckford is a professional photographer, but he realized he wasn't able to share photos with clients the way he wanted.

"There was no way for my clients to use the iPad, which is pretty awesome, to purchase their photos. It should be pretty simple to buy your photos from your photographer or share them to Facebook or share them to Twitter. But it was really difficult to do with the existing tools," said Timothy Beckford, the PadProof CEO and co-founder.

That's why two years ago, Beckford started PadProof, an iPad app that allows people to buy and share photos from their professional photographer.

"The experience online with a computer and a mouse, it's just not as enjoyable as doing it on the iPad. It's not touch based. So things can be faster and easier. So we feel like this is a major innovation. It's the first improvement of its kind in the proofing and sharing space in about ten years," said Beckford.

PadProof now has 200 professional photographers in six or seven countries using the service.

"We had the proofs before. The 4 x 6 proofs. This is like a virtual 8 x 10 proof. So you're seeing a huge high res image of exactly your moment and you're about to make a better decision about sharing it. From the photographer perspective, you work really hard to make sure your clients are getting the best quality images. You work really hard to get that shot. And now you're presenting it to them in a way that is the best presentation of all that hard work," said Beckford.

Right now, PadProof is working on implementing facial detection technology to find photos of you and loved ones amid the thousands of pictures from an event.