The latest member of the New Founders Program is a non-profit organization, One By One. Founded by Katya Matanovic and Heidi Breeze-Harris, One By One’s mission is to end obstetric fistula, a childbearing injury that is affecting more than two million women around the world, particular those in poor communities. In most cases of untreated fistula, the children will die and the women are left with frequent ulcerations and infections – and they are often abandoned by family and ostracized by their community. It is an injury that is preventable and treatable (the UN Population Fund estimates the cost to be $300 per case), but it has been relatively neglected.

One By One strives to end fistula by increasing public awareness and raising public financial support for direct grants to support fistula prevention and treatment. They also have a modest goal to inpire people that, with small steps and grassroot works, we can make a difference in global public health issues.

Here at Harvest, we are thrilled to be able to contribute to such an organization, and we are honored to present to our community One By One’s inspiring story. One By One’s executive director, Heidi Breeze-Harris, has graciously given us the time in answering these questions, and we hope that you enjoy reading the interview as much as we have.

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This month Harvest New Founders Program brings you RedPost, a tech company that designs and builds digital signs that serve as a new and interesting way of display ads in public spaces. Eric Kanagy started his company in Goshen, Indiana earlier this year, and he is also preparing a line of digital displays for personal use.

Using open-source standards and a custom designed and manufactured case, RedPost plans to bring digital displays to lower-revenue colleges, hotel chains, and cafes. This is what Eric says about RedPost,

“We believe in constant innovation, good design, and great customer service. We also believe that we will change the way people think about communicating their location-based information.”

In this interview, Eric shares with us his story of starting RedPost, marketing the products, love and worries of owning your own business, and his tools of trade.

RedPost Kit, a do-it-yourself digital picture frame.

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This month Harvest chats with David Anderson of Green Options, a company with
a mission to help all of us find “practical, knowledge that allows [us] to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle without breaking [our] budget or seriously sacrificing comfort and convenience.”

David shares with us his insights in starting Green Options, his essential tools in
running the business, and about running a “virtual workspace”, where his employees and
contractors work from all over the country.

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“Big, small, blonde, brunette, Mac, PC, straight or curly,” Salon Geeks work with all types of salons and spas, providing them with technology, marketing and retail consulting. They are also Harvest users and this month’s new founders.

We had the chance to chat with Anthony Angell, who stumbled upon the idea while manning the front desk at a friend’s salon; and Tiago Soromenho, who joined Salon Geeks shortly after seeing and being impressed by Anthony’s interaction with a group of salon owners at a local Apple Store.

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This month’s new founders come to us from Hamburg, Germany. Founded by 3 designers, precious provides design services to an array of clients: from the German Department for Foreign Affairs to music software makers, Native Instruments.

Aside from running the design studio, the co-founders also find time to operate a record label, 2nd rec.

We caught up with precious founder Christophe Stoll and chat about percious’s formation, music software interface design, and dealing with multiple businesses.

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This month’s New Founders participant hails from the San Francisco Bay area of California. Citizen Agency, formed by Tara Hunt, Chris Messina and Ben Metcalfe, offer their roster of clients guidance and experience in leading communities and building products as part of a larger marketing strategy. How does a company that’s barely out of the gates drum up more demand for their services than they have capacity for? Allow Tara and Chris to walk us through the finer points behind Citizen Agency, what it’s like to go it alone together as a small business, what a community mark is, and why they think it’s important.

The Citizen Agency team from left to right: Chris Messina, Ben Metcalfe, and Tara Hunt. Photo by Scott Beale

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Company: Hyperprism
Location: San Francisco + New York City, U.S.
Industry: Creative services

What does Hyperprism do? Tell us about the services your company offers.

We are a creative studio that specializes in merging technology with visual design. We try to focus on getting the most creative ideas across while also being fearless in pushing the medium. Our work is driven by a wide range of tools, such as 3d, flash, motion graphics, film, and uber code hax which help us create functional, intuitive experiences, be it for the web, mobile apps, kiosks, or whatever new medium we might have the opportunity to experiment with.

What inspired you to start the company and go into business for yourself?
We’ve talked about having our own shop for a while now, but finally decided to go forward with it one day after realizing that this was as best a time as there was ever going to be. After working for other people for so many years, observing how they run business, and making our own connections in the industry, we found that there was still a lot of room for new creative ideas and execution in a very crowded pond. Of course, there is also a fulfillment to be had from knowing that you are ultimately working for yourself, versus only acting as an agent for someone else.

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The Harvest team is proud to annouce the Harvest New Founders Program! Each month, the Harvest team will feature one new company that deserves the attention for striking out on their own and award them with a free 1 year Harvest subscription for their time tracking and reporting needs. Here’s a little info on how it works:

Starting a company is hard enough. You have to juggle business development, marketing, office logistics, billing, etc. on top of delivering all that client work. To help companies get on their feet, The Harvest New Founders Program is giving away one year’s subscription of Harvest time tracking service to a new company each month. The goal is to help new companies worry less about logistics and focus more on the important things, such as building a sustainable business.

To learn more about the program or to apply, please check out the New Founders Program section.

After hosting our second Walkabout NYC, an open house for technology companies, just over a week ago, I wanted to share with you why we here at Harvest organize this city-wide event. Harvest has always supported the entrepreneurial spirit (like with our New Founders Program). The goal of Walkabout NYC is simple: to create a connection between the tech companies and the community that surrounds, inspires, and supports them.

Danny Wen and Shawn Liu, the co-founders here at Harvest, have always enjoyed taking tours of creative and entrepreneurial workspaces. No matter what size, they found the spaces always fostered inspirational energy. From forming the company in a tiny shared office to Harvest’s current home in a Soho loft, Danny and Shawn recognize how instrumental those behind-the-scenes experiences were along the way.
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We recently re-launched the Harvest blog to align its design with Harvest site’s new look. Under the hood, we moved the entire blog over from Typo (a Ruby on Rails blog engine which has seen better days) to the brand new WordPress 2.5 engine. This means you can now comment on our posts to let us know what you think about the tidbits we bring you here on the Harvest blog.

You can expect more small business stories, productivity tips, behind-the-scenes scoop, and general Harvest announcements. Sign up for our feed via RSS or subscribe to these updates by e-mail on the right-side of the screen.

Thanks and stay tuned for exciting announcements in the coming weeks.