As a Philadelphia based company, LTLprints is thrilled when other startups in our area have success. This past Friday, DuckDuckGo.com, a new company focused on making it easier to find the stuff you are searching for online, was featured on TechCrunch. TechCrunch, for those of you who don’t live in our startup tech world, is a technology behemoth blog with millions of readers and companies mentioned there usually get a massive spike in traffic, affectionately known as “being TechCrunched.”

I first met Gabriel Weinberg, the founder of DuckDuckGo, at BarCampPhilly a few weeks ago (we made LTLprints for bcp08). I was also able to catch his fishbowl presentation at Philadelphia’s FounderFactory (we printed the name badges and signs for FF08).

Kudos also to Gabriel for diving into the mob over at TechCrunch. I’ve found that the people who sit on the sidelines love to throw darts and they have little understanding of the difficulty that goes into bringing a company from the whiteboard to fruition. You can tell that he’s passionate about his project and that goes very far with us. I’d love to see more founders take such a transparent role in building their company.

So take a moment to watch this video, then follow Gabriel’s twitter stream @yegg and @duckduckgo. Then come back and leave us a comment on what you think about DuckDuckGo and on Gabriel’s Philly startup passion.

Rock on Philly - something good is brewing here.

Make sure you’re catching all the Larger Than Life action by following us on twitter! @LTLprints, @schoenrock, @cpeLTLprints

Tags: BarCampPhilly, cpeLTLprints, Duck Duck Go, DuckDuckGo.com, Founder Factory, FounderFactory, Gabriel Weinberg, Kendall Schoenrock, Larger than Life, Larger Than Life Prints, LTL Prints, LTLprints, Philadelphia, Philly, Schoenrock, Tech Crunch, TechCrunch, yegg

Lately I have been playing around with a cool service called ‘Monetate’. Monetate provides effective, dynamic and ‘ optimized for each consumer’ promotion & communication solutions on e-commerce websites as ’software as a service’. What does that mean? Well, based on who your customer is, where she is located, whether she is familiar with the site and whether she has ordered before (+ a lot more) you can provide dynamic and very specific communication. Doesn’t it feel good to have the site greet you with a warm “welcome back’ and help you find what you are looking for. BIG THANKS from us at LTlprints to the founder and CEO David Brussin for providing this excellent service to LTLprints.com.

Also: With its innovative solution monetate brings the vision of a persona specific persuasion architecture to fruition. Persuasion architecture has been described by the best selling authors Jeffrey and Brian Eisenberg (founders of FutureNowInc) in their books ‘Call to Action‘ and “Waiting for your cat to bark’. I recommend everyone who is an online marketer and who deals with website copy writing, persuasion architecture and website conversion to subscribe to their inspiring blog. Being a regular reader I gained a lot of insights, ideas and a critical view on our website communication at LTLprints.com.                   

Tags: Brian Eisenberg, call to action, Carsten Petzold, David Brussin, Dynamic Website Communication, E-Commerce, Future Now Inc, Jeffrey Eisenberg, Larger Than Life Prints, LTLprints, Monetate, Persuasion Architecture, Waiting for Your Cat to Bark, Website Conversion

I have been approached by customers and friends questioning the name of the company. In particular some mentioned they thought LTLprints should be read as ¿little prints¿. Well, we say ¿el ¿ tee ¿ el¿ and it clearly stands for Larger Than Life since ‘large’ can be life size or even larger. For instance I am 6¿ 5¿¿ tall and my cutout wouldn¿t even fill the largest print (7¿) entirely.

That said the comment about ¿little¿ really made me think. LTLprints allows you as a customer to place many small cutouts on one large print. Cutouts are parts of pictures being ‘cut out’ from their original background. As long as those cutouts don’t overlap you virtually can place an unlimited number of cutouts on one print. So with this functionality LTLprints provides in all actuality the opportunity to print ¿little¿. A whole bunch of ‘little’ combines to become something ‘Larger Than Life’.

Now your creativity comes into play. Possibilities for ¿LTL = little prints¿ forming ¿LTL = Larger Than Life Prints¿ are endless. Create as many cutouts¿ these ¿ and combine them on one canvas! Here a few ideas:

- Birds Flying

- Butterflies

- Balls jumping around

- All your friends at once

- Save The Day cards

- Name Tags for a larger Event

- You design it!

Check back after we¿ll have launched our catalog end of this month. Based on many interesting designs you will be able to customize and arrange your over-sized wall décor exactly as you want with as many cutouts as you want. Stay tuned!

Tags: Carsten Petzold, Cutouts, Larger than Life, Larger Than Life Prints, Little, LTL, LTLprints, Many Desings

This time last week Carsten and I packed up and headed west. We were on a mission to woo angel investors into our company and we had a blast doing so. Here is a short video that summarizes just a few of the awesome events we were fortunate enough to experience in the middle of the country - Junction City, Kansas.

Tags: Angel, Angel investor, Carsten, Entrepreneur, Junction City, Kansas, Kendall, Larger than Life, Larger Than Life Prints, LTLprints, LTLprints.com, Petzold, Schoenrock, Venture capital

As Carsten mentions, LTLprints had the pleasure of attending IgnitePhilly, a series of speakers with five minutes each to talk about inspiring ideas. It’s truly a great idea - the room buzzed with creative and innovative minds. In my opinion, anytime you can get great people, innovation, and a few beers in the same room, it’s guaranteed to be a good time!

LTLprints was there in full force - we actually provided the prints for all the speakers at the IgnitePhilly event. I hope everyone got a chance to see how neat the material is - if you missed one of our handouts for “IgnitePhilly,” just contact Kendall or myself and we’ll be happy to mail you one. I dare you to test the material - take it off the wall, crumple it up, and put it back on a different wall, good as new. Go ahead, I dare you. Or you can watch Alex’s video!

Much credit is deserved to each of the speakers last night. My personal favorites included Pamela Zimmerman from Park(ing) Day Philadelphia. Pam, great idea and concept - it shows just how creative this city really is and I loved the pictures! Credit is also due to Stu Hankin and Will Robinson from IdeaBlob. My favorite quote of the night came from this presentation; “You shouldn’t be afraid of somebody stealing your idea. You should be afraid of no one ever seeing it.”

ArtSphere and MakePhilly rounded out my favorites (which by the way, I plan to attend the ArtBuggyDerby), but a round of applause goes out to each presenter. Hearing each of your presentations was an inspiration to wake up and get back to work this morning:)

Tags: ArtsBuggy Derby, ArtsSphere, Carsten Petzold, IdeaBlob, IgnitePhilly, Kendall Schoenrock, Larger than Life, Larger Than Life Prints, LTLprints, MakePhilly, Pamela Zimmerman, Park(ing) Day Philadelphia, Petzold, Prints, Schoenrock, Stu Hankin, Trisha Noel, Will Robinson

Alex Hillman, the rockstar co-founder at IndyHall just posted this video. Thanks for the video - we love it!!!

We want to bring you high quality material and we can’t brag enough about how durable our LTLprints actually are. Lucky for us we’ve got cool friends (who also love Viddler) to help us out on our mission of spreading the LTLprints.com word.

Thank you Alex. You rock.

Tags: Alex, Alex Hillman, IgnitePhilly, IndependentsHall, IndyHall, Larger Than Life Prints, LTL, LTLprints, LTLprints.com, Philadelphia, Viddler

Tags: Expo, Kendall, Kendall Schoenrock, Larger Than Life Prints, LTLprints, LTLprints.com, Video, Web 2.0, web2.0expo

We are seeking highly motivated Interns for work at our Center City Philadelphia office. We are currently accepting applications for multiple Fall business development and research Internships. The business development program offers hands-on deal making experience and the opportunity to gain knowledge working in an incubator space with multiple projects. Tasks may include creating databases, leveraging social networking sites (facebook, myspace, etc.), contacting group leaders, pitching, distributing press releases, compiling news clippings, research, among other tasks. Salary will depend on experience.

Requirements

• College student pursuing a degree in business, technology, communications, or a related field
• Candidate should express interest in technology and working for a startup company
• Minimum: 12 weeks, 10-20 hours per week
• Start Date: October 2008 or as soon as possible.
• Minimum GPA 3.0
• Web 2.0 knowledge a plus

Please submit all resumes and cover letters to jobs at ltlprints.com or to the address below.

LTLprints
Attention: Kendall Schoenrock
117 N. 15th Street
Suite 1402
Philadelphia, PA 19102

Tags: help wanted, Jobs, Kendall, Kendall Schoenrock, Larger than Life, Larger Than Life Prints, LTLprints, LTLprints.com, now hiring, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Jobs, Schoenrock

So, before you read on, let me warn you. I have never written a blog post before, or added to one. I’ve only read them. So with this post, I am giving up my blogging virginity. You’ve been warned.

Let’s get started then. My name is Trish Noel and I recently began with LTLprints.com as the PR Specialist. I’m very excited about working with this team - two great entrepreneurs, joining together to provide a pretty cool new product. (Read Kendall’s post for more info about these customizable, no hassle prints). I live in Philadelphia (and have for about two years now). In my free time? Let’s see. I run, kind of a lot I guess, at least enough for my friends to hassle me about. Oh, and I spend a lot of my time at Helium Comedy Club too . . . it’s a great time if you’ve never been or if you like to laugh.

Now I’m not THAT old - but apparently back in the day when I was young . . . they didn’t teach you about blogging in college:) Where I went to school (Susquehanna University, -06) we used Facebook and Myspace - but apparently there is a whole new world of social networking that I’ve been missing. Twitter - Viddler - Yammer. WOW. I mean, my mom had never heard of Twitter either - but then again, she still screams into the cell phone like it’s a megaphone and writes her emails in all capital letters.

So, as I begin to utilize all these fun new tools to keep in touch - I’m asking for some help. What blogs do I look to first? I’ve got the computer - the cell - where do I go first? I’d love to start following some reporters in the tech industry - anyone have any suggestions? Which blogs are writing about the hot new products? Because trust me - LTLprints will be there soon. They’re addicting - you see how easy it is to take your print off the wall, and put it elsewhere - and you are hooked. I hate dealing with posters, poster putty, nails/screws (trust me - I’m not good with tools). My Kenny Chesney concert print (my prized possession picture that i took from his 2007 concert tour - and yes, I love country music) is proudly displayed in my room. And if I need him to - he’ll go anywhere with me, easily (now i just need that response from the real Kenny Chesney and I’ll be set:)

So here I am, a newbie on the blogging front. I admit, it was pretty painless. And slightly addicting - I’m excited to hear from others and keep blogging myself. So any helpful suggestions - please pass my way! You can find me at Trisha at ltlprints.com or follow me on Twitter (is that the catchy way to say it?) @TrishaLTL.

Til next time,

Trish

Tags: Carsten Peltzold, Helium Comedy Club, Kendall Shoenrock, Kenny Chesney, Larger than Life, Larger Than Life Prints, LTLprints.com, LTLprints.net, Susquehanna University, Trisha Noel

I’ve written a few first posts and find that joining a conversation is often easier than starting one. So let’s unwrap the new toy and get right down to business.

My name is Kendall Schoenrock and I’m a co-founder of LTLprints.com - Larger Than Life prints. Carsten Petzold fills out the founding team and I’ll point you to our bio page to see his awesome credentials.

What do we do?

We make huge customizable prints, delivered to your door. Oversized cutouts of any image, picture, or person you choose. Printed on a self-adhesive cloth material that sticks to any flat surface without leaving a mark or residue. It’s the best way to decorate your world. Guaranteed.

Where are we?

We’re in Philly right next to LOVE park, but our prints can go anywhere and we like that. Speaking of love, we really enjoy what we’re doing. We’re excited to bring you an awesome product and we need your help. Our goal is to be accessible - for example, if you call our phone number (1-800-672-6741) you can say my name and talk to me. Please do so. We are building this company around you and we can’t do it without you. Also, if you’re in the area let us know and I’ll buy you a beer - no joke, I’m not kidding on that one. Tuesday night is TechKaraoke - good times.

When will the site launch?

We are shooting for late October or early November 2008. We’ll keep you posted. It’s going to be big. Larger than life, actually. Technically we have already launched a scaled down version at LTLprints.net. Check it out!

Why are we here?

We’re here because you deserve to have the freedom to decorate your world how you want it. Your prints should display only what you want them to, and should express your style or memories. Your business should be able to take their images with them to any expo or conference, sticking to any whiteboard or wall in sight. Moving and redecorating shouldn’t suck, especially when it comes to your decor. Our goal is to save you time and money and give you a totally unique product that you can brag to all of your friends about. Did I mention that we’re perfect for viral marketing? Hint Hint

How?

For now, check out our *temporary* site at LTLprints.net - upload a picture, answer a few quick customizable questions and submit. Give us a few days and we’ll ship your custom print right to your door. Peel it off and apply it to your wall. You’ll be like a little kid again unwrapping that perfect birthday gift. And if you’re not happy with your first placement - move it. It won’t tear, leave a mark, or give you any trouble. I promise.

So that’s about it for my first intro post. How’d I do? Leave me a comment and lets get the conversation started off on the right foot.

Cheers,
Kendall Schoenrock
co-founder, LTLprints.com
kendall at ltlprints.com
800-672-6741

Follow me on Twitter. @schoenrock

Tags: Carsten Petzold, Kendall Schoenrock, Larger Than Life Prints, LTLprints.com, LTLprints.net, Petzold, Schoenrock, TechKaroke, twitter