Author: Michelle Rosenfeld

Editor’s Note: Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow.com, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups and their founders, plus other local technology happenings. The Ground Floor, Monday’s office space for young companies in Rosslyn, is now open. The Metro-accessible space features a 5,000-square-foot common area that includes a kitchen, lounge area, collaborative meeting spaces, and a stage for formal presentations.

When Arlington real estate agent Kari Klaus decided to renovate her home to make it more energy efficient, she stumbled upon a problem.

Klaus, whose background is in sustainable development, realized that the traditional real estate property listing system doesn’t showcase or market environmentally friendly features for homes, making her house appear similar to others that aren’t energy efficient.

From working in the real estate business, she knew that home buyers care about how eco-friendly their future home will be.

“Wouldn’t you want to know if the home you are thinking of buying has superior systems, a tight building envelope (sealed to prevent air leaks) with solar panels and will save you potentially hundreds of dollars each and every month?” Klaus said.

But there was no understandable and reliable way to rank, search and view energy efficient homes, Klaus said.

That’s where VivaGreenHomes.com comes in.

“VivaGreenHomes.com shows you that these options exist and explains their importance to you as a home buyer,” Klaus said. “If a home’s environmental or health value has not won you over, then the potential to save you a lot of money will.”

She said her company changes the game because other real estate listing services aggregate home listings without any verification procedures. VivaGreenHomes.com uses claim verification methods, including a “Home Energy Rating System” score, an industry standard for eco-friendly homes.

A beta version of the site launched in October 2014. Feedback received from industry leaders helped to shape the website before its full launch in May. Just two months after launching the full version, the website has nearly 4,500 active listings, Klaus said.

In the next six months, VivaGreenHomes.com plans to add more user tools, consumer information and other features. Amid those changes, Klaus hopes the number of listings on the site will reach 20,000 in the next year.

Arlington provides all the resources the company needs to continue to grow, she said.

“It’s been incredible to be around so many professionals that work in the sustainability and eco-homes industry,” Klaus said. “It has been a great resource for the company’s growth, including the recruitment of some of our newest team members who live in the D.C. area.”

VivaGreenHomes.com is currently affiliated with 1776 Crystal City, Mentor Capital Network’s Bethesda Green Cohort and Cleantech Open Southeast.

Editor’s Note: Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow.com, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups and their founders, plus other local technology happenings. The Ground Floor, Monday’s office space for young companies in Rosslyn, is now open. The Metro-accessible space features a 5,000-square-foot common area that includes a kitchen, lounge area, collaborative meeting spaces, and a stage for formal presentations.

Arlington-based startup Boolean Girl is on a mission — to fill the female deficit in the technology industry.

“The original idea was to teach kids (including my own) to code and work with electronics by creating a website with kid-friendly programming and engineering projects,” co-founder Brian Moran said. “This was not something they were learning in elementary and middle school and I think these are critical future job skills.”

When Moran started talking to other people about the idea, he heard from scores of women about the challenges they faced in the tech industry. “When I saw that the number of women in computer science was actually declining from 36 percent in the mid 1980s to 12 percent today, I knew it was time to pivot,” he said.

Boolean Girl launched on May 30, 2014 — around the same time that is was revealed that Google had issues with diversity in the workforce.

“Google’s admission brought a lot of attention to the issues we were trying to address. The timing was great,” Moran said, adding, “We were totally unknown but ahead of the curve on addressing this issue.

“By engaging girls at a young age, we could inspire the girls to pursue computer science and help dispel some misconceptions that middle schoolers have about computer science.”

Boolean Girl offers camps, classes and classroom kits to get kids started. “We wanted to make this easy for the school/PTA so they have everything the girls need: computer, monitor, keyboard, battery etc. We don’t need to be in the school computer room, we don’t need internet access, we don’t even need electricity,” Moran said of the kits available through the program.

Moran said the program has also seen high demand for its classes and summer camps.

The program targets girls ages eight to 13, but Moran said it is open to older girls (and boys), as well. But the major advantage is to the girls.

“In elementary school, 66 percent of girls like science as much as boys do, but only 24 percent of the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) workforce is women and only 12 percent of the computer science graduates are women,” Moran said. “There are many reasons this happens: Girls think coding is not interesting, it does not require creativity, that you work in isolation, that coding is for boys only. Sometimes they are discouraged from taking classes by parents and teachers. When they do, they feel alienated or isolated because they are the only girl in a class.”

Boolean Girl flips this cycle by creating a welcoming environment for young girls, where they are working with their peers. “We want girls to know that computer science includes working side-by-side with their best friend all day. We want them to realize they can apply their creativity to solve difficult and important real-world problems through computer programming,” Moran said.

Ultimately, Moran hopes the program will drive more girls to develop a passion for technology, resulting in more women in computer science careers.

“Most studies show the demand for these skills is growing rapidly,” he said. “Aside from providing a stable income, we think computer science careers are interesting and exciting, offering unlimited possibilities for women.”

And Boolean Girl has big plans for the future. This summer, the program plans to develop two new advanced classes: one on engineering and another on Minecraft coding in Python, a coding language that Moran said is in high demand in the tech industry.

In addition, Boolean Girl will launch a Kickstarter campaign this summer to productize the classroom kits so that girls can take the same equipment home that they use in class.

“With the kit, the girls no longer need to borrow their parent’s computer … [and] can also do the online engineering projects,” Moran said. “Maybe most importantly, it is safe and easy: they don’t even need to be connected to the internet and everything is contained in the kit.”

Moran said the only factor limiting Boolean Girl’s growth is the availability of qualified instructors. “We try to recruit college women pursuing computer science or teaching degrees or young professionals with teaching or computer science backgrounds,” he said, adding, “Since the root issue is that the computer science field has so few women, finding instructors is always a challenge.”

Editor’s Note: Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow.com, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups and their founders, plus other local technology happenings. The Ground Floor, Monday’s office space for young companies in Rosslyn, is now open. The Metro-accessible space features a 5,000-square-foot common area that includes a kitchen, lounge area, collaborative meeting spaces, and a stage for formal presentations.

In the financial advisory industry, the old-school referral model is no longer cutting it. So Arlington’s Advisor Portable is bringing the industry and its clients into the 21st century.

“The client experience is archaic and consequently how financial advisors grow their business through referrals is broken,” said Garari Mikel, co-founder of Advisor Portable.

“You can order a pizza and track its progress digitally, but with most financial advisors you can not do the same with your money,” Mikel said, adding, “As a result, the amount of discussions clients engage in about achieving money milestones is muted and resulting referrals, limited.”

Mikel saw a problem that needed solving. And as the old saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention.

At first, Mikel and his partner, Aaron St. Germain, met daily to discuss the issue from every angle and find the best way to boost financial advisors’ business growth while improving clients’ experience. It wasn’t an easy task.

“We are at the nascent stage of a seismic shift within the financial advice industry. Digital-only platforms have begun to arise that offer investment management to consumers, without the ability to talk to a human, all online, at a significantly reduced price,” Mikel said. “However, financial advice is complex and individually dynamic and I’m not sure if the majority of consumers are ready to hand that process entirely to a computer.

“In our view, financial advisors will either transcend the client experience to match their digital-only competitors, or they will be displaced by financial advisors who do.”

Hailed as “Uber for financial advisors,” Advisor Portable is a mobile application branded for clients that uses a proprietary system to automate marketing. The creators then take a percent share of new business brought in through the app.

Security is also a major concern for the company. Encryption scrambles messages sent through the app to ensure no data is compromised – a level of protection that the company says is “equal to or better than the level of encryption used by most major financial institutions for their online and mobile banking services.”

“While there are other technology firms that will offer to upgrade a financial advisory firm’s digital experience, Advisor Portable is the only one that focuses on client specific-goals and educating the client on their money, encouraging money discussions and ultimately, more referrals,” Mikel said.

Mikel — who also is the CEO and co-founder of SAM Phinancial, another Arlington business — said he was excited to bring another business to the Arlington area.

“I love the people and the culture that makes this city unique, characteristics that I wanted to be a part of the culture here at Advisor Portable.”

Editor’s Note: Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow.com, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups and their founders, plus other local technology happenings. The Ground Floor, Monday’s office space for young companies in Rosslyn, is now open. The Metro-accessible space features a 5,000-square-foot common area that includes a kitchen, lounge area, collaborative meeting spaces, and a stage for formal presentations.

When technology firms are looking for fresh talent, they often turn to recruiters to find the best and the brightest. A growing IT recruiting firm in town is taking on that challenge.

In true startup fashion, Hatch IT started in a garage in Leesburg, Va. And that humble start was key to their success.

Tim Winkler, CEO of Hatch IT, said, “Given our roots as a bootstrapped startup ourselves, and growing out of a garage, we are able to relate first-hand to many of the key cultural attributes our startup clients are targeting,” adding, “Being able to really understand our clients’ equity plan and communicating those details accordingly can be a make-or-break factor when selling the opportunity to candidates.”

Formerly known as TRW Consulting Services, the company was founded in 2011 based on three main principles. First, that recruiting is underrated and often is overlooked as a key element of a healthy business plan in early-stage startups and small businesses. Second, that recruiting can be outsourced to a true partner. And finally, that recruiting does not have to be overly costly for the startup community.

Winkler said the company’s name and logo — which depicts an egg hatching — are “symbolic of helping startups break out of their shell, and for engineers it sets the stage for fresh new beginnings in an innovative tech startup.”

Hatch is unique from other technology recruiting firms in the area, Winkler said, because of its focus on the technology startup industry.

“Hatch is on a mission to change this preconceived notion of recruiters by only connecting our engineers with opportunities that are 100 percent a fit in terms of tech stack, company culture and career growth,” Winkler said, adding, “What separates Hatch from the hundreds of other recruiting shops in the area is our specialization in the local D.C. tech startup space, specifically in the areas of software development, mobile development and product design.

“When partnering with startups, there is a noticeable difference in understanding the company culture and being able to identify with candidates that will adapt in such a fluid environment.”

When it came to picking a location when they were ready to upgrade their headquarters, Winkler said Arlington was a “no-brainer.”

“We knew Arlington was the perfect location for us given it’s perfectly positioned in the heart of the local startup boom,” Winkler said. “It’s exciting to have our new headquarters in Crystal City, where organizations such as WeWork and 1776, which share a similar vision, are right in your backyard.”

Editor’s Note: Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow.com, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups and their founders, plus other local technology happenings. The Ground Floor, Monday’s office space for young companies in Rosslyn, is now open. The Metro-accessible space features a 5,000-square-foot common area that includes a kitchen, lounge area, collaborative meeting spaces, and a stage for formal presentations.

The Haleakala Silversword is a rare plant that grows in the hot, dry climate of a remote crater in Hawaii. The silver-fronded shrub can live up to about 90 years before sprouting an impressive flowering stalk as its final hurrah before spreading seeds across the barren landscape where the plant is found.

Silversword Software and Services — an Arlington-based technology startup also known as 4S — says they chose the name because it fit with their unique position in the market. “It seemed really apt for me for the kind of work we are doing: to kind of grow something beautiful in a very bizarre environment,” 4S President Eli Senter said.

When Senter first began working in the federal IT space, he said he was “a little bit shocked at how far behind the private sector we were in some areas.” 4S aims to fill that gap by developing software tools and technical management practices for federal clients. The company offers services ranging from building system architecture, systems engineering and developing custom software to creating Web-based applications and transitioning programs to cloud computing.

So far, the firm has been focused on the secondary use of health data. 4S is developing an infrastructure for military doctors find insight into their patients’ electronic health records. “There is a treasure trove of information [in EHRs] that could be very valuable in research if looked at anonymously in bulk,” said Dan Bowman, communications associate at Eastern Foundry, a Crystal City-based startup incubator of which 4S is a member. Senter added, “To actually be able to get any big data value, you have to structure it very differently in order to be able to find patients that are similar and compare outcomes for similar patients.”

The company recently was certified as a participant in the 8(a) Business Development Program as a Native Hawaiian Organization-owned firm. That means that in some cases, 4S can “behave a lot more like you would in the private sector” when acquiring contracts for government projects, Senter said. NHO-owned firms participating in the 8(a) program can market directly to potential clients, and those clients then can contract with 4S in a much shorter time frame than the traditional process for government contract awards, according to Senter. In addition, 4S can work collaboratively with clients to design the requirements, price and other aspects of the contracts they work under.

With its new status, Senter said 4S plans to bring modern development techniques and tools to the federal sector. And Arlington was the perfect base for the firm’s mission. “We’re close to all of our defense clients … that we’ve worked with before and would like to work with again,” Senter said.

Editor’s Note: Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow.com, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups and their founders, plus other local technology happenings. The Ground Floor, Monday’s office space for young companies in Rosslyn, is now open. The Metro-accessible space features a 5,000-square-foot common area that includes a kitchen, lounge area, collaborative meeting spaces, and a stage for formal presentations.

As cyberattack techniques become less costly and more adaptable, organizations will have to up their cybersecurity game. To that end, Clarendon-based Endgame has built a team of domain experts, scientists, software engineers and designers to protect the country’s most critical assets.

Founded in 2008, Endgame is a software firm that helps governments and commercial organizations to detect, contain and evict “bad guys” from their networks to prevent damage and loss of data.

“By 2008, the accelerating pace of technological change and seismic geopolitical shifts began to intersect in unprecedented ways, from the early signs of tech-enabled social movements to increasingly brazen state-sponsored cyberattacks on private companies, and our increasing dependence on digital systems,” said Margot Koehler, senior manager of marketing and communications at Endgame.

“Companies around the world are spending billions of dollars every year on cybersecurity, [but] 90% of them are breached and the average dwell time for these advanced adversaries is 200 days before they’re even detected,” Koehler added. “Beating these threats requires us to rewrite the playbook and see the world as the adversaries see it.”

Endgame was established to “bring a faster and more agile style of software development to early adopters inside the intelligence community and the Department of Defense,” according to Koehler. “We figured that they are on the front lines of information security, and that their cutting-edge challenges would become commonplace more widely over time.”

Arlington was the obvious location choice to best reach Endgame’s clients. The company is expanding its office and was just named to the “Fast 50” list of high-growth cybersecurity and networking firms for the second year in a row.

“We’re thrilled to be based in Arlington. Arlington is a great place for Endgame headquarters — it offers a unique mix of amenities, talented workforce and convenient transportation options,” Koehler said.

Unlike other strategies, she said Endgame “brings offense to the enterprise by actively hunting for adversaries that bypass the traditional security stack,” helping “customers move from being the hunted to the hunter, stopping breaches at the earliest possible moment, before damage and loss can occur.”

Endgame has about 130 employees, who all focus on its five core values — integrity, boldness, speed, openness and responsibility. Aside from its Clarendon headquarters, the company has offices in Baltimore; Melbourne, Fla.; San Antonio; and San Francisco.

And Endgame continues to evolve to meet its customers’ changing needs and adapt to new research and development. “We’re here to take the security industry into the 21st century and beyond, and empower enterprises to hunt within their networks the adversaries of today and tomorrow,” the company’s website states.