Web Start-up Rippld moves to Detroit Creative Corridor Center

Three young freelance techies surf in and out of business-oriented social media websites and come to one conclusion; none of what's out there meets their needs. Those three knowledge workers are turning the answer to that problem into a start-up, Rippld.

Rippld isn't LinkedIn, according to its co-founders Adrian Walker, Wilbert Fobbs III and Lander Coronado-Garcia. Rippld is more freelancer friendly so it provides an online marketplace for freelancers, a section for social business connections and section for feedback and learning. The idea is to provide the social media aspects of sites like LinkedIn but with places where people can find and post jobs and critique each others work.

"There are lots of places that do some of these things," Walker says. "No one site does all of them."

The trio started working on the site this spring at an office in Royal Oak. They moved it to the Detroit Creative Corridor Center in New Center as part of the center's Creative Ventures Acceleration Program. They are set to launch the private alpha version this week to students at Wayne State, Michigan State, Lawrence Tech, College of Creative Studies and University of Michigan. To be one of the early adopters of the alpha group, click here.

"Our focus is to get a core group of users to see what our site provides," Coronado-Garcia says. "We really want to get engaged users to help guide us in developing the site."

Source: Adrian Walker and Lander Coronado-Garcia, co-founders of Rippld
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.