Got an idea for a web app, but you aren’t a techie?
July 3, 2008
You and your business partner have an idea for the next ‘Big Big Thing’, but neither of you knows anything about software development or programming. How do you turn get your idea out of your heads and on to the internet? I spent a few minutes chatting about this very topic earlier today. The individual first asked me if I would be willing to sign an NDA and explained that we don’t do NDAs. She decided she could describe what she was trying to accomplish in general terms without giving away the ’secret’ (basically, a fairly simple social network-style website). She went on to explain that she had recruited a CFO and now she was thinking about hiring a CTO and trying to decide whether or not she should outsource development here in the US or overseas.
My advice:
- Stop asking for NDAs and start sharing your idea widely, here is why.
- Don’t hire a CFO (you won’t need one for quite some time).
- Don’t hire a CTO (at least don’t hire anyone who has ever been CTO of anything but a startup).
- Attend Local Events like Startup Happy Hour, Refresh Dallas, Ruby Brigade, Barcamp and Democamp.
- Find a young, passionate developer with an above average EQ to join the team as a founder (he will be at the events listed above) and make him a full partner in your deal.
- Outsource the major development to U.S. based freelancers (don’t worry if they augment their team with offshore resources as long as you don’t have to deal with them).
The right person:
- Some early stage startup experience (as a founder or employee).
- Passionate about software development (hopefully agile methods, LAMP, Rails, etc).
- Someone who has read more than one book about development (Don’t Make Me Think - Krug, Bulletproof Web Design - Cederholm, Designing with Web Standards - Zeldman, Defensive Design - 37Signals, Agile Web Development - DHH)
- Someone who writes about his work on a blog (regularly)
- Someone who has a LinkedIn profile with more than a few recommendations
- Someone who attends events like Barcamp, Web 2.0, RailsCon and Gnomedex.
- Someone who can sit on a panel at a conference and talk about your service.
- Someone who is well respected and has at least 300 followers on Twitter.
- Find the coolest startups in your area and ask them about the person you are thinking of hiring. If he is respected they will tell you how great he is, if he is a chump they won’t say much…
One last thought. Everyone assumes building a website or a web service is easy (I know I did). Anyone with an idea can simply hire a few coders and presto they are on their way to kicking Google’s ass. It is hard to explain, but an anology I use is: “I have an amazing idea for a new kind of shopping mall. All I need is to raise the money (Around $500MM), buy the land and find a contractor to build it.” Of course, it might be easy to design and build a mall (I doubt it), but if you haven’t done it before I suspect there are a number of important lessons you might not be up-to speed on. Have you ever been to North Park? That was the first attempt at an indoor mall, they didn’t get it right until a few years ago. Building a successful web application really requires a little know how and experience ~ they days of Craigslist are over (i.e. you can’t build a rudamentary website and expect to be successful, it is just too late). Your site needs to be MUCH better…
Startup Q and A: GameWager
July 3, 2008
I covered GameWager earlier this year. George Giannukos and Thomas Marriott founded Austin-based GameWager in 2007 with funding from various angels including Todd Wagner (Broadcast.com). GameWager is an online platform for rewarding gamers’ performance with prizes and cash as well as sharing stats/achievements with friends. GameWager currently supports PC titles and enhances game-play with more excitement and realism by assigning tangible value to every win/loss. GameWager makes gaming more fun and social by providing an outlet to settle trash-talking and provides a variety of on-site tools that empowers gamers to track and improve their performance.
Q: Why did you start GameWager?
A: It did not exist, so we decided to create it. Plus, we’re gamers and thought it’d be lots of fun. Does that answer work? :)
Q: Give us the namd and URLs of three blogs you read regularly and let us know why you like them.
A: wsj.com - not technically a blog, but a great site for general business news. startup-review.com - great blog that covers successful internet companies and explains why they were successful in a case-study format. Feld.com - Brad gives a great behind the scenes look at the VC world. Great resources for current and aspiring entrepreneurs. Austinstartup.com - great for keeping tabs on what’s happening in Austin. Startuphouston.com - great for keeping up-to-date on my start-up family back in Htown! We miss you guys!
Q: What was your least favorite job?
A: Honestly, I’ve never had a job that was not stimulating. All my previous work experiences were for hedge funds/Private Equity shops or my family, which were totally cool gigs. Ultimately, the goal has always been to be in control of my life/destiny so I decided to take the plunge while I’m young and have fewer responsibilities.
Q: What is unique about your company’s culture? Do you have any interesting rituals?
A: Our company started around a bet. Thomas and I decided to settle an argument (well, lets call it a discussion ;)) on a game of Counter-Strike. That turned into the best of 3, then 5, then 7. Before long, a few dollars were riding on the line. That adrenaline pumping experiencing lead us to the concept behind GameWager. Today, any hard to decide decisions are now made simple - lets just play some games and see who wins (ok, maybe not ALL decisions :p). But to answer your question, here are just some of the perks of working at GW:
- Free sodas and yes, beer!
- Gaming at 2:30PM at work is considering, well, work (with-in reason of course).
- A very chill and relexed working environement (gotta hit those deadlines, though!)
- Lots of opportunity for growth
- Did I mention playing games is considered work?
- Open environment
Q: What are your 1/3/5 year goals for the company? Is your business a ‘lifestyle’ company or do you plan on some sort of exit?
A: 1 Year Goal - 250,000+ users, 3 Year Goal - Millions of users, 5 Year Goal - Sitting on a beach, with some hot blonde, and a Corona in hand..? J/k. Thomas and I see ourselves as serial/parallel entrepreneurs. An exit is definitely the end-goal.
Company: GameWager, Inc.
President: George Giannukos
Phone: (713) 725-6796
Email: george@gamewager.net
Blog: http://blog.gamewager.net
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=4015864&trk=tab_pro
Twitter: http://twitter.com/gamewager
Website: http://www.gamewager.net
Founded: August 2007
Employees: 7
Est. 2008 Revenue: 500,000
Est. 2009 Revenue: 20,000,000
Startup Profile: Roov.com
July 2, 2008
Last year Micah Davis, Chris Capehart and Ethan Fisher started C3 Media Group and recently launched ROOV.com in Dallas. Funding with around $500K in angel financing, the company operates an online community centered around faith. They ask users, “Have you ever wondered who else at your church; …enjoys building web apps? …has started a business? or …volunteers with kids in West Dallas?” The idea is simple, facilitate an ongoing conversation around faith on a hyper-local level. The goal is to move these ‘online connections’ offline into the real world to make a difference in their respective communities. Neat stuff.
Micah explains why he started ROOV.com, “Stemming from several personal experiences…we all saw a huge deficiency for community amongst like-minded people of faith. Helping to create this community has become a passion of ours.” Micah isn’t just building his own community, he already participates in massive online conversations going on at places like TechCrunch, 37Signals, and Red Eye VC. The guys at Roov.com have a little tradition, the goal is to create a very specific culture, Micah explains, “We strive to be a place where anybody can present new ideas and challenge existing ones…rather than just having a few decision makers. We also allocate the 1st 30 minutes of every work week to time spent reflecting on “the why” behind what we do.”
Company Name: C3 Media Group
Website: http://www.roov.com
Blog: http://blog.roov.com
FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Micah_Davis/79100126
Funding: $500K Angel
Employees: 9
Est. Revenue 2008: 30,000
Est. Revenue 2009: 300,000
Startup Jobs on Texas Startup Blog
July 1, 2008
David and Aaron launched ‘Startup Jobs‘ for the network yesterday and after a little tweaking we have our jobs in the sidebar as seen here:
I decided to post our SimpleTicket position and a few readers posted jobs including:
Other in Box (Austin) Ruby on Rails Programmer
HiveLive (Boulder) Director of Product Management
LearnItFirst.com (Dallas) Web Presence Manager
The ads are $5 for 60 days (the lowest amount Jobamatic would allow). I have been really impressed with Job-a-matic:
Fully hosted, nothing to install. Totally Customizable! Custom domain names, headers and footers, colors, and categories give your users a seamless experience. If you have a blog site www.yourblog.com, we can give you the domain name http://jobs.yourblog.com. Once you have a domain name that looks just like your blog, you’ll probably want it to share the same look and feel. No problem: Job-a-matic allows you to insert your own graphics and HTML to make the Job-a-matic header and footer match your blog. Spiffy, no? And of course we can also take your blog’s color scheme and pretty up your job board in those exact same hues. Custom job categories will help you look relevant to your chosen area, since jobs.dogwalker.com will doubtless need different occupation categories than jobs.sysadminblog.com.
You know, if you don’t look good, we don’t look good… Backfill! Simply Hired can populate your jobs section with listings from our gi-normous database, so your job board never has to look like a ghost town. We first try to find relevant sponsored listings, and if there are none, we will open up our big ol’ box of jobs. And yes, you will get paid for clicks on sponsored back-fill listings.
We Do the Dirty Work! Simply Hired handles all credit card and payment processing. Email receipts? That’s all us. Reminders? Ditto. No security worries, no handling the moolah - except when we send you a check. Not bad, right?
You’re Not a Customer Service Professional… And you don’t have to be. Simply Hired has your back with a responsive customer service team to handle emails from the peanut gallery. Plus we have a big old pile of helpful literature like FAQ and Learn More pages. Give us your tired, your technically challenged, your huddled masses yearning to… well, you get the picture. We’ll deal with it.
We track the details… And give you a handy dashboard so you can monitor the performance of your job board. See how many job listings you have, who’s posting them, when they’re expiring and how much money you’ve earned.
But Wait, There’s More. You also get… Our handy job board promoting WIDGETS! Drop these handy-dandy little boxes on your blog’s sidebar and they’ll advertise jobs in your job board (not to mention the fact that you have a job board). We have special widgets for easy 1-click installation into Blogger, Typepad and Wordpress powered blogs. And, if you use feedburner’s FeedFlare product on your blog, you can add a “flare” that links to your job board, and advertises the number of new posts.
We also provide some sexy little code snippets that insert simple text links or button graphics onto your main website, promoting and linking to your job board.
Visibility! Did you know that sites like LinkedIn and MySpace use our job search engine to power their jobs sections? It’s true! And when an employer posts to a Job-a-matic-powered job board, it automatically ends up in our database of 5 million jobs. Long story short, when you use Job-a-matic it drives traffic to your site.
Instant Gratification! Job-A-Matic is up and running in less time than it takes you to make a latte.
ServiceGuy is live in Miami!
June 30, 2008
Randy and Mike are keeping our goal of adding one new city to ServiceGuy per week by adding Miami. We are now offering contractor referrals in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Washington DC and Phoenix.
Now, please remember it is going to take a few weeks for the system to start filling up with contractors. Before it does you won’t be able to get a contractor by calling the numbers, instead you will get to listen to the nice ServiceGuy guy…
Here are the numbers for those of you who can’t wait for them to go live:
305.590.8098 - Miami Cleaning
305.590.8099 - Miami Computer
305.590.8200 - Miami Designer
305.590.8201 - Miami Electrician
305.590.8202 - Miami Handyman
305.590.8203 - Miami Landscaper
305.590.8204 - Miami Mover
305.590.8205 - Miami Painter
305.590.8206 - Miami Plumber
305.590.8207 - Miami Pool
305.590.8208 - Miami Realtor
Guest Post on VoIP Insider
June 30, 2008
The guys at VoIP Insider selected ServiceGuy.org as one of the 100 best unique uses for Asterisk and asked me to write a guest post titled, “Asterisk, Nip/Tuck and the ServiceGuy.“ Check it out.
Startup Burn Rate Calculator
June 28, 2008
Mike Speiser’s blog with the awesome subtitle of “Free Ideas. Just Add Execution”, has a great post titled, “Optimal startup burn rate and the Kelly criterion” that is definately worth a read ~ especially to my friends running small software driven startups. I am adding Mike’s blog to my reader. I suspect I will be talking about him and his ideas in the future. Here is the formula:
How Boulder began building a startup eco-system
June 26, 2008
The conversations we are starting here on this blog, in person throughout the week, via phone all times of the day and through our startup happy hours CAN lead to something great. Boulder’s ’startup eco-system’ started with a simple email. David Cohen and David Brown started TechStars in Boulder as a way to help seed stage companies get their start. The program has helped turn Boulder into a hotbed of startup activity. Read more about the program here. Here is the email that started it all:
From: David Cohen
Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2006 10:12 AM
To: David Brown
Subject: boomtownI’m just thinking this can be one of the boomtown businesses.
Providing seed capital to startups with only an idea.
The concept:
1) We take applications on the web site. Only seed stage companies need apply (those with passionate people and an idea, but no way to get going or who are not sure they can do it on their own – maybe just need a kick in the ass and someone to believe in them)2) We fly or drive to interview the ones that sound good (perhaps organizing small tours), or have them come here on our dime.
3) We offer the promising ones $10k for a 2% non-controlling, non-board seat interest of their company. They have to come to Boulder for 2-3 months to start the company up.
a. They can work in our offices, or in a hotel, or wherever they want. We provide internet connections, a little office space, etc.
b. They can use the 10k however they want.
c. We have the option to buy 2% more of the company for another 10k at the end of the 2-3 month period.
d. We provide free consulting while they’re here including product feedback, how-to advice, etc.
e. We organize weekly (or bi-weekly) dinners with investors, IP lawyers, tech experts, etc (basically using our contacts to get people to donate a little time).4) Based on how they do while they’re here, we decide if we want to invest more or not when they leave. This should be easy, since you’re really evaluating the people as much as the product (do they work all hours, do they have passion, etc)
5) If they want, they can stay in Boulder and grow their company here, working within our office space (renting it). Perhaps we have some kind of “space, connectivity + consulting” lease rate.
The only drawback I can think of is that we’d probably need to get a slightly nicer office to really attract companies. We’d have to look successful, and have an environment with couches, whiteboards, etc for them to work in optionally. But we could grow that over time once we get a few and have a good feeling that it’s working.
I am thinking I’ll start working on the web site. Are you cool with putting this kind of info/offer up on the boomtown site? We don’t have to actually do it, I suppose, but we can at least start taking applications and see what’s what. Maybe generate a little word of mouth somehow, and who knows. We can start with a summer program this year. Sublet or rent some open office space from this place for just 3 months or something. Start trying to spread the word a little bit on college campuses, especially CU, CSU, DU, etc.
Thoughts? I think it sounds really cool. Yeah, we have no idea what we’re doing.
Building a better startup eco-system in Dallas
June 25, 2008
When I was in my twenties I knew I wanted to start my own business. I sat down and wrote a business plan and called my Dad for advice, asking him, “How can I raise money?” My Dad was out in Silicon Valley running an ATM switch company that was acquired by Cabletron and his advice was, “Move to Palo Alto.” For a number of reasons I wanted to stay in Dallas and suggested, “Surely I can keep my business in Dallas…” I was right, ultimately raising more than $20MM, but it took me twice as long as it would have in the Bay Area. I didn’t deserve the money, I wasn’t necessarily qualified, but someone took a chance on me and my idea. Of course that was the late 90’s, today would-be entrepreneurs are finding it much more challenging to start a business. What is it about Dallas that makes it so hard? We have the money, we have the talent, we have the schools, we have the infrastructure ~ then why isn’t Dallas a hotbed of entrepreneurial activity like San Francisco, Boston or Boulder.
Over the years I have spent quite a bit of time in the Bay Area. Walking down the streets of San Francisco you are likely to run into scores of people running startups. It isn’t unusual to run into people like Stewart Butterfield (founder of Flickr) or Erika Hall (founder of Mule) on your way to lunch. There is a sense that everyone is on your side. They want you to succeed. Advice flows freely. They will offer you a desk if you need a place to startup. They will introduce you to potential employees. They will set up meetings with their investors if you ask. The environment is very much one of cooperation. They will do all this in the simple hope that if you are successful that you will return the favor to them or someone else in the future. Ironically, these typically ‘left-leaning’ people completely believe in the ‘bigger pie’ theory that there is enough for everyone. What they won’t ask for is a cut of your deal (i.e. a percentage).
Over the past three years authoring the Texas Startup Blog scores of people have contacted me for advice, referrals and ideas. More often than not the person on the other end of the email or phone line asks me ‘what do you want’. I am quick to suggest, ‘nothing, I am simply happy to help’. Often times the person is skeptical and I have to spend my time convincing them I don’t mind helping out - for free! For example, my Dad is trying to raise $2-4MM for a health care startup here in Dallas. I happily connected him (and would even if he wasn’t my Dad) to various investors and wouldn’t think to ask for a percentage. But it would seem I am in the minority, here in Dallas everyone wants a percentage for a bit of advice, a referral to an employee or a introduction to a potential investor. Half of the people with suits on are ‘deal guys’ (I am not referring to you if you are reading this). Do we really need a guy with a suit to introduce us to kids with great ideas? Why not let the kids come talk to us directly? Why not let the community (i.e. once we get one) police itself. The going rate for ‘deal guys’ is what’s known as 5 and 5 ~ 5% of the amount raised and 5% of the post-money equity. Are you kidding me? Really? The going rate for a CEO is 7-10% and he has to work for the company for three or more years to get it. Come on!
There are other groups here in Dallas that will offer a startup a phone and a desk for 5-10% of the company, oh and the cost of the phone and desk are only deferred until you get funded. Again, are you kidding me? Really? Of course I have mentioned the groups that charge you to pitch. Really? These groups, who may represent a minority, give Dallas a very unfriendly feel to startups. Take a couple cool 20-something founders from Dallas and let them spend a week in San Francisco after trying to raise money in Dallas and I guarantee we will lose them. They will be gone forever. We all lose out when they leave. Take for example Jambo Networks. Charles Ribaudo and Jim Young started Jambo to offer mobile social networking software for online social networking sites, associations, and conferences. Charles and Jim are just the kind of guys we need in Dallas, but after struggling to find capital I recently learned Charles moved to San Francisco to work for Seagate. Ug! I am confident that it would easily be worth $1MM to the city to keep Charles here (in taxes, corporate development and so on). Matt Mullenweg, the kid who founded the WordPress (the software that makes this site go) had to move from Houston to San Francisco to get his business to the next level.
My proposal: Can we all start making an effort to help startups and investors here in the Dallas area without thought to ‘what’s in it for me’. If someone asks you for advice and offers you equity, turn them down. Just give the advice freely. Ask them to return the favor sometime in the future. If you make an introduction between an entrepreneur and an investor quickly explain you are happy to make the connection, but that you don’t want anything in return. If you have an extra couple of desks in your office, make it known to connectors in the community (guys like Brandon Cotter, Christopher St. John, Charlie Humphreyson or me) and we will connect someone doing something cool to you. Get it? Entrepreneurs, you can do you part by stop being so secretive. No more NDAs, confidentiality agreement or non-competes ~ open up your process. This is the first step in building a community. (Oh and come to the Startup Happy Hour) What are you ideas? Please comment:
Doing business with the State of Texas
June 24, 2008
Really? Do you REALLY want to sell to the state? I say no, but if you insist, the Greater Dallas Chamber is offering a CEO Summer Series titled, “How to do Business with the State of Texas”.
Robert T. Melvin
Business Advocate
Office of the Governor Rick Perry
Wednesday, July 9, 2008 8 - 9 AM
Cityplace Conference Center - 42nd floor
2711 Haskell Ave., Dallas, TX 75204
$20 Chamber members
$40 Non-members
Register Here.
Robert T. Melvin currently serves as the Small Business Development Coordinator for the Executive Office of the Governor-Economic Development and Tourism Division. Mr. Melvin’s responsibilities include identifying financial barriers for small and historically underutilized businesses, and developing strategies for Small Business Development throughout the State of Texas.
ServiceGuy is live in Minneapolis, MN!
June 24, 2008
Randy and Mike are keeping our goal of adding one new city to ServiceGuy per week by adding Minneapolis. We are now offering contractor referrals in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Washington DC and Phoenix.
Now, please remember it is going to take a few weeks for the system to start filling up with contractors. Before it does you won’t be able to get a contractor by calling the numbers, instead you will get to listen to the nice ServiceGuy guy…
Here are the numbers for those of you who can’t wait for them to go live:
763.210.2151 - Minneapolis Cleaning
763.210.2152 - Minneapolis Computer
763.210.2153 - Minneapolis Designer
763.210.2154 - Minneapolis Electrician
763.210.2155 - Minneapolis Handyman
763.210.2156 - Minneapolis Landscaper
763.210.2157 - Minneapolis Mover
763.210.2158 - Minneapolis Painter
763.210.2159 - Minneapolis Plumber
763.210.2180 - Minneapolis Pool
763.210.2181 - Minneapolis Realtor
Startup Profile: Melmedtronics
June 24, 2008
My Dad is working closely with Melmedtronics, a medical device startup located near Dallas, to help them bring a new medical device to market called The Inhibitor. The CEO and founder is David Holmes, Ph.D. the founder of two other successful medical startups; Pharmaceutical C-Trials, Inc. and The Hearing & Balance Centers, Inc. Both companies are still in operation, and profitable, after more than a decade each.
Melmedtronics is looking to raise around $4MM in equity. I have been critical of other Dallas-based startups looking to raise money (i.e. Green versus Real), but I’ll have to admit Melmedtronics is REAL. Dr. Holmes and his team have ALREADY built and tested The Inhibitor, a hand-held device that can temporarily ‘cure’ tinnitus (ringing in the ears). They have also obtained FDA Approval, deeming The Inhibitor “Safe and Effective” in the treatment of tinnitus. Of course they have applied for all of the appropriate patents and the first production units are being assembled this week (i.e. you can try them out before you invest).
You may be surprised how many people suffer from tinnitus ~ I do as a result of serving in the Marine Corp (one too many machine gun bursts). By all estimates, approximately 15% of the entire worldwide population suffers from a disorder referred to as tinnitus. The effects of tinnitus vary from one individual to another. Some consider their tinnitus to be very mild and only perceive it when they are in a quiet environment, while others find the disorder devastating. Approximately 20% of patients with tinnitus report that it severely to profoundly interferes with their quality of life.
In the U.S. alone, it is estimated that approximately 50 million people suffer from tinnitus. In Europe, there are potentially, as many as 135 million people with tinnitus. With 20% (27 million) of the European population being categorized as severe to profound, this yields a total number of potential patients, in the severe to profound category, needing treatment, at over 37 million in the U.S. and Europe.
There are over 10 million individuals in the US population having severe to profound tinnitus, and over 31,000 practitioners who could prescribe treatment. Based on these projections, there would be a considerable market for an effective treatment. Dr Holmes is currently developing strategies for marketing the tinnitus device to practitioner groups through a variety of channels. He estimates that, conservatively, over one million units could be sold within a three to five year period.
Tinnitus is a disorder that affects 1/6 (15%) of the worldwide population. There is no current cure for benign tinnitus and there has not been a satisfactory method of treatment until now. Dr. Holmes has been working on a treatment solution for tinnitus over the past 15 years. The last four years of research have been focused on the use of ultrasound. In June 2007, Dr. Holmes obtained FDA Approval for The Inhibitor® stating it to be safe and effective in the treatment of tinnitus.
CEO: David W. Holmes, Ph.D.
Company Name: Melmedtronics Inc.
Website: http://www.TinnitusTreatment.com
Founded: 2006
Team:
- David Holmes, Ph.D. CEO
- Todd A. Holmes VP
- Vercét, LLC - design firm
- Krypton Solutions, Inc. (Suresh Patel) - contract manufacture
- Ralph Muse- management consulting
How is your startup funded? Bootstrapped by Dr. Holmes, Suresh Patel, and Justin Farrelly
Estimated Revenue (2008) $4.5 Million
Estimated Revenue (2009) $33 Million
For more information about the product or to find out more about the company you can contact my Dad: Ralph Muse, 972.733.0495 muse@museconsulting.com.
Announcing: SpringStage Startup Happy Hour (Dallas)
June 23, 2008
In the tradition of Houston and Austin I am pleased to announce the SpringStage Startup Happy Hour (Dallas). The first Startup Happy Hour held the Friday before last was a lot of fun and with the encouragement of Charlie Humphreyson we have decided to start getting together on a regular basis. The Ritz was cool, but we decided it might make more sense to: a) hold the event on a regular basis (every other Monday), b) hold the event at a less exclusive venue (High Tech Bar in the INFOMART), c) hold the event at a venue with areas for ‘break-out’ sessions (i.e. demos and meeting) and d) hold the event on a less popular day (i.e. Monday).
Starting on July 7th, 2008 we will be hosting the SpringStage Startup Happy Hour at the High Tech Bar in the Dallas INFOMART (I-35 and Oaklawn) between 5PM and 8PM. This week drinks from 5PM-6PM are being sponsored by Big in Japan (if you want to sponsor drinks let me know). If you can’t make it don’t worry, we will be hosting events throughout the summer 7/21, 8/4, 8/18, 9/1, 9/15, and 9/29/2008.
Subscribe to the SpringStage Startup Happy Hour Google Calendar via XML, iCAL, HTML. For more information or to RSVP click here.
Revitalizing Dallas’ Entrepreneurial Scene
June 23, 2008
Last week I blogged about Charlie’s take on the VC scene in Dallas and spent some time thinking about his point. I have always assumed it was our location that held Dallas back, but I am starting to agree with people like Aziz Gilani who suggest that you can create your own reality and make your town or city a great place for startups, entrepreneuership and investment:
“I know that this post is focusing on local VCs, but I personally feel that if you if you build it they will come. By building it I mean a strong entrepreneuarial community. Since starting at DFJ Mercury in Houston a few weeks back, I have been nothing but impressed by the vibrancy within the entrepreneurial community here. On the Angel side Kala Marathi has done an amazing job with the Houston Angel Network (54 investments!). Brad Burke is showing what a strong local university can contribute through Rice Alliance while Jacqueline Northcut is helping us foster Life Sciences Startups via BioHouston and the power of the MedCenter. Walter Ulrich is providing a structured incubation environment at HTC while Matt Wettergreen offers a simple co-working environment at the Caroline Collective. Josh Tabin and Kurt Stoll keep us all up to date with their StartupHouston.com blog and happy hours. Austin has been no less impressive with its own players like Bryan Menell (AustinStartup) and Issac Barchas (UT). Long story short, there are a lot of good things happening within the region which will only attract more and more VC funding.”
I recently began working with David Cohen, Executive Director of TechStars, from Boulder, Colorado. Boulder is literally on fire when it comes to startups and entrepreneurial activity. Guys like David and Brad Feld have really stirred things up in this little (250,000 people in the MSA) community outside of Denver. They don’t have a ‘real’ airport, but they have a vibrant and plentiful supply of entrepreneurs building cool stuff.
So instead of wishing Dallas was more like Boulder or Houston, I am going to get on a plane and try to figure out how to get more of whatever they’ve got. Sometimes a change in context can help you figure out how to solve your problems. Next week I will be flying up to Boulder (via Denver) for a couple of days. David Cohen has been kind enough to put me up at his place and I will keep you posted on what I find.
Busy M&A Day for Texas: Compucom, Austin Ventures, Skywire!
June 23, 2008
Previously I posted that Oracle was buying Skywire (still no details as everyone there is in ‘radio-silence’ mode). No sooner did I learn that CompuCom, a Dallas-based IT service provider, is buying Getronics’ US operation (inlcuding operations in Canada and Mexico). Gentronics is an international IT outsourcing company based in Europe. Finally, Austin Ventures has ‘partnered’ (not sure what than means) with Sherman Atkinson to form ATCOR Holdings Inc. The new company will focus on buying interactive adversiting and marketing businesses. Austin Ventures invested $50MM in equity and Sherman will serve as CEO based out of Orange County.
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From Startup Blog Network -
New Kentucky Venture Fund
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It's not the widgets that suck, it's the widget delivery
From Colorado Startups -
Kentucky Green
From Kentucky Startup Blog
-
Welcome to the South Carolina Startup Blog
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