David Cohen

Meghan, Anne, and Tara like happy hour. They like it so much that they built HappyHourBoulder.com.

This June, they got tired of hitting all the same places after work. Sure, they googled and found lots of information, but most of it was outdated or not nearly detailed enough. So, with just a few bucks and and a vision, the girls built the resource they wanted. It’s a comprehensive, focused, and up to date resource about Happy Hours in Boulder. The site launched on September 1st and already is seeing more than 700 unique visitors each day.

Currently, the site is just a hobby for the team. All three still hold down day jobs, and hope to build the business into a full time gig. Presently, the revenue model is to sell ads but there are plans to add other revenue streams in the future.

While this will obviously not turn into a huge business, I like what HappyHourBoulder is doing. Like a miniature version of Dogster (Toy Poodlester?), Thoos, and similar highly focused socially oriented sites, HappyHourBoulder reaches a very specific point on the long tail quite effectively. Advertisers will happily pay to reach such a focused audience. They know exactly who they’re talking to, and exactly what to say. Compare this to placing an ad on Adwords and going for volume.

I spoke with one of the founders, Meghan McCarthy today to hear more.

“We launched in just two months with pretty much no capital.” said Meghan.

I wanted to know more about the future plans for the site. Meghan indicated that plans for growth include the addition of social networking features and expansion into cities other than Boulder.

Meghan explained: “We’re trying to prove the business model in Boulder first, then we’ll expand. In the big cities, the sites are overwhelming and include shopping, nightlife, restaurants, and everything. We won’t go in that direction. We don’t want to be everything to everyone. Happy hour is it’s own cool phenomenon. We want to help build the happy hour community.”

Although HappyHourBoulder is not actively seeking investment, they’re full of future ideas. Meghan summed it up by saying “If the right thing came along and we could get to our big ideas sooner, we’d consider it.”

Congratulations to HappyHourBoulder for following their passion, building it with next to no money, and producing a high quality site in such a short timeframe. You can tell from one look, it’s a site coming from some talented and professional people.

David Cohen

If you know me, you know I’m really just a geek at heart. For years and years, I had my head down working on various startups. Mostly, I was doing one of a few things: Coding, learning from customers, building teams, or tracking down problems.

Less than six months ago, I became focused on a new set of personal goals (startup advising, coaching, investing, etc). I decided that this was the stuff (particularly very early stage) that I really wanted to be around. I always follow my passions and it’s (almost) always worked for me. A major personal goal for me is never to work on something I don’t believe strongly in, and apart from my internships during college, I never have.

When I made this decision, one of the initial downsides to me was that I was going to have to get out and meet people. Lots of people. Now, I like people, but I am no natural networker. I find it much easier to speak to a machine than to another human, for the following reasons:

• You can passively listen to a machine. It’s going to keep telling you the same thing until you do something about it.
• If you say something stupid to a machine, you lose no credibility whatsoever. The machine still does everything you tell it to, and does it exactly how you asked it to do it.
• You can ask an awful lot of a machine, and machines don’t want anything in return.

I knew people didn’t really work this way. When you start companies, you have to deal with people to some degree. However, I had co-founders who did most of this type of work while I was bossing around the machines.

Today, I feel like I “get” networking. It really wasn’t that hard to figure out. I want to share what I’ve learned with other geeks, so you can avoid some mistakes.

Here are my top ten things geeks should do when networking. Non-geeks should already know this (read on anyway to test yourself).

1. Network at least once a week. Make it a habit.
2. Network down as much as you network up. Now, I’m not trying to artificially create classes of people when I use this up/down reference. I’m just referring to what is obviously true - there are people who can potentially help you much more than others, and there are people who you really can’t reasonably expect to help you. You may be asking yourself silly questions such as “who’s below me?” or “why would I want to network down instead of up?” Well, learn to be a mensch - it really does work. Somehow, the universe understands that when you help others, it should help you. Network down - you want others to do it for you, right?
3. Respect peoples time. You probably want to network with some incredibly busy people. Time is their biggest asset. Recognize that when you ask for it, you’re asking for something they value greatly. Ask for 15 minutes in an initial meeting, and ask to to go their office or a coffee shop close to them. Make it easy to say yes.
4. When networking up, ask for advice. You may want to ask for something else really, really badly. Advice makes the other person feel that you respect their opinion and are not just after something from day one (even though you may well be).
5. Be honest. Sometimes people come to me with really silly ideas, business plans, or requests. While it’s important to be polite, it’s also important to be honest. Share your opinion and don’t just laugh inside. Remember that your opinion probably matters a great deal to the person you are approached by. Therefore, you have a have a real chance to help them out. You can literally help them to succeed by being honest and sharing some wisdom that you have acquired. I think the worst thing you can do is to just nod your head with seeming approval and then tell everyone else the funny story you just heard. Being honest is important in every case. When networking up, don’t pump yourself up too much or grossly exaggerate the truth.
6. Don’t forget to network sideways, too. I’ve learned lately that you can learn a ton from people who are in shoes that are just about the same size as yours.
7. When networking up, offer something in return. When I network up, I view the time I am getting as a gift. I always try to offer the person giving me this gift something in return that might be of value to them. I’m not talking about buying the coffee, I’m talking a about doing something more than the bare minimum that shows thoughtfulness. For example, I might offer them free use of the software that my company is building (usually a win/win anyway) or ask if I can make a donation to the charity whose board the person sits on. Another great technique is to just say something along the lines of “This has been really valuable to me. How can I help you out?” Like many gifts, it’s really the thought that counts and often the response will be “it’s not necessary.”
8. Explain why you want to meet. Don’t network “just to get to know you better.” We all know plenty of people, and have no particular need to know more random people (unless we’re on Myspace). As Brad Feld points out, “Have a clear purpose in mind.”
9. Be passionate. Being passionate makes you memorable. People will automatically associate you with two or three tags in their mind. They won’t remember everything you said. I aim to be associated with words like “Colorado” and “Startups” (hence the name of my blog), as well as words like “Geek” and “Software”. It’s all too easy to get associated with words like “Boring”, “Annoying”, and “Rings a bell”.
10. Follow up. Remember to follow up with a thank you email, additional information promised during the meeting, detailed contact information, etc. While this is commonly done when networking sideways or up, it never hurts to do it when networking down.

Good luck. And if you just read this entire article hoping to learn something new about TCP/IP, then my evil plan has worked.

David Cohen

I went to PearlBucks today to sit down and talk to the Daily Camera about some projects I’m working on. It was a typical “let’s go grab a coffee” meeting, just like any other on Pearl Street.

I don’t drink coffee, or drinks with caffiene for that matter (having been addicted in college - at least it was to ‘that’ coke, and not the other). So I always order an Izze, usually Orange. Little did I know that I was now drinking a Pepsi product.

Congrats to Boulder’s own Izze on the acquisition by Pepsi.

Note to Pepsi: Don’t screw it up.

David Cohen

• 3 tips on pitching VCs
• Web 2.0 funding still insignificant?
• Brad Feld’s blog ranked in top 12 by BusinessWeek readers. - Wow, right up there with TechCrunch and Scobleizer! Brad is such a great resource for Colorado - we’re lucky to have him here. He always seems willing to hear a story or learn about (and help) a new company.

David Cohen

Chaperon: A guide or companion whose purpose is to ensure propriety or restrict activity.

Got code? Outsourcing? Worried about theft of your IP? Check out Chaperon of Louisville.

Chaperon provides a secure development environment that protects code from being copied.

Here’s the story in a nutshell. The founders of Chaperon have another company called X, Inc. No, not the one that Kimbal and the gang were involved in that eventually became Paypal, this one. This X offers business development, marketing and other consulting services. The founders of X needed to cut their software development costs and were contemplating outsourcing their development overseas. Worried about their intellectual property, they developed Chaperon in order to safeguard their code. They loved it, other people wanted to buy and it use it, and thus Chaperon, LLC was born.

I wanted to know more about the business model, how Chaperon actually worked, and who was using it, so I recently met with the founder and CEO of Chaperon, Ashif Dhanani. Here’s Ashif’s elevator pitch for Chaperon:

Chaperon solves the problem of source code being stolen, pirated and copied by developers (Outsourced, off-shore, untrusted, etc.). It also protects the source from casual theft (Laptop, Break-ins, etc.).

The business model is to sell directly to corporations and through partners using a recurring revenue license model. Chaperon already has some customer validation (these customers prefer to remain anonymous at this point, I suppose they don’t want people to think they’ve had these sorts of problems). Early adopters include offshore development companies, a large online job board, a web collaboration tool company, and a copyright litigation and code escrow company. There is also progress on the partner front. Here’s an example of a partner that is private labeling Chaperon.

Chaperon actually works by extending popular open source development environments. Currently, Chaperon is available for NetBeans and Eclipse, which covers the non-Microsoft universe fairly broadly today. Essentially, you’re getting a customized version of NetBeans or Eclipse with the extra security capabilities embedded into it. Chaperon securely transports code, authorizes developers, prevents developers from copying text outside of the project or saving files to unauthorized locations, etc.

“You know the glass box with the two rubber gloves that you use to manipulate the substance inside the box that must be protected? That’s what Chaperon is providing for your source code.”, Ashif explained.

This seems to me like it has broad application in two major settings. First, the smart outsourcing firms will want to have something like this to differentiate themselves and to provide their customers with an extra level of comfort. Second, medium to large corporations should be thinking about protecting their code assets internally, and this sort of tool can help them to do that with minimal annoyance to their development teams. I haven’t played with the product at all, but if it can really provide this sort of security using familiar toolsets and causing minimal annoyance, there should be broad application for Chaperon.

Ashif told me that the company is self funded to date ($300k+) and is seeking investment of $350k to $950k via a private placement prior to the end of this year. I explained to Ashif that this was a fairly broad range, and that it might put some people off. Ashif told me that in order to execute their full plan they’ll need $950k, but are seeking a minimum of $350k to execute a reasonable secondary plan.

David Cohen

Newsgator (Denver) has released a Windows mobile RSS reader called Go!. Greg says it came out today. Earlier this year, I explained how my friend Kevin Cawley’s company (SmartFeed) was acquired by Newsgator. Kevin, who now works for Newsgator, told to me today that Go! is “loosely” based on SmartFeed and reuses most of the RSS code from that product. However, he said that the “UI and workflow were completely redesigned.” Kevin went on to explain the critical role that synchronization must play in order for RSS to be successful.

“I realized pretty early on that smartFeed was a great product that solved a problem that I had (getting RSS and podcasts on my mobile), but it absolutely needed the synchronization story to be a killer app and NewsGator had that nailed.”, said Kevin.

Kevin’s right in my opinion. I have tried a few mobile RSS readers and they’re not that useful to me. Basically, on my mobile device I only want to see unread items (based on my desktop). I use NetNewsWire and what I really want to see on my phone is my most important feeds, but only unread items. Unforutnately (for this purpose), I use a BlackBerry, so I’ll have to keep waiting. Go! only works on Windows Mobile devices. I switched to a T-Mobile MDA about 6 months ago and hated it so much that I had to switch back to my Blackberry. So I hope that when Kevin hints around about future support for other devices on his blog, he’s thinking about the Blackberry too. Then, I would use Go! (and pay for it).

David Cohen

The Boulder Denver New Technology Meetup is having it’s second meeting on Tuesday, October 3rd at 6pm in Boulder. There will be six five-minute presentations about “something cool” with question and answer periods.

The first meeting had about 40 attendees and it seemed to go off well, according to the comments. If you have 45 minutes to kill you can listen to the video (you can’t really see the presentations well enough in the video) from the first Boulder meetup (thanks to Scott at ClickCaster for the video). Presenters at the first meetup included Veripal (privacy solutions) and WellcomeMat (YouTube for real estate). After watching the video, the gist of the event feels to me like “fast pitch, demo, then get your business model challenged.” There were also a few people demoing mashups that they built out of need or for just for fun.

Thanks to Medium and founder Robert Reich for organizing this. Robert was a part of the New York New Tech Meetup which used the same format and has a few thousand attendees these days.

David Cohen

Thoos (of Boulder) is a new social networking site dedicated to outdoor athletes. Currently, the list of sports includes climbing, cycling, fishing, hiking, paddling, paragliding, running, skiing, and surfing (ocean, not web). Thoos bills itself as “your social guide to adventure.”

I spent a bit of time playing around on Thoos. I started with one of the user profiles to get a sense of the data that the site manages. Members can track their fastest times, post comments on specific topics, find and connect with “friends” with similar interests, add photos, and more. It even has a 43Things-like goal tracker specific to these sports, and real time data feeds for things such as river conditions and (soon) current ski conditions.

Thoos does a good job of staying extremely focused on a niche. It’s not trying to be MySpace or one of the other countless social networking sites - rather it’s trying to do a better job for outdoor athletes by offering features that are specific to their needs. I like using these vertical social networking sites more than the generic ones because the people you find online can actually turn into acquaintances (or at least penpals) more easily. The only people who use sites like these are those who are fanatical about the topic of the site. This, in turn, tends to lead to a more useful experience as well as a more focused audience for delivering advertising and other highly specialized content.

I recently emailed with founder Sean Hudson to find out more about Thoos. Sean told me that the site just launched in beta a few weeks ago. Thoos is self-funded, or as Sean described it: “Non-funded would be a better description.” Sean told me that they’ve built the site at night and between raising kids and day jobs. Clearly, the site was born from a personal passion for outdoor sports. So far that passion has led to a community of over 4,000 members.

Sean confirmed that Thoos will remain free and is primarily going after advertising revenue. In fact, Thoos has already built an advertising engine of their own so that they can provide very specialized local advertising in the future. Thoos may also add premium services in the future.

Sean hopes to see Thoos turn into his full time job in the future, but for now he continues to hold down a day job. The company is not currently seeking any funding and does not plan to raise money in the short term.

“As one of my initial personal goals, I wanted to see how little money I could actually spend and still launch a successful new venture. Now that we have launched, we intend to use future revenues directly on new development and promotion,” said Sean.

Ah, bootstrapping. It can work. I built my first company with just $100.00 and no outside investment. You can do it Sean!

David Cohen

After my recent switch to Mac, I edited episode #4 of podcast with Collective Intellect using GarageBand. Previously, I had been using Audacity on my PC. The difference was that GarageBand output a MPEG-4 file instead of a simple MP3. After posting it on ClickCaster, I discovered that it wouldn’t necessarily be distributed in the same way. People may have had to come and click on a video start button on the ClickCaster site unless their podcatcher handled that file type automatically. Catchers like iTunes worked just fine, handling it on the fly.

I first noticed this because the podcatcher on my Tivo didn’t show this latest episode at all. So, I have reposted Episode #4 as a straight MP3 here. Many of you who subscribe to the podcast may have already received and/or listened to this episode; sorry about the duplicate if this is the case. You can listen with the ClickCaster player below as well.

David Cohen

This week is Colorado Tech Week, and there are various events around the state happening this week. Some of the more interesting events (in my opinion) include:

• Monday: Colorado RFID Alliance
• Tuesday: IEEE Entrepreneurship and Careers
• Thursday: Colorado Business Magazine Top Company Awards and CSIA DemoGala.
• Friday: CU Innovation to Venture Workshop

The following week, there is a good chance to hear the story of Excite.com from founder Ryan McIntyre on Monday, September 25th.