Brian Tsuchiya just pinged me and told me about the new Boulder Founders Matchmaking Meetup. The specific purpose of this meetup is to bring together current and potential founders who are looking for co-founders.
I think this is a great idea and a much needed meetup, and I’m psyched Brian took the initiative to start it. I’m constantly being approached by people looking for like-minded individuals with either “the next great idea” or who want to jump into something that looks interesting. At this meetup, Brian says that he’ll keep it simple at first and folks will just be able to get up in front of the group and say what they’re looking for. I hope that this can be a catalyst for doing some matchmaking between idea people and/or founders-in-waiting who are looking to find partners to help get the ball rolling. I know I’ll be referring at least 5 people a month to this meetup. Great idea Brian.
Another great resource for this type of matchmaking is ProgrammerMeetDesigner.com. One of the TechStars companies (Intense Debate) met this way and it’s one of many success stories I’ve heard from that site, which is worldwide in scope. It always seems to have lots of listings in Colorado, like these.
Ever waited in line to get into a club or bar only to regret it once you are in because the whole scene sucks? Too many guys or too many girls or an empty dance floor or whatever….the scene sucks….if only you had known. Well, Joseph Salvador shares your pain but he actually decided to do something about it by starting Denver-based BarOptic.com.
“The idea came from a long wait in a line for a Boston nightclub – after waiting for an hour or so I entered an empty club and the idea struck me…It would be great if I could see into the clubs before I get here… My fiancé and I spoke about this idea during the long drive back to Denver and shortly thereafter I started building the prototype website and testing video equipment.” - Joseph Salvador, Founder
BarOptic.com streams live video feeds from nightclubs and bars. The feeds are accessible via the internet and cell phones. Potential patrons can access the feed in order to help them make a decision on the club or bar to patronize. For example, on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights from 10pm to late night you can see what’s going on at Vinyl in Denver or many other clubs. To complement the BarOptic live feeds, BarOptic also has BarOptic TV on its web site to enhance the user’s experience by providing the ability to navigate through nightlife related, professionally produced shows. According to Salvador, users spend an average of almost six minutes per visit.
BarOptic is on a quest to wire up all the clubs in the US and around the world. When I asked about BarOptic’s strategy for achieving this, Salvador responded,
“Our marketing department is launching a new campaign called, The Top 100 Nightlife Destinations in the US. With this campaign, the top 100 destinations are offered exclusive invitations to join our live network at no cost. Our main goal is to get new clubs/channels set up so users can have a viable resource to navigate nightlife destinations across the US. Strategic agreements are in place with local & national resources to help facilitate the process. Once the US is wired, we venture into the international market.” - Joseph Salvador, Founder
BarOptic has entered into partnerships with BestBuy for business supplies and hardware, Geeksquad for installation and maintenance and SpotXchange for the ‘in-stream’ advertisements played on top of all BarOptic content.
Some clubs and bars have raised privacy concerns for their patrons. To those concerns, Salvador responds,
“Our cameras stream video with no audio and are meant to show the crowd, not the individual – it’s more of a birds-eye-view of the scene, showing ambiance, lighting, and crowd. Notices are at the entrance of our live clubs and we do not record any video from our cameras – once the event takes place, it is gone and can’t be accessed again” - Joseph Salvador, Founder
BarOptic is currently bootstrapped by Salvador and his fiancée and “tons of credit”. It consists of six employees in Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts and Texas.
Salvador’s BarOptic solution is really addressing a pain that I personally felt back in the day when I used to go to clubs. However, BarOptic’s success lies in the ability to scale beyond Colorado. Their creative partnerships with BestBuy and GeekSquad will help them scale to markets beyond Colorado while maintaining a small team.
At the second Evangicamp last night in Me.dium’s offices, we took geek to the next level. Boulder is home to more Tech Evangelists than you can shake a stick at.
We have lots of names for what we do. Evangelism. Community Development. Community Outreach. Call it what you like. About once a quarter (the meeting time and place seems to be intentionally kept secret until about 24 hours before the event to ensure only the true evangelists get wind of it) we congregate together to talk shop about how to explain new technologies to lay people, how to convert bloggers into users of our widgets and products and how to be the best evangelists we can be. It’s fun. We drink beer and eat pizza.
Evangicamp is spearheaded in part by Lijit.com’s very own Tara Anderson (featured in this short, and yes, very loud, video). Other Boulder-based companies represented last night include Copy Diva, Crispin + Porter, Villij, TechStars, Fuser, Madkast and many more. Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to get an invite to the next event. If you’re looking for open invite events, you can find a whole lot of them on our calendar.
Every other Tuesday morning from 8-9:15 a group of 35-50 entrepreneurs, VCs and tech types meet up at The Cup for Open Coffee. We talk about the latest tech events, local startup victories and then network in a casual environment.
(The sound quality on this vid is a little low, but we hope you get a sense of what the morning is like from it.)
Jason Mendelson started the group to create an opportunity to network with entrepreneurs in Boulder in a casual and friendly way. The first BOCC had more than fifty people and was held at Amante’s on Walnut Street. It then moved to the now-defunct Vic’s Coffee Shop downtown. Our current location, at The Cup, is perfect for a group of our size. We generally start out with group introductions, talk about recent events in Boulder and beyond, then segue into smaller groups and networking.
Join us to meet new friends, get a shot of the tech scene (and whatever caffeinated bev you like!) in Boulder and hone your elevator pitch. We don’t mind if you practice on us. As long as we can practice on you.
Good news for startup entrepreneurs looking for funding, a seed stage funding group, the Colorado Capital Group, has been launched in Boulder, Colorado.
Marc Silverman (pictured right), the former Executive Director of CTEK Boulder, is one of the partners at CCG. Some of you may have heard at the time that Marc left CTEK Boulder that he was going to start a seed stage funding group called Mountain Angel Capital. Mountain Angel Capital changed its name to Colorado Capital Group (CCG). I interviewed Marc to in order to learn more about CCG. Here’s the interview:
Q: Marc, thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to do this interview. First off, let’s start with your background. Please, give us a brief background of your entrepreneurial journey.
I worked as an engineer for five years, moved to product management for a few years, then the business development side for a few more years, and joined a company that went public 18 months later. I then ran a medical informatics business unit, which I helped sell to a public company. I worked hard and contributed a lot, but was very lucky to be in the right place at the right time. I couldn’t have predicted the chain of events.
I started my first company in the early-90’s. We raised money initially from high net worth people (we called them “rich guys,” not “angels”), and then raised VC money. Sold that company in 1995. I licensed the IP back, and started another company. “Retired” in 2006. Began angel investing in 2006, learned a lot, and here I am.
We didn’t know very much with the first company. We had the foresight, luck and tenacity to stumble into a good idea at exactly the right time. It was a constant state of chaos, iteration, and brute force. I also was very fortunate to meet a few amazing mentors that really changed my life.
Q: That’s an interesting history indeed. After your “retirement,” what made you want to become an angel investor?
It seemed like a good idea at the time. I look at business with an entrepreneurial perspective, I love start-ups, and I like working with entrepreneurs. I like being involved in the process, and I like the idea of offering “more than money.”
Q: You are starting a new seed stage funding group, Mountain Angel Capital. Can you tell us a more about Mountain Angel Capital?
Sure. First, I’ll tell what we are not. We are not traditional venture capitalists, and we are not passive angel investors.
Also, we recently changed the name to Colorado Capital Group. We like the idea of “capital” and “group.” We are a group of successful entrepreneurs dedicated to bringing capital and hands-on mentorship and discipline to early-stage companies.
Q: Who are some of the members of the “group”?
Tapesh Yadav is a successful serial entrepreneur and CEO. He has 15 years experience in building start ups from zero to leadership in diverse markets ranging from devices and clean energy to materials and nanotechnology. He’s a prolific inventor with over 50 issued patents. Tapesh brings insights in market-focused innovation and IP strategy. He’s led and expanded his businesses globally, attracting tens of millions dollars in corporate investment and multiple acquisition proposals from some of the world’s largest and most successful companies. He has successfully led, negotiated and closed exits.
Rob Geller, has been an investor, co-founder, executive, and board member with numerous emerging growth companies in the industries of software/internet, alternative energy, healthcare, and hi-tech manufacturing. He has experience with angel, VC and public financing with a successful track record of investor returns.
We’ll add a few more people as we go along
Q: When will CCG start operating?
Now
Q: Are you going to be funding startups in companies in a specific market?
We focus on what we know – medical devices, software, sustainable energy, and nanotech/devices. We are very small and regionally focused.
Q: When you mention “software”, is that limited to Web 2.0 software or you are pretty much open to any and all software out there?
We’re pretty much open.
Q: You were quoted by the Boulder County Business Report as saying your new group “will try to bring more structure to the often frustrating process of raising money for a startup from angel investors”. How is CCG restructuring the process? What should the startup entrepreneur look forward to once CCG is up and running?
It’s very tough for first-time entrepreneurs to establish a base of angel investors. The process is time consuming and chaotic. A lot more people talk about angel investing than actually write checks. It’s tough for the entrepreneur to know who is “for real,” and it’s equally tough for the angel investor to individually complete the necessary due diligence and other items on their own. I’ve personally found the angel investing process (in Colorado) to be very fragmented, inefficient, and extraordinarily risky.
There are a number of local angels that really know their stuff, have incredible networks, and get companies funded. Unfortunately, there are not enough of them to go around. It’s difficult for the non-superstar entrepreneur to wade through the angel clubs, making 8-minute pitches to marginally interested people. It’s equally difficult for potential angel investors to listen to the pitches and figure out what’s what.
Our goal is to bridge that gap with access to capital and high quality advisors. We are dedicated to bringing the capital, insight, expertise, oversight, relationships and connections necessary to help mitigate early-stage risk, and to help position companies for the next stage of their growth.
Q: How will CCG make the path to funding easier for a non-superstar entrepreneur?
We’ll listen, be candid, and make decisions. And, if it makes sense to us, we’ll be the “lead investor,” and help you through the process.
Q: You mentioned that you will be bringing the connections necessary to help mitigate early-stage risk. What do you mean by that? Are you going to have a different methodology for screening deals?
“Connections” are one of the many things involved, and we’ll do our best to use our contacts, as required. More importantly, we will select companies based our own, very stringent set of criteria, and we’ll spend the “hands-on” time necessary to help start-ups develop and make good choices. This kind of “hands-on” relationship is not for every entrepreneur, but it’s our model, and we will stick to it.
We are operating guys with lots of entrepreneurial experience. We are very optimistic and opportunistic, but we’re also realistic. I think we have a great opportunity to meld our “we’ve made that mistake before, and there’s no need to make it again” with the right entrepreneurs’ vision, drive and charisma. We will not be oppressive (I’ve been on the other side of that one and it’s not fun), but we will help provide guidance and discipline. We don’t want to run the company, or even need a majority position. We want to be engaged team members.
Q: You are going through a startup phase with CCG. How are your startup experiences now different from when you started your first start-up company?
Oh boy, I’m not sure where to start on this one. Three things immediately come to mind: One, when I started my first company, there wasn’t much information out there on how to do it, so we guessed, and adjusted. I had several ugly meetings with potential investors because I didn’t know how to qualify them. A venerable Silicon Valley VC actually told me (as I was standing in front of the group) that I was wasting his time. I had no idea what a presentation should look like. Currently, there’s a plethora of information on everything from “the 10 slides” for the first meeting, to what you should say at the second meeting, what you should wear to the third meeting, how to be civilized at networking events, and everything in-between. I think this is all great, but I caution entrepreneurs to process a lot of this with a grain of salt and incorporate their own personality. I see a lot of stuff that looks like everything else, because they’re working from the same playbook.
Second, producing a prototype is easier. The tools are more powerful, so it’s easier and quicker to produce something tangible. Development used to take more time and money, so it forced more thought and discipline (so the theory goes). Developers need to understand that just because they can create it doesn’t necessarily mean that people will pay for it. I think it’s too easy to rationalize the thoughtless approach that “we’ll just get something out there, and the market will respond.” The big successes make news, but there are a lot of wrecks along the road with this approach.
Third, I don’t know if access to money is easier, or harder. There’s a lot of competition out there, but it sure is easier share your ideas.
Q: What are some of the lessons that you have learned in your years both as an entrepreneur and as an investor?
1. Think, think, think about what are doing, why you’re doing it, and whether it will be meaningful to anyone else.
2. I’ve received some of best advice from entrepreneurs who are serial failures
3. Do you really need to raise money? Why? How much? When? Can you explain all of this to outsiders quickly and convincingly? Try to convince your family first.
4. Raising money is really hard. Anyone who tells you differently either hasn’t done it before, or has rich parents.
5. Find great partners.
6. Listen to everyone, but select your advisors carefully, and for the long haul.
7. The process takes time.
8. Try to create and follow the path of least resistance – it’s hard enough.
9. Focus is incredibly important. Think everyday about how you can make tangible progress. Is the company different at the end of the day, week, and month?
10. Internalize the process of making money. Can you ultimately sell your product for more than it costs you?
11. Don’t dwell on exit strategies. Do something meaningful, and it will probably work out okay – at least you’ll have options.
12. Think like a customer.
13. Don’t over-intellectualize – you’re not curing cancer, unless you really are.
14. It’s a small world. Be nice.
Q: Now let’s turn our attention to the local tech startup community. What do you attribute to the current boom of viable startup technology companies in Boulder?
I don’t know what is “viable” and what isn’t. The environment is certainly robust. Things are cyclic, so time will tell. However, I think that there are a few reasons for the energy:
1. It’s a great place to live, and people tell their friends,
2. There’s a phenomenal support community here of “senior,” successful entrepreneurs graciously willing to share their insight, time, contacts, and (occasionally) their cash.
Q: What does Boulder have to do to keep growing the technology community?
Success breeds success. Hopefully, some of the startups in process will produce a handful of successes, and those successes will create opportunity, attract more talent, money, etc. And, keep your fingers crossed that we don’t invade another country.
Q: From your perspective as an investor, what are the challenges in Boulder right now?
Separating signal from noise.
Q: Do you have some parting advice for aspiring entrepreneurs?
Get a real job if you haven’t had one. It’s a great way to see what works and what doesn’t. Learn your strengths and weaknesses (i.e., can you manage people? do you even like people?). Work on your startup in your spare time until you are ready to commit. Once you are ready to go, be willing to work really hard, meet with lots of people, be humble, learn to prioritize, and don’t take it too seriously. You can always try again.
The founders of ShipGreen, Tim Buchanan and Jason Sperling, have no problem thinking big. They are out to change the world, but not just to get rich doing it.
ShipGreen gives e-commerce merchants a tool which easily integrates with their shopping cart in order to offer buyers a way to purchase credits to offset the CO2 created by shipping their orders. ShipGreen calculates shipping emissions in real-time based upon the origin, destination, shipment weight, and other factors. ShipGreen then uses the funds to manage their offset projects around the world. It’s an easy and cost-free way for merchants to associate their brand with being green, as well as to help do some good in the world. Think of it as “green as a service.”
“Shipping customers are uniquely positioned to create incentives for improved performance in the shipping sector because they can require that their goods be transported with the least possible impact on the environment. There were a few companies out there who offer some sort of green shipping option, but there wasn’t any easy way for a business to help customers address their shipping emissions.” - Founder, Jason Sperling
So far, early merchants such as YogaMates.com who have adopted ShipGreen are seeing nearly 80% take rates from their customers. That’s pretty impressive.
Imagine purchasing a $1,500 computer online and being given the opportunity to add a buck in order to offset the shipping emissions that you’re generating. That’s an appealing offer, and ShipGreen makes it easy for both merchants and buyers. ShipGreen customers can either pass the CO2 credit costs on to their customer, or can sponsor the costs directly. Either way, there’s no need for them to implement and manage an entire CO2 credit program on their own.
“Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth gets the credit for lighting a fire in my belly.”- Founder, Jason Sperling
ShipGreen is obviously a nice solution for businesses that want to help reduce their overall impact on the environment but that don’t want the headache and overhead of managing all of the associated details. Beyond apathy, the alternative is for businesses to simply contribute directly to selected offset projects. But ShipGreen helps businesses to easily shift that burden to the consumer rather than doing it all on their own.
“You know, it is an incredible time to be alive – we’re faced with impending doom and, I think, incredible opportunity. I tend towards idealism and so I am hopeful that ShipGreen can be a model of sustainability. That means both social good and financial reward. Our goal is to parallel concepts such as the triple bottom line, of a business being measured by its ability to achieve profit AND benefit people and the planet.”- Founder, Jason Sperling
The Arvada-based company has been self-funded to date, but has now begun to explore the possibility of raising money. The company is seeking potential investors who share their values and vision of the future.
This is the fourth post in a series of my top twelve startup tips from TechStars last summer.
Almost every startup begins with a theory. Many entrepreneurs believe that their theory is correct, and view their startup as a way to prove it. I think that this mental framework is completely wrong. In fact, I think it’s poisonous.
In order for your startup to succeed, you will almost certainly need to be open to the idea that you are probably wrong about a whole bunch of stuff. You have to embrace it. In fact, you should be happy to be proven wrong. It’s very exciting to be proven wrong by your customers. This is called learning, or evolution. Trying to convince your customer that they are wrong and that you are right is called not listening.
The TechStars mentors have funded more than 200 companies, and there’s lots of anecdotal evidence from them that the vast minority of companies end up successfully doing exactly what they thought they’d be doing when their founders incorporated the company. It’s very uncommon. But let’s look at some specific and very real data from TechStars. We’re lucky enough to be building up a tremendous amount of experience with companies in their earliest stages, so let’s take advantage of what we learned.
Of the ten companies who participated in TechStars last summer, 80% (or eight) of them have gone on to receive further angel or venture funding, are profitable, or have had early acquisition offers. So we’re dealing with reasonably high quality companies, at least as compared to the general population of startups. Today, of these companies, 20% (or 2) are doing more or less what they indicated they would be doing on their applications. Another 20% (2) of these companies are currently doing something different from what they proposed, although you can still spot similarities with their original application. 60% (6) of them are doing something decidedly and obviously different than they were founded to do. For these companies, you would not recognize them from their original applications to TechStars.
One might argue that this is because the mentors surrounding TechStars know a bad idea when they see one, and have somehow talked these startups into just going and doing something else. That’s not the case - each of these startups who have changed their vision, mission, product, approach, business plan, or whatever, has done so because they have accepted the basic premise that their theories are just that - theories. Each of them tested some sort of product vision or prototype with potential customers, and eagerly awaited honest feedback. They approached the problem of proving or disproving their theory with intellectual honesty. Rather than selling their vision, they presented it plainly and tried to understand the value of it to their customer. They asked great questions such as “what would make this more valuable to you?” and “what are your biggest, most annoying problems in this area?”
In my first company, we had a pretty good theory. Our theory was “ambulances need to be dispatched, and people shouldn’t have to pay a million dollars and use the crappy software that’s out there today to solve that problem effectively.” It turned out that we were right. We built a better product for a fraction of the cost. But then we grew. Our customers told us that this was not enough. They wanted us to solve their billing, employee scheduling, accounting, mobile data, and paramedic data collection problems too. So we did. Now they’re telling that company that they dispatch fire trucks too. And the company is listening. Could I, as a founder of this company, have envisioned the perfect product suite for the company’s customers of today? No way. I hardly recognize it.
Honestly, this is a best case scenario. You build a product people find valuable, and then you keep solving their problems. If it’s a big enough market, this is going to work. But for most companies, their first theory is not likely to be as good. They’re going to have to evolve and come up with new theories. They’re going to have to fail fast, redirect, reconsider, and restart. If your theories are totally wrong, that’s fine too. You can do something about that.
The worst place you can be with a startup is a place where you have confidently held misinformation. You are proceeding on a path that matches your theory. You’re spending lots of time and energy, all with full-on tunnel vision toward your goals, and man are you going fast. That is a scary picture. Try looking up for a second, and reorienting yourself to the fundamental idea that you are likely to be wrong. Does that change your perspective? Be honest: Have you really proven your theory yet?
If the answer is no, then here are some tactics. Build a prototype, not a finished product. Show people that prototype. Get them to play with it early on. Are they engaged? Do they care? Is it solving a problem? When you hit a pain point, you’ll know it. No prototype? That’s ok, build a set of slides, and walk your customers through the experience. Remember that they’re likely to be encouraging and nice. Especially if they’re your friends (the worst kind of customer to test your theory on is your friend). People like to be nice. They like to be supportive. Make sure you’re getting real data. The best real data comes from busy, random, detached people. Not from your best friend Jimmy.
If the answer was “Yes, of course, I have proven my theory.” then that’s great! Proceed quickly, and get to the next value point. But look up early, and look up often. There are things you will be wrong about in your future. And congratulations on understanding the basic premise that your theory required proof! You are miles ahead of the game.
“What are the benefits and limitations of each of the primary forms of IP protection?”
“How can I begin to develop an IP strategy that fits my business?”
“Where can I turn for additional assistance, and what steps should I take even before contacting an attorney?”
“How can I benefit from IP protections, even on a tight budget?”
There’s no charge to attend, but you do need to register.
Like most events I hear about around town, this one is in the Colorado Startups events calendar. You can subscribe by RSS or iCal to stay up to date with all the local entrepreneurial events. if you know of an upcoming event that entrepreneurs would want to know about, please let me know.
UPDATE: The email address originally provided was wrong. Use Richard dot Barone at Colorado dot edu.
Each year, a really neat event called the Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC) is held. Schools all over the world hold a localized competition with winners coming out of each bracket. The mountain region competition is February 8, and it’s right here in our backyard at CU. The international finals are April 17-19 at UNC.
This is not a business plan competition. The VCIC competition is an MBA learning opportunity that features real companies, real entrepreneurs, real business plans, real venture capitalists, and real competition. It’s a pretty unique experience that emulates the real world including all the parties involved, and has some real benefits for the companies that participate.
If your company is seeking early stage investment, is willing to do a brief 10 minute presentation on February 8th as well as to take due diligence questions for 2 hours, and would like to be a part of VCIC, please contact Rich Barone at Richard dot Barone at Colorado dot edu for more information. This could help you, the local entrepreneurial community, and CU. That’s a win-win-win.
David Cohen
Tom Chikoore
Gwen Bell
Marc Silverman (pictured right), the former Executive Director of CTEK Boulder, is one of the partners at CCG. Some of you may have heard at the time that Marc left 
