Hey Devs: Visit Boulder for free
September 28, 2008
If you’re a software developer living somewhere outside of Colorado and have been hearing all these great things about the startup scene here, it’s time to come check it out. For free.
Twenty of Boulder’s most interesting early stage companies have teamed up to fly 100 developers in, put them up in a nice Boulder hotel, and show them around town for two days. This is 100% paid for by the 20 sponsoring companies, including Aegis, EventVue, Filtrbox, Fuser, Gnip, HiveLive, Me.dium, Printfection, Rally, Return Path, Socialthing, and more. You’ll get your chance to infromally interview with every one of them you’d like to during one of your two days here in town. The other day is for checking out the city, and for hanging out with some of the people from your favorite startups.
There will be dinners, fun events, and basically one big party that week. It’s taking place October 26-31 (you’ll come for two nights sometime during that week). The application deadline is October 13th, so get your application in soon for a chance to win your trip.
Remember to tell your friends (who are also developers that might consider a move to Boulder) about this. Boulder is even more fun when you bring a friend or two!
Check out with Mike Arrington of TechCrunch had to say about this event.
I hope to see you in Boulder for this fun event! If you end up applying, be sure to reach out to me and I’ll be sure you get a chance to check out TechStars while you’re here.
Colorado Angel Capital Summit is November 21st
September 19, 2008
The Colorado Angel Capital Summit is looking for interesting companies to present at this second annual event. Some good coverage from last years event can be found on Dave Taylor’s blog. I was out of the country for last years event but I plan to attend this year.
Here’s some text from the organizers:
The Summit will feature the smartest investors and the most innovative entrepreneurs in the Rocky Mountain Region, with an anticipated audience of over 500 entrepreneurs, private investors and service professionals.
To apply to present, go to angelcapitalsummit.org. There, you will find step-by-step instructions. The deadline to apply is Friday, October 10. There is no fee to apply. However, once selected to present, companies will be required to submit a registration form and a $300/$350 fee (members/non-members). There will be a mandatory “pitch practice” one week before the event.
Auctioning my Google Chrome comic book
September 16, 2008
Google sent me two copies of the Google Chrome comic book. It’s a beautifully printed version of the lengthy comic strip explaining Chrome that you’ve probably seen online, and it’s pretty rare.
Following in the footsteps of others, this post marks the start of an auction for one of these rare Chrome comic books. TechCrunch’s auction ended up at over $1500, so don’t be shy! The auction will end at 10pm Mountain Time on Wednesday, September 24. Once this auction is over, I might sell the second one here too - we’ll see.
The highest bidder will need to bring me a tax-deductible check made out to the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado. We’ll then donate the money together. To place a bid, just enter the amount you’re willing to pay in the comments to this post. Please read the other comments and be sure your bid is higher than any others before bidding. Regular non-bidding comments are welcome too!
Win or lose, I hope you’ll consider having your company join the 20+ awesome companies in Colorado that have already joined the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado. Socialthing did, and when it recently sold to AOL, a good chunk of cash went right to the foundation and is being put to work at non-profits right here in our community. Here’s how it works. You pledge 1% of the equity in your company to EFCo so that giving back is totally integrated into the very fabric of your company. If you’d like to learn more about having your company join EFCo, please contact me.
Let the bidding begin!
Parentricity - Dads are parents too ya know
September 16, 2008
How do you compete with the likes of CafeMom.com, MayasMom.com, MomJunction, and MothersClick.com? You guessed it, you include the dads in the message and in the solution.
Irked that when he became a new father, he couldn’t find a place to interact with other new parents that wasn’t totally geared towards moms, founder Eli Mandelbaum told me that Parentricity is different from most of the competitors in four key ways. These are that it is “(1) the only site that is product centric for parents; (2) the only site in the category for mothers and fathers; (3) the only site that allows parents to find, share, and see what their friends and other parents think of products that they are buying; (4) the only site in the category that hosts business profiles.”
The site is quite broad in terms of the number of capabilities it has. Video sharing, advice, blogging, forums, product reviews, and even contents are part of the mix.
Parentricity launched a private alpha in December of 2007 and has attracted about 33,000 parents so far. Somewhat ironically, less than 1/3 of these parents are male. Parentricity is aiming for both fathers and mothers, but so far most of the interest in products like this comes from the moms.
The three person company has raised a small round of financing from friends and family, and is currently seeking a larger angel round of about $500k. The company plans to monetize the service through advertising, e-commerce, commission-based relationships and strategic partnerships.
Parentricity is still in a closed “alpha” period, but Eli is allowing any Colorado Startups readers to use the site now. See, I get you in everywhere daddy-o.
Learn from how Boulder did it
September 11, 2008
My friend Ben Casnocha wrote an article which was recently published in The American called Start-Up Town. The article focuses on the rise of the entrepreneurial scene in Boulder over the last 15 years.
I’m often called by would-be “catalysts” in other cities and asked how Boulder managed to successfully put itself on the map as a legitimate startup town. They ask what they key thing was: was the bloggers, TechStars, the angel groups, or something else?
I’m reminded of Matt Mullenweg’s words during his recent visit to TechStars, where he explained that Wordpress, like many startups, looks as if it had sudden success. He explained the the reality is often that what appears to be a sudden success is simply the result of a tipping point that comes after a long, long uphill battle.
Ben does a great job in this article of showing the sustained effort of entire community over a long period of time that was required to get here. It may look instantaneous but like anything worth doing, it’s difficult and it takes time.
So what do I say to the would-be catalysts? Start blogging, start highlighting your successes, and encourage early-stage investment. Be what you want to be - entrepreneurial. Just start doing stuff, but just like in a startup, do it with passion and long term commitment or don’t bother.
Boulder, we’re proud of you. You too Ben!
New Tech Meetup Sept 2 recap
September 2, 2008
Ah yes, I remember blogging. Now that TechStars is over, I’m planning to really be back at it. I always go into a lull in the summer. Thanks for staying with me. ;-)
So here’s my live blogging of the New Tech Meetup that happened tonight in Boulder. I’d say about 200 were in attendance tonight, down from around 300 last month. Robert did something great this month - for each company that presented there was a slide up on the side of the main screen showing the name of the company, url, what the company does, and what help it wants from the audience. Super helpful.
First there were some announcements.
Printfection announced $10,000 reward for developers they hire.
Ignite Denver is happening next week.
Then several companies did 5 minute presentations.
Fling It Girl showed off their “digg for womens products”. Looks like a straight up (although pink) digg clone targeted at stuff women would like. They reported that in a month they figured out that nobody wanted to submit products to the site (lots of lurkers/users, but very few content creators - shocking!), but instead the community wanted content to be pre-populated and then use the social ranking features. I like this change - they find cool stuff and populate the system, and then the community elevates the content. It was awesome that when asked for financial projections, they said “we have none - we expect to grow to infinity and beyond.” Honesty and a no bullshit approach is often so refreshing.
Sports Data Hub is a Denver based startup for football data analysis for gamblers, fantasty football players, and football fans. ESPN has called it a “very impressive product.” They plan to add more sports over time and they want to be come “the place to go” for detailed sports data. They showed an awesome analytical example of passing completion percentage organized by referee. There is one referee who has a noticeably higher rate of calling completed passes when he works. They dove into why and they showed a clear trend of this referee coming in and out of the game and the passing percentage changing literally right along with his entry and exit. They even looked at how specific quarterbacks are affected. They showed how there was obviously a correlation using some neat charting. Really cool example - although I can’t imagine what the cause is. Perhaps it’s simply a coincidence inside a sea of data. If you live and breathe sports, I can see how this would be very addicting for the data lovers.
Next up was App Venture which makes software that makes software. They showed off “Foundations” - a great looking tool that allows you to model your data, properties, etc. The tool generates C# code for .NET. There is a ton of competition in this space ranging from Yahoo Pipes to Popfly to IronSpeed. Colorado’s own Hypersites reminds me of this in some ways. I was involved in that company and as one astute audience member pointed out, these things often drift into consulting driven businesses because of the expertise required to get up to speed on the tools. I’ve found these sorts of tools to be fantastic for generating simple applications, but they generally suck at helping you with the actual business logic. They’re great to help set up frameworks and get simple apps rolling. This looks like a product that could be extremely useful in certain situations - it appears to be very professionally done and well thought out. I like that it’s an open and extensible (non-proprietary code generation) - that differentiates it from some of the stuff I’ve seen out here. The product just launched about a month ago and I think they said it sells for around $700.
Then we heard from Navaraga. Luckily, they’re changing the name to Kamune.com (sounds like “com-myoon”) soon so you don’t have to learn how to pronounce Navaraga. The company is hoping to solve the problem that “collaborating on email is not working.” Kamune will be an online collaboration service, similar to an eRoom. It appears to try to overlay a geographic taxonomy on top of your data. The demo was pretty weak - I think mostly because they’re trying to introduce an entirely new paradigm and collaborative operating system and didn’t give much thought in advance of how to effectively introduce this in 5 minutes. The presenter broke the cardinal sin which was that he “told” more than he “showed”. I’m interested to see more - so I’ll be watching the site as this evolves to see if the benefits they espouse begin to surface. My initial concern is that they’re fundamentally trying to change user behaviors and I wasn’t able to see much in terms of “bridge” technologies to make existing workflows (emails, etc) to the new system. The audience was (correctly in my view) providing lots of feedback that their messaging around “reducing email” was confusing and not really a good way to help people understand the product. Sure - it can reduce email, but explaining it in an elevator pitch as email reduction really gets in the way of understanding what this complex piece of software really does. Hopefully they heard that. I’d like to see this company come back to the meetup with a more thought out approach to the demo for this forum. It’s going to be key for them to be able to explain this product in 60 seconds. It can be done.
Then we heard from Orchestr8 which can be used to create widgets from any web site. I covered this in January of 2007, and the product is fundamentally the same but the user experience has come a long way. This tool suprasses what their nearest competitor Dapper can do, as far as I can tell. However, Orchestr8’s messaging and presentation don’t see as clean as Dapper, perhaps because the technology goes deeper and is more complex. Orchestr8 is a really handy way to mash up web content and reuse it (again, ala Yahoo Pipes). The team here is obviously really talented and the technology is very deep - if you’re interested widgetization of content, this one is worth checking out. The company attempting to raise a multi-million dollar Series A around now, as a follow on to a past investment of $500k from angel investors.
All in all this was a high quality meetup this month. Some cool technologies, a few laughs, some food, and a bunch of geeks. What more could you ask for?
Interview with Mark Solon on VCIR Fall
August 26, 2008
The following is an interview with Mark Solon of Highway 12 Ventures regarding VCIR Fall, which takes place Sept 9-11 in Sun Valley, Idaho.
Q. Mark, for those who don’t know you, can you introduce yourself?
I’m the founder and managing partner of Highway 12 Ventures in Boise. We’re an early-stage venture firm focused on investing in high-growth companies in the fasting growing region in the country, the mountain west. I also used to have a pretty decent curveball until ‘cuff surgery a few years ago. All I’ve got left now is a decent wrist shot in our local ice hockey beer league…
Q. What’s your relationship with VCIR?
I’ve been attending VCIR since we started Highway 12 in 2001. From my perspective, VCIR in Beaver Creek each February is the premier event in the region each year. If you’re involved in any start-up activity in this region, it’s the “must attend” event of the year.
Q. VCIR is always a great annual event. Why was a Fall event set up for the first time this year?
After attending and participating in too many small regional venture events from 2000-2006 without the needed critical mass for success, I knew the region needed a flagship event; you know, a rising tide and all that. In 2006, I approached some of my colleagues who were members of the board of the Colorado Venture Capital Association to talk to them about the idea of expanding their footprint to become a regional association and to my pleasant surprise, they had already begun discussions about the idea. After the CVCA expanded to become the Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association (RMVCA) in ‘06, I was asked to join that board and pleaded my case to expand VCIR to twice a year. I suggested keeping Venture in the Rockies in Beaver Creek each year given the national prestige that event had attained, but proposed adding a second VCIR event which would rotate around the rest of the region, highlighting all the other great startups in those states. For instance, each year in Idaho, we have a small handful of companies that are “venture-ready.” The problem is, we just don’t have enough of them to support a meaningful annual event on our own which would draw venture investors from outside the region. Other States like Montana, Utah and New Mexico were faced with the same challenge. Anyway, the board embraced the idea. Of course, it was like waking a sleeping baby; “you wake it, you take it.” Hence, I’m chairing the first VCIR Fall and we’re doing it in my home state of Idaho.
Q. How will the fall event be different?
We thought it was important to differentiate the two events somewhat. Venture Capital in the Rockies has always had 20-25 companies presenting with multiple tracks. Knowing that it’s going to take some time for VCIR Fall to attain the same notoriety as Venture in the Rockies, we wanted to create a more intimate feel with no tracks and everyone in the same room. Also, we’ve reduced the number of companies presenting and increased the content. We’ve got a handful a world renowned speakers. For instance, Bob Maynard – chief investment officer of PERSI will be talking about the private equity markets. Bob manages Idaho’s $11B pension and was recently named public pension manager of the year. Our keynote speaker is Wade Davis, a cultural anthropologist and explorer-in-residence at national geographic who will teach us about the effects of technology proliferation on vanishing cultures. When I saw him earlier this year, his presentation left the audience awestruck. Lastly, we’ve got senior managers from HP, Google, Yahoo and Amazon who will be speaking individually and on a panel together. However, the biggest difference will probably be the wardrobes. The overwhelming majority of folks registered have signed up for various activities the day after the conference. We expect to see more golf, mountain biking and fly-fishing outfits at the fall conference. Honestly, there may not be a more beautiful place in the world than Sun Valley, Idaho in September.
Q. Will there be two events annually going forward or is this an experiment?
The RMVCA is committed to putting on two events a year. The plan is to keep the hugely successful winter event in Beaver Creek each February and rotate the fall event throughout the region. We’ve already selected Park City, Utah for VCIR Fall ‘09 and we’re looking at places like Big Sky-Montana, Jackson Hole-Wyoming and Taos – New Mexico for future events. Lets face it, folks that have succeeded in places like Silicon Valley and Boston are flocking to this region because it’s no longer just the greatest place to live in the world, now it’s becoming the greatest place to start a company. The RMVCA firmly believes that we’re at the beginning of a wave of innovation in the region that’s going to create tremendous value for investors over the next few decades.
Q. Can you explain the transformation that VCIR has gone through from a Colorado-focused event to more of a regionally focused event?
We believe that VCIR Fall is going to showcase the rest of the region much like Venture in the Rockies did for Colorado. It’s evident to me that just expanding the CVCA to the RMVCA is already fostering a more collaborative working relationship among the regional VC’s. I know that VCIR Fall will do the same for mountain west by bringing entrepreneurs, service providers and investors together from throughout region.
Q. How is participation from out of state VCs looking?
We’re thrilled with the number of investors who have registered from outside the rockies. We’ve got VC’s registered from Boston, Silicon Valley, New York, Texas, the mid-atlantic states, Seattle, and more.
Q. What are you most looking forward to at VCIR Fall?
Personally, I love that VCIR gets us all out from behind our screens for a few days and talking about our businesses and our lives in a cool and interesting setting. The technology business seems to have less face-to-face interaction every year and I always see more business actually getting done in the weeks following an event like this. The energy from VCIR always recharges my batteries and reminds me how lucky we are to do what we do and be doing it in the mountain west.
Learn more and register to attend VCIR Fall from Sept 9-11 in Sun Valley, Idaho here. Thanks Mark!
AOL buys Socialthing
August 14, 2008
AOL has acquired Socialthing, a TechStars company from 2007 which built a popular digital life manager.
TechCrunch, Somewhat Frank, and Mashable all have coverage of the news, as does the TechStars blog in case you want more details.
Disclosure: Through TechStars, I was a small investor in Socialthing.
Lijit raises an additional $7.1M
August 12, 2008
Lijit continues to rock as it is now reporting that is has raised an additional $7.1M in venture funding from The Foundry Group, Boulder Ventures, and High Country Venture. This brings Lijit’s total funding to around $11M (it raised angel money and 3.3M previously) . Lijit will use the money to to launch their search powered ad network.
To me, Lijit is a great example of a company that “got the right people on the bus” and then “listened”. It started life as OutFoxed, which I covered here in mid-2006. The company quickly morphed the product from a plug-in which enhanced search results with social context to one which helped publishers to become the focal point of search, allowing them to expose a search box (like you see on ColoradoStartups.com) which leveraged the trusted network of the individual publisher to return more relevant results to the searcher.
Over time, Lijit developed the idea of “re-search”, which allowed publishers to intelligently include lijit-based search results as readers moved across enabled sites and pages. Here’s an example of what this functionality looks like:
As you can see, anyone who has searched for “colorado startups outfoxed” using Lijit and was led to my content gets to automagically see other content that is in my trusted network that might be related. The magic of this is that it tends to increase page views for me and those that I choose to include in my network.
More page views tend to be good for publishers, especially when more capability for the reader is being provided. Dave Taylor is a good example - he’s reporting that the re-search functionality on his popular AskDaveTaylor site is generating about 150,000 extra impressions each day.
The next challenge for Lijit is to build out the ad network which will allow targeted ads to be placed in these search results. This will allow publishers to monetize these extra impressions simply and effectively.
Congrats to Todd, Micah, Tara and the gang at Lijit on this next step in their evolution. It’s great to see VC money continuing to be deployed widely here in Boulder.
Happy birthday - Boulder New Tech Meetup turns 2.0
August 9, 2008
Larry Nelson of W3W3 sent me some great photos of the New Tech Meetup this past Tuesday. The meetup is now two years old.
How time flies. I remember going to the first meetup and presenting EarFeeder at the second one ever. Me.dium hosted these early meetups in their office and somewhere between 15 and 30 people would attend. The meetup quickly outgrew that office and eventually moved to CU. The other night I’d conservatively guess that about 300 people were in the room. I was curious so I checked: Boulder’s New Tech Meetup is now the fifth largest of its kind in the country!
Thanks to Robert Reich of Me.dium and sponsors such as Silicon Flatirons, ViaWest, and W3W3 for making this happen. Our new tech meetup is just another great thing happen for the startup scene here in Boulder. If you haven’t been to a new tech meetup yet, or haven’t been in a while, I’d encourage you to join us for the next meetup on September 2nd.
Search
-
Startup Jobs
-
Recent Network Posts
-
Mark Cuban on How to Get Rich
From Fort Worth Startup Blog -
Highlights from the Startup Blog Network
From North Carolina Startup Blog -
10 Tips for Startups to Survive the Recession
From Fort Worth Startup Blog -
Don't Be a Greedy Founder!
From Fort Worth Startup Blog -
Franchises as Business Ideas
From North Carolina Startup Blog -
3 Ways to Raise Startup Money
From Fort Worth Startup Blog -
Local Marketing Executive Launches Full Service Agency to Support Small to Mid-Size Business Growth in the Triangle
From North Carolina Startup Blog -
Dallas Based Astadia Inc. Grabs $7MM in Funding
From Fort Worth Startup Blog -
Great source for startup ideas!
From North Carolina Startup Blog -
Time to Start Your Startup
From Fort Worth Startup Blog
-
Mark Cuban on How to Get Rich
Advertisement
