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Pitch Camp Dallas is COMING!

September 21, 2008

Alex Muse over at the Texas Startup Blog announced today that he and Christopher St. John will be hosting Pitch Camp on October 18th. If you’re interested in participating, leave a comment on Alex’s blog or shoot him an email. Here is the post from Alex:

Christopher St. John and I are hosting ‘Pitch Camp‘ on October 18th, 2008 at the INFOMART (in Dallas, TX).  The all-day event (10AM to 5PM) is designed for up-to 50 entrepreneurs. Pitching your startup to prospective employees, angel investors, venture capitalists or journalists can be daunting for the most experienced entrepreneur, must less the startup novice.  Pitch Camp will be very interactive and hands-on – come prepared to work.  This isn’t a spectator sport (oh and you won’t be getting funded, this is purely an educational event). Here is the tentative agenda:

  • 10:00 – 10:30 How to pitch to angels and venture capitalists.
  • 10:45 – 11:15 When to use a deck and when to demo.
  • 11:15 – 11:45 How to pitch to journalists.
  • 12:00 – 1:00 Lunch/Networking
  • 1:00 – 3:00 Pitching workshop (the group assists 1-3 entrepreneurs prepare a pitch)
  • 3:00 – 3:30 Real live pitching (1-3 entrepreneurs, prepared by group will pitch)
  • 3:30 – 4:00 Pitch feedback from panel of 1-3 real live venture capitalists and angel investors
  • 4PM-5PM Beer/Networking

What we need (i.e. how you can help):

Christopher is working to select 1-3 entrepreneurs who would be willing to become the guinee pig or case study for the workshop.  If you would like to be one of three entrepreneurs whose pitches we work on, please comment on this post with a) who you are, b) what you are working and c) what stage is your idea/business.

While Christopher is working to recruit pitchers, I am responsible for finding the coaches/trainers.  We need two or three venture capital or angel investors and one journalist who are available to give a 20 minute talk on how to pitch between 10AM and Noon.  Additionally, we will need two or three venture capital or angel investors who would be willing to judge and critique pitches between 3PM and 4PM.  If you can help out with the morning or afternoon please ping me at amuse@m-ven.com.  If you are simply interested in providing advice or suggestions please post those to the comments.

If you are interested in attending, please RSVP on the Upcoming site here.  The event is sponsored by SpringStage startup network.

Written by Bradley Joyce · Filed Under Blog, Startups, Venture Capital |  

Four Things Founders Need to Know About Their Stock

September 15, 2008

John Bautista, a partner in Orrick’s Emerging Companies Group, has a very informative guest post over on the Lightspeed Venture Partner’s blog.

John dives in to some of the details surrounding Founder’s stock and some key things every founder should know when they form their company:

When entrepreneurs start a company, there are four things they need to know about their stock in the company:

• Vesting schedule
• Acceleration of Vesting
• Tax traps
• Potential for future liquidity

Get the details and the rest of the post HERE

Written by Bradley Joyce · Filed Under Blog, Startups, Venture Capital |  

Is Your Startup Built on AWS?

September 14, 2008

Amazon Web Services is holding their 2008 AWS Start-Up Challenge. Here are the details:

AWS Start-Up Challenge

Attention: Start-Ups and Entrepreneurs!  Do you have a great idea or an existing application that is built on AWS? 

With the 2008 AWS Start-Up Challenge, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is searching for the next hot start-up that is leveraging AWS to build its infrastructure and business. The grand prize is $100,000 in cash and AWS credits and a potential investment offer from Amazon.

Tell Us About It

To enter, complete the online application by October 3, 2008. The judges panel will review all applications and choose five finalists based on the following criteria: originality and creativity of the idea, likelihood of long-term success, how well it addresses a need in the marketplace, and implementation of AWS’ infrastructure services and/or other paid services.

In October, the finalists will be announced and we will post a video of each finalist on aws.amazon.com where the community can vote for their favorite start-up.

The Final Countdown

For the Final Round, AWS will fly the finalists to Amazon Headquarters in Seattle to present their idea to the judges’ panel. The finalists will also pitch their business ideas to VCs, meet with industry leaders and Amazon executives, and be featured at the AWS Start-Up event, where the grand prize winner will be announced.

Reap the Rewards

The grand prize includes $50,000 in cash, $50,000 in AWS service credits, a potential investment offer from Amazon, AWS Premium Support for two years, and mentoring sessions from an AWS executive. All finalists will be included in various promotional activities.

Plus, all contestants with qualified entries will receive $25 credit for Amazon Web Services.

See the Official Rules for more information.
What are you waiting for?  Submit your idea today!

 

Written by Bradley Joyce · Filed Under Blog |  

3 Reasons to Go ‘All Angel’

September 13, 2008

Ron Conway, a recent panelist at Techcrunch50 and prolific investor, gives three great reasons you should take angel funding (perhaps over bigger VC rounds).

This comes via Carleen Hawn over at Gigamom.com

  1. Angels are not fiduciaries. Angel investments are always going to be smaller, but the due diligence process is also going to be less rigorous, because angels are not acting as a fiduciary to another investors. VCs are duty-bound to put your company through a thorough review process because they are investing other people’s money. This is why I enjoy being an angel and not being a fiduciary: I can make my own decisions based on my intuitive process, my own opinion and gut feel about a company, because I am investing on my own account. This means I can make decisions faster, which is also good for the entrepreneurs.

  2. Angels are often vertical specialists. Some VCs tend to be generalists when it comes to an industry (e.g., retail), or technology (e.g., mobile). Because angels often come from a successful industry background, you can do a better job of hand-picking a partner who will add expertise and value relevant to your precise market area — not just money. If your company operates in social networking, you might be enticed to go to a bulge-bracket, or marquee VC firm—and they would consider you because the space is so hot. But chances are that even some of the biggest VC firms won’t have someone with deep domain expertise in social networking, it’s just too new. But you could go see Owen Van Natta, who just left Facebook. You’re in cloud computing? Go get Diane Greene, the former CEO of VMWare. They’d both make great angels.

  3. Angels have one-degree of separation from people in their professional network — not two, or three, or four. But because angels tend to be operational types, the business relationships they bring to the table are personal, not transactional. Angels also tend to invest in concentrated themes, consistent with their operating experience. So when it comes to accelerating your business development — through things like recruiting, partnerships, cultivating sales, etc. — angels tend to connect the dots. The combination of first-hand relationships and focus means an angel can might get your company to an “exit” sooner.

Written by Bradley Joyce · Filed Under Blog |  

Why SpringStage Will Ultimately Be Successful

September 12, 2008

One of the blogs I subscribe to is that of Andrew Hyde, a Boulder based entrepreneur. He posted a review of the Techcrunch50 conference and the last paragraph I think tells me why SpringStage will be successful in the long run.

“Final thought. We can learn with BarCamp and BIL that the community ‘bottoms up’ approach to organizing can take hold and spread. If DEMO is evil according to TC, and TC puts on a conference that the average joe or blogger can’t get into, then an open and fair conference or movement will start that will aim to eclipse both, and it won’t be held at a conferece hall, it will be held in 200 places around the world. We are a startup community, and we need to support each other.”

Check out Andrew’s blog here: http://andrewhyde.net/tc50-review/

To learn more about SpringStage, visit the public wiki at http://springstage.pbwiki.com

Written by Bradley Joyce · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

FWSB Added to Alltop!

September 12, 2008

Featured in Alltop
The Fort Worth Startup Blog has been added to Alltop at startup.alltop.com.

Many thanks to Neez and the rest of the Alltop team for including us! If you haven’t visited Alltop, check them out to get the latest stories from around the web on all your favorite topics.

Written by Bradley Joyce · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

Angel Profile: North Dallas Investment Group

September 11, 2008

Mary Ann Sadowski of the NDIG was kind enough to do a quick Q&A about their angel group:

Quick Facts:

Q & A

Are you for profit or not for profit?

Not for profit.

How many angels are in your group?      

15         

Do you charge angels?

No.

How frequently do you meet? 

We currently do not meet. Our group is a virtual group.

Do you invest individually or in a pool?

Individually

What was the first company your group invested in?   Church Music Now.com  The most recent?     North American Technologies

What is the process for entrepreneur who is interested in pitching?

Sign-up on-line through the AngelSoft software. 

Do you charge entrepreneurs?   

No.

What is the mission/vision of your group?  

Provide a platform for accredited investors to view various types and sizes of companies seeking private capital.

How many companies do you think your group has seed funded?   

20 (our group has been investing since 1997)

What sort of return has the group generated in the aggregate on its investments (ballpark estimate)? 

$1M +

Written by Bradley Joyce · Filed Under Angel Profiles, Blog, Startups |  

Startup Profile: Nectar - a fresh look at you

September 10, 2008

Quick Facts:

  • Nectar is the hub for your personal brand online.
  • Founded by Dave Onkels, Josiah Platt, Brett Tilford, Caleb White and Charles Williams
  • Funding: Personal savings and sweat equity, no outside funding
  • Business Model: users are charged a flat fee initially based on the design they choose and its exclusivity (each design is limited in the number of times it can be used), and then a monthly hosting fee that includes domain and email forwarding
  • Anticipated Launch Date: October 13th 2008 12:00pm CST

I’ve been speaking with Dave about the project over the past few weeks and am excited to get a look at it when it launches. The Nectar team spent the past weekend in a 72 hour hackathon to give development a big boost. They have a great post over at their freshly launched Nectar Blog, outlining the effort. They also put together a great time-lapse video of the entire weekend, which I’ve included below.

Here is a quick Q & A I did over IM with Dave:

What is Nectar, really?

In the past, people used business cards, resumes, and word-of-mouth testimonials to define who they are and what they stand for – or said another way, to create their personal brand.

Fast-forward to now, where our activity on the Internet, to a great extent, establishes our reputation and is what delivers our first impression. Your brand is comprised of personal media in the form of web sites, blogs, photo galleries, videos, music, comments, reviews, chats, and shared items. Yet as personal as this media is, it’s spread across the Internet only to be found by the select users part of a similar community or through deep Google searches.

We believe you can shape your personal brand online to better define yourself, convey your personality, and share your talents. Nectar delivers exactly that solution by providing a personal brand hub created by the world’s best designers and communicated using the most elegant and simple of all interfaces.

Who will be the average Nectar customer?

For the next 12-18 months it will be medium to heavy social media users / bloggers / and freelancers outside of the design industry (assuming a professional designer won’t want a pre-designed site)

How did the Nectar team come together?

I had been recruiting writers for a content publishing project and was approached by Josiah - after doing some research on him I realized I needed to see if he’d be interested in talking with me about my vision for personal branding… we met and hit it off smashingly - he and I met with the rest of his Fuor agency team and got them on board with the project

We consummated the deal with a formal partnership / LLC last month.

 

What was the most/least fun part of the hackathon?
I think the most fun was the mind-meld / absurd humor that came from late nights.
The least fun for Josiah and Caleb would be some of the initial development hurdles… they had to write some new javascript to implement the design the way we wanted.
Would you do it again?
I’ll have to quote Caleb on that one…

If you are working on a startup here in the metroplex, take a cue from these guys and get to work!

Written by Bradley Joyce · Filed Under Blog, Startup Profiles, Startups |  

Mark Cuban is the Entrepreneur’s Entrepreneur

September 10, 2008

Jason Calacanis interviewed Mark Cuban yesterday at Techcrunch50 and the transcript is definitely worth reading.

Mark Cuban is probably known to many people as the owner of the Dallas Mavericks who was on Dancing With the Stars. However, he has had an entrepreneurial career that most founders/startups only dream about.

Here are the take-a-ways I got from the interview:

  • startups today are too focused on pageviews/users rather than revenue and making money.
  • EXECUTE - we all know this one, but I like the way Mark puts it: everybody’s got the will to win but when it comes time to doing something, it’s always about someone else. Not many people have the will to prepare. You got to be willing to know your product and environment better than anybody. No matter what you do there is someone out there trying to kick your ass. You got to be the smartest guy in the room about your product. Then you need to have a revenue source. You need a company with a revenue to make money. Concept, competition, and where the money is — plus something you love doing. I’ve never had a day of work. When I die I want to come back as me.
  • read, read, read
  • “Find people you can trust and who compliment you… The worst place to hire is the Silicon valley because everyone’s a hero in their own mind.”
  • Good ideas are everywhere… run with something you love and that’s “not work”

Written by Bradley Joyce · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

An Interesting Perspective on DEMO vs Techcrunch50

September 9, 2008

I came across this blog post today and though it shed some interesting insight into the DEMO vs. Techcrunch50 debate.

The post outlines the backgrounds of many of the founders of TC50 companies and points out that most of them aren’t the kind of people who really need the free ride, as opposed to paying the $18,500 for DEMO.

The title of the post asks where all the the poor, hungry founders are that CAN’T afford the DEMO fee. Most of them, I would submit, are participating in many of the startup incubators around the country (Y Combinator, TechStars, etc.) where they are getting not only money but a lot of mentorship and coaching, over the course of a few months.

That sounds like a much better deal to me than getting lost in a week of silicon valley hype/buzz/ridiculousness. Oh yeah, AND they still get to present/demo their products to a bunch of interested investors.

If I had to pick sides on the DEMO/TC debate, I’m compelled to side with those who aren’t charging companies to present, that is just silly to me. At the same time, after watching some of TC50 live via ustream, I’m certain I wouldn’t put too much effort in trying to make it for EITHER conference.

Written by Bradley Joyce · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

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