Graeme Thickins on Tech

Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Tag: DEMO 2007 (Page 1 of 4)

Some of the Awesome People I Met at DEMO 07

February 11, 2007 / / 1 Comment

Now that I’ve been back from DEMO for a week, it’s time to go through my humongous stack of cards again and say-hey to all great people I met at this very upbeat event. I’ve been sorting through all these cards on my desk today….

Once again, the whole conference came off very well — the logistics, the networking, the program, everything was great (even if the weather was a little iffy at first). Though it’s always hard to break away to attend these things, I’m really, really glad I did and would wholeheartedly recommend DEMO conferences to anyone in this business, whether you’re new to it or not.

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Normally, I’d have done this “people post” a little sooner, but it’s been the busiest post-conference week I can remember for a while. It seems the startup business is booming everywhere, and I’m hustling to follow up with a lot of blogging and consulting work, now that I’m a free-agent again! On top of that, I still have some blog posts I’d like to do on companies I met last week…which will make this a record in the elapsed time between the conference ending and my final posts. But there were just so many interesting companies and stories at DEMO 07, I really could blog about it for weeks.

DEMO remains the best venue to see all the new innovative ideas coming out in the tech business, year in and year out — actually twice a year. And it proves that innovation can come from anywhere — even, I’m out to prove, Minnesota (if not this time). In that regard, I volunteered to help Chris Shipley connect with promising startups here in my adopted home state in the future. I’m hoping she can do one of her “Innovation Day” meetup events sometime soon in the Twin Cities, and hear pitches from a bunch of our local startups. Though we didn’t have a Minnesota-based company presenting this time, there was one from our neighboring state of Wisconsin — Jyngle, which gets my vote for one of the best, most memorable brand names to come out at DEMO 07. These things are important, people, when you have to stand out and be remembered amidst the information-overload of 68 startups all hyping their wares! (Just a taste of what such startups will face out in the real world.) Smart companies take the time to get this naming thing right. Now if Jyngle could just have a memorable tagline to go with its cool name. As Guy Kawasaki says, you have to “make mantra” — meaning boil down to a few words how you make a difference in the world. Again, not easy, but if you can’t do it, how do you expect your users or buyers to “get” what you’re doing? Without mantra, you can just slowly drown in all the hype of the marketplace. I would describe mantra as “messaging on steroids.” [Hey, Guy — there ya go. As a marketing/branding/messgaging dude, that would be my three-word-mantra wrapup/takeaway of your great talk in Minneapolis a few weeks ago.]

I don’t mean to pick on Jyngle — they’re hardly alone in this. And Business Week liked their service enough to include it in a post-DEMO story. But I sit here looking at their cards again and see a huge missed opportunity — no tagline, no mantra ringing through to me (pardon the pun). Sure, when you go to their site, you see the words “Mobile Group Messaging for the Real World” — but that doesn’t do it for me. Now, a tagline like “Message Your Group, Fast” sure would. What’s cool is the Jyngle service lets you do this group-messaging with either voice or text.

Time savings — it’s ALL about saving time today. That’s a major investment theme of one of the smartest, most successful guys in tech investing, Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners. He wasn’t at this DEMO, nor was his partner Bono (though there was a sighting of the latter at the last DEMO, which turned out to be the most masterful PR trick of that event). So, here’s a lesson for startups: when Roger (the Man) McNamee talks about stuff like this, listen!

But I digress. How did I get off on this tangent? Such is blogging. Back to the people I met. First, I’ll list some of the people I already knew but renewed friendships with (no particular order, just as I kinda ran into ’em). I’ll start with the former Minnesota people I talked about in my opening-reception post, noting where they are now…

• Steve Larsen, CEO, Krugle Inc., Menlo Park, CA
• Beth Temple, CMO, Magnify.net, NYC
• Charles Wilson, consultant to Mission Research (SalesWorks), Lancaster, PA
• Charles Beeler, General Partner, El Dorado Ventures, Menlo Park
• Hany Nada, Managing Director, Granite Global Ventures, Menlo Park
And these other friends I saw again, some of them just a few weeks prior at BlogHaus and CES:
• Robert Scoble, PodTech
• John Furrier, PodTech
• Shel Israel, co-author with Scoble on “Naked Conversations”
• Stewart Alsop, Alsop Louie Partners
• Renee Blodgett, DEMO PR guru, Blodgett Communications
• Julie O’Grady, another DEMO PR guru, here for Boorah
• Gary Bolles, Conferenza
• Dan Farber, VP Editorial, ZDnet
• Rafe Needleman, Editor, CNET
• Brian Ziel, PR guru, Seagate
• Becky Sniffen, who handles PR for DEMO
• Chris Shipley, DEMO Executive Producer
Plus all these new peope I met, at least the ones I got cards from:
• Christine Herron, Director of Investments, Omidyar Network (whose tagline
I love: “Every individual has the power to make a difference”)
• Tom Sly, Manager of New Business Development, Google (a newly minted Harvard MBA;
I told him he was the second Google guy I’d met a conference…the other was Larry Page)
• Aydin Senkut, President, Felicis Ventures, San Francisco (an early Googler)
• Alan Kelley, Managing Director, SJF Ventures, NYC
• Luis Villalobos, Founder & Board Member, Tech Coast Angels
• Jeff Cohn, Investment Screening Director, Tech Coast Angels
• Laura Paglione, Director, Knowledge Management/Entrepreneurship, Kauffman Foundation
• Charlie Crystle, CEO, Mission Research (SalesWorks), Lancaster, PA
• Wendy Caswell, CEO, ZINK Imaging, Waltham, MA
• Wim Sweldens, VP, Alcatel-Lucent Ventures, Murray Hill, NJ
• Andrew Horwitz, Senior Director, Market Development, Seagate
• Rhonda Shantz, Senior Director, Consumer Communications, Symantec
• Mike Bradshaw, Partner, Connect Public Relations, Provo, UT (for Symantec)
• Esteban Sardera, CEO, PairUp, San Francisco
• David Jennings, Cofounder & COO, Yodio, Bellevue, WA
• Katie Perry, Marketing, Jyngle, Milwaukee, WI
• Tom McGannon, Founder & VP Operations, Nexo, Palo Alto, CA
• Gina Jorasch, VP Marketing, Nexo
• Benjamin Levy, VP Marketing, Vringo, Beit Shemesh, Israel
• David Goldfarb, CTO, Vringo
• Michael Bates, CEO, iqzone, Scottsdale, AZ
• James Feguson, President, iqzone
• Eric Moyer, CEO/Cofounder, Boorah, Palo Alto, CA
• Ramsay Hoguet, Founder, MyDesignIn, Marblehead, MA
• Eric Sirkin, President/Cofounder, BUZ Interactive, Palo Alto
• Tamara Stone, Partner, Rainmaker Communications, Mountain View, CA (for BUZ Interactive)
• Brian Smiga, CEO, Preclick, Atlantic Highlands, NJ
• Tony Davis, CEO, TeleFlip, Santa Monica, CA
• Christian Gammill, VP Product Marketing, TeleFlip
• Julie Mathis, VP, CarryOn PR, Los Angeles (for TeleFlip)
• Brian Solis, Founder, FutureWorks Inc., San Jose, CA
• Marc Orchant, Blogger and Storyteller (the ‘Office Evolution’ blog/ZDnet), Albuquerque, NM
• Sue Orchant, artist
• Victoria Barrett, Associate Editor, Forbes Magazine

And, finally, here are some people I would have liked to meet but somehow didn’t, including the first two guys listed who were attending from a Minnesota company (how’d I miss them?):
• Mark Dunn, CTO, MakeMusic, Eden Prairie, MN
• John Paulson, CEO, MakeMusic, Eden Prairie, MN
• Marshall Kirkpatrick, Splashcast
• Michael Arrington, TechCrunch
• Oliver Starr, MobileCrunch
• Katie Fehrenbacher, GigaOM
• Barry Bonds (yes, that one), who appeared for Bling Software

That’s it for now on DEMO. More soon on some other things I saw there that I liked…

DEMO, I Miss Ya!

February 9, 2007 / / 4 Comments

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Okay, I especially miss your weather! Palm Desert was sooo nice…I recall fondly as I gaze at some quick photos I took, like this one of the palms and the mountains, while I busily hustled between conference sessions and networking opportunites at DEMO…..

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Then I had the misfortune, late last Friday, of returning to Minnesota — just as the coldest temps in seven years were moving in! I’m talking several days in a row where it never even got above zero, all day long (!!)…and lows overnight all this time have consistently been down between minus 10 and minus 20 F.

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This is insane! I should be in California. I have a place at the beach I can work from for cryin’ out loud! Trouble is, most of my client base is here in the Twin Cities. And yes, friends, I am now officially back out blogging and stirring up trouble consulting, fulltime. Wish me well! [Or should I say: startups beware! Graeme’s on the prowl again… 🙂 ]

But note to self after the past week: “Expand your client base, Graeme. Sign up one or more California-based clients — soon! — before you turn into a block of ice.”

Ideas and leads for those client relationships gladly accepted, o valued blog readers (especially you California ones). Graeme’s for hire! Whether for new-media consulting, marketing strategy, messaging and communications, content development….and, well, you get the idea.

Now, let me get back to thawing out my feet!

[By the way, I have to mention some very cool link-love I got from my DEMO attendance and coverage last week. These two were especially nice: the post Brian Solis, of PR2.0 fame, did on the opening DEMO party….and DEMOletter’s Complete DEMO 07 Coverage, which appeared soon after the event. On the opening day, I even made it onto TechMeme’s home page at one point, thanks either to Katie Fehrenbacher of GigaOm linking to me, or Gabe Rivera doing so — haven’t figured that one out yet.]

Another Strong Year for Tech Coast Angels

February 3, 2007 / / 1 Comment

At the DEMO ’07 conference this past week in Palm Desert, CA, I sat down at lunch under gloriously sunny skies at the Desert Springs Resort on Wednesday with Jeff Cohn, Investment Screening Director at Southern California’s Tech Coast Angels. Techcoastangelslogo_1 I wanted to talk with Jeff about how things have been going for this self-described “largest angel network in the country.” Turns out 2006 was another good year — Cohn said the group invested in 20 deals last year, after doing a similar number in 2005, and that had been up from 17 deals in 2004.

Tech Coast Angels, founded in 1997 by Luis Villalobos, a successful Orange County serial entrepreneur, provides funding and guidance to “more early-stage, high-growth companies in Southern California than any other venture capital, angel, or other private equity group,” the organization says. Over ten years, its members have personally invested $80M in 124 companies and have helped these portfolio companies attract an additional $778M in capital, mostly from venture capital firms. Tech Coast Angels boasts some 20 “venture capital affiliates,” Cohn told me, most based in Southern California, though a few are in the Bay Area.

What makes Tech Coast Angels different, said Cohn, is the value-add the group provides beyond just seed and early-stage capital. Its members also mentor and coach entrepreneurs, help recruit additional management, and provide access to institutional investors and strategic partners. Tech Coast Angels has more than 270 members, and is actually made up of four networks — in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, and Westlake/Santa Barbara. Each geographical group numbers between 60 and 70 members.

Interestingly, Tech Coast Angels had just hosted its own startup pitch event a week or so before the DEMO conference: the 2nd Annual Los Angeles Fast Pitch Competition. That was January 22 at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, held in conjunction with LA County Technology Week.

I also learned that Tech Coast Angels had been an early investor in one the DEMO presenting firms we heard from on Wednesday: Integrien, whose software enables IT departments to predict and prevent service slowdowns and outage before they impact the business. Since the angel funding, Integrien has raised $17 million in two rounds of venture capital.

Cohn told me that the typical investment size for Tech Coast Angels in any single deal is between $500,000 and $750,000. He told me the basic requirements for membership are to, obviously, be an accredited investor, and that a referral from another member is the best approach. “The prospective member should add value in some way to the network,” he said. Members include service providers, lawyers, and others, but most are former or current C-level executives or founders of successful companies.

How does the group get together to look at deals? “Each network meets every two to three weeks for lunch, and once per month for a dinner meeting,” Cohn said. “It’s very consistent throughout the year.” He also told me that a new chairman (which is a voluntary role) recently took the helm. His name is Frank Peters, and he’s been the president of the Tech Coast Angels’ Orange County network. The cool thing about Frank? He has his own blog! You can find that link on the organization’s home page — it’s called “The Frank Peters Show”.

An angel who blogs — I like that.

DEMO: Mission Research CEO: ‘Hosted Apps So 1999’

February 3, 2007 / / 0 Comments

With Prince due to perform at halftime on Sunday’s Super Bowl telecast, I guess DEMO presenter Charlie Crystle picked a timely line to get his point across. Charlie, of ChiliSoft fame, is now CEO of Mission Research, located in “that hotbed of technology,” as he says: Lancaster, PA. But I gathered that Charlie and his colleagues like it there just fine. Life’s quieter, no big city problems, less turnover of people, etc. Besides, as he said in kicking off his on-stage demo, his company is about “applications for the rest of America, not the Silicon Valley crowd.” Take that, you early-adopter, techco-weenie Crackberry freaks.

Mission Research is well known for its GiftWorks fundraising software for non-profits, which it debuted a couple years ago at DEMO. It used this year’s event to tell the world about its next big thing: SalesWorks customer management software system for small and SOHO businesses. Salesworkslogo

The point Charlie was making in his “so 1999” reference was this: in-house software is preferred over outsourced services by a majority of this market. These smaller players are more leary than you think about trusting their valuable data to any hosted platform located off in Timbuktu somewhere — platforms that we all know can, and do, go down. [Did you hear about the big problem with Google Analytics today, by the way? Oucherooo….]

Now, don’t tell this to Mark Benioff, but I know from my involvement in marketing to small and midsized businesses (“SMBs”) that surveys do back up Charlie on this one. There’s a very large market out there for easy-to-use apps with dead-simple UIs designed for the small outfits that just don’t have IT people on staff. They want the software on their own machines, thank you very much — or, more specifically, they want their data on their own machines. (And they should want it backed up, too, preferably offsite.) What’s interesting, though, is the SalesWorks platform actually features the best of both worlds. It’s a hybrid that “boasts the power and safety of desktop applications integrated smartly and safely with web-based functionality,” the company says. It integrates with a variety of online services — for e-commerce, geo, and online marketing, for example — and, most significantly for 3.6 million small businesses out there, Intuit’s Quickbooks.

SalesWorks is described by the company as “customer management software that anyone can use and everyone can afford.” A beta version can be downloaded here.

Below, I’ve pasted in some screen shots of the SalesWorks software, showing the simple, clean interface, and some of its features, such as mapping of your contacts and options for doing customer mailings.

Charlie is an interesting guy, and a damn good musician, too, by the way (he played guitar at the famous DEMO jam session, along with guys like Don Clark of the Wall Street Journal). He also has a blog, separate from his company’s blog, where he talked recently about the SalesWorks launch.

I think Charlie’s really onto something with this product, and has a great experience base to build from in GiftWorks. There are obvious similarities to extend this functionality to small businesses (not all small businesses, but certainly many). There’s no doubt the SMB/SOHO market is huge and growing. But its massiveness and amorphousness (is that a word?) are precisley what make it such a challenge from a marketing standpoint. I think SalesWorks will succeed only if it secures distribution partnerships with big players that reach this broad demographic of mom-and-pops and businesses of less than, say, 50 employees. These big partners have the clout and marketing muscle to take this to the small business masses. But Charlie knows that, and has a plan to achieve it. And he has a great bunch of people on his board of advisors, too.

I would not bet against the man.

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Mapping

Mailing

DEMO: Flickr Pix Up and DEMOgod Winners

February 1, 2007 / / 0 Comments

[UPDATE: The last of my DEMO 07 pix are now up there. Just look here for the set: www.flickr.com/photos/graemethickins/. Most of the latest ones were shot at the closing media panel/DEMOgod awards dinner.]

And more photos are coming. Just go here and search on the tag “DEMO 07” (note the space). I’m still shooting more pix here at the media panel.

A lot of the shots from last night’s jam session, by the way, were taken by Julie Mathis of PR firm CarryOn in LA, who’s here with TeleFlip and is also one of Symantec’s consumer agencies. She highjacked my camera 🙂 …and got some darn interesting shots, I must say.

By the way, the DEMOgod winners named this evening, in alpha order, were:
– blinkx
– Boston Power
– DARTdevices
– eJamming
– Inilex
– Kauffman Innovation Network
– PairUp
– Panjea
– QTech
– TotalImmersion

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