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: Minnedemo (Page 1 of 2)

Minnedemo Was Great … Now, How About Those Business Models?

If you're part of the Minnesota Internet and software community and you missed Minnedemo on Friday night, you must be bummed — as several of you told me from afar as I was tweetin' it … :-)  Minnedemo-logo
[Evidenced by this clip from my twitterstream that night, which shows a few of those who were talking back at me in real time.]  You missed a great event.  No worries, though, because myself and my buddies at Minnov8 posted lots of audio and video recorded at the event for your listening and viewing pleasure.

Minnedemo_Tweet-outs

But, for those of you who were there, how many of you noticed what I did?  Namely, the almost complete lack of the presenters talking about their business model?

I have something to propose for future Minnedemo pitches: how about, as part of the 7-minute presentation, a new rule is instituted that states a minimum of one minute of that has to be devoted to explaining the business model? Is that an unreasonable request? Even thirty seconds would be a welcome addition.

Now, I realize the traditional audience of Minnedemo is developers, listening to their fellow developers on stage presenting their cool, new code creations.  Elegance in app design and functionality have been the focus of pretty much every presentation I've seen at these events.  Or features.  Or UI design.  But, is not the end-game in all this something that might actually be commercially viable, too?  That is, a business that could make it in the real world?  From where I sit, more and more business people and investors have started to attend these quasi-quarterly events.

I don't mean to imply that none of the presenters on Friday night has a business plan. Of course, all but the very newest, coolest projects must have one, right?  And it would then follow that these presenting companies would have to have a business model for how they will make money.  They just didn't talk about it Friday night — or, in most cases, even mention it.

I say that's a big thing missing from Minnedemo. What do you think?  Should presenters be required to talk more about such things?

Where I’ll be Tonight: Minnedemo! Look Me Up…

For all of you readers, followers, and friends lucky enough to be in Minneapolis right now — yes, February is good for something! — it'll be All The Tech You Can Handle tonight at our quarterly Minnedemo event, mixed in a with a frosty brewski or two. BeerMug
Myself and a couple of my buddies from Minnov8.com (Steve Borsch and Tim Elliott) will even be there doing video and audio interviews for our next podcast — so get ready to have a mic shoved in your face while you're navigating that beer mug… 🙂

For the details of what's happening, here's the post I did on Minnov8 earlier this week:

Emerging Minnesota Software and Internet Technologies to Take the Stage on February 6

Entrepreneurs, software developers, and computer professionals of
all stripes will be rubbing shoulders again this Friday evening with
other hopeful company founders, VCs, angel investors, bloggers, and
media people from throughout the Twin Cities and other parts of the
Upper Midwest.  They'll
be gathering for what's become a not-to-be-missed quarterly geek-fest
called Minnedemo.

minnedemo-logo Billed as "the Twin Cities’ premier technology demo
and networking event," it features free beer, pop, munchies, and lots
of conversation, with product demonstrations mixed in between. The
latter are delivered from the stage of an auditorium with theater-like
seating. More than 200 people are expected to attend.

Minnedemo is being held for a second time at Intermedia Arts in
Uptown’s Lyn-Lake neighborhood, and will kick off about 6:00 p.m. this
Friday, February 6, with demos starting about 7:00. (Intermedia Arts is
located at 2822 Lyndale Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55408.) According to
Minnedemo organizer Luke Francl, "All are welcome, just please remember
to RSVP online." The web site for registering (again, it's free) is http://minnedemo.eventbrite.com/
This quarter's event will feature ten demos — five, then a break, then
five more. Most demonstrators will be launching their products or
showing off their creations for the very first time. Here they are
alphabetically:

actionchess-logo65wAction Chess
is a game app for the iPhone, described as a cross between Tetris
Attack, Tetris, and the classic board game Chess. The developer claims
it "makes your brain work in interesting ways." It will be released for
the iPhone in the coming weeks and will be demoed on stage. (Martin
Grider will present.)

amo-logo1Association Manager Online
(AMO) is a new web application from local development shop ArcStone
that let members, staff, and administrators of associations and
non-profits manage tasks (such as sending emails, posting documents,
collecting payments, etc) in a secure manner from any internet browser,
whether at home or work. (David Carnes will present)

bevpost-logoBevPost
is a site that lets consumers select coupons for their favorite adult
beverages and have them delivered directly to their cell phones, so
they can redeem them at their local liquor store and save cash. (John
Ballatine will present)

enstratus-logoenStratus
is a brand-new startup that's addressing the "confidence" questions
businesses naturally have as they move their systems into Amazon EC2
and other "cloud computing" environments. The company, recently
launched by the founders of successful local software firm Valtira,
provides a suite of cloud infrastructure management tools that enable
companies to automate the secure deployment, scaling, monitoring, and
disaster recovery of their cloud computing infrastructure. (George
Reese will present.)

loudclick-logoLoudClick
is a free website builder program that people can use to build web
sites around their interests together, all without the need of a
techie. (Alex Huff will present.)

nabbit-logoNabbit
lets you identify a song you hear on the radio using your mobile phone.
Just text Nabb and include the call letters of the station you're
listening to. The service will fetch the song information for you and
deliver it to your account page on its web site. The company also
recently introduced a native iPhone app. (Norton Lam will present.)

re-searchr-logore-searchr
is a social search app that lets you "find stuff easier" online. It
helps you get search results from people you trust, using data from
your friends to influence the re-searchr score presented on top of your
search results. Another feature pushes your questions out to your
social networks, where your friends can then answer or comment; the app
then lets you push back their answers or comments for others to see. 
(James Ostheimer will present.)

sendoncue-logoSendOnCue
is a browser plugin that lets you schedule email delivery for later. It
integrates directly into your email or webmail client. Send an email
reminder at a later date and time. Slow down a conversation by delaying
when your reply is sent. If you work odd hours, you can adjust the time
your email is sent. (Aaron Kardell will present.)

socialbrowse-logoSocialbrowse
is a YCombinator-funded startup that provides social bookmarking with
discussions in the browser. It lets you share and discuss the web in
real time, and see what's good on every page. It  combines your social
network with your everyday web browsing. You can share and discuss any
page with a single click. Pages you share or comments you make are
automatically sent to other users in your network. You receive
real-time updates of cool links shared by people you like. (Zack Garbow
and Dave Fowler will present.)

ZippyStat (no web site yet) is a simple online service to
record and monitor nearly any type of information such as your gas
mileage, business cards collected, "poops by your newborn," books read,
miles run, etc. (Kelly Heikkila will present.)

This Minnedemo event is sponsored by:
• New Counsel
• Split Rock Partners
• Sierra Bravo
• Tightrope Media Systems
• The Foundation
• VISI

In a first for Minnedemo, this entire event will be video recorded, courtesy of TJ Kudalis from Internet Broadcasting.
And, I'm told, monitors will be located in the networking area for
those that can't squeeze into the limited seating in the auditorium. In
addition, Minnov8 will be recording interviews throughout the
networking portion of the evening, with the help of 612Authentic, also
a first.  For more information, see the Minnedemo web site.

Geeks, Entrepreneurs, Designers, Angels, VCs, and Marketeers ….. Let’s Mix It Up!

Minnebar is Saturday, May 10!  MInnesota’s all-day annual Barcamp event is not to be missed.  New venue this year (bigger and better): the gloriously redone Coffman Union at the U of MN (cool place if you haven’t checked it out yet). To sign up, just go the event site (a wiki page), hit Edit Page, and add your name and links. Minnebar(Minnebar is held once a year, while evening "Minnedemo" sessions are held in each of the other three quarters.)
Already, almost 300 of your compatriots have signed up for this year’s edition of Minnebar, and many more will be as the week progresses. It’s free! That’s right — the whole damn thing! (thanks to the sponsors) … including breakfast, lunch, reception and beers following. You even get a free event t-shirt! And you can come and go as you please, choosing just the sessions that interest you — though I would highly recommend hanging out all day for the networking, which is really the biggest benefit. You can do your own session if you and/or some colleagues have something to say (and if there’s still room). Hit the link that says MinneBarSessions, click Edit Page, and add your title and session description while you still can. In the coming days, the organizers will be cutting off new entries and publishing a full schedule with all the breakout sessions. That should then be available at the event site, or you can pick up a hard copy on your arrival. Come early — the event kicks off at 8:30 am.

Attention Startups and Angels: Note the "Lightning Talks" Session
On the MInneBarSessions page, scroll down and look for a link to apply to give a five-minute pitch.  Ideal if you’re a startup, whether just forming or further along. An entire hour is being devoted to these rapid-fire presentations. This is a great way to see what’s going on out there in our state, hear the latest business concepts and startup ideas, or get updates on the progress of local startups you may have already heard about. [This will be like the DEMO conferences I know so well. My advice: hone the message hard, and practice well!] Minnebar07crowd

This event is gonna be killer, I promise you. If you want to know what’s really goin’ on in tech in Minnesota, you have to be here. Bring lots of business cards, a camera, your laptop (we’ll have mondo wi-fi!), wear your favorite tee, and get ready to learn, share, network, gab, blog and Twitter your brains out, and meet tons of fun, like-minded people.

Hey, in my book, it definitely beats sittin’ on some cold lake fishing!  🙂

It Was Another Great ‘Minnedemo’ on Thursday Night

On a brisk Minnesota evening in early December, what better to do than get together to drink beer and watch demos with 200+ of your closest tech friends and talk code, startups, business models, and all that good stuff?
Minnedemo1207crowd Thursday night, the scene for Minnedemo again was O’Gara’s Garage in St.Paul, and the joint was a-jumpin’! We didn’t need a band — we were all our own entertainment!
Minnedemo1207ogaras

Thanks to our sponsors, we not only got two free beers (or sodas) each, but we also could trade canned food donations for even more beer tickets, so we could then play big shot and buy beer for our friends. Trading canned food for beer….does_it_get_any_better_’n_that? It was a hoot….lots of great conversation and new friends made. You have to be at one of these things to really appreciate the energy of the Minnesota tech community! If you haven’t caught one yet, make sure you get to the next one in April (date to be announced). Hey, it’s FREE — whadya want?!? 🙂 That one will be the full-day-Saturday version we call “Minnebar.” It all part of Minnesota’s answer to the worldwide phenomenon called Barcamp — and we are definitely one of the most active locales outside the Valley.

Here’s a rundown on Thursday night’s great presenters, including some detail about the very cool new products they were demoing:

Ntractive LLC (Dale Jensen, Cofounder/CEO) – This startup, based in Grand Forks, is a winner of the “InnovateND” award, and is receiving its first-round funding from St. Paul-based RAIN Source Capital. Ntractive has developed a “hybrid” app for small business management called “Elements SBM.” This app, initially for the MacOS, provides web application flexibility with unprecedented ease of use not generally found outside of the traditional desktop application. The result is a visually elegant and technically innovative solution that allows small business users to quickly become more productive. Minnedemo1207dalejensen The company officially launches at MacWorld in San Francisco in mid-January, but chose Minnedemo (yay!) as the venue its first public demonstration. Till now, small businesses had to choose a desktop app or a web app, but, said Jensen, “With our hybrid app, we’ve made it possible for the first time to really have the best of both of those worlds.”

Zencoder Video Transcoding System (Jon Dahl, cofounder of Slantwise Design) – Zencoder provides “bulletproof video transcoding.” Minnedemo1207jondahl It’s described as a full-featured video transcoding platform that handles every aspect of video processing, from queuing to transcoding to storage. Video transcoding systems are complex and difficult to get right, Dahl said. Zencoder claims its platform is reliable and scalable, costs far less than a custom-built solution, and yet is highly customizable. To be notified when it’s released, enter your email address at the site.

Valtira (Morgan Catlin, Product Director) – The Valtira Online Marketing Platform is a complete online solution for marketing professionals. It’s “software as a service” — all you need is a web browser. Valtira manages the IT infrastructure, operations, and upgrades from its Tier 1 data center. The platform empowers the marketing team to manage online initiatives without the need for IT support. Components include Content Management, Campaign Management, Blogging and Forums, Prospect Management, Email Marketing, Sales Portals, Social Networking, Online Surveys, Real-time Analytics, and Support & Training. Valtira just announced a new, free campaign tracking solution that lets you track up to 15 marketing campaigns.

JRuby (Charles Nutter) – JRuby is a 100% pure-Java implementation of the Ruby programming language. The JRuby community recently announced the release of JRuby 1.1 beta 1, the first release toward their goal of JRuby 1.1. JRuby 1.1 represents a concerted focus on speed and refinement. Ruby code can completely compile in an Ahead Of Time (AOT) or Just In Time (JIT) mode, yielding a faster Ruby! It uses less memory than previous releases. The community wants people to download JRuby 1.1b1 and provide feedback: “test your applications and help us make JRuby 1.1 a great release.”

Grapheety (Gavin Quinn) – A map-based social exploration site. All stories and pictures are tagged onto the map by users. For a part-time effort by a bunch of fulltime employed guys, it’s quite an effort. Read more about the latest release here on the Grapheety blog.

All in all, it was another super Minnedemo, and I’m very glad I was there! If you missed it and want more info on the presenting firms, please visit their sites and make contact with them directly. They’ve love to hear from you! Once again, many thanks to co-organizers Dan Grigsby and Luke Francl for another great job, and also to our illustrious sponsors. They’re awesome.

Rock on, Minnesota tech!

Minnedemo – Hot Damn!

Oh, was the joint a-jumpin’ Thursday night, gang. For those of you who weren’t there, that joint was O’Gara’s Garage in St. Paul. For those of you who were — lucky you (especially if you were smart enough to get there early). The crowd had to be 350 or 400 — it was basically shoulder-to-shoulder at its peak. Minnedemoogarasmichaellehmkuhl
The schmoozin’ was in high gear, the kegs were flowing (7 kinds!), and there wasn’t even any entertainment!  Well, I guess we were our own entertainment — and six of our community’s latest, hot startups got up on stage halfway into the evening to pitch their wares. [Photo of O’Gara’s courtesy of Minnedemo attendee Michael Lehmkuhl.]

Don’t let anyone tell you the Minnesota tech community isn’t hotter than a pistol! You could feel the energy, the entrepreneurial juices flowing.  You know we have something special going on here in Minnesota when you experience one of these BarCamp events (which we call Minnebar and Minnedemo) — and when you see how we keep attracting more and more of the important players from the community with every meeting.Minnedemocrowdstefanhartwig
And it’s not just the Twin Cities — we had people there from Sioux Falls, Fargo, St. Cloud, Wisconsin, and more.  [Photo of the crowd early-on courtesy of Minnedemo attendee Stefan Hartwig, of sponsor Electric Pulp — one of those dudes from Sioux Falls! Yes, this is the outfit Guy Kawasaki has made famous.]

What was the coolest thing I heard at the event? That was from Robert Stephens, the illustrious founder of Minnesota’s own Geek Squad (acquired by Best Buy in 2002). See my recent coverage of Robert being named MN Entrepreneur of the Year. And, yes, he was just interviewed on 60 Minutes, too! I had a great chat with Robert, during which I mentioned that I’d heard Best Buy was hosting an event that very day in Silicon Valley, just for VCs.  He said, yeah, that he was supposed to be speaking there. I asked why he wasn’t. "Because I’d rather be here. I really believe in the Minnesota tech community."  Now, is that freaking cool, or what?  Screw the Valley, he’s more interested in the action here! Robert is a major supporter of our state’s entrepreneurs — a hero in our midst, for sure.

What else really impressed me?  Well, besides the great startups that pitched and just the huge energy of our collective developer/entrepreneur/interactive/marketing community, I have to say that I continue to be really pumped about the quality of new players we keep drawing to these events. We had partners from at least two major VCs firms (and three more I knew really wanted to be there but had schedule conflicts), another from the largest "network of angel networks" in the country, an investment banker whom I know is currently raising a large chunk for a local startup, and more major, local angel investors than I’ve seen at any of our previous meetings. Yes, that’s right, the guy (or lady) you were standing next to could be one — so, don’t spill beer on ’em!  🙂  Seriously, they were there to catch the buzz on what’s new, who’s starting up what, and to schmooze with their colleagues about the latest deals circulating. [Unfortunately, some of the newer ones didn’t realize how noisy these gatherings get, and how hard it can be to hear the presenters, unless you move right up near the stage. But, hopefully they’ll follow up with individual entrepreneurs for one-on-ones — that’s really the intended outcome, anyway, for the startups pitching at these events.] And there were major dudes present as well from some of our state’s largest Internet-related businesses — trust me, I know these people! And I brokered at least two key introductions of local startups to some of these guys. They definitely wanted to know more about some of the technologies pitched. And, there’s more — we even had an NBA player, formerly of the Timberwolves (and a serious geek), in our midst! Not to forget our local media people — I know the Business Journal was present. Not sure if the Trib or the Pioneer Press made it (I was just too busy to see everyone I wanted to).  And, you just know that Minnesota’s best and brightest tech bloggers were there — Steve Borsch, Ed Kohler, Ben Higginbotham, and….well, you know. And so many of the developer attendees have great blogs of their own as well!  (See the links in the list of attendees on the Minnedemo site for those.)

So, who were the startup founders that pitched?  Well, it was an awesome combination of really smart developers, serial entrepreneurs, a major ad-agency producer, a female entrepreneur with a company just coming out of stealth, even a former Silicon Valley researcher that holds a patent on the technology he was pitching.  Minnedemoadaptiveave
People, you would be amazed if you drilled into the backgrounds of these folks — I can say that because I know many of them. There was a huge amount of experience and expertise represented on that stage on Thursday night — a proud moment for Minnesota entrepreneurship. Here’s a quick rundown on who got 10 minutes each to pitch to this raucous crowd:

•CrashPlan (Matthew Dornquast) – a virtual appliance for automatic, off-site backup
•FanChatter (Marty Wetherall) – mobile sports fan chat, photos, more (see news release)
•SOTAcomm (Gary Doan) – plug-and-play appliances integrating best-of-breed open-source "unified communications" apps for running a small business
•Wonderfile (David Carnes) – tag-based file management and collaboration
•Pokeware (Maryse Thomas) – monetizing video streams by giving consumers extensive access to products and information within them (see news release)
•Adaptive Avenue (David Quimby) – distributed commerce, "site within a banner," enabling a whole new category of clicks ("engagement" clicks)

[Photo of David Quimby presenting courtesy of Ben Wallace.]

But did you think we only have six startups here in Minnesota worthy of presenting?  Wrong, bucko! There were sixteen more — count ’em, 16!! — who were stacked up on the waiting list in case someone dropped out. They’re definitely worth a look, too….and they’re all listed here on the Minnedemo site, with links so you can learn more.

Remember to say thank you! (My daddy taught me that!) What an awesome event — and we owe it all to the event co-organizers, who donate a huge amount of their time to these things: developers Dan Grigsby, a successful entrepreneur who really knows how to give back to the community, and Luke Francl, a developer at local hot shop Slantwise Design. And the sponsors who pay the freight to make these events happen. We love ’em!  Read about ’em and support ’em. They keep coming back, too — all are repeat sponsors:
•Kinetic Data
•Split Rock Partners
•New Counsel
•ipHouse
•Electric Pulp

What’s the takeaway? Minnesota’s startup and Internet community is a one exciting place to be! You like it here, and I know the vast majority of you want to stay here. I’m proud to be a part of the community, and each and every one of you out there should be, too. It’s great to know that if you can work hard, think big, and make good stuff that improves people’s lives or work, or just helps them have more fun online — whatever! — that you can make a real contribution to our economy, and advance your own lot in life as well.

I can’t wait for our next Minnedemo or Minnebar event.  Meantime, keep building on the energy…and keep on networking!  🙂

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