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.

Category: Entrepreneurship (Page 3 of 60)

I’ll Be Live-Blogging the ‘Pioneer Summit’ Again Next Week

September 9, 2016 / / 0 Comments

pioneersummit-logodatesI’m heading out to the Bay Area in a few days to once again cover a great tech conference called the Pioneer Summit, put on by GSV Labs in Redwood City, CA. I loved reporting on it last year — as evidenced by my extensive liveblog. (They moved it up from October to September this year.)

I’m looking forward to the program, which is jam-packed. Is this enough speakers for you? Here’s one my data geek friends would like. And hearing what this Silicon Valley legend has to say will be pretty awesome as well.

What is GSV Labs, you ask? It’s “a campus of innovation” — I like that description! A very cool place indeed. It’s focused on accelerating high-growth, high-impact verticals in the areas of EdTech, Sustainability, Big Data, and Mobility. Utilizingpioneersummit-celebrate GSV Labs’ resources, founders and entrepreneurs join a global network of ecosystem partners, including corporations, international agencies, mentors, universities, investors, thought leaders, and non-profits. From its Silicon Valley campus, GSV Labs houses about 100 startups, provides acceleration programs, and hosts events.

My connection to GSV Labs is through my colleague Mark Moe (who lives here in the Twin Cities) — he’s VP of Global Business Development. Look forward to seeing you there, Mark, and I’m sure some other Minnesotans who’ll be in attendance, as there were last year.

I guess I’d better start getting my live-blogging fingers loosened up — which means not just providing commentary, but shooting a whole lot of iPhone pics to go along with it. This will be fun!

Raising Money You Don’t Need: MN Startup Trend?

September 23, 2015 / / 5 Comments

I Dont Want Your Money[UPDATE 9/28/15: At the bottom of this post, I include some great comments I got from a leading VC over the weekend.]

This thing about profitable startups raising money they don’t need is getting deafening around here. A few years ago, Code42 shocked us by taking their first VC money (a huge $52M round), which confused people because they knew they were doing fine without it. [UPDATE: days after I wrote this post, it announced an $85M Series B.] Then LeadPages raises a surprise A round in late 2013 that it soon was openly bragging it hadn’t touched — didn’t need it. Only months later, it takes yet more — another $27M. It’s growing crazy fast, so we wonder… do they not need that either?  How about SportNgin, raising something close to $40M over four rounds going back to 2011? With the continuous growth they’re experiencing, why do they need all that cash and can they even spend it?

Now we learn about another rapidly growing Minnesota startup, Field Nation, which began as a young college grad’s idea more than a decade ago and now claims a $100M gross revenue run-rate, grabbing a huge (for this town, FieldNation-logo-horizanyway) Series A round of $30M. Reading the recent news in the StarTribune and the MSP Business Journal, you had to be impressed. Another homegrown startup raises a huge initial round. Wow, yes, we say to ourselves, beaming with pride, the Minnesota startup community really is rockin’! But what’s going on here with this latest winner in the local VC stakes?  Continue reading

SaaS is so yesterday. The new hotness? Software WITH a Service: #SwaS

April 24, 2015 / / 0 Comments

So, we know you’ve been sitting around wondering… what’s the next big wave in B2B software? Well, so have a bunch of Silicon Valley VCs, according to the author of a recent TechCrunch guest post, “Why ‘Do It For Me’ Is The Next Big Thing.”

Service-keyboard-450wThe author is Anthony P. Lee, a general partner at Altos Ventures, and he makes an excellent argument about how SaaS is no longer enough — specifically, for companies in the ginormous space we call Small Business.

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Minnesota ‘Mompreneur’ Leaves Corporate Job, Launches Parent App

April 23, 2015 / / 0 Comments

[NOTE: This post first appeared yesterday on Minnov8.com, where I am a contributor.]

karla-lemmonKarla Lemmon has done it. She’s left a successful corporate career as a product manager to pursue her dream of becoming a tech entrepreneur and marketing her own app — an app for which she’s convinced there’s a big need.

Little Peanut on the Go is a personal-assistant mobile app for parents to help them stay organized and connected when they or their children are away from home. It lets parents create packing lists and to-do lists, build care schedules to share with caregivers, and little-peanut
connect with their children while they’re away with updates and photos. Little Peanut on the Go just became available this month, first in the Google Play App Store for Android devices. It’s expected to be available very soon in the iOS App Store. (UPDATE: it’s there!)

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All About Minnesota’s Latest Angel Fund – and Now Its First Investment

April 10, 2015 / / 0 Comments

[NOTE: This post first appeared April 7, 2015 on Minnov8.com, where I am a contributor.)

SofiaFund-logo-250wThe news about a new angel fund in Minnesota appeared in the StarTribune in late January: “Sofia Fund receives nearly $4 million for angel fund”.  Just over two months later, the fund has announced its first investment — in Minneapolis-based Kidizen, a “kid resale marketplace to buy, kidizen-logosell, and swap your kid’s clothing, gear, toys, decor and more.” Here’s how Kathy Grayson at the Business Journal reported that news on April 3:

“Women-focused angel fund Sofia backs Kidizen.” The amount of the investment was not revealed. [UPDATE: A Twin Cities Business magazine story that appeared after I first posted this said it was $100,000.]

I’ve known three of the Sofia Fund’s members for some years, and have had the pleasure of working closely with one of them, Barb Stinnett, since late 2012. So, I decided to interview Barb to get some more background on the Sofia Fund.

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