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: Startups (Page 9 of 29)

TruScribe, Cofounded in MN, Helps Weird Al Yankovic Take a Shot at Corporate America with ‘Mission Statement’ Music Video

In a post today in the Wall Street Journal “Speakeasy” blog (which covers media, entertainment, celebrity, and the arts), the latest music video from Weird Al Yankovic was featured. It’s hilarious!! Take a look there on that post (length is 4:34)… I'll wait.
TruScribe-logoWhat’s cool is that the video has a Minnesota connection. It turns out Yankovic and his longtime coproducer LeverageCoreCompetencies-250wtapped TruScribe to make it — starting some ten months ago. TruScribe is headquartered in Madison WI, but also has an office in downtown St. Paul. (In addition, it maintains international operations through many key European partnerships.) Andrew Herkert, who’s VP of sales and a cofounder, heads the St. Paul office and helped launch the company while a student at the University of St. Thomas about five years ago. TruScribe has grown significantly since then.

An excerpt from the WSJ post:

The song, from Yankovic’s new album “Mandatory Fun,” is in the style of Crosby, Stills & Nash… (it) features Yankovic harmonizing with himself on lyrics constructed of corporate jargon, like “operationalize our strategies” and “leverage our core competencies,” while the animated whiteboard video depicts a live-action hand that is drawing illustrations to go with the words.

“I wanted to do a song about all the ridiculous double-speak and meaningless buzzwords that I’ve been hearing in office environments my entire life,” Yankovic says by email. “I just thought it would be ironic to juxtapose that with the song stylings of CSN, whose music pretty much symbolizes the antithesis of corporate America.”

I laughed out loud at one comment on the post (from a guy named David): “Weird Al hits all the right points. Anyone who has written a press release should hang their heads in shame.”

WeirdAl-HisTweet072114TruScribe is getting a ton of praise today (including from Al himself), as you can see on its Twitter account.

And here’s a great blog post TruScribe  published today, Weird Al is making fun of you! And us, too.

TruScribe’s technology is called “Scribology,” and the company has built an impressive client list. TruScribe-Scribology(tm)

I had the pleasure of meeting cofounder Andrew Herkert at the most recent University of St. Thomas “Fowler Business Concept Challenge” (a student competition), where we were judges on the same team. Here’s what he had to say about the news today:

“Weird Al is a creative powerhouse, with a decades-long influence on pop culture, and that makes it an honor that we were selected as vendor for his whiteboard-animation project. The TruScribe team is optimistic this is just the beginning of a deeper relationship with the media industry. … I have high praise for Jay Levey of Imaginary Productions for catalyzing the vision for this video. Jay is Al’s  business partner and manager/agent/fellow visionary — they’ve worked together for many, many years. In fact, Jay discovered Al some 30 years ago.”

TruScribe is another great example of Minnesota creativity and technology innovation! Okay, Wisconsin claims them as well. We hate to admit it — but, yes, occasionally, cheeseheads can be creative, too… 🙂

Big Data Storms the Big Apple This Week

The_Big_AppleAnd I'm looking forward to reporting on this high-level gathering: the Gigaom Structure Data conference. It's billed thusly: "The industry's leading denizens share their views on big data and its impact on the information economy." 

That's right: big minds sharing deep thoughts on a humongously hyped topic — what could be more fun than that?  But it won't be just big companies represented at this fine event, there'll be lots of smaller ones, too — including my favorite kind: #startups. And you Gigaom-StructureData-logo know what they say: pretty much every tech startup today is a data startup of one sort or another — or will be. That's what happens when a topic is hyped as breathlessly as Big Data is — it permeates damn near everthing. Even your mother has asked you about it.

So, why am I going? Well, first of all, I've had a media pass to a Gigaom event before, and was impressed by the quality of their events. And this one gave me a chance to visit my son and his wife, who recently took up residence in Manhattan, where I haven't been in years. (I like my conferences mostly in California and Colorado, thank you very much.) That, plus the fact that I've been focusing a lot of my attention in data and analytics of late, right here in Minnesota. We have a large contingent of big data professionals in the state — mostly big-company types at our 20 Fortune 500s, of course, but some very interesting startups as well. I've become quite involved with a wonderful professional meetup-type group called Minneanalaytics.org over the past couple of years. Get this: our database now numbers 3700 data professionals across 600 organizations! (Follow Minneanalytics on Twitter.) It's a great group of people — lots of energy and smarts around the burgeoning, rapidly growing field of Big Data. I'm on the organizing commitee and have assisted with several Minneanalytics events, which have attracted up to 900 attendees. I'm specifically involved in engaging more of the startup community with the organization, and I also help manage the organization's social media presence.

My involvement in Minneanalytics and helping with content curation and community engagement got me to thinking beyond just our Twitter and email list communications, however. What might be another way I could help spread the love — and the need to keep up on the latest — around this thing crazy, hot topic of Big Data?

As a huge user of the Flipboard app since day-one of the iPad in 2010, it hit me: why not launch a Flipboard magazine on the topic? I hadn't done one before. I noted there were others who had already started Big Data magazines, but they were way geeky. I thought there might be room for one with a little different focus: on real-world uses for Big Data — how the technologies were being applied in ways that even everyday people could understand, in a wide variety of fields, professions, and vertical markets. I figured there was more than enough to content to begin — and I was right. BDITW-FrontPage

So one day, on a lark, I launched my first Flipboard magazine, Big Data in the Wild (shown at right). I subtitled it "Real-world examples of how big data is making big impact."  Fast forward: in just four months, it has more than 4600 subscribers and almost 89,000 page flips. Flipboard features it regularly on its Daily Picks, and Mike McCue, Flipboard's CEO, has even told me "great magazine!" So, I'm committed now! (As the magazine got establshed, I asked a colleague, Dan Atkins, one of the cofounders of Minneanalytics, to be a contributor to it.)

But after I recently committed to making the trip to the Big Apple, I started thinking… hmmm, being a magazine publisher now — haha, I mean a content curator — how could I, as a longtime reporter and blogger at tech conferences, not cover this event for my own magazine?  It was just too much of a crazy notion not to do it. So, here's what I'll be doing this week: publishing blog posts during and after the event and, you got it, flipping those posts into my magazine.

BDITW-TwitterBut wait, there's more! How can a magazine exist without a Twitter account? That would be just cruel. So, a week or two ago, I started @BigDataWild on Twitter, and have since built up a nice little, well focused following of professionals, which continues to grow. Naturally, I'll be tweeting links that will — yep! — take people to the magazine!! …to the posts I'll be writing about the event. Now how recursive is that?  But who am I not to create more data! Post, publish, link, flip, tweet, link back — feed the stream!

If you'll be at Gigaom Structure Data, be sure to say hello. I'd enjoy meeting! You can still register here. And, if you need convincing the agenda is worthwhile, read these two recent posts from Gigaom writers that will give you a flavor of what to expect:

5 Things that Will Remake Big Data in the Next 5 years

Upcoming Gigaom Event: Three Innovators Who Are Shifting the Big Data Landscape

Here's to a really BIG time!

 

 

Seth Levine the Way You Didn’t See Him in Minneapolis

I just can't help myself.  After Seth's appearance here was so well received (see my post Seth Levine of Foundry Group Speaking in Minneapolis on 'Startup Communities'), I just had to drag out a little history on the man for those here in Minnesota who may not know him so well.  Specifically, his brief but budding career in rap music. 

Seth-I'maVCIt all began in 2011 when he and his partners in Foundry Group produced and starred in that now immortal video, I'm a VC. (Screenshot left.) Yikes, it's had close to 100,000 views on YouTube fo far… and counting.

But it turned out that was just a warmup. In late 2013 the saga continued, as he and da boyz decided they had another one in 'em, bursting again onto YouTube, and their blog, with Worst of Times. (Screenshot below.)

That second one is now stylin' — are you ready — about Seth-WorstOfTimes 182,000 views to date! It's especially a riot for those of us who go back a while in the tech industry.

You gotta love that Seth and his partners — Brad, Jason, and Ryan — know how to have fun. (And Jason is a pretty amazing video producer. He did both.)

What's the old saying? … All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy?  Well, Lord knows these guys work very hard, but they sure know how to play, too. Dull they are not… 🙂

Thanks again, Seth, for speaking in Minnesota! But, next time, we want all you guys on stage for some live rappin', okay?

Seth Levine of Foundry Group Speaking in Minneapolis on ‘Startup Communities’

Tonight in Minneapolis, we're honored to have Seth Levine, a partner at top VC firm Foundry Group in Boulder, CO, speaking to a gathering of entrepreneurs and others who support Minnesota's early-stage SethLevine-FoundryGrouptechnology and Internet firms. His talk will be based on a popular book written by his colleague, Brad Feld, which was published in late 2012: Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City. Seth, Brad, and their other partners have been actively speaking on this topic in cities around the U.S. and beyond. They are highly in demand to impart their knowledge about the success they've had in Boulder, turning it into one of the most vibrant and successful ecosystems for technology startups. (Brad was also the cofounder of TechStars, the leading accelerator program that had its start in Boulder in 2007.)

I've known Seth since 2007, when I began attending two annual conferences that Foundry Group helped start and nurture, both held in the Denver area — first Defrag, which began that year, and then a sister conference called Glue that began in 2009. I've attended both events every year since then. (Here's a post I did after the first Glue StartupCommunitiesconference in 2009, which included audio interviews of both Seth and Brad.)

Ever since I began attending these events (which are both organized by a guy with Minnesota connections, Eric Norlin), I've been encouraging Brad or Seth to come to the Twin Cities sometime to speak. When I learned that Seth earned his undergraduate degree at Macalester College in St. Paul, I was really fired up to get him here, thinking his connections with college friends, etc might help my chances. But, alas, trying to align his schedule with local tech startup events, which are often not announced very far ahead, became a challenge. (The one time I know of that Seth did speak in Minnesota was at an annual Rain Source Capital angel investor conference a few years ago in Bloomington, but that was just a quick in-and-out stop here — and, of all the luck, I had to be out of town that day!)

So, what finally got Seth to town to speak to our local entrepreneurs and founders? The one thing I knew would make the difference: his first investment in a MInnesota tech startup!  That was LeadPages, which announced a few months ago a $5 million Series A round, which Foundry Group led, with participation by Arthur Ventures of Fargo and Minneapolis. So, when he and I chatted by phone at that time, I knew he'd be coming to town periodically for board meetings — and that indeed is what brought him here today. Thankfully, Clay Collins, LeadPages founder and CEO, was able to help organize the event tonight, with assistance from TechMN, and invite 100 lucky attendees to snap up tickets, which happened very quickly.  So, it's a sold-out event, and I am now really looking forward to the local startup crowd getting to meet Seth!  If I can, I'll do a brief video interview of Seth tonight and post it here tomorrow as an update.

I'm very glad to see the "bridge-building" between Boulder and Minneapolis continue!

UPDATE 2/10/14: Well, at the event, I chose not to shoot an interview of Seth, so as to not take his time away from talking to entrepreneurs. But here's a series of edited videos of the entire talk, which TechMN just posted yesterday.

How Fantastic Is This? Build Your Own ‘BadAss Patent Protection’

Here's how my friend Eduardo Drake opened his latest message to me: "I'm on a mission to help 100,000 entrepreneurs move on their ideas and make the world a better place."  Now, who can't love that?  Eduardo EduardoDrakeis, to say the least, one ambitious, high-energy guy. He's an attorney for startups and entrepreneurs, based here in Minneapolis. He previously worked for a powerhouse IP firm in town, which is highly regarded nationally, also having offices in Silicon Valley and Austin, TX. But he got the entrepreneurial bug a while back and wanted to start his own IP law firm, dedicated to startups. That's when he called me to learn more about what I do, and to get better FantasticIP-logonetworked into the startup community here in Minnesota. You can tell by his firm's name that he is not your typical patent and trademark attorney — it's Fantastic IP Consulting.

Eduardo led a session at last year's all-day MInnebar conference on the topic of patents, one that was very well received (as I can personally attest). He's a fun speaker and obviously very well-informed on this subject. (Check out his bio on the Fantastic IP web site to see the list of tech companies he worked with at his previous employer. It is impressive.)

Now, I learn Eduardo is launching a "build-your-own-patent" training course for Minnesota entrepreneurs. It's a much expanded version of the presentation at Minnebar 2013. It's called Skip The Buzz Kill & Build Your Own BadAss Patent Protection, and it will be held Tuesday, February 4, 2014, from noon to 1:30 pm at CoCo Grain Exchange in downtown Minneapolis.

In this course, Eduardo says he's committed to "distilling 20 years of legal wisdom and know-how into 90 minutes of actionable knowledge tailored to help you get your badass provisional patent application done fast and done right." Sounds like one heck of an offer to me!  And, because I work with so many tech entrepreneurs developing innovative, new technology, I certainly plan to be there. Here's a discount code for my readers to get $25 off the list price: FantasticIPdiscount25. See you there!

 

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