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: Venture Capital/M&A/Angels (Page 45 of 54)

Guy Kawasaki Is Comin’ to Town

December 21, 2006 / / 3 Comments

Was I surprised yesterday morning to learn that Guy Kawasaki, master evangelist/author/speaker from Silicon Valley, would be speaking at the U on January 19!  After grabbing tickets for myself and a guest, I immediately emailed Guy and asked him how we could be so lucky to entice him here to Minnesota smack in the middle of winter. [I email with Guy once in a while, and we have a mutual friend in Rich Karlgaard of Forbes. See my coverage of Rich’s latest MN speech.]

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Well, guess what what brings Guy here? [Other than a chance to talk "The Art of the Start."] It’s about pond hockey!  Which has quietly become a really big deal, and Minneapolis is ground zero for this newly revived and now organized sport. I should have known hockey had something to do with this, because I knew Guy was huge into playing the game.  Not that he doesn’t like coming to our state on general principles, mind you. I was instrumental in recruiting him to speak at a MN High Tech Association event several years ago, and I remember hearing him speak here in the mid-’90s when he was still an Apple Fellow. Guy, as you’ll recall, was the original evangelist for the Mac starting in the mid-’80s, which he wrote about in his first two books, "The Macintosh Way" and "Selling the Dream."

So, I asked Guy in my email  if I could do a little interview to use in my blog post.  He was game, so here ya go…

Me:  Guy, what did we do to deserve this?
Guy:  I’m playing in the pond hockey tournament. That was the enticement. 🙂

Me:  What’s the gist of the talk?
Guy:  I’ll be talking about "The Art of the Start" — based on my book, of course. It’s my guide for anyone starting anything.

Me:  How long will it be, and what’s the format?
Guy: Sixty minutes, top ten format with a bonus. [If you read Guy’s books or blogs, you know he loves lists of ten.]

Me:  Will you bad-mouth VCs (we hope)?  <ha, ha>
Guy:  I always tell the truth.

Me:  Will you talk story about Steve Jobs and Apple?
Guy:  Yes, a great deal.

Me:  How much will you talk about hockey? Hey, how can you NOT here?
Guy:  Depends on how we’re doing in the tournament. I think I play in a game before I speak.

Me:  Will you have books for sale?  And will you sign my entire collection ?  🙂
Guy:  I should arrange for a bookstore to be there. I’ll try to make this happen. See you soon!

What a guy!  If you haven’t yet registered, act fast — word is spreading. Complimentary tickets for Guy Kawasaki’s talk on January 19th at the U of M are available by RSVPing at www.TheGuestRegister.com/start. You can register yourself and guests at the same time. Or call 888-889-7787, Event #932.  Mucho thanks for this event go to the sponsors: the U of M’s Venture Center, the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the Carlson School, the James J. Hill Library, SDWA Ventures, and PR firm Haberman & Associates. I see Haberman is a co-producer of the U.S. Pond Hockey Championships here in January. Way to go, guys!

[By the way, Guy’s latest blog post is an interview of my friend Marti Nyman at Best Buy.]

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Conferences I Plan to Blog…

December 20, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Just to update you, o faithful blog readers, I thought I’d mention what conferences I’ll be blogging from in coming weeks and months. First of all, I’m happy to report I’ve been accepted again as a press registrant at the DEMO 2007 event, which is January 30 – February 1. This will be about my fourth DEMO event. Demo07banner The venue this year was switched from Phoenix to Palm Desert, California, which should be a glorious locale at this time of year (especially when I’ll be escaping Minnesota winter!). I always look forward to this conference, not only because 70 of the hottest startups in the country pitch their businesses here, but because it attracts so much buzz and media attention, more than virtually any other event all year long. The media list is like a who’s who. As always, companies you’ll be reading about a year, two years, three years from now will first be heard from at DEMO. And I’ll do my best to report the highlights for you… [See categories to the right for my coverage of both DEMO events in 2006.]

Another event I’m thinking about covering (but not sure yet if I can break away) is the big momma of ’em all: CES …which used to stand for Consumer Electronics Show, but now wants to be so much more (see theme). Being a content guy, how could I not like this one? Haven’t been to Vegas in a while — caught an Interop show there a couple years ago, and of course attended many Comdex events back in the day. CES, by the way, may be big, but it still doesn’t draw as many people as Comdex did in its heydey. Nonetheless, the show is today the “world’s largest tradeshow for consumer technology and North America’s largest annual tradeshow of any kind.” Get this: it will feature 2700 exhibitors covering floorspace the equivalent of 35 football fields(!), and will have 140,000 attendees — 25,000 of them from other countries. Ces07logotheme Those attendees will include manufacturers, retailers, content providers and creators, broadband developers, wireless carriers, cable and satellite TV providers, installers, engineers, corporate buyers, government leaders, financial analysts and the media. [How could I not like pal-in’ around with those installers, huh? Cable guys attend this thing?? Maybe I should reconsider….] Anyway, there will be a ton of press at this one, and the bloggers will outnumber them — guaranteed. The combined total will easily be in the thousands. Robert Scoble, the well known author and former head blogger at Microsoft, who’s now VP of Media Development at Podtech, will even have his own suite where bloggers can hang out. Here’s what he said on his blog: “By the way, our BlogHaus at CES will be open to ANY blogger, not just those ‘blessed’ by Microsoft or some other company. You just need to have me put your name on the list so you can get up to our suite.” I did.

Finally, I’m looking out to March and thinking I’d love to blog ETech again. O’Reilly is my favorite publisher and conference producer. [You’ll note I recommend many of its books under the “Reading” subhead at the right. Disclosure: I do get free books from time to time, but only post those I really find of value.] Oreillyetechlogo I’ve really enjoyed reporting on this conference in the past, and love running into my old blog buddies there, like Doc Searls and David Weinberger. Sure, it’s a developer event. But, as I’ve said before, some of my best friends are developers…. 🙂 And this event draws an awesome, a-list of attendees, too, at all levels, and many other great bloggers. Anyway, it would be fun to capture it again for y’all, and I hope to get out to San Diego for it in late March. [Okay, it’s an excuse to hang out again at my favorite beach, too 🙂 … ]

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‘MinneDemo 2’ Was One Hot Ticket!

December 13, 2006 / / 1 Comment

Hot, as in…could you find a parking place? Then could you get in the door? And could you believe the freaking great weather outside? For those of you not in Minnesota, we’ve been basking in 45-50 degree temps of late, haven’t seen a snowfall yet (and it’s mid-December!), and we actually had a light rain/mist goin’ on outside Monday evening for this second MinneDemo event. I had to pinch myself to believe I wasn’t in San Francisco! And the scene, a high-energy gathering of Internet entrepreneurs and developers, made it even more reminiscent of the City by the Bay, back in days of….well, you know.

Minnedemologo200w

But, hell no, this is no bubble! Web 2.0 is different, folks. And this group is great evidence of that. It proves that smart developers can live and work anywhere they want….even in now-subtropical Minnesota [if this is global warming, bring it on, baby!]. And the new, open tools and platforms of the Web 2.0 era let them build their stuff quickly while they stay right where they prefer to live. It’s hard convincing Minnesota folks to leave. Something about quality of life, snow (hah!), lakes, fishing, hunting, the local music scene, the culture, and, doggone it…“Minnesota Nice” in general.

What’s interesting, too, about this new breed of startups is that they don’t need much to bootstrap and get their businesses going and up on the Web. Rapid development platforms like Ruby On Rails help a lot in that regard [and I’m hearing we have an excellent community of those developers here]. The hope of these entrepreneurs, of course, is that word will spread “virally” about their new sites…kind of the comeback of the age-old ‘build-a-better-mousetrap’ concept. But they’re smart enough to realize they don’t need to be hunting down big VC dollars for these businesses — they wouldn’t know what to do with such money, anyway. They understand, however, that angel funding is a good fit for their needs. [And, yes, there were definitely some angels present! Of course, not a single VC showed, but my radar is picking up that this will change soon.] Think of our local Web 2.0 phenomenon as a kind of giant caldron of experimentation: build ’em fast and get ’em up on the Web! Then, hey, if people like ’em, they just might catch on and turn into real businesses….

Minnedemo1

[Note: The event, by the way, was held at at the Arcadia Cafe at Franklin and Nicollet. Photos shown are courtesy of Minneapolis’ own Jamie Thingelstad, VP/CTO of Dow Jones Online. He and his crew run all the awesome sites of this global leader from right here! Yes, 110 people downtown, in the original MarketWatch offices. Jamie is also affiliated with one of the sponsors, Road Sign Math. The photos, in order, are of the bar, organizer-extraordinaire Dan Grigsby, the demo room, and Mike O’Connor getting ready to pitch.]

Minnedemo2

Net-net: anybody who’s anybody in the local developer community was at this schmoozefest, either to demo their wares (there were six companies/projects pitching), watch their peers demo, or just catch up with their fellow developer friends, advisors, potential employees/employers, look for contract talent, angel connections, etc, etc…. I saw and heard all that and more. I was in awe being around so many smart people. We have one really, really great developer community here, folks! Some of my best friends are developers, and I’m very happy to say that. Get to know ’em. This is where this state’s next generation of company-building and wealth generation will come from!

Minnedemo3

So, who’s behind organizing this MinneDemo thing? It rose up out of a grass-roots, open-source movement called BarCamp, which is actually (and fittingly) a global phenomenon. Three local developers named Dan Grigsby, Luke Franci, and Ben Edwards decided about a year ago that our local community could be a great “chapter” if someone would just get it started. Well, they seized the moment! …and actually have put in a ton of work into throwing the three events so far. [BarCamp MN and then two MinneDemos.] We salute you guys! And they had no problem finding sponsors — in fact, I hear their list is almost over-subscribed already. For this event, the sponsors were ipHouse, Mosquito Mole Multiworks, Kinetic Data, Road Sign Math, and New Counsel. [Thanks, guys! Smart marketing dollars invested.]

Minnedemo4

This second MinneDemo easily drew 180 people, which was double the first one! [That was held at a smaller venue in Uptown in September.] Not only was this one a happening, fun networking event, there was a lot of stimulating discussion going on Monday night — I can attest. As well as seeing a lot of old friends, developers and others alike — Tom Kieffer, Rob Metcalf, Jeff Pester, Mike O’Connor, John Roberts, Derek Peterson, Tom VonKuster, and several more — I met some really interesting new friends, including [the ones I got cards from, at least]: Ben Moore of Curbly (great tagline this social network has: “Love Where You Live”)….Dan Carroll of imp (that stands for “Intelligent Media Platform” and, interestingly, it’s a company that sort of grew out of the Utne Reader)….John Sandberg of Kinetic Data (one of the sponsors linked above)….and Katharine Grayson, the new technology beat reporter for our local weekly The Business Journal. She was nice enough to bring along a photographer, after I alerted their managing editor, Mark Reilly, to the event. [Note: Buy next week’s issue — lots more about our local tech community there.]

So, you get the point by now: the Minnesota Internet startup and business community is a-hummin’!! I know you’ll be hearing more from many people in this group. And I’ll continue bringing as much of it to you as I can…

Nothin’ “mini” about Minne-sota!

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It’s Pah-ty Time!

December 7, 2006 / / 0 Comments

That’s not only my favorite line from my favorite cut of Big Audio Dynamite, but it’s my favorite call to action at this time of year! And here, friends, are three of the coolest places to be in Minneapolis in the next week. The first, unfortunately, is by invitation only…a customer-appreciation kinda gig for the great design/UI firm, FactorUE, tomorrow night, Friday, December 8. But maybe you know someone who can get you in….or just show up at the Foundation Nightclub downtown about the time it’s wrapping up at 9:00, when things will continue raging, I’m sure. The cool thing is that two of FactorUE’s designers are DJs, too!

Factorueevite

The second local event I’ll be catching, on Monday the 11th, is the holiday gathering of our great local community of developers and entrepreneurs, playfully called MinneDemo. [It’s the local chapter of a loosely affiliated global network called Bar Camp.] Go onto that MinneDemo link (it’s a wiki page) and sign up if you’d like to attend — unless the list has already gone beyond the capacity of the larger club where it’s being held this time. Dan Grigsby and friends have done a great job organizing and planning these gigs, which are catching on like wildfire. Actually, this one is half-serious, too — a separate room is devoted to a program of five or so brief demos by aspiring entrepreneurs or new startups.

Minnedemoholiday

The third event on my agenda is next Wednesday the 13th — the annual holiday bash of the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association, which has a reputation for being a really fun party. This year, it’s at the brand-new locale of the Guthrie Theater, so I thought I’d check it out, and catch up with some old friends. It’s free for members or $20 for non-members, and you can read more about it and register right here.

Mimaparty

Okay, I must be getting to sound more and more like the Michael Arrington of Minnesota here 🙂 …. [except I don’t throw parties at my own house]. But, if you’re a player in our local IT/Internet/Web 2.0 community, you should be showing up at one of these events, at least! I’m looking forward to all of ’em. See ya there….

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More Good News re: Minnesota Startups

December 5, 2006 / / 0 Comments

Another of our local startups has announced a $5-million early-stage funding. The Mpls/St. Paul Business Journal published this article online on December 1 (may require subscription to their print edition–booo!), about Swarmcast receiving an initial round of funding from Japanese VC firms. Why Japan, you might ask? Well, because there’s even higher interest in the company’s technology for downloading HD-quality video in that country than in the U.S., which is behind Japan in broadband technology and adoption.

I’d actually known about this funding for close to a year — which would make it the worst-kept secret in the Minnesota startup community. But I chose way back not to break any news about it, deferring to my friends at the company, who had some reason for delaying the announcement. Perhaps their thinking was they were way out in front of the market, anyway, so why not let it catch up a bit? Or maybe they picked up on the fact that BitTorrent was announcing its own financing on the same day — this one for $20 million — and decided they should synch up with that, for better PR value or something. [Note: regarding BitTorrent, the Business Journal article states that the swarming technology developed by SwarmCast’s predecessor company, Onion Networks, “has since been modified and used by popular peer-to-peer file-sharing company BitTorrent,” but that “the product Swarmcast now plans to launch is based on entirely new technology.”]

Swarmcastsiteclip

Whatever, this is more great news for Minnesota’s startup community! It proves again that money finds us, and that such fundings don’t always mean startups have to move to either coast to get their growth-fueling booty. [You know I’ve been chronicling the determination of another startup, Flyspy, to also disprove this commonly held theory.]

SwarmCast’s funding comes on top of two other $5-million+ Series A rounds for MN companies, which were announced almost back-to-back in the early summer: Jumpnode and HotGigs. I blogged about both companies here. Which makes me think…let’s see, that means at least three pretty big deals were brewing as much as a year ago (such financings typically are in the works for months before they’re announced). And — with the vibrancy of the tech sector having picked up markedly all year — just what all else may now be going on behind the scenes here locally as far as renewed venture financing interest in Minnesota’s Internet and IT startups?

That, my friends, is where a large part of my focus will continue to be. In fact, I’m already onto one such story you will find very interesting — another positive sign that the climate is indeed getting better. [Okay, I’m not talking about our weather! 🙂 …]

In the meantime, congratulations to my friend (and former client) Justin Chapweske, founder of locally grown SwarmCast, for making Minnesota proud. Justin, SwarmCast rocks!

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