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: conferences (Page 3 of 7)

DEMO, I Miss Ya!

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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

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’

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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DEMO: Flickr Pix Up and DEMOgod Winners

[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

DEMO: More Laptop Battery Life Coming

Boston Power didn’t give us much detail, but used the occasion of DEMO to introduce its new “Sonata” proprietary lithium-ion technology. The claim is that it’s the only battery to actually match the lifespan of a notebook computer, solving “today’s battery fade problem and delivering a 50% faster recharge time.” Bostonpower And more is on the way, said the CEO and founder of the company, Dr. Christina Lampe-Onnerud (who, incidentally, went on stage at last night’s jam session to sing!) “I’ve devoted my life to batteries,” she said, “and we’re committed to delivering a battery you can rely on.” Do I hear a thunderous roar out there? John Wozniak of HP’s PC division, who says his group “ships a ton of battery packs,” gave an extremely complimentary introduction of this presenter, and said his firm is closely partnering with Boston Power. The firm raised an $8 million Series A round last year from Venrock and Gabriel Venture Partners. Once more, the promise for improving our road-warrior lives. Can’t come fast enough for me!

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