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: Gist

Gist Gives You the Context You Need for Meaningful Engagements


Gist-diagram
Today, I had an opportunity to meet with a couple of the good folks
from Gist, a startup based in Seattle that helps you "Know More about
Who You Know."  It's a neat app that I've been using for some time, and
that includes their native iPhone app — which is a great way
to stay in touch when I'm on the go with what my network is up to.  I
also love the daily email updates I get from Gist that give me all the
latest content from my most important contacts. 

I sat down for breakfast with Robert Pease, VP of Marketing, and Jenn Pitts, Marketing Operations Manager, who were in town for a conference. My friend Buzz Bruggeman in Seattle was nice enough to give me a heads-up that Robert and Jenn were coming to Minneapolis, and I thought it would be a great
Jenn+Robert-Gist opportunity to get an update on the company.  I had previously met the CEO, T.A. McCann, last year at a couple of conferences I attend in Denver, Defrag and Glue, where I had first learned about the company's app.

Here's the audio interview I recorded of our conversation, which is about 22 minutes long. Excuse the sound quality, because we were in the very large lobby restaurant in the Hyatt downtown, and there was a fair amount of background noise. At one point, there was even a loud clap of thunder outside that interrupted our chat! But it was good to hear about how this startup is doing in advancing its mission of helping people improve their relationships with the people and companies that matter most to them.

Download or listen to Graeme's interview with Gist (MP3)"

GlueCon 09: My Interviews with VCs Brad Feld and Seth Levine

While I was reporting from the first-year Glue Conference the past few days in Denver, I had the opportunity to interview two of the guys behind the scenes in launching and planning this great event: Brad Feld and Seth Levine, partners in VC firm Foundry Group, which is based in nearby Boulder, CO. (Actually, of the two, Seth was more involved in Glue, while Brad was the main guy behind launching a sister event called Defrag, which is held in the fall in Denver, the first one being in November 2007.) 

I had noticed in the days leading up to Glue that Foundry Group had announced a new investment (Gist, whose founder was at Glue), then I saw two more investments they announced on their blogs while the event was going on (Medialets and CloudEngines). So, I decided to see if I could interview both Brad and Seth during breaks on Day 2 of Glue to learn about these latest new portfolio companies of theirs.

Brad (left photo) and Seth typify what I’ve called before The New Face of Venture Investing — a post I actually did in December 2007, which specifically called out Brad. BradFeld   I’ve also written previously about Seth, in a post from June 2008 called The Best Advice I’ve Seen Lately on Using Startup Advisors. They are both really nice guys, wicked smart, and doing great work helping many entrepreneurs build successful startups in a place that…well, is not Silicon Valley.  Yes, they’ve proved in spades that it can be done. SethLevine And, unlike your typical VCs, they do believe in investing outside their own backyard — as is the case with all three of their latest investments.  Sure, many of their portfolio companies are in Colorado, where a lot of innovation is going on (which they’re involved in on a day-to-day basis — including the TechStars program, which they helped launch).  But they’re also smart enough to know great ideas and great teams can live anywhere. I love the way they get involved in these events of theirs — they’re right in the middle of it all, very much a part of the “community” that each of these events they’ve launched really has become. It doesn’t take long to realize that both these guys are “people persons” through and through.

I spoke with Brad first, about the Gist investment, which had been announced the week before, and in particular about the investment they had just announced early that morning, on Day 2 of Glue: CloudEngines.

Download the MP3 of my interview with Brad Feld.

Later the same morning, I spoke at greater length with Seth, primarily about Foundry Group leading a $4M Series A investment in Medialets, which had been announced on Day 1 of Glue.  We also spoke a bit about an earlier investment of Seth’s in the advertising space, AdMeld.

Download the MP3 of my interview with Seth Levine.

For more about the Glue Conference, see my Twitterstream for the past three days.  I must have tweeted darn-near a couple hundred times!  And I saw this morning after I was back in Minneapolis that conference organizer Eric Norlin said he’d just read through all the tweets on the event — 62 pages total!  You can find the whole shebang by going to search.twitter.com and entering “gluecon” in the search box. It was a very successful event by all accounts.  I’m really happy I was part of it, and have already said I’ll sign up for next year!