Oh, was the joint a-jumpin’ Thursday night, gang. For those of you who weren’t there, that joint was O’Gara’s Garage in St. Paul. For those of you who were — lucky you (especially if you were smart enough to get there early). The crowd had to be 350 or 400 — it was basically shoulder-to-shoulder at its peak. 
The schmoozin’ was in high gear, the kegs were flowing (7 kinds!), and there wasn’t even any entertainment! Well, I guess we were our own entertainment — and six of our community’s latest, hot startups got up on stage halfway into the evening to pitch their wares. [Photo of O’Gara’s courtesy of Minnedemo attendee Michael Lehmkuhl.]
Don’t let anyone tell you the Minnesota tech community isn’t hotter than a pistol! You could feel the energy, the entrepreneurial juices flowing. You know we have something special going on here in Minnesota when you experience one of these BarCamp events (which we call Minnebar and Minnedemo) — and when you see how we keep attracting more and more of the important players from the community with every meeting.
And it’s not just the Twin Cities — we had people there from Sioux Falls, Fargo, St. Cloud, Wisconsin, and more. [Photo of the crowd early-on courtesy of Minnedemo attendee Stefan Hartwig, of sponsor Electric Pulp — one of those dudes from Sioux Falls! Yes, this is the outfit Guy Kawasaki has made famous.]
What was the coolest thing I heard at the event? That was from Robert Stephens, the illustrious founder of Minnesota’s own Geek Squad (acquired by Best Buy in 2002). See my recent coverage of Robert being named MN Entrepreneur of the Year. And, yes, he was just interviewed on 60 Minutes, too! I had a great chat with Robert, during which I mentioned that I’d heard Best Buy was hosting an event that very day in Silicon Valley, just for VCs. He said, yeah, that he was supposed to be speaking there. I asked why he wasn’t. "Because I’d rather be here. I really believe in the Minnesota tech community." Now, is that freaking cool, or what? Screw the Valley, he’s more interested in the action here! Robert is a major supporter of our state’s entrepreneurs — a hero in our midst, for sure.
What else really impressed me? Well, besides the great startups that pitched and just the huge energy of our collective developer/entrepreneur/interactive/marketing community, I have to say that I continue to be really pumped about the quality of new players we keep drawing to these events. We had partners from at least two major VCs firms (and three more I knew really wanted to be there but had schedule conflicts), another from the largest "network of angel networks" in the country, an investment banker whom I know is currently raising a large chunk for a local startup, and more major, local angel investors than I’ve seen at any of our previous meetings. Yes, that’s right, the guy (or lady) you were standing next to could be one — so, don’t spill beer on ’em! 🙂 Seriously, they were there to catch the buzz on what’s new, who’s starting up what, and to schmooze with their colleagues about the latest deals circulating. [Unfortunately, some of the newer ones didn’t realize how noisy these gatherings get, and how hard it can be to hear the presenters, unless you move right up near the stage. But, hopefully they’ll follow up with individual entrepreneurs for one-on-ones — that’s really the intended outcome, anyway, for the startups pitching at these events.] And there were major dudes present as well from some of our state’s largest Internet-related businesses — trust me, I know these people! And I brokered at least two key introductions of local startups to some of these guys. They definitely wanted to know more about some of the technologies pitched. And, there’s more — we even had an NBA player, formerly of the Timberwolves (and a serious geek), in our midst! Not to forget our local media people — I know the Business Journal was present. Not sure if the Trib or the Pioneer Press made it (I was just too busy to see everyone I wanted to). And, you just know that Minnesota’s best and brightest tech bloggers were there — Steve Borsch, Ed Kohler, Ben Higginbotham, and….well, you know. And so many of the developer attendees have great blogs of their own as well! (See the links in the list of attendees on the Minnedemo site for those.)
So, who were the startup founders that pitched? Well, it was an awesome combination of really smart developers, serial entrepreneurs, a major ad-agency producer, a female entrepreneur with a company just coming out of stealth, even a former Silicon Valley researcher that holds a patent on the technology he was pitching. 
People, you would be amazed if you drilled into the backgrounds of these folks — I can say that because I know many of them. There was a huge amount of experience and expertise represented on that stage on Thursday night — a proud moment for Minnesota entrepreneurship. Here’s a quick rundown on who got 10 minutes each to pitch to this raucous crowd:
•CrashPlan (Matthew Dornquast) – a virtual appliance for automatic, off-site backup
•FanChatter (Marty Wetherall) – mobile sports fan chat, photos, more (see news release)
•SOTAcomm (Gary Doan) – plug-and-play appliances integrating best-of-breed open-source "unified communications" apps for running a small business
•Wonderfile (David Carnes) – tag-based file management and collaboration
•Pokeware (Maryse Thomas) – monetizing video streams by giving consumers extensive access to products and information within them (see news release)
•Adaptive Avenue (David Quimby) – distributed commerce, "site within a banner," enabling a whole new category of clicks ("engagement" clicks)
[Photo of David Quimby presenting courtesy of Ben Wallace.]
But did you think we only have six startups here in Minnesota worthy of presenting? Wrong, bucko! There were sixteen more — count ’em, 16!! — who were stacked up on the waiting list in case someone dropped out. They’re definitely worth a look, too….and they’re all listed here on the Minnedemo site, with links so you can learn more.
Remember to say thank you! (My daddy taught me that!) What an awesome event — and we owe it all to the event co-organizers, who donate a huge amount of their time to these things: developers Dan Grigsby, a successful entrepreneur who really knows how to give back to the community, and Luke Francl, a developer at local hot shop Slantwise Design. And the sponsors who pay the freight to make these events happen. We love ’em! Read about ’em and support ’em. They keep coming back, too — all are repeat sponsors:
•Kinetic Data
•Split Rock Partners
•New Counsel
•ipHouse
•Electric Pulp
What’s the takeaway? Minnesota’s startup and Internet community is a one exciting place to be! You like it here, and I know the vast majority of you want to stay here. I’m proud to be a part of the community, and each and every one of you out there should be, too. It’s great to know that if you can work hard, think big, and make good stuff that improves people’s lives or work, or just helps them have more fun online — whatever! — that you can make a real contribution to our economy, and advance your own lot in life as well.
I can’t wait for our next Minnedemo or Minnebar event. Meantime, keep building on the energy…and keep on networking! 🙂
Webb asked the question, “How do we design for this generation?” Though he’s a product designer himself, he went on to say later that Generation C is capable of building products of their own, being so into social networks and mashups and things — so one wonders then why we need product designers? But that’s just the pixel side of the equation. We still need people with design sense to help us sculpt things made out atoms — plastic or whatever. Products are getting smarter and more social, with all kinds of networking capabilities, of course. And we have “new paradigms for interaction,” said Webb. He cited widgets, for example, which he said is such a great paradigm, “it shouldn’t be limited to just the desktop and web.” A key point Webb made is that experience is what counts to this generation, and “how do we design for experience?” He said in his wrapup that experience should be “treated as a design surface,” and that all of us in the room are the right people to address these new design challenges. One nice thing the O’Reilly people pointed out to us in the description of this session was that “people have been paying for plastic longer than pixels.” So, the business model is there! 🙂 It should be an exciting future for product designers, whoever they may be.
Similarly, games are made up of games — lots of little ones are in any good game, he said. Building games is about good “interaction design.” Then he ran us through a quick lesson in designing for fun, or applying game design to, for example, social media applications. He said you should have statistical features and opportunities for competition. “Never start an interaction with no context,” he said. And the participant must be able to prepare for the next encounter. Users should be able to solve challenges with a choice of tools, he said. “Reward them with different feedback. Variable feedback keeps things lively. And it should be visible to everyone.” Raph closed by telling us to check out his book site for more: 
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