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: startup (Page 1 of 2)

My Adventures as a Connoisseur of the Fine Art of Startup Pitching

Mobicart-DEMOfall2010 Can one learn anything listening to a lot of startup pitches?  I mean even if your job, like that of a VC, doesn't require it, per se.  Yes, I believe you can, and I've invested a large part of my time and attention over the years to this practice, betting that doing so brings value to my clients. 

I began attending and reporting on many of the large, national tech conferences (most in California, but some in other U.S. cities and resort locations) more than 12 years ago – as a way to juice my own knowledge as a tech marketing consultant and startup advisor, and to keep out in front of tech trends. (Not to speak of being able to meet and network with lots of heavyweights.) This pastime of sorts is what basically turned me into a blogger, and even an accidental part-time journalist — actually getting paid occasionally to write about what I learned at these events.  Imagine that.  (That was before the intrinsic value of a blog post starting going to zero. But I digress…)  After proving myself early-on as a good event reporter, the conferences began granting me press passes.

I've heard so many startup pitches over my career, especially during the last 12 years, that I've lost count.  But I have no doubt it's more than 1000.  And I've been lucky enough to document most of them — certainly hundreds — in my writings.  Twitter and live-blogging tools in recent years have only added to my output.  Someday, maybe I'll even turn my blog archives into a large coffee-table book. (Yeah, right, like I'd ever have the time! And a large percentage of these startups are now either out of business or acquired, so who would care?)  Just one live-blog I did of a two-day conference last month totaled 9000 words.  More on that below.

The many conferences I've attended include top events like DEMO (11 times), Esther Dyson’s PC Forum 2006 (the swan song), Under The Radar, TechCrunch 50, several O'Reilly events, those sponsored by leading publications (e.g., Forbes, Fortune, WSJ), Defrag and Glue, and many smaller, newer, or regional startup events such as CrowdPitch as well.  The collective intelligence I gather from this investment of time (and money) has been remarkably valuable to me personally, and to my clients. 

How?  Well, in several areas:  understanding and assessing trends, messaging, strategy, business models, and what I'll call style, or stage presence. By observing the best-of-the-best pitch their businesses (all these conferences closely vet applicants), I'm better able to understand not only where technology startup trends are going, but I can hear the best stories, the best messaging.  I get to see with my own eyes what resonates, what hits the mark — meaning the startups that best get people to pay attention, take action, elicit media interest, attract customers, and (not the least) cause investors to write checks.  Sure, not all these technology startups will make it.  But, because I'm getting extensive exposure to this cream-of-the-crop with the best potential, I've found that I'm in a much better position to help guide my clients back home in their own business planning, marketing and launch strategy, media strategy and tactics, and even in coaching the founders in their own on-stage startup pitches. I can also teach them to avoid the mistakes I see others make.

DEMOfall2010-graphic Just a few weeks ago, I attended my 11th DEMO conference, and my 10th in a row.  (The event is held twice a year, and the recent one, called "DEMOfall 2010," was held in Santa Clara, CA.)   Long ago dubbing itself "The Launchpad for Emerging Technology," DEMO is generally regarded as the inventor of the startup pitch fest, and certainly has the longest, continuous track record.  Launched in 1991 by Stewart Alsop (whom I've had the privilege to meet at more than one DEMO), this venerable event was acquired by IDG many years ago, and is still the gold standard.  It is extremely well run, and remains my favorite conference of them all.  It never disappoints. The main thing to remember about DEMO is that it attracts a large, prestigious press and blogger contingent, and generates more than 200 million media impressions for the collective participants of each conference.  Not to minimize the importance of the many investors that regularly attend, too –- it attracts those, and the presenting startups, from around the globe.  Over the years, startups pitching at DEMO events have collectively raised hundreds of millions of dollars — billions, I'm sure — in funding. And many of them, household names now, have been acquired or gone public. Check this list of DEMO alumni companies, and it only includes those for the years 2006-2010.

Last month, I live-blogged the entire two-day-plus DEMOfall 2010 program, an agenda made up mostly of rapid-fire, back-to-back startups pitches, some 70 companies in all, with several great panels and interviews mixed in.  (In that live-blog archive, scroll down to get to the meat of the pitches, since, on the afternoon of registration, I allowed all those on Twitter posting tweets with the event hashtag to flow into my live-blog, as people were traveling to and arriving at the event, including me. Part of the fun is the anticipation!)

In addition, I did nine audio interviews of some of my favorite startups while I was at DEMOfall 2010:  here's the link to all my blog posts for this event, which include links to those interviews. I started doing audio interviews of startup founders several DEMO conferences back. Two of the companies I interviewed even went on to be named among the DEMOgod Award winners.  My photos of the event are here on this Flickr set.

Podcast: Fine-Art Site Socurio Makes the Community the Curator

Socurio-logo At a recent Club Entrepreneur lunch downtown, which is held at the wonderful, old Minneapolis Club, I had the opportunity to meet one of the cofounders of a unique startup. [Club Entrepreneur is a monthly lunch event run by my longtime colleague Rick Brimacomb. I wrote a post about the event here. For more info, email: rick at brimacomb dot com.]  The name of that cofounder was Ion Skillrud, shown at right in the photo. (And, yes, I said at the time I'd never seen that first name of his spelled that way!) The name of his startup is Socurio, which is a new kind of "creative marketplace and community for fine art." Sasha+Ion I learned his cofounder, Sasha Koehn (left in the photo), was based in LA.  I thought there must be an interesting story here, and I was right — with both a Minnesota and Wisconsin connection.  So, when Ion followed up with me, I suggested the three of us record a podcast sometime — which we were able to do yesterday, via Skype conference call.

What's really different about this online art marketplace is that it bridges a real gap the founders see between art and the consumer. The latter being you and me: admirers of art, but not artists ourselves. The vision for Socurio — its differentiation, they say — is that it's a "refined" art marketplace, where the art is already filtered by the community. 

Socurio-homepage

Other art sites are loaded up with all kinds of clutter.  Here, the big idea is this: the community is the curator.  Art buyers are obviously a key target for the  site, but even those with just an appreciation and no big budget play a key role.  Because the really cool feature, the founders say, is that you don't just buy art on Socurio — you collect ("celebrate") art, on your own page on the site, viewable by all visitors to the site. Anyone can join the site for free, and we also talked about the site's revenue streams, which include a share of transactions, as well as advertising.

So, take a listen to the interesting startup story of Socurio. And also hear about the first "ARTintended" event they held, which was their launch event in LA last week. The podcast is about a 20-25 minutes long. Here's the MP3 file:

Download or listen to Graeme's interview with the founders of Socurio (MP3)"

Show notes:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Socurio/35785193539
Twitter: www.twitter.com/socurio
Blog: http://blog.socurio.com
Flickr pix from launch event: www.flickr.com/photos/39330436@N06/sets/72157623634964200/
More about the "ARTintended" events: http://blog.socurio.com/p/artintended.html

Art-intended-logo


I’m Liking This ‘Spark Radio’ App – and It’s from a MN Startup

Is it possible to design a radio app that delivers the ultimate radio experience, complete with visually stunning graphics and social media capabilities, too?  SparkRadio-200w Minneapolis’ own Handcast Media Labs LLC thought so, set out to prove it, and just launched the result on the iTunes App Store a couple of days ago.  It’s called Spark Radio (press release), and works on the iPhone and iPod Touch. It’s available for $5.99 at this link at the App Store.

I grabbed it the day it came out and have used it multiple times since, in a variety of situations — at home, on a road trip, even in a foreign country (Iowa) — and I must say I’m impressed.  Right now, I’m listening to a great station that’s all Grateful Dead all the time, which I discovered via the app. It’s called RadioIO Dead, and “Big Boss Man” has been my favorite track so far.  I’m on wifi in my motel room at the moment, and the sound is perfect — and I’m not even using an external speaker.  On the way down here to Des Moines, I used the app via my iPhone on AT&T’s 3G network (note: I was in the passenger seat!) to tune in multiple stations, including WSL in Chicago, and the sound was way better than any station I could tune in on the car radio.

Spark Radio not only gives you tons of station choices and social media features designed to make radio listening more interactive, but it also features visually stunning animations. Far out, huh?  Its robust, visual radio tuner uses the guide from a company called RadioTime.com to give you access to more than 10,000 terrestrial and Internet-only radio stations worldwide.  Handcast says it’s adding new stations to Spark Radio daily, and will support more than 30,000 stations by April.  You can listen to precisely what you want to at any given time — music, talk radio, sports events, public radio, or special programming from around the world.  Its elegant interface lets you search for stations or programs by keyword, location, or the station URL, and you can browse programming by genre or location. (I’m still looking for two of my fav genres: rockabilly and surf.)  A GPS component lets you find local stations in any given city based on current GPS coordinates.

I took the opportunity to dial up the founder of Handcast Media Labs, Terry Anderson, whom I’d met in 2008, to ask if he’d be up for an interview. That follows.

Graeme:  Terry, I know you’re no newcomer to interactive and Internet marketing here in Minnesota. Give us a synopsis of your background.

Terry Anderson:  Well, I’ve been involved in technology for almost 30 years now.  I founded e.Media group in 1995 and we were one of the early interactive agencies in the Twin Cities, with a lineup of really great national clients.  That was incredibly fun.  I sold that agency in 2004 (it's now known as Idea Park) and have been involved in entrepreneurial ventures since.  I got energized by the iPhone platform in 2008 and have been working in that sphere since then.

Graeme:  How did you come to start Tiny Wonder Studios, and then Handcast?  And tell us about the rest of your team.

Terry Anderson:  Tiny Wonder is a division of Popular Front, an incredible interactive agency here in the Twin Cities.  I’m involved as a consultant and helped form the new entity and create Pixi, their first iPhone app.  I’ve been close friends with Laurence Bricker of Popular Front since we were young. Laurence is a true visionary in the interactive world and it was great to collaborate with him once again.  HandCast Media Labs is my own startup, specializing in iPhone applications.  I needed a place to pursue my own ideas, so started HandCast in the spring of 2009. We’re trying to push the limits of technology and creativity.  There are a number of people involved, but the nucleus includes Greg Sharp, a visionary and longtime partner of mine, and Jesse Hemmingway, who is simply the best developer I’ve ever worked with.  It’s an incredible group and we’ve been collectively pushing the boundaries for a long time now.

Graeme:  I grabbed that first app from Tiny Wonder, the Pixi drawing app (see screenshot), right when it came out.  Refresh my memory — when did that hit the App Store?  And how has it done since then? PixiApp-200w

Terry Anderson:  Pixi was developed as an experiment and hit the iTunes store about a year ago. (It’s available for $1.99 at this link on the App Store.)  We wanted to learn the intricacies of iPhone development and start figuring out what it would take to successfully market an app on iTunes.  It’s a beautiful and highly creative application.  It continues to sell moderate amounts on the store, but we never really put enough marketing energy behind Pixi.  We get comments all the time that Pixi is the best app on the store and we know we have a significant audience if we can reach them.  Look for a Pixi re-launch in the upcoming months.  We have some very exciting things planned.  One thing we’ve learned is that iPhone apps need a formal marketing plan, just like any other consumer product.  There are simply so many applications available on iTunes that you need to find a way to become visisble.  We’re excited about the future of Pixi.

Graeme:  Did you develop any other apps after Pixi, either for the iPhone or other mobile platforms?

Terry Anderson:  Before we began work on Spark Radio, we began a prototype of what I’ll describe as a geo-spatial game.  That project has been put on a back-burner for now.  I believe if we can make it work, it could be a mega-hit.  But the scope is very substantial and we decided to focus on titles we could get completed in a reasonable period of time.  Stay tuned.

Graeme:  So, let’s talk now about the Spark Radio app. What made you decide to do a radio app? What did you think you could bring to this category that others weren’t doing already?  Aren’t there tons of streaming radio apps?

Terry Anderson:  When we launched Pixi, we were overwhelmed with the number of people who asked if the Pixi animations could possibly interact with music from the iPhone or iPod.  It turns out that Apple has made that impossible.  We began looking at other ways to make that happen and came up with the idea of streaming radio, where we have control over the audio stream.  We knew that including graphic visualizers would give us a point of difference from the competition.  We also got very excited about the idea of global radio, and decided to include some social features to support that idea.  I think it’s fascinating that someone in South Korea is listening to a hip-hop station out of Paris.  We’re in love with that idea.  The decision to do a radio app was fairly pragmatic.  My research showed that this was a very lively niche within iTunes and that people were looking for quality.  While there were a number of products out there already, we felt that nobody had really developed a robust product with an elegant user interface.  We knew that if we made the experience more fun for listeners, we could succeed.  We launched two days ago and are already #32 on the iTunes list of best sellers, so I think we called that one correctly.  We’re very proud of the product and have some great enhancements coming.

Graeme:  How long did take you to develop Spark?  And do you have plans to do versions of it for any other platforms?

Terry Anderson:  It took us eight months to develop Spark Radio.  That was complicated by the fact that our lead developer broke his collarbone somewhere in the middle of the project!  He took a bad fall on his bike one night and it was impossible to have someone take over his part of the project.  So, say seven months if you eliminate the injury.  That was a tense time, but it all turned out well.  We have always planned to do an Android version of Spark Radio.  We’re very excited about Android and hope to support it in parallel with iPhone.  We have some concerns about the graphics performance on Android, but we’ll figure that out as we go.

Graeme:  Being a longtime promotion guy, you have a pretty cool giveaway going on now for the Spark Radio app.  Tell us about that.

Terry Anderson:  I hate to call it a promotion.  We’re simply giving away 500 iTunes gift certificates ($10) to friends as a celebration of our launch, so they can download Spark Radio for free.  If your readers want to participate, they can email us their name & email address and we’ll send them the gift certificate.  It’s a way for us to show appreciation for all the great friends who have supported us over the years.  They can send their info to sparkgift (at) handcastmedia (dot) com.

[Blogger's note to the FTC: no freebie coupon here — I bought my own app!]

Graeme:  So, Terry, what’s next for Tiny Wonder and Handcast?  What growth plans do you have for your ventures?

Terry Anderson:  As I mentioned, we have great plans for Pixi, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it on the bestseller list by summer.  The success of Spark Radio has been overwhelming, but we’ll keep working until we get to the top of our category.  HandCast will be developing a new title soon and we’re also pitching some ideas that are too large for us to execute on our own.  Given the success of Spark Radio, we’re being contacted for some very interesting contract work as well.  It’s all good.

———–

Thanks, Terry.  A company that develops apps “designed to entertain the senses” can’t be all bad.  And I like how Handcast further describes its vision as “empowering users to explore their own creativity by meeting their entertainment-on-the go needs.”

You can learn more at the Handcast Media Labs web site, and you can follow Spark Radio on Twitter and on Facebook.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

The Best Advice I’ve Seen Lately On Using Startup Advisors

Seth Levine is a VC in Boulder, CO, a partner with Foundry Group. I kinda know Seth, through his connections to the Twin Cities (he’s a graduate of Macalester in St. Paul), though we’ve never actually met.  We’ve emailed quite a bit about goings-on here in Minnesota, after having just missed each other at the Defrag conference in Denver last November.  Seth and his fellow partners are quite the bloggers. One of his sidekicks, Brad Feld (whom I did meet at Defrag), has a very popular blog called Feld Thoughts. And they also run another blog that has high readership in the entrepreneurial community called Ask the VC.

Seth’s blog is called Seth Levine’s VC Adventure. And, recently, he began a series of posts on startup advisors, a topic near and dear to my heart. Advicedefinition
In a departure for Seth, the posts are actually written by a guest poster, Gerald Joseph.  Part I was good, but Part II is even better: The role of company advisors (Part II).

Here’s how Seth explained how these posts came about:

“One of the things I enjoy the most about writing this blog is the discussion I engage in with readers – both through blog comments and in direct emails.  Over the past month I’ve had a particularly enjoyable exchange with Gerald Joseph.  One of the topics we’ve discussed is the role of advisors in the life of a start-up.  I generally think of advisors as non-paid ‘friends of the company’ and as you’d probably guess, advocate a pretty deliberate organization and use of advisors.  Gerald’s view is a little more expansive as he thinks of ‘advisors’ as the larger ecosystem that surrounds (or should surround) a start up company – one that includes people you pay (attorneys, CPAs, etc) and the people who pay you (your angel investors) in addition to the business and industry experts that are the typical ‘advisors’ to young companies.  I like this line of thinking and offered Gerald the chance to put his thoughts into a post.  He took me up on that idea and came up with a four part series on the topic that I’ll put up over the next few weeks.  After the final post I’ll summarize some of my thoughts as well as comments from readers.”

For entrepreneurs at any stage, I think these posts are excellent. I encourage anyone who could use some…uh…advice on how to use advisors to read them all, including Parts III and IV yet to come.

Part 2: Flyspy Goes to School

Continuing from my post of yesterday….

Tech~Surf~Blog: Tell us about how you participated in the Carlson School MBA class. I assume you did a complete presentation about Flyspy for the students early-on to establish a starting point?

Robertmetcalf Metcalf: I presented the class with a very detailed look at Flyspy, from high–level concepts to detailed aspects of the business model and technology costs. Remember, the class was going to produce a business plan with an emphasis on IT management. The major points that I hit on were:
• What is Flyspy, what is the problem, and what is the solution.
• Market size and business (revenue) model.
• Understanding the airline industry using a supply-chain metaphor.
• Flyspy’s value to the consumer and value to the airline.
• Future product plans.
• Technology overview and the cost of managing technology.

Tech~Surf~Blog: What was your opinion of the quality of the papers produced by the 10 teams, as well as their PowerPoint presentations in the final class session? Were you impressed by their engagement in the whole process?

Metcalf: Each presentation (business plan) had to be delivered by midnight prior to the final class. I frankly didn’t know what to expect, so I was pleasantly surprised when I received 10 business plans via email. Each business plan was roughly 25 pages in length, had a clear executive summary, a detailed course of action, various recommendations, a summary, and references.

After reading the first business plan I thought, “This one is a clear winner.” After reading each business plan, I had the same thought. Every plan was outstanding because each one addressed a different market segment. Half the class had a B2B solution and the other half addressed the B2C segment.

The class presentations were limited to 12 minutes each. Each team came prepared with a PowerPoint presentation making their case as to why their solution was the best one. And all of the teams used an information and technology strategy to frame the problems and solutions. They clearly knew how to start with a strategic vision and drill down into tactical, operational, and financials details.

Was I impressed? Yes! I was overwhelmed by the thoroughness of their business plans and the clarity of their presentations. I would add any one of the students to my team in a heartbeat.

Tech~Surf~Blog: What ideas presented by the teams really jumped out at you? Are you likely to adopt some of them?

Metcalf: Truthfully, most of the ideas they presented had never occurred to me. Very few of the students had an IT background, so their ideas came from areas they were familiar with. A few ideas were truly novel – combining what Flyspy does with another product or service to yield a solution that’s more powerful than either one….i.e., 1 + 1 = 3.

There are three ideas that we’ll adopt right away. The first idea is a UI (user interface) improvement that increases repeat traffic. The second idea addresses “buyer’s remorse.” It’s a solution that provides a different visualization of the flight and fare data that gives the end-user a comfort level that they have seen all of their options. The third idea involves frequent flyer information.

Tech~Surf~Blog: Tell us about the Flyspy partnership deals you announced at the final class session.

Metcalf: I announced a partnership with a data provider and a few advertising firms. Locking in a data provider is extremely important. If you look at a single Flyspy chart, you’ll see 30 data points for each of the 7 trip lengths. It takes 210 data points to make a complete Flyspy chart. Each data point represents a unique departure and return date combination. If you were to collect this data manually, using Expedia, Orbitz, or Travelocity, you would have to do 210 searches. You can see that it takes a lot of data to support the Flyspy user interface. Our data provider thinks that Flyspy is the future of searching for flights and fares.

Tech~Surf~Blog: What was the decision process you and the instructor used in selecting the winning team in this competition?

Metcalf: Nelson Granados and I selected a team whose idea was relevant, well researched, and fit into the existing Flyspy IT framework without a lot of additional software development. We picked three finalists that we felt met our criteria. In the end, we picked a team that presented a solid business case in a paper that was extremely well researched and filled with details. They didn’t miss a beat. It was one of the finest industry-related papers I’ve seen. I can’t say enough about the team, how well they must have worked together, and the quality of the final product.

As mentioned previously, Nelson is now teaching at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. This fall, I will be presenting Flyspy as a case study to another round of MBA students. Hopefully, they will have a different perspective on the industry and some more innovative ideas will emerge.

Tech~Surf~Blog: Once you receive your greatly anticipated seed-stage funding, what are some of the first things you’ll do? How will the funds be used?

Metcalf: There are two big areas that we’ll address: 1) turning the site from a “proof of concept” into a world-class search engine, and 2) hiring business development people. We need to get the base technology completed as soon as we can. And we also need to build relationships that will bring revenue in the door as well.

Tech~Surf~Blog: Anything else you want to leave with us regarding Flyspy, Robert – your plans, your vision, any thoughts about the process of getting funded and launched, hopefully here in Minnesota?

Metcalf: I never in a hundred years would have thought that changing an industry – if you can call it that – would be this difficult. My initial question of “why is this so difficult?” has, in one sense, changed my life. I know that I’ve made the airfare search process immeasurably easier for tens-of-thousands of travelers already, and that gives me a great deal of satisfaction.

The short-term plans are to launch the site, build a public relations campaign, and see millions of consumers use the site. The long-term will take care of itself if we pay attention to the customer and the details of running the business. My vision is balancing the process of keeping the site easy-to-use while we add more features.

Thanks for the questions, Graeme. I’ve truly enjoyed answering them.

——

Well, that’s it, folks. I’ll be continuing to follow this developing story closely. In fact, I know more news will be coming very soon. So, stay tuned to your handy-dandy Tech~Surf~Blog channel for all the updates…. (Or, if you haven’t yet, you can subscribe via the RSS or email feed icons near the upper right.)

cheers,
gt

« Older posts