Quote of the Week
| Jun 12, 2009 |
"The cheaper you can live, the greater your options."
Mark Cuban
In a blog post entitled "Success and Motivation 2009." He wrote in the context of people. It applies to companies as well.
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June 2009
How to Pitch Angels
| Jun 11, 2009 |
Know Massey of the Atlanta Technology Angels pointed me to a great article in The New York Times about angel investors and how to pitch them. Toward the end there is a simple summary. It is from an entrepreneur named Ted Ray currently going down the angel path.
- Have a product on the market.
- Do not ask other people for money until you have spent your own.
- Be concise in your investment materials.
- Seek angels in your field.
Focus on achieving one and two before taking steps three and four.
Comments and Reactions TweetHow I Created Secret Sig
| Jun 08, 2009 |
Like the Secret Sig blog itself this article is written in a manner that attempts to imitate the skewering parody voice Dan Lyons created for Fake Steve Jobs. I have the utmost respect for all the individuals and organizations mentioned below. It is my hope that they all view their inclusion as a sign of great respect in the same manner that Sig views Secret Sig. With the exception of the dudes from Despair. They really are weenies.
It all started innocently enough. In January or February of 2008. Maybe March. I was a little bored. Had a little time on my hands. And I was inspired.
Inspired by the then anonymous Fake Steve Jobs. Before he become Real Dan. Fake Steve was brilliant. Literally. Perhaps the best non-marketing marketing campaign in the history of man. Or at least for a book about a technology icon.
And Fake Steve was big. Maybe even bigger then real Steve. I wanted one of my own.
The target was easy to pick if you were sitting at the epicenter of the Atlanta technology community. Sig. Sig Mosley. Sig Mosley the unwitting godfather of Atlanta angel investing. Sig Mosley without the "e" of Noro-Moseley (lots of people make that mistake). Sig had no Web site. His company, Imlay Investments, had no Web site. So I decided to make one.
I started by privately registering a few domain names. Sigmosley.com was available. I grabbed it. Thought about it a bit. Started to feel a little creepy. Almost stalker like. Ditched that. Registered secretsig.com. Felt more like fun. Fun was the goal.
I don't really code. It's not that it's hard. It's just typing. I don't have time to code. I needed some help. And help I found with my trusty confidant Blake Perdue. Blake has some mad web design skills (among others), and he put up with my insistence on using all things Typepad when creating PeachSeedz. Like he had a choice. He works for me. He does what I say. Like he had a choice in my evil plan. So he did it.
Blake designed and coded up the first version of the SecretSig Web site. I wrote the content. It was a thing of beauty. Custom templates. It even had SigWear, inspired by Andrew Hyde's VCWear. Shirts that had cool writings like "I've Been Sigged", "What Would Sig Say?", and "If You Need The Internet To Find Me You Don't Deserve Funding." This was before those weenies at StartupLounge came up with their lame Sig Said No shirt and then ceased production because the even bigger weenies at Despair (no link love for them) sent a cease and desist for the use of the :-( emoticon that some idiot at the USPTO granted a trademark (Exhibit A the trademark and patent processes are broken).
So we had the site. SecretSig was up and running. I needed a launch strategy. And if there is one thing I know how to do in the world it is launch Internet stuff. Unless it really is crappy product from some entrepreneur that has no clue. No clue that you actually need to think of your marketing strategy before you start building. That marketing is not some tag on that makes people buy bad things that they don't want or need. They are losers. I know how to tell them to get lost. Or get them to pay me a bunch of money. But I digress. I created a launch strategy. It was brilliant. Really. More brilliant then Dan Lyons. Perhaps the most brilliant simple plan in history. Even better then the Grinch.
I decided to launch via Twitter.
Twitter before everybody was getting on and being all spammy. Twitter before that jerk Tony LaRussa, whom I used to respect, decided to sue Twitter because someone was using his name and they came out with the stupid idea of non-anonymous accounts only for important people (what are they going to do, use Wikipedia to decide who is important?). Twitter before anyone in the Atlanta technology investment community was on it. But they are all on there now. And it is because of me. I was the first person to semi impersonate a member of the Atlanta technology investment community on Twitter (and as far as I know the last, nobody else has the kahonas). I set up a twitter account using the handle secretsig. Set the more info URL to www.secretsig.com. And then I had secretsig follow Sanjay Parekh.
You may have heard of Sanjay. He founded Digital Envoy, created Startup Riot, and is a founder of Shotput Ventures. Has this big hangup like Tony Dorsett about how people should pronounce his name. Gets into arguments with important people about things that don't matter. And he has doesn't have enough to do so he sits around all day long, stares at Tweetdeck and spews meaningless drivel at the rate of about a zillion messages a day. I figured follow Sanjay and it would generate about 50 tweets and somebody that was actually important like the weenies at StartupLounge would find out and spread the word. Sanjay is going to get all pissy with me for saying all this but it is true.
But Blake screwed it up. Dolt. He failed to mask the domain of www.secretsig.com about page. It looked something like forceofgood.typepad.com/secretsig_about.html. Sanjay called me on it. Sent me a DM (that's direct message for all you twittertards). I denied it. Sanjay sent me the domain evidence. Mea culpa. But Sanjay was cool. He volunteered to keep SecretSig secret.
So I took down www.secretsig.com. Then recreated it on Blogger (the application that Google paid millions of dollars to Evan Williams for and then just let it languish like every other thing they buy with the possible exception of Urchin). I did it myself and just let it sit there. Waiting for the opportune moment to tell the world. Cooking up an alternative launch strategy. But like the ring of power, Secret Sig had a will of its own...
The story about how Sig found out that I created Secret Sig is a story for another day.
Namaste.
Comments and Reactions TweetQuote of the Week
| Jun 05, 2009 |
Nelson Chu
In feedback to Radford Harrell, talent chief extraordinaire of TalentSoup, during the GRA/TAG Business Launch 09 finals.
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For Tessa
| Jun 03, 2009 |
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To Quote or Not to Quote
| Jun 03, 2009 |
That is the question.
One of the mainstay features on FoG over the past two years has been the "quote of the week". It is a post that appears every Friday at noon (I tried 3:14 for a period, but noon works better). It started as a throwaway, something to get a quick and easy article up at the end of the week. Quotes are easy to find if you are looking for them.
It has evolved into a pretty popular series. One of the quote of the week posts generated more comments than any other article in the history of FoG. Heck I even used the quotes to create a presentation called "Startups in 12 Quotes" that generated over 2,700 views, 18 favs, and 9 embeds on slideshare.
But with the break from FoG I have also been thinking if I wanted to continue with the quote of the week feature. But instead of deciding by myself in some misguided self-absorbed vacuum, I thought I would ask the audience via a poll.
Please take a moment to take the poll. And comments beyond the poll are of course welcome.
Comments and Reactions TweetJune Event Roundup
| Jun 02, 2009 |
Lots going on in the first half of June plus one. Here's a roundup. Busy.
GRA/TAG Business Launch Competition Finals
On Wednesday June 3rd from 8:00am - 2:00pm the finals of the GRA/TAG Business Launch Competition are being held at IBM. The finalists are AccelerEyes, Band Metrics and TalentSoup. These companies were selected from over 75 entrants. They will presenting their business plans to an all-star panel of judges to close the deal for over $300,000 in cash
and services. Register here.
Atlanta Social Media Tweetup
A special social media tweetup (a.k.a. happy hour)
with special guest David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New
Rules of Marketing and PR and World Wide Rave is taking place on Thursday June 4, from
6:00 - 8:30pm.
ProductCamp
A user driven unconference about product marketing and management ProductCamp Atlanta takes place on Saturday June 6 from 8:30am - 5:00pm at GTRI. I am going to be participating on the Listening to Social Networks
(an area of keen interest) session, and may do a bit on evolving
product management from startup to enterprise. ProductCamp is free to
attend. Please register. I hear tell about 180 people have already done so.
CapitalLounge
The Next CapitalLounge is scheduled for June 10th from 6:00 - 9:00pm. CapitalLounge is a free, networking event for Southeast early stage, fast-growth entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and angel investors. You can expect anywhere from 250 to 300 entrepreneurs and investors sharing ideas, connections, a great food spread, and cash bar. Southeast-based bootstrappers, ‘idea-napkin’ holders, and more established entrepreneurs seeking expansion capital or networking contacts are also invited to apply.
Calling All Entrepreneurs
The boys from Southern Capital Ventures will be in town for CapitalLounge and they are having open sessions with entrepreneurs from 7:00 - 10:00am on June 11. So don't spend too much at the cash bar and get up early to meet with Jason Caplain and David Jones. You can find the details on Jason's blog.
CapVenture
CapVenture is a unique ATDC education program that equips
early stage (typically those seeking their first institutional round of
financing) CEO's and executives for smarter and more productive
capitalization of their business. Early applications are due June 16. The program runs from run from August 25th to September 29th and concludes with an investor forum and a shot at getting involved with Venture Atlanta. It costs $400. You serious about raising money? Worth it.
Mobicamp Wrapup
| Jun 01, 2009 |
This past Friday ATDC was the host sponsor for mobicamp, a new unconference centered around mobile technology and its impact on the day to day life of average users. About 70 or so mostly mobile devs descended on the incubator to talk about iPhone development (a bit too much) and more. While the production put together by Return 7 was described by some as "lightly attended", it was a great first effort for a growing group interested in mobile media on a beautiful Atlanta summer night. My favorite session of the night was put on by Jerry Rocha of Nielsen. Great research on the burgeoning smart phone space.
Here are some links from folks that covered mobicamp better then me as I wade back into the world of blogging.
Lessons Learned While Planning an Unconference. Amro Mousa
Mobicamp ATL a Ringing Success. TechDrawl, Celia Dyer
Configuring PR for the Mobile Internet. Bernaisesource, Dan Greenfield
Comments and Reactions TweetIt's Summer
| Jun 01, 2009 |
I got up this morning for an early breakfast meeting. Made it out of the house in about 30 minutes. No kids to feed and get ready for school. They were still sleeping comfortably. A real sign it's summer. And if it's summer then spring break must be over and it's time to start paying attention to FoG again.
It's been over five weeks since I have written a blog post. I stopped because I needed a break. And when I stopped I did not know for certain if I would start up again. So instead of writing articles I spent time thinking. Thinking if I wanted to write articles.
Part of me said no, that I had achieved the objectives that I set when I started blogging. As I wrote in my second blog post:
"I am blogging to find my voice again, learn about this new corner of the Internet, see how it might work for my clients, and shameless self-promotion."
FoG has been a pretty good vehicle for me to be me. That individual that some how was turned into a corporate drone (never really). I have learned quite a bit about social media. Dare I say an expert? (shudder). Perhaps. And somewhere along the way I lost my clients as I focused more and more on finding my own startup. As for the shameless self-promotion, that never ends, marketing is a never-ending process. So a part of me feels that I have achieved almost all I can achieve with my personal blog. At this point is keeping it up worth the effort? Would the time I spend on FoG be best put to use on more important objectives? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Something else happened as well. It seems I had stopped writing because I had something to say and started writing to build traffic. To keep the Compete, Google Analytics, Technorati gods happy. To keep those trend lines hockey sticking upward. Two words. Off strategy.
So I stopped. To get a little perspective. Just to let it go. And I gotta tell you, I did not miss the writing all that much. But there was one thing I did miss. I missed all of you that make FoG a community. As a community where good conversation can happen. As a community where I try to be a good approachable organizer and meet interesting new people with interesting points of view.
So I am back on FoG. And I am going to keep on it for a while.
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My name is Lance Weatherby. I launch and build technology companies. Currently COO at Half Off Depot.
Force of Good is licensed under a Creative Commons License. You are free to share, remix, and share alike with attribution.
The opinions expressed here are mine and mine alone (with the exception of comments by others of course). They do not represent the opinion or position of any other person or entity. All postings adhere to my personal values.
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