Today is the Georgia Technology Summit. The technology summit brings together about 1,000 C level executives, entrepreneurs, academia,
and more to celebrate Georiga's global leadership in technology
innovation. From the keynote speakers to the top 40 most innovative companies in Georgia to
the introduction ceremonies of the newly selected member of the
prestigious Technology Hall of Fame its one of Georgia's premier technology events.
I covered the event in 2007, and 2008. Paul Stamatiou had a great writeup in 2009.
Today
I am going to try live blogging with quick updates on keynotes and top 10 presenting
companies with a quick evaluation of their companies and pitches.
8:33. Conference kicked off with an entertaining presentation by author and futurist Tom Koulopoulos. Says the biggest word in the past and looking forward is "connections."
8:37. Only half the people in the room use twitter. Wonder how that compares to the Startup* crowd.
8:42. Innovators double down in a bad economy. Uses launch of iPod in 2001 and more recently Flip.
8:47. Technology is what you did not grow up with.
8:58. Koulopoulos wrapping up. Taking Q & A. Challenging the audience to mentor.
9:05. A filibuster question that is a very, very long story.
9:15. Accelereyes, the 2009 TAG/GRA Business Launch winner is being introduced. Apps for this year's contest close April 6.
9:18. John of Accelereyes giving his presentation. Company is making great progress. Their product Jacket, uses the power of GPUs to deliver maximum FLOPS per
dollar. Wish he would have told more of their story, They are going places. ATDC company.
9:24. MedShape the first top ten to present. Medical device company that makes extremely flexible implants. Morphix is leading product. Differentiation is device continues to get strong after implanted. Just won Medical Design Excellence Awards. Cleared by FDA. 50 in patient cases. ATDC company. The presentation text was too small.
9:30. AirSage. Collects and analyzes wireless carrier data. The slides hurt, font way to small. They have big deals with Sprint and Verizon. Nine patents. Forecasting revenue of $4 million in 2010.
9:34. Idology. SaaS identity verification solutions. Like John Dancu. He could have done a better job with both the presentation and slides.
9:37. 20 minute break.
10:03. FivexFive. Marketing analytics company. Have $2.5 million in revenue. The analytics maximizes revenue via recommendations. Product sales predictions. I heard moans on the unique slide due to screenshot size. GridMap is the product and it is a self learning algorithm.
10:07. Wavee. Penny auction app. Looking to hit $2.5 million in revenue this year. Nervous. Held his own. ATDC company.
10:10 Cardlytics. Strong start. Good slides. This company has a rock star team out of Capital One and great product. They place offers within the transactions that are presented within your online back account. Simple experience. Complex product. Getting 540x click rate of a standard banner ad. Good market traction. Best of the day so far. ATDC company.
10:16 Tino Mantella, president of TAG delivering state of the industry report. Software and IT services continue to lead in job growth, industries that dominate in Georgia. Good growth in telecom as well. Software, telecommunications, financial technologies, and telecom are industries TAG is focused on growing. Georgia ranks third in the nation in financial technologies. Georgia also ranks third in the security industry. Average Georgia VC deal size is moving up, into the $8 million range, but only 44 deals, the least since at least 1994. Ouch! TAG's goal is to make Georgia a top five state for technology. Their road to success includes promoting companies, stimulating investment, focusing on key technologies, fostering connections within the tech community, and cultivating economic development. The complete report can be downloaded here.
10:37. Clearleap. That is not Braxton Jarret. It is not ClearLeap.
10:30. Hi-Rez Studios. Great job handling a technical glitch by the presenter. Just launched Global Agenda, a hybrid game design, action plus massively multiplayer online in a single virtual universe. Single shard. Have 50k users playing in the game. Great job of explaining the innovativeness of the product.
10:43. The real Clearleap. Still not Braxton. He has a board meeting today. I have been working with them for a while. They are killing it. Have deals with most of the major cable companies. Not a bad stand in but it is not Braxton. Tons of white space on slides. Still the fonts are too small and can not be read. Strong close. Bringing the power of the Internet to TV.
10:47. Healthcare Solutions. They doing something with workers comp that streamlines some process that I do not understand. Customers include insurance carriers, third party admins, and managed care organizations.
10:51. Music Intelligence Solutions. Strong opening. Strong hook. Product is hit song science, the FICO credit score of the music industry. Tells the story well. Interesting. Getting lots of attention. Good job.
10:55. Carlos Dominguez of Cisco being introduced.
10:57. Searching for an outlet. Going to have to go quiet for 15.
11:14. Dominquez made up a word (I did that). His is nowist: Someone who embraces change, understands what is available, and experiments with it. Love it. Raised my hand if asked "who likes change?"
11:30. Gettlng a little Cisco telepresence pitchy.
11:34 Dominguez: "How many user Twitter? Not that many. For those that are not using it sign up and try it. It is an incredible information source. It is how news will be delivered in the future. If you do not understand it you can not leverage it." @carlosdominguez
12:00. Break to set room for lunch. Bert Ellis up next. He has Mike McQuary in tow.
12:37. Giving out awards. Breakthrough technology: MedShape. Coolest: Hi-Rez Studos. Most likely too create jobs: Healthcare Solutions. Best presentation: Clearleap. Best display: Music Intelligence Solutions. Most likely to succeed: HealthCare Solutions, Idology, MedShape (3 way tie.)
12:44. Bert Ellis of drives into the ballroom in a Wheego. Ellis, McQuary, & Stanley have invested in over 25 companies. He is going to talk about a few of them. Wheego has sold over 300 electronic cars in six months. Claim to have sold more electric cars than any company (disclaimer: I am a Wheego investor). How talking about Titan Broadcast Management, this is Bert's sweet spot. He knows this stuff cold. Bert takes a big swipe at Cisco, he uses Skype for teleconferencing.
12:56. Ellis: "A television station is nothing more than a big iPod."
1:00. Ellis talking about Vitrue. Invested in Vitrue because of Reggie Bradford. Calling Vitrue a social media management tool.
1:01. Ellis moving on to Alt Ego out of Santa Monica. Alt ego enables players to wander across games and keep the attribute's of their avator. Cool.
1:04 Talking about TigerText, impermanent text messaging. Tag is "cover your tracks." Nice. Available in the Apple app store.
1:08. Ellis: "If you are not risking failure you are not taking big enough chances."
1:10. Ellis: "Whenever you can sell."
1:11. Bert leaves the stage
Great show. Off to participate in the Startup Council.
Posted in Entrepreneurship, Startups |
Last night Charles and Ginny Brewer invited Abby and I into their home with 130 of their friends and neighbors. The purpose was to unveil his latest project, Las Catalinas, a beautiful new seaside town they are developing on the north Pacific coast of Costa Rica to Atlanta.
As always Ginny was most gracious. But after not seeing Charles in the mode of pitching for quite a few years it was impressive to see him at work. He is a marvelous story teller. Simply amazing. The way he wrote out the vision for what a typical day at Las Catalinas would be like before he started the project and then over the past five years brought it to life. He made people feel what it would be like to be a part of what he is doing. I want to go there.
Charles left the technology world long ago. He is still an entrepreneur. He is the inspiration for the title of this blog. Entrepreneurs of all stripes could learn a thing or two by listening to how he builds out his current vision.
Posted in Entrepreneurship |
Now that the landmark national health care legislation is heading to the desk of President Obama let's turn our attention to a less controversial topic to the readers of FoG. Encouraging angels investors to invest in early stage, innovative, wealth-creating businesses.
Georgia House Bill 1001 is the Angel Investor Tax Credit Bill. It essentially grants up to a $50,000 tax credit to those that invest in businesses that are located in the state of Georgia, less than three years old, employ fewer than 20 employees, has less than $500k in revenue, and less than $1 million in funding. Industries that it targets include software development and information technology services. This bill aims to help entrepreneurs in Georgia to have a better chance of obtaining early stage capital. Twenty two other states have such incentives in
place. It is time for Georgia to step up.
A number of technology leaders have been working hard to gain passage of the bill in the current Session of this year’s Georgia General Assembly. This bill was introduced by the Technology Association of Georgia and
has the support of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, The National
Federation of Independent Business, and The Georgia Public Policy
Foundation.
The bill has been successfully progressing through various committees of the House of Representatives following which the bill will go to the Senate. This week is a very important week for the bill. There are two very important committees which will review the bill and then the bill will go to the floor of the House for a full vote, all this week.
Gaining support of the leadership of the House will go a long way in helping the bill successfully emerge this process in a timely fashion. We can gain that support by reaching out to the leadership and our elected officials and encourage them to support HB1001. The contact info of the house leadership is noted below. In addition TAG has put together a nice site that will identify your district's representative and send them an email.
Below are also some bullet points that you might want to hit in a personalized call/message to your representatives.
- I support for House Bull 1001, The Angel Investor Tax Credit Bill
- Georgia needs this economic development tool today
- Many promising start-up companies in Georgia, most of which have been created by graduates of Georgia colleges and universities, are at risk in today’s challenging economic environment
- The primary source of capital for these businesses are angel investors: private individuals who take personal financial risk to enhance business and job creation in the state
- HB 1001 will incentivize angel investors to further engage to help promising young companies get started and create jobs in our state and to stay in Georgia
- Twenty two other states have utilizing these investment incentives for years and those states have benefited from new business creation, new jobs and new revenue
- Competing states also benefit from Georgia innovation as we’ve seen entrepreneur-graduates of our schools leave our state in pursuit of capital in other states, HB 1001 will help to address this issue
- Thank You
If you are one of the folks that has lamented about how tight angel investment is in Georgia you owe it to yourself and to the technology community to take a few moments to voice your support of HB1001. In the words of Frank Bartles, "and thank you for your support."
Speaker of the House; David Ralston:-Blue Ridge
dralston1@etcmail.com
404.656.5020 (Office at Capitol)
706.632.2221 (District Office)
Chief of Staff: Spiro Amburn
spiro.amburn@house.ga.gov
Assistant: Gina McKinney,
ginny.mckinney@house.ga.gov
Speaker ProTem: Jan Jones-Alpharetta
janjones38@bellsouth.net
jan.jones@house.ga.gov
404.656.5072 (Capitol)
Assistant: Beth Green,
beth.green@house.ga.gov
Majority Leader: Jerry Keen-St. Simons
jerry.keen@house.ga.gov
404.656.5052 (Capitol)
912.634.3773 (District Office)
Chief of Staff: Clelila Davis
clelia.davis@house.ga.gov
Assistant: Misty Crockett
misty.crockett@house.ga.gov
Majority Whip: Ed Lindsey-Atlanta/Buckhead
edward.lindsey@house.ga.gov
404.656.5024 (Capitol)
404.920.4155 (District Office)
Assistant: Debbie Lynn
Debbbie.lynn@house.ga.gov
Majority Caucus Chair: Donna Sheldon-Dacula Gwinnett
donna.sheldon@house.ga.gov
404.656.5025 (Capitol)
770.963.5472 (Home)
Assistant: Linda Nations
lynda.nations@house.ga.gov
Majority Caucus Vice Chair: Jeff May-Monroe
jeff.may@house.ga.gov
404.656.5025 (Capitol)
770.318.1491 (Cell)
Assistant: Linda Nations
Lynda.nations@house.ga.gov
House Rules Chairman: Bill Hembree-Winston-Douglas
bill.hembree@house.ga.gov
404.656.5141 (Capitol)
770.942.1656 (Cell)
Assistant: Donna Woodham
dona.woodham@house.ga.gov
Posted in Angels, Entrepreneurship, Startups |
It was one month ago today that a wrote a little article about there being too many events in Atlanta. How events are causing fragmentation when what is needed is engagement. This point of view left me hanging like Ray Barnes and a redesigned state flag. Event organizers howled in protest. Entrepreneurs generally agreed. Privately many tech leaders told me I was correct.
Well today is Exhibit A.
ATDC/TAG Entrepreneurs Society from 7:30 - 10:00 am.
Angel Lounge 11:30 - 1:30 pm
Georgia Tech College of Management Business Plan Competition Reception 6:00 - 8:00 pm.
StartupLounge Atlanta 6:00 - 9:00 pm
Nine and a half hours of events in a single day is a but much.
Posted in Too Many Events |
As TechDrawl reported over the weekend, A Small Orange's web hosting business has been acquired by Brent Oxley, the founder of Host Gator. A Small Orange founder Tim Dorr is retaining his design business A Small Orange Web Design.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Tim went out plopped down a reservation on a Tesla S. Tim and I had a few conversations about the deal as it was coming together. It's a good deal. My advice, which was the same advice I gave team Twitpay, was to take it. Tim's not going to retire anytime soon but he can pretty much do whatever he wants. Right now that includes focusing on his design business, Ignition Alley (the co-working space he spearheaded) and early stage angel investing.
It's good to see a twenty something do good.
Posted in Angels, Entrepreneurship, Startups |
As the organizer of Atlanta Startup Weekend I have been involved with a few companies that emerge from the event. And as they move forward there is always an issue. An issue of equity holders and complexity of the cap table.
This issue has been a subject of conversations within both Skribit and Twitpay. Investors don't like the look of the cap table of Startup Weekend companies. Too many founders. Too much complexity. To an investor it is a bit of a mess. Something to be avoided. But how to do so?
The big news a few weeks back was that Twitpay was acquired for $100,000. Or more specifically, "the investors acquired Twitpay’s assets for $100,000 and plan to plow
an additional $1 million in product development and marketing."
Now I have done quite a few asset acquisitions in my time. Well over a hundred. The beauty of such transactions is that you get to buy the things that you believe to have value while leaving the liabilities and things that you don't believe have much value behind. While the co-founder participants in Startup Weekend may not like it, the fact of the matter is that over a year or so into a company they really don't add a lot of value while adding a lot of complexity to the company. As an investor an asset acquisition is an smart way to clean that up.
If other Startup Weekend companies garner angel funding in the future you may see transactions take the same form as the Twitpay deal.
Posted in Business, Startups |
