All the chatter that has been going on online sure has the early stage entrepreneurial group buzzing. About 40 or so showed up for Open Coffee yesterday at Tech Square. Heck, there were even at least two investors in the mix (Greg Foster of NMP and Clark Gilder) and at least one company (I ain’t […]
Continue reading →That according to Charlie Paparelli of Paparelli Ventures is the question going through an angel investor’s mind during the first one on one meeting with an entrepreneur. Cindy Cheatham has a full write up over on PeachSeedz. The three step process Charlie laid out to get the first meeting were; 1. Get ready to pitch […]
Continue reading →My friend Jeff Haynie wrote a nice missive on why he moved to the Valley entitled "What’s wrong with the Atlanta startup ecosystem and how to fix it." It’s a pretty long post and a worthy read. Jeff’s a smart guy and I generally agree with him on most things. I have some observations of […]
Continue reading →The comment stream generated by the word "discuss" in my quote of the week Friday is simply amazing. The quotes are not that important. Read the comments. Some really good stuff in there. Several of the comments pointed out the need for a seed stage investment company like Y Combinator in the Southeast. I was […]
Continue reading →Jason Caplain recently pointed me to a post by Ho Nam on the Altos Ventures blog about the habit of venture capitalists to replace the founding CEO of the companies they fund. It’s almost a rite of passage in Silicon Valley. As a founder, you start a company, get VCs to fund you, recruit a […]
Continue reading →"If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea!" Antoine de Saint Exupery via Dr. Donald F. Kuratko aka "Dr. K"
Continue reading →One of the things my mama taught me was that "if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything." As I have grown up and entered the business world this saying morphed a little. More along the lines "don’t just bring problems to the table, bring potential solutions." Before I got back to […]
Continue reading →This fall ATDC, along with our friends at TAG, will once again is put on the wildly successful CapVenture that is designed to educate and equip early stage technology companies to go out and get their first institutional round of funding. Actually, it is not just designed to do so, it has been highly effective […]
Continue reading →ATM Direct, led by Nandan Sheth, the co-founder and COO of Harbor Payments, is the winner of the 2008 GRA/TAG Business Launch Competition. ATM Direct seeks to become the leading alternative payments provider with a platform technology that enables PIN debit payments on the Internet. $100,000 in cash. $200,000 in services. Cha-Ching! ATM was selected […]
Continue reading →I spent a good chunk of yesterday afternoon in a fun session with Scott Burkett, Melanie Leeth, and Ashish Mistry prepping the finalists in the GRA/TAG Business Launch Competition for their presentations next Wednesday. All good presentations from companies with potential. But several of them took well over four minutes to getting around to stating […]
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