"Do whatever you want, whatever works best for you, what makes you the
most comfortable and seems like the best idea.
Do what you love."
Chris Wanstrath
In his Startup Riot keynote.
Wifi Cat Out Of The Bag
Great interest in this concept. Here is the company's pitch.
What a Startup Riot 2009
Yesterday was the second rev of Startup Riot. Forty nine companies and one make believe company gave three minute pitches on their startup. Once again, it was a fantastic event. Improved in every way from last year.
WifiCat was a highlight. WifiCat is in integrated cat collar and Wifi access point. It’s a joke. The parody that Scott Burkett presented on everything not to say and do in a presentation was laugh out loud funny. Even more so because some of the morning presenters had violated the unwritten rules of pitching.
Paul Freet gave the best presentation of the day. Three slides. Three pictures. You had to listen to him to understand. It forced people to look up from their laptop and phones. While not the most technology driven company in the bunch Offload.me‘s value proposition is clear and compelling. They provide remote personal assistants for busy executives. Eight words. Use that many to describe your company.
There were three Atlanta Startup Weekend companies in the bunch. Kidkey, Jumbis, and Twitpay. I got a shoutout from the latter with a Madoff comparison. We used my business PayPal account to alpha test the Twitpay service during Startup Weekend. I can assure you, all funds have been returned.
I believe for the first time we had companies traveling from out of state to attend Startup Riot. ShoutNow (another Startup Weekend company) made its way from Indy and Kansas City, while WOMBeat! traveled from Tampa.
Somehow or the other the keynote speaker Chris Wanstrath, the founder of GitHub, joined our lunch party late and squeezed in next to me. He was late to lunch because he had to go take a shower after his presentation. Puts Melanie Brandt’s comment about the desire to wash his hair in perspective. Overslept it seems. Both a nice and witty guy. Had our end of the table rolling.
Kudos again to Sanjay Parekh. Too many good companies to mention. More investors in the audience. Companies traveling from afar. Great networking between sessions. Better in every way.
Two suggestions to make it better. The Wifi failed before the show started. We need more IP addresses available. Get that and make folks pay for their own coffee. As for the community. Everyone, including me, needs to treat the presenting companies with more respect. These folks are trying hard. I feel sorry for the guy that was on stage when someone in the audience got rickrolled. And some of the comments on BackNoise were down right mean spirited. Sanjay started Startup Riot to help entrepreneurs and startups. We all need to act in a way to further his mission.
One more thing: Stop with the walking down to Publix and buying six packs of beer. There is a time and place for everything. There are professional investors in the room that are starting to take an interest in concept and seed stage startups. The after party starts at 5:00. Show a little restraint.
Doing those two things will make Startup Riot 2010 the best yet. Even better then the fantastic 2009 version.
Update: More coverage on Startup Riot by Paul Stamatiou, TechDrawl, and AtlanTech.
Shotput Ventures Open House Launch Party
While the epicenter of the Atlanta startup scene moves to Atlantic Station today for Startup Riot I thought I would let you know about an announcement that is sure to be made.
Shotput Ventures is having an open house on Tuesday, March 3rd from 6 pm to 8 pm at Hannon Hill's Buckhead office. The purpose of the open house is to give the technology community and prospective entrepreneurs the change to learn more about the Shotput program and meet the partners.
Before I got involved with Profounder I was pushing for this type of technology startup accelerator that focuses on concept stage capital-light Web service companies. While I am not a member of the Shotput team I applaud what they are doing and hope to be able to assist them in some manner.
If you are an entrepreneur and want to get on the invite list go to the Shotput Ventures blog and complete the registration form.
WebChallenge 2009
WebChallenge 2009 is coming. I am a judge.
WebChallenge is a high-school level contest, where students are asked to use
free technologies and/or Open Source Software in order to improve their
community in some way.
For the Webchallenge 2009 contest, there are 4 main categories in which students can compete:
- Best/Most Useful Concept (not the technology product, the idea)
- Best Implementation of free technology
- Best Implementation of OSS
- Grand Prize/Judges Prize
If you happen to know any Georgia high school students let them know about the program. If you actually happen to be a Georgia high school student, get a faculty/teacher sponsor to support your effort (not
necessarily technically, just for communication and organization), get a team. register, and get to it.
How Not To Build A Web App
This morning I sat down to catch up with Robert Sanders. Robert knows a thing or two about building scalable Internet companies. He was the architect that created the infrastructure and systems for MindSpring, cBeyond, EarthLink Wireless, and Vitrue. During the course of our conversation he mentioned in passing that he really didn't think that many people had a solid understanding of building scalable Web apps. Robert made a comment along the lines that developers today just think they can use Amazon to solve all scale issues. Beyond the fact that there is more to scale then just more processing power and storage, this is a bad plan.
This evening I listened to Chris Messia and his podcast on "What really happened at Ma.gnolia and lessons learned." I don't know Larry Halff (the founder of Ma.gnolia). I sure he is a very well meaning guy. I never used Ma.gnolia. I don't use bookmarks. Search does just fine.
And I admire Larry's courage and transparancy for discussing Ma.gnolia's major data loss. Discussing what he intends to change as he recovers. But to build your Web service out with Mac minis and using Firewire as your backup system just doesn't seem that well thought out. You should listen to the show.
And don't do what Larry did.
No One Seemed Worried About The Economy This Weekend
Moving around Atlanta this weekend you would never think that we are "in the midst of our greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression". Traffic jams in the Buckhead shopping district during the day, the mall packed with people carrying shopping bags. A small florist telling me business was good. Traffic jams in Midtown at night. Fine dining establishments packed. $50 a plate main courses being ordered (not by me.)
On Saturday my wife stopped reading the paper. Said it was nothing but bad news. Sunday morning I read a little article in The Wall Street Journal by Bradley R. Schiller. He is an economist. Has written more then a few books on the subject. An Amazon search brings 44 results.
The point of his article? That the current economic climate we are in is more like the 1981-82 recession then what happened in the 1930s. Some of the facts according to Mr. Schiller.
Job losses. Current state 2.2% of work force. 1981 2.2% of work force. 1930 4.8%, 1931 6.5%, and 1932 7.1%. The Great Depression had job losses between 2 and 3 times what we are seeing today.
Unemployment. Currently sits at 7.6% and heading in the wrong direction. 1982 peak was 10.8%, where many predict we are headed. During the Great Depression the peak was 25.2%. Over three times as high.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The Congressional Budget Office is predicting a GDP decline of 2% in 2009. In 1982 GDP contracted by 1.9%. Pretty close. In 1930 GDP contracted 9%, 1931 8%, and 1932 another 13%.
Car Production. Now off 25%. During the 30s off 90%.
Bank Failures. Over 10,000 in 1933. A couple of dozen last year.
Stocks. 37% now. 90% then.
Don't get me wrong. Things are bad. I am thankful every day that I can get up and go to a job that I love. I know people that have lost their jobs. I am concerned for them. My family has cut back on its spending and I see others that are doing the same. It is not fashionable to consume.
However, based on what I saw this weekend I don't think the picture is as bad as it has been painted. Mr. Schiller's statistics seem to back this up. What about you? Do you feel better or worse off then what you see and hear in the broad media landscape?
Three Media Rules of Engagement
I received the following from Urvaksh Karkaria last evening.
Hi Lance,
I'm writing you regarding some of your tweets today that suggested I don't respect off-the-record conversations with sources.
I have been doing this business for more than a decade and realize you never burn a source. You and I have had several off-the-record chats and I have not once made anything we talked about public. I take my job seriously and earned credibility by being discrete, when needed.
I have made it clear in the AtlanTech post why I posted the email. Am happy to chat further with you about this.
I have, and will continue to treat our relationship, with the greatest respect.
And yes, you may publish this email, if you like:)
Urvaksh Karkaria
http://twitter.com/urvaksh
http://networking.bizjournals.com/atlanta/AtlanTech/blog
http://www.linkedin.com/in/urvakshkarkaria
The tweets that Urvaksh referred to were in response to an article on the Atlanta Business Chronicle blog in which he published an email from Sanjay Parekh. Yes, I was surprised that he printed the email. I think that he could have accomplished the same thing by merely stating why he would not be attending Startup Riot. Urvaksh has always been discrete and honorable in his dealings with me. He has never violated the rules of engagement.
Yes there are rules of engagement when communicating with professional media people. You can even get trained in such things. And I have been through a lot of such training. Here are three things that anyone dealing with media needs to know.
1. Two key phrases when dealing with the media are "off the record" and "on background". Off the record means that whatever you say or type will not be part of a story. It is being given confidentially to provide context but you can not be quoted or attributed. On background means means that the gist of the conversation may be reported but that you will not be identified as a source and direct quotes will not be used. And here's the catch. The reporter has to positively affirm that you are in either of these modes or the rules do not apply. You say "on background?" Reporter says "yes." Then you can proceed. I have actually had such exchanges on twitter.
2. Never ever put anything in an email that you would not want to see
published. Proof your email correspondence with this eye. I would go
so far as you should actually treat any email this way. And even if I were off the record or on background I would not provide information via written communications. I would have a conversation.
3. The rules of engagement in one above does not apply to bloggers, paid or not.
What others rules do executives and entrepreneurs need to know?
Quote of the Week
"Whatever you do, do it enthusiastically and people will like it more."
Chris Martin
For those of you that do not know, Chris Martin is the lead singer of Coldplay. And I could not agree with him more. Being excited and passionate about what you do makes people like you and what you are doing.
Awhile back I got in a little twitter debate that Coldplay is the best band of this decade. Below is both a fascinating and funny profile of the band that aired on '60 Minutes' last Sunday before the band won three Grammy Awards.
Help A Reporter Out
My dear friend SJ sent me a note the other day. One of the things that I learned in the note is that I ALWAYS called her SJ. I am the reason SJ became her blog persona.
While you would never know it from the content of Give Me The Booger, SJ is a pretty accomplished marketer. This is in part what her note said.
Are you familiar with HARO (Help A Reporter Out)?
I think some of your start-ups would benefit from editorial solicitations like this. It's also a secret no PR firm wants their clients to know about–because this is how they find a lot of "pitches." This goes to 12,000 emails daily, I believe, and it comes 3 times a day–so lots of free publicity opportunities out there for start-ups and established companies as well.
I was not familiar with HARO. Now I am. And so are you. If you are too early stage to afford a PR firm this might be a good way to find yourself a little media coverage.