Aaron Bird, CEO of Bizible (TechStars Seattle 2012) wrote a great article that I wanted to share with you all about why you should apply to TechStars (and tips on how to get in). Check it out here!
Techstars Seattle in Vancouver B.C.
TechStars Seattle will be in Vancouver B.C. this week from May 1-2. They are co-hosting a happy hour with Vancouver Pixel Crafters: Startup Drinks Vancouver, and holding office hours at the Full Stack offices on May 2. Email Linsey Battan (linsey.battan@techstars.com) if you would like to sign up for office hours.
For more details about the event and registration click here. Feel free to share this flyer with anyone you who might be interested in attending.
TechStars Seattle happy hour in Portland this week!
Program Managers, Linsey Battan (TechStars Seattle) and Maris McEdward (Microsoft Accelerator) are making a trip down to Portland this weekend to meet with Portland entrepreneurs.
They are hosting a happy hour on Friday April 26, at 6pm at the Nike Accelerator office, so don't forget to stop by and grab a beer and say hello to them.
If you are interested in applying to TechStars Seattle (applications now open, deadline May 31) I would encourage you to reach out directly with Linsey Battan (linsey.battan@techstars.com) to get on her calendar and grab coffee while she is in town.
Click here to view the shareable flyer for more details and registration info. Feel free to spread the word to anyone you think might be interested.
Code Fellows update and visit to Portland
For those of you who haven't already caught wind about Code Fellows I wanted to post a quick update about what has been going on with the company.
The inaugural Rails class is complete! You can read more about the class here on our blog. The student's learned a lot and had truly great things to say! The team working on this company are doing a great job! Also, I want to point out what Code Fellows student Aplha Ng's had to say about his experience at Code Fellows. The team learned a lot from this first class, and made some adjustments to the next class, starting in May 2013.
Upcoming events:
Happy hour in PDX: Monday, April 29 @ 7:15pm, Rontoms. Code Fellows Rails instructors are going to be down in Portland next week for the RailsConf. Make sure you stop by their happy hour at Rontoms. View more details here and spread the word!
Code Fellows Mixer: Monday, May 13 @6pm, The Easy. Come meet our instructors and chat with us about Code Fellows. Interested in hiring one of our graduates? Then stop by, and grab a drink. Hiring companies are welcome. Alumni, prospective students and companies hire are all welcome. Spread the word!
Also if you are a company looking to hire a developer, contact david@codefellows.com for more info on how you can get involved in our Partner Program.
Onward!
Seattle Tech Meetup Tonight!
We are very excited about being a community sponsor of Seattle Tech Meetup! The mission of Seattle Tech Meetup is to be the key monthly Seattle tech event to attend to have fun and connect into our big and small Seattle tech and entrepreneurial communities. It's a tight 1 hour event with 5 short interesting tech demo presentations of something the audience can add value to, and networking before and after the event. Join us in the fun on the third Tuesday of every month.
Hope to see you there! REGISTER NOW, before tickets sell out!
Join me at Open Coffee tomorrow ...and on most Tuesday mornings at Louisa's cafe!
After taking a year off, I've started attending weekly open coffee at Louisa's Cafe again. I missed the ritual and the pleasure of sharing coffee with other entrepreneurs....
What is open coffee? Every week entrepreneurs and investors meet to chat about their startup experiences, feel free to come discuss your new startup ideas and meet some cool people. We are usually sitting at the big tables in the middle, event starts at 8:30AM and ends at 10AM. I'm there frequently -- but not always. John Secrest has generously picked up and kept the tradition going so he's there frequently too.
For more info on the meetup click here.
Hope to see you there!
3 reasons why should you apply to TechStars Seattle
It’s that time of year again! I’m thrilled to announce that we have opened applications for our 4th TechStars program here in Seattle! 2012 was a great success for the entrepreneurs and the entire Seattle community and we’re really excited about making the class of 2013 even better.
3 reasons why should you apply to TechStars Seattle?
1. The Mentor Network is awesome.TechStars introduces you to a group of Seattle’s high-quality mentors, investors, and resources, you will be immediately plugged into a massive network of like-minded people ready to help.
2. You’ll work with a high quality group of other entrepreneurs! You’ll be surrounded by other companies who are sympathetic confidants, and be able to share this experience and learn from one another, plus you’ll have someone to try all those microbrews with.
3. You'll belong to a lifelong entrepreneur club.You’ll form a collection of alums, mentors and friends that you will have access to for the rest of your personal and professional life. Once you’re in TechStars, you’ll be a member for life.
Still not convinced why you should apply to TechStars Seattle? Click here to read about 4 more reasons why you should apply to TechStars Seattle. This year we’re expecting lots of applications – making competition tough -- so be sure to apply early! (i.e. now)
We’re looking for smart, cohesive teams that can iterate quickly and execute. If you are one of these people then join forces with TechStars Seattle and see what three months of top-notch mentorship could mean to your startup.
Early application deadline is May 3rd and final deadline is May 31st. TechStars Seattle 2013 applications are now open!
Microsoft Accelerator kicked off yesterday!
The Microsoft Accelerator for Azure kicked off yesterday! I had my first round of office hours with the founders and I have to say this is a super solid class, really excited for the next 3 months. If you haven't checked out the teams take a look at them here. I thought I'd enclose a picture of our office for all of you who want to SEE what's going on :-)
Top 4 mistakes when blogging
This is really a personal list of my top mistakes. And unfortunately, it's all too easy of a post to write! My mistakes in order of importance are:
- Uninteresting titles - Hands down this is one of my more common and big mistakes. Over and over again I learn the lesson that readers are attracted to content based upon the title first and the content second.
- Spelling fubar -- I frequiently (intentional error there) write my posts quickly and will not give them the appropriate review before pushing publish. This makes my blogs and me seem unprofessional and messy.
- Infrequent consistency -- I've gone in cycles of being prolific and being radio silent. Better to write fewer consistent posts so your readers know what to count on you then to be erratic. That said, I've given myself permission to write whenever I want and on whatever topic I want -- this has helped my enjoyment of blogging.
- Unfocused posts -- I'll sometimes write posts and try to make too many points at once and end up making no point.
How to take advantage of TechStars?
I met with a Seattle native who has recently been accepted to TechStars NY. He was asking what he should do to take advantage of the experience. This particular entrepreneur was very clear about his product direction.
I told him the value of Techstars is in the relationships and feedback you receive very quickly that previously was not available to you. With this in mind, I told him he should do the following:
- Get a list of mentors and investors in NYC and put them in 3 buckets. 1. I have to meet them 2. Would be Nice to meet them 3. I don't think I need to meet them.
- Write down your objectives for your 90 days at TechStars. Ask for feedback on the objectives.
- Start adding mentors to your weekly company updates. Be religious about sending these out and put time into them.
- Be organized. Do what you're going to do in terms of follow up.
- Develop 1 or 2 relationships with alumni from that program. They can help guide you through the mentor and investors in the area.
- Spend time on LinkedIn preparing for meetings with mentors and investors. There's lots of info out there and so few people actually do any homework.
Oh, and this is a post about TechStars. Seattle applications are open. Apply here
What to do when your first entrepreneurial venture fails or goes sideways?
I recently had coffee with an entrepreneur whose first company did not succeed. He was a bit down in the dumps...understandably. My advice to him was as follows:
- Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and move on. And do it relatively quickly.
- Decide what you're going to do.
- If you need a job, determine that fact and start looking. If you want to try another startup, you're probalby more likely to succeed. Step up and start taking the steps to building a company.
- Navel gazing does not move you forward.
- Depression does not move you forwad.
- Be sure to exercise regularly .
- Get a consulting gig : it buys you time, pays you and gives you current market knowledge (of some market).
Who knew that ping pong balls were the best schwag?
I've long been interested in schwag. Below are three photos of schwag from a recent event I went to. Uniqueness and food are the winners when it comes to schwag. I'd choose the ping pong balls but you got hand it to Liquid Planner candy bar folks (below)
I forget whose t-shirts these are....and you can't read the name so I'm not sure how useful they are as schwag.
White Pages in Seattle produced this ingenous schwag and associated it with the company ping pong tournement (a good recruiting tool).
Liquid Planner used the tried and true M&M and pen combo. Not very creative but effective!
Code.org message of growing more engineers is #1 on you tube!!
The work that Hadi and Ali are doing at Code.org is amazing. The wrote to me today and said" It’s been an exhilarating ride since Code.org launched two weeks ago:
- Our video reached #1 on YouTube!
- 12mm views on YouTube (and countless more on Facebook)
- We reached 500,000 teachers to play our short film in class
- 560,000 petitions signed
Amazing! I've been particularly interested in what Code.org is doing because Code Fellows is working on the same meme and market, i.e. teaching people to program and code languages of all kinds like Ruby on Rails, IOS, Python. Moreover, I've become friendly with the Hadi Partovi over the last few years and want to support his work.
This Pepsi ad video of Jeff Gordon duping a car salesman had me in hysterics this morning! Totally worth watching http://bit.ly/Wldx4a
These cute cars2go have invaded South Lake Union
You can't walk anywhere in the neighborhood without seeing one of these cars2go. They started appearing about 90 days ago and now they're on almost every block. I'm told that the company is funded by Mercedes and that users can rent the car for $0.38 per minute (or slightly less if you rent by the 15 minutes or the hour). You operate the car with a member card. Great for simple commuting. Makes me want to try it! Awesome example of technology enabled innovation plus major cuteness.
Come to Seattle Tech Meetup on March 19!
We are very excited about being a community sponsor of Seattle Tech Meetup! The mission of Seattle Tech Meetup is to be a monthly event for Seattle that will be known as the key event to attend to have fun and connect into our big and small Seattle tech and entrepreneurial communities. It's a tight 1 hour event with 5 short interesting tech demo presentations of something the audience can add value to, and networking before and after the event.
The next event is March 19th and we would love to see you there. REGISTER NOW, before tickets sell out.
Code Fellows first Ruby on Rails boot camp off to a great start!
It was a great first day at Code Fellows yesterday. I managed to sit in on the kick off orientation in the morning. The energy in the room was high and i thought the instructors did a great job. I'm really excited to see how this company evolves over the next few months. There's lots to be done! I've been describing the company in the following way.... codefellows is bootcamp for engineers. The comapny is a combination of hands on programming instruction, mentoring, community and networking to cool jobs.
What are the top 3 goals for a CEO of a startup?
I've been having having breakfast with Aaron Bird, CEO of Bizible pretty regularly since TechStars. His company raised 1.7MM in capital in November 2012. The company has historically been focused on he calls, "closed loop marketing" for the SMB marketplace. Closed loop marketing connects leads from different sources of marketing to sales so you have much more effective marketing spend than you would otherwise. At breakfast today, he stated that his goal was to get cash flow break even on the money he raised. I think it's possible that Aaron and team might be able to achieve this goal. However, after listening to him for a while, I suggested to him that his focus as founding CEO should not be on getting to break even -- rather he should focus on the following in this order:
- Nailing product market fit in a big fast moving market
- Nailing the unit economics of his business
- Getting to cash flow break even
It's important to note that these goals are not mutually exclusive. Rather, solving one often leads to the second and third. But, ranking these priorities in this way has the founding CEO focused on the thing that requires the most psychic attention and testing.
Why you should care about Apple becoming the largest manufacturer of cameras?
Did you know -- Apple has single handedly become the largest manufacturer of cameras in the world. The camera in the iPhone and the iPad is (more than) sufficient for most consumer uses of camera and video. Apple didn't set out to dominate and transform the camera market.
I'd argue Apple's dominance in the camera market is a direct result of the introduction of the iPod in 2001. There was no camera on the device. In my opinion, it was the introduction of the iPod in 2001 that led to the rapid adoption of the iPod as a music platform in the minds of consumers, that provided the product and consumer adoption foundation for the introduction of the iPhone in June 29, 2007 and the subsequent introduction of the iPad on April 3, 2010.
Canon and Minolta are the reasons why you should care about innovation at your company. The evolution of Apple's camera dominance makes me wonder what the executives at Canon and Minolta thought about when they first saw the iPod. Did they think that this music device would lead to the elimination of their business' revenue? And what did they think about when they saw their first iPhone? And what do they think about their situation now? I'm sure both camera companies had smart and competent managers that just didn't see, couldn't believe that they were under such a serious threat by Apple. And even if they did see the threat, what could they have done?
These are awesome questions that if I had time, I'd want to go and interview the management and board of directors of each company. I think this kind of market evolution will increasingly happen in the next decade or two as technology companies like Apple disrupt traditional markets. And moreover, I think the rate of speed of the transformation of markets makes it more imperative for companies like Canon and Minolta to prioritize the search for innovation.
When one thinks about the implications of this market dominance from a business strategy perspective they are profound.
