In my last installment of this 2011 review of the RTP startup ecosystem, I went back over some of the companies I hung out with last year. Some. Just a few. Mostly the ones who did big, huge, extraordinary things. But of course that leaves out the hundreds (and yes, there are hundreds) of equally likeable and viable companies who did not do big, huge, extraordinary things last year.
I hung out with them too, just in groups and a lot of times with drinks.
And there were groups everywhere. If 2011 was the year the RTP startup ecosystem organized, it got most of that organization done at meetups, events, users groups, conferences, and galas. If it seemed like there was something startup-related going on every single week that’s because there was, and 2012 looks to be no different, just better.
There’s been no better time to be an entrepreneur in the RTP. Here’s why:
Foot on the Accelerator
2011 started off and ended with announcements from two completely different accelerators.
Artist's rendering of the American Underground space
LaunchBox Digital graduated its first class to come out of Durham in January 2011, with a big event at Bay 7 at American Tobacco (http://www.techjournalsouth.com/2011/01/90-days-work-in-eight-minutes-launchbox-digital-2010-demo-day/) (where it’s falsely rumored that I keep a secret sleeping quarters – I actually just sleep in Square 1 Bank’s conference room… don’t tell them). Seven companies held court for eight minutes apiece in front of brave ice-conquering crowd of hundreds.
That means there are three “new” programs in the RTP for aspiring entrepreneurs to get their product from concept to reality with more help than should be legal. If you don’t apply to at least one of them, you have no one to blame.
Out of the Garage
Beyond the proliferation of accelerators in the area (and honestly, how often do you get to read a sentence like that), there were literally dozens of events in 2011 that highlighted, supported, or celebrated startups. And if you know me, you know I’m all about the grass roots.
In March, I wrote about Startup Madness, the second in a series of homegrown events from Scott Kelly that announce and market the launch of local tech startups (http://www.techjournalsouth.com/2011/03/startup-madness-it%E2%80%99s-not-as-crazy-as-you-might-think/). Kelly just held another Launch Days very early this year, and has two startup events on the calendar for Spring and Summer that focus on high school and college entrepreneurs.
In June, Triangle Startup Weekend (http://www.techjournalsouth.com/2011/06/try-before-you-buy-triangle-startup-weekend/) made a welcome return to the area with over 100 entrepreneurs spending three straight, sleepless days and nights building a company from scratch. TSW makes a repeat engagement in April this year, and will be very interesting as some of those folks ran with their companies and likely still haven’t slept.
Not to be outdone, the gamers put on their own party, Raleigh Game On (http://www.techjournalsouth.com/2011/08/game-on-rtp-indie-game-companies-take-matters-into-their-own-hands/) packed 150 game developers and gaming enthusiasts into the Hive in downtown Raleigh in August. I, for one, have always felt like the gamers should and could be more visible in the RTP startup ecosystem. Between Joystick, Game On, and other recurring events like the TGI Social, 2011 was a big step in the right direction.
And let’s just pretend I already talked about ExitEvent.
Oh, Yeah, There are VCs Too
I’ve always been amazed at how accessible the local VCs are and how few startups and wanna-be startups take advantage of that accessibility. Here are two ends of the spectrum I talked about in 2011.
Jason Caplain
Jason Caplain from Southern Capitol Ventures is involved with a lot of events, meetings, get-togethers, and so on, probably more so than any single local investor.
In April, I wrote about the, get this, 28th annual CED Venture Conference (http://www.techjournalsouth.com/2011/04/ced-venture-2011-mission-accomplished-now-what/), where for a small price (in terms of value), you can catch up with a keg of VCs, angels, and dozens of funded and unfunded startups. Watching and learning from the public pitches alone is worth the price of admission.
And by the way, that was on the heels of the SouthEast Venture Conference and the East Coast Game Conference, both of which are coming up again in 2012.
If anything, 2012 is going to build on this strong support structure that sprung up in 2011. So if you ever, ever thought about ditching it all and starting a company, well, my friend, this is your year. Apply, attend, meet-up, discuss, engage and party. Of course, there’s all that hard work and risk, but at least you’ll have hundreds of others slogging it out with you.
A successful company strives to keep employees productive, and a knowledgeable business knows that happy people are more productive. Happiness at work can increase productivity by as much as 12% in fact, according to a study at University of Warwick.1
A story in CMS Wire quotes Paul Murphy, national sales director of Spire Investment Partners, who said technology such as an electronic document management system can make work easier and people happier.
“If employees are more efficient, they’re happier. If they’re happier, they’re more productive. If they’re more productive, you’re more profitable,” Murphy said.
Enterprise content management systems can make life easier for employees by cutting down on time needed to search through file cabinets, improve communication and collaboration with co-workers and automate repetitive tasks.
CMS Wire said that internal customers, or employees, matter the most in the quality and quantity of work output. According to the source, a satisfied employee is more creative, productive and dependable, which generates work that can make customers happy and encourage them to stay loyal to a brand or company.
Even though in the long run it can make people happy, Ed Yonker, CIO of Franklin County, Pennsylvania, warned that people get agitated when new changes come down at a company. It is important to reduce the level of frustration and dissatisfaction in the early stages to cultivate happiness with the new system.
Gaston County, North Carolina helped quell the impatience of the integration with education and training, CMS Wire said.
“Although the resistance to change has been far less than for ECM than other applications or new business processes, there are always people who want to continue doing things the way they’ve always been done,” says Brandon Jackson, CIO of Gaston County.
“However, the more we publicized the success of the departments that were our early ECM adopters, the more people began to realize how tedious working with paper actually is.”
Rochelle Waldoch, compliance and records manager of Ramsey County, Minnesota, told CMS Wire that they started watching training videos that featured characters from The Flintstones. She said just because something is technical doesn’t mean employees can’t have fun with it.
CMS also stated that the most effective change to a content management system brings a sense of togetherness for something everyone has in common, which in this case is becoming educated on a new form of technology.
On Inside Counsel, a website designed for law department leaders, Dennis Kiker, a partner at LeClairRyan in Richmond, Virginia, said that understanding and acceptance of a new program should come through training on the document management program. He said this also lets workers know that the new program is a priority for the company.
“Employees should be trained when they are hired, whenever the program is significantly updated and on a periodic basis thereafter,” Kiker said. “If possible, the training should be interactive and include a testing component to increase the likelihood that information will be retained.”
The direct benefits of a content management system, such as reduced paper costs and increased efficiency, are often clear improvements in obtaining a new system. Yet the indirect cause of employee happiness, and the increased productivity as a result of it, is another measurable impact that such a solution can have on an organization. With proper training and a simple transition, the company and employees stand to gain considerable advantages.
Samantha McCollough is PR director at iDatix, a Clearwater based small business and a leader in the development of ECM software.
I see Anil Chawla everywhere I go. And while my ego told me he was probably stalking me, it turns out he’s been an entrepreneur for a long time, even though it’s only been a year since he let everyone know.
That was the day Anil left his posh job pushing code at IBM, where he had been for over six years, to hop on the roller-coaster ride of full-time founder. Anil had been working under wraps to polish his product, TweetyMail (yes, I’ve spoken to him about the name, but you’ll remember it when you’ve finished reading this column). It’s a framework for accessing Twitter via email. He later expanded to TheFriendMail, which accomplishes the same for Facebook.
Anil Likes Email
But on Thursday, January 12th, Anil will be one of the five startups launching new products at the third version of Launch Day, which gets started at 5:00 p.m. in Bay 7 of the American Tobacco campus in Durham.
In fact, Launch Day will be a reunion of sorts for me. I’ve known co-host Jake Finkelstein for about 10 years since we worked at a startup together, and I met co-host Sarah Wechsberg at last year’s Triangle Entrepreneurship Week, where she is a co-founder.
Launch Day will also have music provided in part by Argyle Social’s Danny Olinsky, who was the winner at last year’s StatSheet Pongageddon .
Names… Dropped
But back to Anil. On Thursday he’ll roll out Archive Social, which helps companies that are under strict communication regulations (think financial and healthcare), monitor and capture social media activity and preserves the data in a way that those businesses need to remain in compliance.
But Archive Social isn’t just about compliance, the product will capture and store social media communication in an automated way for any company that needs that data stored.
This sets is up as potentially disruptive. We’re all using social media, we apparently can’t get enough of it, and we all know that there’s a social paper trail out there, but we’re not archiving it, even our own personal communication like we would with email.
All That Interest in Email Paid Off
Anil actually got the idea for Archive Social while working on another product during Durham Chamber’s Startup Stampede. And like the four other companies at Launch Day Thursday night, he’ll be on stage making his pitch to the public for their participation. In his case, the ask is for companies to participate in the pilot.
Why archive your social? Businesses have been largely cavalier about their social media usage, but ultimately they may find that they have to trust that said data will be there when they need it.
Those companies in Archive Social’s sweet spot, the ones that are under compliance, find the storage regulations far more stringent. But if we’re all going to start storing our social media communication, which we likely will soon, then won’t we want the same protection that the most stringent archivers are using? Like maybe something that will hold up as evidence in a court of law?
Some of you care about this more than others, and I think we both know who you are.
The Accidental Entrepreneur
Anil isn’t what you’d think of as your traditional entrepreneur. He wasn’t selling lemonade when he was four years old. In fact, he had very little entrepreneurial background at all. He went to school like all the other kids, knew he had to get grades, go to college, get a job, and kick ass at it.
But from day one he couldn’t escape feeling like he was not living up to his potential. He said to himself that if he spent the next year doing what he was doing, at the end he wouldn’t be fired up, he’d be disappointed.
Most people think that someday they’re going to leave their job and start their own business, and ultimately most people do not. When Anil left IBM, he wasn’t far enough along to live on the income from his startup, but he had gained the confidence that this would happen down the road.
Everyone Has to Jump
TweetyMail and TheFriendMail do well, continue to grow, and currently process about 1 million emails a month through the service. A chunk of his customers are paying, and it’s profitable.
Archive Social is a pivot. He’ll look to do a public launch in the middle of the year as a small/medium business play. The product will be his flagship… for now. If he finds something else that has the same kind of potential, he’ll build that, but like the other products that came before, he’ll continue to grow what he’s got.
Launch Day III: The Launchening
Like previous Launch Days (and most public pitch formats), each founder gets 3-5 minutes to drop knowledge followed by another 1-2 minutes to answer questions. It isn’t meant to be a contest, but rather a public request for help, whether that help comes in the form of pilot customers, testers, employees, or the old standby, investment, that’s up to each founder as they take the stage.
Launch Day founder Scott Kelly has also expanded, so to speak, and created a series of programs this year, including Startup High, a mentoring and educational program for local startup CEOs to show the ropes to high school students over two weeks this summer, and Startup Madness, an all-ACC program that pairs a local executive and a local student from each of the ACC schools. He’s even working on Pittsburgh and Syracuse, even though they aren’t official until 2013.
The four other presentations are Pruvop, who will be rebranding, INRFOOD, the latest from GoToAid maker Jaargon, Pengo working on peer-to-business loans for emerging markets, and Pasplore , a browser extension grabs data and brings it into a workable format.
One: Apologies to you Mayan calendar believers, I didn’t mean to alarm you with the title. 2012 won’t be the year that random Durham entrepreneurs spontaneously combust – although that could happen, it’s highly unlikely. I’ll make it up to you by not making an easy joke at your expense.
Two: I’ll be honest with you. I don’t know what’s going to happen to the RTP Startup Ecosystem this year. I’ve seen some crazy stuff in my time here. For all I know, Durham could become the food truck capital of the world, pushing technology, bio, and gaming aside, and prompting food truck tourism and a Food Truck Alley along Jackie Robinson drive.
For all I know.
But I can tell you this. What happens in the oh-twelve is going to build off of what happened in 2011. And if you have to put a single word on what the RTP did to justify its position in the startup universe relative to Silicon Valley, New York, Boulder, etc., that word would be: Organization.
Note that it’s not: Money. That’s what 2012 needs to be about.
In 2011, the RTP startup ecosystem finally took it upon itself to connect its various garages, coffee shops, and secret evil lairs in an effort to combine strengths, learn from one another, and sort out who is who and who is working on what. It was 99% a grass roots effort, which is good, in that it was very inclusive, but not so good, in the sense that the movement is still pretty underpowered. All in all, it was a measurable jump-start, but there’s a lot left to do.
So let’s take a look back over the year that was and make some assumptions about the year that is.
Hey! I’ve got an idea! Let’s do this via a collection of 2011 highlights from my column.
At least it’s not a top 10 list. Happy New Year.
Doing It Right
Several RTP companies landed major funding in 2011. Having walked that walk as part of the management team of Automated Insights/StatSheet (another disclosure), I can tell you that raising money last year wasn’t easy. But that also means that the companies that did receive funds are solid.
Then in July, I sat down with James Avery and came out the other side with Adzerk’s No-BS Approach Results in $650K. Adzerk was proving the Durham startup thesis, founded by pivoting an existing business in RTP, moving into American Underground, taking advantage of the support groups springing up throughout the area, and ultimately running the gauntlet of both local and national VC raises. Successfully, as it turned out.
Launch Party? How About Launch Festival
Later that same month, I told you about a product launch that turned into an old-school dot-com style party in Bringing Sexy Back: Why deja Fest Is More Than a Launch Party. deja mi’s founder Justin Miller organized (there’s that word again) a two-day, 26-band event to prove out his venue-based media sharing application before it got the live customer treatment at the Hopscotch Festival in September.
All Work and No Play
By the way, those three companies were in attendance, along with about a dozen others, at Pongageddon: The RTP Startup Ecosystem Goes Rogue in March, a day of pizza, beer, and local startups competing for a ping-pong trophy hosted by StatSheet. This was one of the first formal get-togethers of some of the local entrepreneurs, but it would definitely not be the last.
The Graduating Class
But 2011 wasn’t just about the established and funded. In December, I got the chance to judge a UNC-hosted startup event and wrote about Ten Promising Rookie Startups from the Carolina Challenge. This included $1000 winner (and established though not funded) YardSprout and 47 other startups, most of whom I had not heard of before that night but will keep an eye on this year.
So yeah, that was 2011, but that was just the stuff I wrote about startups, and those few companies I got to are just the tip of the iceberg that is the 200+ tech startups in RTP. In a future installment, I’ll reminisce about the explosion of support organizations and how even those organizations got more organized.
Today, it’s hard not to notice the endless array of ads for tech items on the market either for work or play. In many cases, we wonder how we ever lived without some of these convenient and fun inventions like the iPod or the Kindle.
As the holidays approach, it’s likely that you have at least one techie in your life who would love a new gadget or similar item to unwrap. But some items require quite an investment. What, then, should you do to show your good taste in gift giving without going into too much debt? There are plenty of solutions this year – both electronic or otherwise – that your techie will thank you for.
Calling All Signals
The WiFi Signal Locator from Mobile Edge only picks up signals from wifi, thus eliminating false readings that may be coming from other electronic devices like microwaves or phones. This small gadget – measuring less than 3 inches – fits easily into pockets and even comes with a key ring so it can be attached. This cool item is convenient in size and small in price, selling for under $30.
Give Them a Hand
For those on your list who suffer from carpal tunnel or tendinitis, a WarmMe Warm Mouse may just warm their heart this holiday season. This mouse actually keeps the user’s hand warm while they are using it. It’s convenient, too, as it works with any operating system. The price tag is also warm at under $30.
Give the Gift of Info
Even the most knowledgeable techie loves to learn more about current and upcoming new gadgets. So, why not give them the gift of information with a magazine subscription. Targeted to the subject your techie loves most, a magazine subscription can help to inform and inspire them all year long – usually for under $25.
Staying Comfortable – Even in the War Zone
For techies and gamers alike, a long day – or night – at the computer can start to get uncomfortable if not in the right kind of chair. The Tech Heated Massage Lumbar Cushion can solve that problem easily.
This ergonomically designed movable cushion is designed for lower back support, so it’s a great item for anyone who spends lots of time sitting in front of their screen. It also features a vibrating massage as well as heat therapy for aching back muscles. Although it can be acquired for under $25, you just can’t put a price on comfort.
Buying technical this year doesn’t have to break the bank. So, whether it’s a gadget or a gadget related item that you choose, the techie on your gift list will enjoy it – and based on the low price, so will your wallet!
Frank Anderson is a techie and gadget blogger. Within this passion he works with virtualwebhosting and other neat technologies.
Passion is one of those words that many people love to use but very rarely do they actually demonstrate it themselves. It easily can be the reason for almost any person or organization’s success.
Passion fuels everything good about a person or an organization, so why is it so hard to find people that are passionate about their jobs or the product or service they sell?
In most organizations, every leader can name a few of their great employees or bosses that have immense passion and will state 100% of the time they wish that all of their employees would have that same passion.
The same can be said of employees who wish their leader had more passion. Although not everybody can be passionate about their job or their business because some people just do not follow their passion (rather they follow a paycheck), as a leader one should strive to have most employees passionate about what they do.
This is not an easy concept, but most things that make people and organizations great are not easy – that is why they are great. There are a few things that individuals and leaders can do to make passion a mandatory part of their culture.
Do something you love
A person once said that you couldn’t really do what you want and will probably never get a job you love so just find one that pays well and try to learn to like it. This couldn’t be further from the truth. There are millions of ways to make a living in this world, so do something you love or love what you do.
A person’s passion will create value for customers, resulting in revenue from a customer or organization. In some cases, a person may not be passionate about the actual product or service they sell, rather they are passionate about the task of selling, helping customers or having personal success.
Being passionate has very little to do with what a person does and everything to do with why a person does it. Every decision made in life (hiring decisions, buying decisions, career decisions, etc.) can be based on our emotions-. Every person and every leader should strive to find the passion in their jobs and careers. People work for money, but when a person has passion for their work, they will gain a lot more than just money.
Make passion a job requirement
Some could argue that passion and attitude are subjective and cannot be measured or fairly managed, which could be true in some cases. Most leaders can look at their team and easily identify the members that are passionate about their career and the organization, and in almost every case, those people are the most successful.
The leader’s job is to help those without passion find it in their current role or help them find a role within the organization they can be passionate about.
If a leader wants their entire organization to be passionate about their job, they must make it mandatory. How serious should a leader be about making passion mandatory? Should a leader fire their top performer if they lack passion and don’t have a desire to be better regardless of their results? In most cases they won’t, but in time that top performer’s results may decline as the results catch up with their lack of passion.
Encourage passion
Passion is not an emotion that is taught, rather it is the result of a person doing the right job or having the right career. Leaders don’t necessarily have to mandate passion out of each person like being told to get to work on time, but they should recognize those individuals that lack the passion and strive to help them find it in their position.
In today’s economy it is not always enough to do a good job or know your business. A person and organization must have the passion to pass on to others. Passion is the fuel for an organizations success no matter what industry, region or economy one is in.
Nathan Jamail, best selling author of “The Playbook Series,” is also a motivational speaker, entrepreneur and corporate coach. As a former executive for Fortune 500 companies, and owner of several small businesses, Nathan travels the country helping individuals and organizations achieve maximum success. A few of his clients include Fidelity, Nationwide Insurance, The Hartford Group, Cisco, Stryker Communications, and Army National Guard. To book Nathan, visit www.NathanJamail.com.
Ask anyone involved in the startup game and they’ll tell you: Part of the makeup of a great entrepreneur is the ability to deal with failure. This ability usually comes, oddly enough, with actually having failed, at least once, on the way to success. It’s a conundrum of the game.
The North Carolina Research Triangle had an accelerator, very recently, and it was successful, and it closed up shop, which caused a lot of disappointment and heartbreak within the startup community. But it’s important to note that while Groundwork Labs will fill the void left by Launchbox in the American Underground in Durham, it’s not a replacement.
It’s something new, with new players, a new mission, and a new vision.
And the fact that the RTP gets another shot with the acceleration concept, that’s, well, lucky, to say the least.
How It Works
Groundwork Labs, much like your traditional accelerator, will select promising startups for a three month session and load them up with the standard foundational elements: space, advice, connections, mentoring, and the all-important $20,000 in walking around money.
They’re starting quickly out of the gate, Spring 2012, which means you should get your application in yesterday. They expect to work with between five and seven startups per session and run at least one and hopefully two sessions per year.
I actually got wind of the Groundwork Labs news about a week ago, but I had been sworn to secrecy. I’m not sure why they were so worried. I’m not that kind of journalist. I’m the other kind. The lazy kind.
Official word broke yesterday afternoon, which happened to be just hours before the monthly ExitEvent social I host for area entrepreneurs, which happened to coincide with the TechJournal Deck Party, in Raleigh, which happened to fall on the eve of Internet Summit 2011 at the Raleigh Convention Center, resulting in a Catalina Wine Mixer of startup tech marketing investor type people in one place. So I had access to a lot of opinion. Others I got to via emails. Disclaimer: There was no free beer involved in the solicitation of opinion.
And overall the opinion is very, very hopeful.
What Do You Think?
“Love it,” says iContact’s Aaron Houghton, “Durham deserves it and many passionate entrepreneurs will benefit from it.”
“Launchbox proved that having a local incubator is important to the entrepreneurial ecosystem,” says Robbie Allen, CEO of Automated Insights. “It really helps raise the profile of all startups in the area.”
James Avery, founder of Adzerk and a very passionate voice when Launchbox closed up shop is, well, excited again. “I am thrilled to see that Durham will once again host an accelerator. I love that John Austin is involved as I think he has done a great job with Joystick so far.”
John Who?
John Austin, Director of Joystick Labs, will also head the Groundwork effort. Before any of the gamers freak out, nothing is going to happen to Joystick. It will continue to operate independently, though it does get a boost in efficiency of shared resources. Joystick will get its next semester underway this summer, and the two efforts will continue to operate in leapfrog fashion.
I got a chance to sit down with John again yesterday. We hadn’t really caught up since he took the helm of Joystick right before this year’s East Coast Game Conference.
The two players in Groundwork Labs, Capitol Broadcasting and NC IDEA are very excited about it, according to Austin. There will be synergy between the entities with resources obviously coming from the Underground, as well as the possibility that some of the startups chosen for Groundwork will come from NC IDEA – even though there will be separation in the process, with two separate application programs, etc.
NC IDEA, the grant program that has a symbiotic relationship with VC firm Idea Fund Partners, and another organization I got to dig down into recently, is another positive. Beyond being the region’s best kept secret for early stage entrepreneurs, they’re entire mission is to aid the area in terms of building up a successful, thriving, early-stage ecosystem.
“I think this is an important piece of the puzzle for building a stronger entrepreneurial ecosystem in North Carolina,” says Lister Delgado, Founder and General Partner at Idea Fund Partners.
“It is another way to help attract entrepreneurial talent to the state, and to keep the resident talent here. Besides the money and the assistance that an accelerator can provide to the entrepreneurs participating, an accelerator is a great marketing tool for the community. That is why we are excited to be involved.”
Two Types of Investment
Austin backs this up, and notes that NC IDEA and Capitol Broadcasting, who owns and operates the American Tobacco Campus, have split the infrastructure costs from the investment in the companies. This model is much like how Joystick operates. The investors see the investment in the infrastructure of Joystick as an investment in the entrepreneurial community. Not a donation, per se, but with an expectation for a different kind of return.
This is the critical factor in the potential success of Groundwork. Capitol Broadcasting has a business interest in seeing it succeed, through the American Underground and several other initiatives they have operating in the startup ecosystem. As for NC IDEA, early-stage success here is what their mission is built upon. Groundwork is almost like an expansion of their program, a runway off of the grant money, or even just the runway when the money isn’t a critical factor.
This vested interest, skin in the game, if you will, from the funding parties, is designed to give Groundwork enough time to decide whether or not the accelerator will work. That, of course, is up to the companies selected, and in some sense the rest of here in the area already hard at work at making the region stick as an entrepreneurial hub.
So in that sense, Groundwork Labs is another good sign. Second chances are hard to come by, so you’ve got to jump on the opportunity when they do.
Zack Mansfield, VP at Square 1 Bank and manager of their startup assistance program Square Roots, sums it up nicely. “It’s exciting to see a new accelerator for a lot of reasons but the most significant is that if this region is serious about becoming a top hub for startups, we need more of just about everything – more capital, more entrepreneurs, and more people in the ecosystem supporting new ventures to help them grow.”
Joe Procopio heads up product engineering for tech media startup Automated Insights (formerly StatSheet). He also owns consulting firm Intrepid Company and creative network Intrepid Media and runs the startup social ExitEvent. Joe can be reached via Twitter @jprocoand read at joeprocopio.com.
Did you read the piece I wrote back in May about Tech Jobs Under the Big Top? Click on it so I get the credit and I’ll boil it down for you here.
The brainchild of former Launchbox Executive Director Chris Heivly, Big Top purported to create a job fair strictly for startups and, in doing so, turn the concept of a job fair completely on its head.
Underwear joke.
It succeeded, and the event drew 15 companies pitching over 85 jobs to over 250 job-seekers in an atmosphere that resembled an actual circus, down to the clowns, jugglers, and free peanuts and cotton candy.
No wait, I know I just blew your mind, so you might have missed where I said 15 companies pitched 250+ job seekers — not screened, but pitched – with each company giving a three-minute presentation on why their startup was the place you wanted to work.
We’re Changing the World Plus We Have a Ping Pong Table
I loved that concept. A lot. I was there with one of the companies doing the pitching. So I sat down with Heivly as he was gearing up for Big Top 2.0, which is taking place Thursday, October 20th at Bay 7 in the American Tobacco Campus. You can find out more at BigTop.IT or just go register at: bigtop.eventbrite.com.
If you’re looking for a job and/or have ever thought about working for a startup, there is no better way to amplify your job search. Even if you’re gainfully employed, as about half of the job-seekers at Big Top are, you may want to drop by (although if you’re unprepared to be swayed by the magic and the majesty and the long hours and the low pay of Startup Nation, save the ticket for someone who needs it).
In my own view, the concept was a smash hit for a lot of reasons. As I pointed out in my last column, the Big Top event succeeded at removing the stigma of unemployment by turning the tables and having the potential employers sell themselves. Finding a job is hard enough. Finding a job at a job fair is like getting a root canal. Finding a job at a job fair during a recession is like getting a root canal from someone who works in Human Resources.
This is why Heivly had us pitch the job seekers, and I can tell you firsthand that each company got on board and produced presentations that ranged from gut-bustingly funny to eye-opening inspirational. You couldn’t help but have a smile on your face by the second or third pitch.
Do You Have Any Idea Who I Am?
The Big Top jobs event
But this is not the kind of endeavor you undertake a second time just because you made people feel better. Believe me, if I had a nickel for every time something I wrote made someone laugh, I’d make even less money writing than I do now.
You’re welcome.
One thing Heivly pointed out that I wouldn’t have put together is that Big Top and the resultant hype also dropped the names and identities of many local, working, hiring startups into the lexicon of 250 potential employees.
A lot of feedback from the first event centered around the fact that the job seekers just didn’t know there were this many of this kind of company in the area. You may not think this possible, I sure didn’t, but those of us who are immersed in the ecosystem, especially those of us shouting from the rooftops about how awesome this ecosystem is, can easily forget that the vast number of people out there have never heard of any of us.
But most importantly, Big Top succeeded as a job fair, resulting in a vast amount of connections, many useful relationships, and of course, several filled positions.
So What’s New?
Here we are just under half-a-year later and the outlook really hasn’t changed all that much. The silver lining on the cloud is that there are still at least a dozen smart, passionate startups who need smart, passionate technologists.
This time around, Heivly tells me, there will be more focus on the networking. One easy solution is that there are three fewer companies, so they still get the three minute pitch, but it won’t take as much time.
Heivly is also sending out an email to all registrants with all 60+ jobs that the startups need filling, so both sides can get right to the point.
In an additional effort to make the discussions more efficient, Big Top 2.0 will feature 12 tables, one for each company, instead of three tables, one for each discipline (technology, marketing, general business).
You Have To Be Crazy To Work Here
Overall, Heivly admits he’s done a little better job talking about the companies. Correspondence with the registered job-seekers is about making sure that the right people are there – because these are early-stage tech companies, and the jobs are more than 50 percent software development.
Last time, he says, about 20 percent of the crowd realized they didn’t belong there. Why? They just weren’t the special kind of crazy you need to be to work at a startup. Again, it’s high risk, long hours, low pay, and so glamorous that the vast majority of people out there will never have heard of you.
But it’s the other 80 percent that the startups need to reach. As Heivly jokes, and I agree, every developer we get from IBM is a win for the ecosystem.
One thing that won’t change, thankfully and rightly so, is the tone. There will still be jugglers and acrobats and the tent and the straw and the free beer and carnival snacks. All of this lends to a very comfortable networking environment.
At some point, Heivly wants to see this expand out of software and into life science and other startup disciplines. I told him I think gaming would be huge, and he agreed. But regardless of whether we’re talking about a BigTop 3.0 for web, mobile, biotech, gaming, clean & green, or craft brewing, as long as we’re talking about the RTP startup ecosystem, we’ll reach more people who have never heard of companies like Adzerk, EvoApp, Shoeboxed, HEALTHeME, ReverbNation, Argyle Social, and so on.
Mort importantly however, the more those companies keep finding smart, passionate technologists (like you), the less we’ll need to talk about it, because it will speak for itself.
Joe Procopio heads up product engineering for tech media startup Automated Insights (formerly StatSheet). He also owns consulting firm Intrepid Company and creative network Intrepid Media and runs the startup social ExitEvent. Joe can be reached via Twitter @jproco and read at joeprocopio.com.
It handy to be able to sign into a site via Facebook. It lets you devise one tough password and get on with your digital life. But I just had to go through another round of checking my Facebook settings to prevent the apps I use from broadcasting every song I listen to at Spotify or what I might read at Scribd.
Look, no offense – but I don’t care what you’re reading, listening to or watching, unless you care to share it personally with me because you think that I or many of your friends will actually care. It is that personal curating of experience, the personally curated content, that makes Facebook, Google+ and Twitter valuable to me, not the shotgun approach Facebook keeps moving toward.
More important, perhaps, I don’t particularly want everyone of my Facebook friends seeing every song I listen to, every item I read, or what video I may be watching. What, one wonders, makes Mark Zuckerberg and company think everyone likes to share everything they do online in that detail? The company sure keeps shoving everything up in everyone’s grill.
And I have to say, Facebook is wearing me out by trying to make as much of my life public as it can while I try to retain the merest bit of personal privacy. I’ve had to change privacy settings on Facebook three times this year so far.
Timeline is a mistake
That’s why I think Facebook’s new, much ballyhooed “Timeline” is a mistake. In addition to giving scammers, hackers and spammers more information about Facebook users in an easy to find format, it is just another effort on Facebook’s part to jazz up an experience many users are finding tiresome.
That so-called “Facebook fatigue” is inevitable after the initial high of connecting with friends old and new wears off and you realize you’re wading through pages of stuff you really don’t care much about to read the handful of items you do. Google+ offers a start-over of sorts in that department, and as it gains traction, it may indeed suck some of the air out of Facebook’s full sails.
I’ve already seen several of my high profile Facebook friends (a novel and short story author and a well-known screenwriter) kill their Facebook accounts because it made it too easy for wackos to make their day miserable.
Now, personally, I still enjoy Facebook, although I don’t spend nearly as much time there as I once did. I find Google+ much more useful professionally and expect I may use it with personal friends as well as more become members and begin using it.
Shooting itself in the foot
I also like the Google+ follow feature and its “Circles” organizing principle. And, as one Google+ user commented recently, a Google+1 seems more meaningful, generally than a Facebook “like” on posts and comments – but that may be because my Google+ account includes a different set of people and my posts are more along professional (digital media) lines.
Frankly, I suspect Facebook has finally shot a big enough hole in its foot to slow down its march to owning the world (or at least the social network world). Even minor changes to Facebook’s feeds have stirred up waves of revolt, but the new changes are radical compared to those.
I suspect that as Google+ matures, it will stall Facebook’s growth and cut seriously into its dominance – or Facebook will make a serious effort to retrench, including rolling back changes or giving users more control over their content and who sees it.
On the other hand, I just read a post in Google+ shared by Steve Rubel from an early Google+ fan who now thinks “Facebook has jumped far ahead of Google+” with its addition of the Timeline feature and other changes.
What do you think? Will one or the other prove the “winner?” Will both flourish?
We all know customers are necessary for any business to succeed. Yet many entrepreneurs, myself included, have made the mistake of not understanding the needs of their target customer. That is the most crucial step in creating a successful business.
Every week at ATDC, I’m fortunate enough to spend time with some of the brightest entrepreneurs in Georgia, sharing ideas on launching and growing their technology businesses. ATDC is a hub of activity for startups looking for advice on obtaining financing, launching a new product or building their business. Helping them usually begins with a single question: who is your target customer?
Here are four questions every entrepreneur should answer to help determine their customer base.
1. What customer problems are you solving?
Entrepreneurs passionately share the features and benefits of their product, but often don’t clearly state what customer problems or ‘pain’ that product solves. The best entrepreneurs identify that pain, understand how it affects the customer and how much it is costing them. Sometimes startups fail because the problem they aim to solve really isn’t a priority for their target customers.
The only way to understand the problem is to meet with prospective customers early on and assess their priorities. The entrepreneurs that engage potential customers from the beginning are more likely to succeed. If those needs are driving the product roadmap, you are off to a good start.
2. How does your product or service address those problems?
The startup community is full of “solutions looking for a problem.” We are often so focused on our innovative technology that we fail to address the market need. A deep understanding of how your product addresses the customer’s problems is critical to closing deals. Selling features and benefits while relying on the customer to determine if they have a problem you can solve, means you could be stuck spinning your wheels. Particularly with new technology, entrepreneurs need to develop the relevant domain expertise to show their target market how the product will solve their specific need.
3. Who has these problems?
One of the biggest challenges every entrepreneur faces is getting a product to market. The first paying customers are often found through leveraging personal relationships or engaging the right prospects.
To launch a product beyond that first wave of customers and develop a successful marketing strategy, entrepreneurs need to develop a profile of the type of clients that have the specific problems their solution addresses. Without focusing on that target profile and their decision process, you won’t be able to select the initial target segment, price your offering, develop a marketing and sales plan to reach them and identify the key features needed to appeal to that segment.
4. What is your addressable market?
Entrepreneurs often mistakenly define their market by industry and the size of that total market, rather than the appropriate customer profile and the amount spent on the problem they are solving. The customer universe that fits that profile is the addressable market for the product. The total size of the addressable market and the competition in that industry then determines the opportunity for the product. If the profile is not pertinent to a large enough addressable market, and doesn’t have a competitive advantage, the business will not meet its financial goals.
It sounds simple, but whether you are a startup or a large business, the key to success is to know your customer. That understanding is the cornerstone that enables a startup to build a product roadmap, sell more effectively and demonstrate the opportunity to investors and venture capitalists.
An Entrepreneur in Residence at the Advanced Technology Development Center in Atlanta, Blake Patton has 20 years of leadership experience in startup, venture-backed, and publicly-traded internet, software, payments and financial services technology companies.
By Nathan Jamail
