austinpreneur

FundingSleuth.com sends email alerts when companies raise money

First Round Capital released a cool new tool for entrepreneurs and investors called FundingSleuth.com. It lets you enter in companies to watch and automatically sends an email alert if that company files a sale of securities with the SEC.

If you work for a funded company, you should sign up and watch your employer. If you are an entrepreneur, you should watch your own company so that you know when your fundraising becomes public information. If you're an investor, you should watch your portfolio so that you know about other fundraising. If you're just really interested in a particular startup, you might want to monitor their fundraising.

Thanks for this cool, free tool!

Venture-backed IPO recession?

This BusinessWeek video clip points out that there were only 5 venture-backed IPO's in the first quarter of 2008 and ZERO venture-backed IPO's in the second quarter. The VC's blame Sarbanes-Oxley, picky entrepreneurs and globalization as the cause and suggest that we make a concerted effort to save venture capital by raising awareness and easing some expensive accounting requirements.

Hat tip to Barry Thornton

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

I'm smiling as I write this, but I must admit that it took me a while to see the positive side of things. At first I was very insulted and angry. But now I think it's a funny story and worth sharing.

Someone I don't know sent me a question on LinkedIn about the best way to raise money for his email marketing company. The question was sent to a group of people, not just to me.

Even though I didn't recognize the person, I clicked on his name to see his profile and try to help him out. I immediately saw that he was involved with email marketing and went to his company's website to learn more. When I clicked on the Consulting tab, I had a strange sense of familiarity reading the text.

It seemed so familiar. I went to the SKYLIST website and looked at the description of our consulting services... and they were exactly the same. I know that they copied and pasted the text from our website because I personally wrote the text on our site.

I'm just including one example below, although there are other examples of entire paragraphs that were copied word-for-word if you look for them. Every page of our website is clearly marked "copyright 2008 SKYLIST, Inc. All rights reserved."

Here is their website:

and here is the same section on our website:

Hopefully he'll see this post and change his web page. Either way, I'm flattered!

Get in line at The Grove

I went by The Grove last night to pick up some takeout at 6:30 and it was packed as usual! While I was there I bumped into Bill Leake having a glass of vino at the bar.

If you haven't been there yet, The Grove is a wine bar and restaurant opened by Reed Clemons and Beth Lasita over on Bee Cave Road, just west of 360 and across from The County Line. Reed has been doing restaurants in Austin for years, including Mezzaluna, The Bitter End, The Granite Cafe, Hangtown Grill, Reed's Supper Club and more. I was fortunate to get involved as an investor!

Besides having great food, great wine, and great service, The Grove has an incredible deck under a massive tree that makes it the place to be on a summer evening or weekend morning. We'll be opening a coffee shop next door soon!