austinpreneur

Top 11 Austin Startups to Meet at #SXSW

Inspired by Evan Baehr's Top 10 Austinites to Meet at SXSW, I've taken my own crack at the Top 11 Austin Startups to Meet at SXSW:

1. Forecast - Their location-based app for telling friends where you will be keeps getting better and better and so does their traction. I find myself using this app more and more. Meet Rene Pinnell @RJPinnell or Eric Katerman @geometrid. (I'm an investor through CF 2010)
2. Greenling - They are making us all healthier by delivering organic and local food straight to our doorsteps. They just expanded to Dallas and practically doubled their revenue overnight. This model is ready to scale. Meet Mason Arnold @masonarnold. (I'm on the Board of Directors)
3. Mass Relevance - They are powering most of the social media at SXSW and on most of the broadcast TV shows you see. Check out their SXSW real-time feed. Meet Sam Decker @SamDecker or Brian Dainton @bdainton. (I'm an investor)
4. Onespot - They recently re-invented themselves and the new model is HOT. They have more friendly, more effective way of using display ads to drive traffic. Meet Matt Cohen @zencohen or Ian Clarke @sanity. (I'm an investor)
5. Outbox - They have an ambitious goal - to kill the postal service and digitize everything. Team comes from Facebook and HBS and they have attracted the best investors in the world (including me!). Meet Evan Baehr @evanbaehr.
6. OwnLocal - They are actually making money off newspapers. I swear! Meet Lloyd Armbrust @lloydarmbrust. (I'm an investor, also Y Combinator)
7. RecycleMatch - They pivoted from a marketplace to an enteprise software play and have a big pipeline with the biggest companies in the world. Meet Brooke Farrell @brookebf. (I'm an investor through CF 2010)
8. Socialware - They make social media work for financial services. Nuff said. Meet Chad Bockius @bockius.
9. Sparefoot - They guys killed it when they went through Capital Factory and they have killed it every day since then. I can see how this might be a billion dollar opportunity. Sparefoot makes self-storage sexy. Meet Chuck Gordon and Mario Feghali @MarioFeghali. (I'm an investor through CF 2009)
10. StormPulse - Hurricane season is coming in a few months and StormPulse is batting down the hatches and getting the servers ready for the cyclical surge of traffic. Weather is not a fad, it's a long term trend that affects almost every business on the planet more and more. Meet Matt Wensing @mattwensing and Brad Wiemerslage @wiemersl. (I'm an investor)
11. Volunteerspot - This mega-viral site is growing like a weed with no marketing spend and extremely high user engagement. Meanwhile, they are amassing an audience of affluent, active Moms with kids that has the attention of big brands. Meet Karen Bantuveris @VSpotMom. (I'm an investor)

Then there is Indeed.com - So under the radar. So awesome. Not sure if you could still call them a startup. Meet Rony Kahan.

Oh yeah, and of course don't miss out on these CloudSMTP, OtherInbox and the ballers at WP Engine!

And not quite startups, you should also check out our latest IPO success stories - HomeAway (AWAY) and Bazaarvoice (BV).

I'm sorry to anyone I left out... there are so many other great Austin startups and I'm writing this at 1am after my first day of SXSW. I love all Austin startups!

What are your favorite Austin startups? Tell me on Twitter @JoshuaBaer

What would it take to make Austin 'the next Silicon Valley'?

I'd like to share my viewpoint on the recent Statesman article, What would it take to make Austin 'the next Silicon Valley'?

While I don't think that Austin wants to become Silicon Valley any more than Texas wants to become California, I think that we can learn from Silicon Valley to continue attracting great innovators and entrepreneurs to Austin.

Steve Blank commented that one of the most important aspects of Silicon Valley that differentiates it from the rest of the world is that failure is a badge of experience, not a badge of shame. Austin needs to be a safe environment for entrepreneurs to try out new ideas, to experiment, and to fail.  

Part of that is attitude and culture, but a big part is access to early stage capital and collaborative working spaces where entrepreneurs can meet each other, incubate ideas and inspire each other. We are very fortunate to have spaces such as Conjunctured, Cospace and Tech Ranch and communities like Bootstrap Austin. Still, we would benefit from a larger, central community meeting space and coworking facility. We need the Startup District that John Erik Metcalfe and Ceasar Torres started promoting a few years ago.

Capital Factory is one piece of the puzzle. We provide a small amount of capital and lots of mentorship to 5 select startups each year. More than half of the 15 companies in our portfolio are from outside of Austin and come here to participate in our summer program. Half of those stayed here after the program ended because they find the environment so friendly to entrepreneurs. We need to expand the number of companies so that we can have a bigger impact.

One obvious way reach more entrepreneurs is through the University of Texas. Inspired by the success of Capital Factory and the encouragement of Dr. Bruce Porter in the UT Computer Science department, I'll be joining with John Butler and Bob Metcalfe to teach and undergraduate entrepreneurship class at UT called 1 Semester Startup. I hope that through this class we can identify promising young entrepreneurs at UT, accelerate them down the path of success and keep them here in Austin.

Communities like Angel List are helping Austin by connecting our entrepreneurs with early stage investors from Silicon Valley and around the world. There are more than 100 Austin startups listed and more than 300 investors "watching" the Austin market (most of them NOT from Austin).

First time entrepreneurs need inspiration from successful entrepreneurs. They need role models to look up to and get advice from. Bazaarvoice, HomeAway, Spiceworks and Rackspace are all helping to fill this void. Let's not forget the massive Trilogy Alumni network that are driving many of the top companies in Austin right now. We need more visible leaders in the entrepreneurship community like Andrew Busey, Brett Hurt, Jack McDonald, Kip McClanahan, Bryan Menell, Bob Metcalfe and John Price.

I actually think most of the right things are happening. I've been here for more than 10 years and Austin has only become more attractive to startups and entrepreneurs. We are one of the top cities in the world attracting young smart entrepreneurs, college grads, and young professionals.

We are attracting startups like Gowalla and others that are moving to Austin from elsewhere in Texas and around the country. Austin is a great place to launch a startup because it is a market full of early adopters. I am contacted at least once a month by a startup who is looking for advice about moving here.

What do we need to do? We need to keep Austin attractive to young, smart people and innovative startups. We need to continue growing the early stage venture community and our connections to outside capital. We need to identify our Startup District (East side?) and achieve critical mass. We need to embrace failure. We need to keep being Austin. 

What do you think we should be doing to promote entrepreneurship and startups in Austin? Leave a comment below.

Austinpreneur's Guide to SXSW 2011

If you're an entrepreneur coming to Austin for SXSW 2011, here are the events you won't want to miss!

Thursday

• 4:00pm-10:00pm ATX Startup Crawl
• 6:00pm-8:00pm Austin Tech Happy Hour

Friday

• 5:00pm-7:00pm Entrepreneur's Lounge at Fogo (invite only)
• 5:00pm Bootstrap Meetup 
• 6:00pm-10:00pm Ignite SXSW
• 6:00pm-9:00pm Mixergy SXSW Live Bonanza

Saturday

• Lean Startup SXSW
• 11:00am Jason Cohen - A Bootstrapped Geek Sifts Through the Bullshit
• 1:30pm Austin Ventures Party (invite only)
• 3:30pm Joshua Baer - 5 Secrets to a Killer Elevator Pitch
• 5:00pm-7:00pm Entrepreneur's Lounge at Fogo (invite only)
• 6:00pm-9:00pm Austin on Rails Party
• 6:00pm-9:00pm Wordpress Party
• 9:00pm 500 Startups Afterparty (invite only)

Sunday

• 10:00am Capital Factory Office Hours
• 12:00pm Inbox Love Lunch (invite only)
• 5:00pm-7:00pm Entrepreneur's Lounge at Fogo (invite only)
• 5:30pm Data Cluster Party
• 8:00pm Capital Factory Dinner (invite only)
• 8:00pm-11:00pm Tech Cocktail

Monday

• 10:30am Accelerator
• 5:00pm-6:00pm Trilogy Alumni Happy Hour
• 5:00pm-7:00pm Entrepreneur's Lounge at Fogo (invite only)
• 6:30pm-8:30pm StartupBus Finals
• 9:00pm Startup Digest / Kauffman Foundation Party (invite only)

Tuesday

• 10:30am Accelerator Finals
• 3:00pm IronGeek Competition
• 5:00pm-7:00pm Entrepreneur's Lounge at Fogo (invite only)

Everything starts with the ATX Startup Crawl on Thursday the 10th at 4:00pm. 

After you check-in on Thursday hop on the Smiley Shuttle and catch a ride to 20 Austin tech startups within a 1 mile radius. Visit Capital Thought, Gowalla, Infochimps, OtherInbox, PeopleAdmin, Tabbed Out and a dozen other startups. Each one will have beer, games, music and more waiting for you. Most startups are clustered so that you can visit 2 or 3 at each stop. More than 1,000 people have RSVP'd so we know this is going to be a blast!

Friday night lets Ignite SXSW!

In this Ignite we’ll ask 16 experts in their fields to look ahead 10 years and help us understand how our every day lives will be affected by advances in technology and society. This will be an official SXSW event promoted in the booklet and directory. Anyone with a SXSW badge can attend without a ticket but we still would appreciate if you would register so we can plan better. There are a limited number of tickets for sale to friends of Ignite who will not have SXSW badges. We’re psyched that Dorkbot will be joining us for the event and setting up around the perimeter of the Music Hall.  

Saturday you don't want to miss Jason Cohen's talk Saturday at 11:00am in Salon AB:

A Bootstrapped Geek Sifts Through the Bullshit

After starting four companies, I've found that some widely accepted advice lead me to failure while trusting my (inexperienced) gut lead to success. So many business philosophies profess they're the One True Way, yet different business face different hurdles. With stories, six actionable lessons, and a workshopping of 37signals' philosophy, you'll learn when to follow the rules and when to go your own way.

Saturday at 3:30pm please attend my interactive talk in Salon AB:

5 Secrets to a Killer Elevator Pitch

Everyone in a startup should be able to give the "elevator pitch", even the programmers! Having the right pitch can help you land a big customer, catch an investor's interest, or just explain what you do to your mom. Learn about the 5 secrets to a killer pitch from an expert speaker who has pitched at TechCrunch50, SXSW Accelerator, Ignite, DEMO, and many other competitions. This is not for beginners! These investors have seen thousands of pitches and invested in hundreds of companies. Come to this presentation after you’ve already given your pitch a 100 times and are really ready to take it to the next level. First I’ll spend 20 minutes talking about the 5 secrets and show some killer examples. Then the panel of investors will take five volunteers from the audience and work with them to improve their 2 minute pitch. Come prepared! And just to eat my own dog food, here is a 5 minute elevator pitch for this presentation!

I need 5 volunteers to come up on stage and pitch their company, and then receive some feedback from myself and other mentors. Please email me or reach out on Twitter if you're interested in being one of the companies.

Lean Startup SXSW

If you're not planting at the Convention Center for the day, it might be worth the trip up to the AT&T Executive Center at UT for Lean Startup SXSW. Many of my favorite speakers will be on stage including Eric Ries, Dave McClure, Hiten Shah, Ash Maurya, Jason Cohen and Steve Blank. I'm sure this will be an incredible event and full of quality people.

Capital Factory

Applications are being accepted for our third summer program with Capital Factory 2011! Partner with 20 successful entrepreneurs to be your mentors, plus get $20,000 in cash, free office space, legal services and more. Now is the time to meet with mentors, ask questions, and get feedback. Sunday morning we're holding Capital Factory Office Hours from 10am-noon at the Convention Center and its open to anyone who wants to stop by. Location will be announced on Twitter so follow @CapitalFactory.

Inbox Love

I'll be making sweet Inbox Love for lunch at a special email lunch I'm putting together with Jared Goralnick and 500 Startups. Inbox Love is focused on email as a platform - it's not about email marketing, spam or security. I'm looking forward to seeing many of the connections I met at the Inbox Love conference in Mountain View last month in a casual setting. Thanks to Port 25 for sponsoring! If you would like to attend please email me or reach out on Twitter for more info.

StartupBus Finals

FIVE buses full of 40 strangers are converging on Austin from around the country. On the way here, they are forming teams and building startups in a StartupWeekend fashion. They will arrive on Thursday for the ATX Startup Crawl and then have the weekend to try and get some initial traction with their product. On Monday evening, we'll be having finals to choose the best companies from all of the buses. You don't want to miss this event.

IronGeek

On Tuesday come see me compete in the DAS IronGeek competition. I'll be typing Dvorak, assembling computers, and other feats of geekiness. Come cheer me on, I need your support!

Entrepreneur's Lounge

Hanging out at Fogo next to the convention center is now a tradition for SXSW entrepreneurs. Also known as the "Meat Up" because its held at a Brazilian restaurant. Go up on the rooftop deck, enjoy some drinks and snacks, and meet up with other entrepreneurs and investors.

What other entrepreneur events are YOU looking forward to? Please leave a comment.

Austin Startup Digest Event Submission

I recently started curating the Austin Startup Digest, a weekly email list of the upcoming startup events in town. I assemble everything I can find, but I need your help making sure that its got all of the best events listed.

For a short link to this form, use http://bit.ly/austinstartupdigest

Mission: Austinpreneur on assignment in Puerto Rico

    

Earlier this month I was fortunate and flattered to be invited to keynote the Puerto Rico Venture Forum in San Juan, Puerto Rico. This was my first trip to Puerto Rico but it definitely won't be my last. My wife Amy came along for the trip and we got to spend a day exploring through the forts of Old San Juan. It was such an easy trip - no passport, everyone speaks English, and they use dollars for money. Gowalla was already there too - most of the places I visited were already listed and one of the old forts even has a custom stamp! On our next trip we want to explore the bio-illuminescent algae, caves, mountains, beaches.

 

I want to thank Grupo Guayacan and all of the great people we met - everyone was so welcoming! Special thanks to Francisco, Bob, Eva, Joanna, Paul many others. And of course thank you to Manuel Rosso for introducing me!

The Puerto Rico Venture Forum is the culmination of the EnterPRize competition - a business plan competition that on its face looks very similar to Capital Factory. They have a longer process that starts with a business plan competition and extends over the course of a year or more. There are five finalists each year and the top 3 receive $25k, $15k, and $10k in addition to other free services and mentorship.

I was very impressed with the Puerto Rico startup scene. The community is highly educated, with expertise in biotech, aerospace, manufacturing, and more. I met a dozen young entrepreneurs and many of the elders of the community as well. The energy and enthusiasm was infectious!

The five finalists that presented were:

• Adiestrate.com - Online Learning Classes
• Edunarium - Online Learning Store
• EMM - Simulations for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
• NanoEssentials - Nanoparticle production
• Sonar Sending Technologies - Medical device for improving catheters

Unfortunately, none of the five really got my juices flowing. All of them had interesting ideas and viable businesses, they just weren't in my areas of expertise or interest. I wish there had been an email marketing company! Still i was impressed by what I saw and wish all of the companies the best in their entrepreneurial journey.

 

 

Angel Investor Panel moderated by Frank Peters

Frank Peters of the Tech Coast Angels led a fun and informative panel of angel investors with Mic Williams of the Boston Harbor Angels and Christian Meade from a Mexican angel investor group. Here are some of the best quotes from Twitter: 

"Don't tell me what the rate of return will be, tell me who your potential acquirers are" - Frank Peters

"Investors want NO risk, high return" - Mic Williams

"Investors want to give you money once you don't need the investment anymore." - Frank Peters

"New angel investors should 'just watch' for 6 months before investing. At the start, every deal looks good!" - Frank Peters

I definitely plan on checking out the Frank Peters Show podcast about startups and angel investing.

Corporate Venture Capital with Blake Modersitski

Next we heard Blake Modersitski speak about corporate venture capital. For a while he ran the venture capital group at Novell (reporting to Eric Schmidt, who is now CEO of Google) and now he's with UV Partners. 

Blake warned to "be careful about taking a high valuation early on [from a strategic investor who might be less valuation focused], it can make it harder to raise more money later." 

He also cautioned that "if you're taking venture capital from a company, cut your business deal first because it can be harder to do it after." 

 

From Bootstrapping to Venture Capital with Brian Halligan

My favorite talk of the day was probably Brian Halligan from Hubspot. He had great content but also a fun and engaging delivery. Many of his points resonated well with the Startup Lessons portion of my keynote that followed. 

Brian presented an interesting equation to illustrate just how hard it is to get funded by a VC. Most VC's require up to 8 meetings to a termsheet, and at each step of the way it just takes one "No" to eject you out of the process. He gave most people a 50/50 shot at each step, which leads to the following formula:

    F(VC) = 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 
    F(VC) = about 1 in 200 = 1/2 of one percent

I don't think he was trying to be exact, but more just to show how the process works and how easy it is to get a "No" somewhere along the way.

Some of my favorite quotes from Brian's talk:

• "Syndication is bad for founders - it's better to make the VC's compete"
• "Build it or sell it: you only need 2 founders for your startup"
• "Series A is about founders, Series B is about market, Series C is about business model"
• "don't bootstrap by just writing checks from your bank account, instead you should invest with a convertible note" 

Keynote - Mission: Austinpreneur by Joshua Baer

My keynote was the conclusion of the event and I presented over lunch in a beautiful room overlooking the sea. I talked about my passion for entrepreneurship and the companies that I've started, described Capital Factory 2009, and shared some Startup Lessons I've learned along the way. I wasn't able to record the whole thing but I have 20 minutes that tell my story from my first dorm-room dotcom in 1999 to the founding of Capital Factory.

I'm hoping to be invited back next year. I would love to come early and help the companies to prepare their pitches.

Keep your eye on Puerto Rico

Some of the entrepreurs that I talked to said that they often are discouraged from pursuing entrepreneurship - they are told that it would be better to get a safe government job. I think they just need some success stories to point at. And with them, more successful entrepreneurs as mentors. Fortunately there seems to be a strong sense of loyalty to the homeland - many of the people I met were born in Puerto Rico, went to school or a job in the US, and then came back to Puerto Rico. And I could see that they are bringing back more and more of the entrepreneurial spirit.

Overall I was very impressed with the entrepreneurial community in Puerto Rico. It's small but passionate. It's just going to get easier and easier for startups in Puerto Rico. The same forces that made "$500,000 the new $5,000,000" will soon make $5,000 the new $500,000. As the cost of starting new companies drops capital will no longer be a limiting factor.

Here are the complete slides from my keynote: