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Where Great Ideas Succeed
1117_ 11/30/11 - The DaVinci Institute Inventors Showcase 2011, early in November in Broomfield, Colorado held some very interesting and exciting new inventions and devices. We are talking with Tom Frey of the DaVinci Institute and Louis Foreman, the CEO of Edison Nation, he's also publisher of Inventors Digest magazine and one of the foremost experts on the process of developing products and getting them into the market place. Edison Nation is one of the largest online platforms for people with great ideas. Louis said, "We all have great ideas, the problem is most people don't follow through with those ideas. They may not have the time, the money or the understanding of how you turn that sketch on the napkin into the product on store shelves." Larry asked, "Everyone is talking about the shortage of money, got some ideas?" Louis replied,""If you've got a great idea, some people take those ideas to market themselves. Others want to license their ideas and that can be a daunting process, and it's very expensive. It involves filing patents and building prototypes. What Edison Nation has tried to do is be a conduit between people who have great ideas and companies who are really looking for innovation." In light of the difficult economic environment Larry asked Louis if he felt there is a shortage of money out there or is it just being hidden? Louis said, "No I don't think there is a shortage of money, I think money gravitates to the best ideas. But you need visibility. And so how do you get your ideas in front of the right people, whether that be companies to license your idea or private equity or venture capitalists willing to invest in the best ideas. This year we launched a $25 Million Innovation Fund that invests about a quarter-million per idea to file the patents, build the prototypes, do everything necessary to get that product to market. Then when we are successful in licensing that product, we split everything with the inventor 50/50. So there's really no investment on the inventor's part other than sharing a great idea and then we do the execution. It's a great partnership." Tom Frey adds a bunch, too...
Related Links: DaVinci Inventor Showcase || DaVinci Institute || Louis Foreman Home || Entrepreneurs Channel || Keywords: Tom Frey, Louis Foreman, DaVinci Institute, Inventors Showcase, Edison Nation, Inventors Digest magazine, Investors, Private Equity, Venture Capitalists, Patents bytes=3173044
LISTEN TO:Tom Frey & Louis Foreman - Inventors

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If you are looking for funding, be prepared
1116_ 11/29/11 - For those of you who don't know Russ Farmer, he is a national expert on SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) and that's both grants as well as contracts. He also works with universities and that's STTR, a similar program. Russ is also the founder and president of PBC, Inc. and he's helped many companies get started. With the economic challenges we've been face with over the recent past we've asked Russ to shed some light on raising money, the right way. Russ likes to refer to it as a game that they play. He views all business as a very exciting, complex game and learning more about the game always makes you a better player. "In conjunction with that", Russ said, "we've observed the company out seeking funds will present to a number of companies/investors and typically will come down to a single investor. They get very friendly, talk back and forth, and the investor leads the company to believe that very quickly they're going to issue a term sheet. Once they've established a position of being the only investor - they continue to lead the company on." The company diminishes their cash to the point where they become very desperate for money. The more desperate the company becomes the less value they have and the portion of that company the investor will get becomes greater. From a small business or entrepreneur's standpoint, whose out raising money, there is a valuable less here that you can learn... Number one, you need to start very early on in the process, six to nine months of looking for an investor is not nearly long enough. You're not going to be able to get the kind of attraction, or be able to develop the relationships you need to have to get multiple people involved. What you really want to play to is having two investors independently... Russ offers more valuable advice to help you maximize your opportunity to create good value for the founding share holders and keep the game on an even keel...listen, there's more detail...
Related Links: PBC, Inc || SBIR Link || ADA Technologies || SBIR - Getting Prepared || Commercialization Channel || Keywords: Russ Farmer, Commercialization, SBIR, STTR, PBC, Government Regulations, Funding, Investors, Small Business, Entrepreneur, Grants, Contracts - bytes=6466145
LISTEN TO:Russ Farmer - Seeking Funds-Be Prepared

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A new money source called crowdfunding
1114_ 11/26/11 - We're talking about the most popular topic in the entrepreneurial sphere and that's about money, with Brian Tsuchiya, founder of Startup Guru. Brian is telling us about a new "money source" - first an overview. Brian explained, "The term is called crowdfunding. There are two different varieties and Brian offers this differentiation. Crowd funding today, the legal version is you can raise money through sites like KickStarter or IndieGoGo, if you have an idea and are selected, you can get a crowd of people. The largest deal that was ever done was on Kickstarter raising $973K from 13,000 donors and this person's goal was to raise like $15K. Brian offers this example to demonstrate how crowd funding, with small amounts can raise a significant round. The new concept is crowdfunding investing. You can take a security and sell that security through the Internet to a crowd of people. The concept has been around for a while the problem being the 1933/34 Securities Act prevents you from disclosing the security and publicly offering it. So if you have a great idea and people would invest - you can't reach them because it's really one-on-one, face-to-face or only accredited investors - or you go public which is very expensive. So there has been pressure to try to get the law updated. For 80+ years this has been the reality. Now, to change the law so that businesses can raise one-to-two million, as it is stated in HR2930 and would allow you to use the Internet to get small dollar amounts from a large number of investors [crowd funding], kind of like crowd sourcing and this is how open source was built. There is a huge momentum. This is about jobs. Without taxes, without government money, trying to free up, democratizing the funding environment for small offerings. For most business it's to get them off the ground or funding inventory growth, etc. It's not just for startups but startups can benefit from it...Listen for more details....
Related Links: H.R. 2930: Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act || Statement of Administration Policy || Startup Guru Home || Kickstarter || IndieGoGo || Mastering Change Book || Keywords: Brian Tsuchiya, Startup Guru, Crowdfunding, HR2930, Money, Investments, Entrepreneurs, 1933/34 Securities Act, White House, Startup America - bytes=6068248
LISTEN to: Brian Tsuchiya, Startup Guru

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Making a meaningful impact on new company creation
1113_ 11/24/11 - The Startup Colorado Public Launch was recently seen by Larry and Pat at a 'standing room only' session hosted by the Silicon Flatirons Center at the Wittemyer Courtroom, Wolf Law Building, University of Colorado. It was very exciting. There was a special thank you to Steve Halstedt, Brad Feld, Jason Mendelson, Silicon Valley Bank, and Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association for supporting the initiative. The opening introductions were from Vic Ahmed, President TiE-Rockies and CEO of Plug and Play Colorado along with David Mangum, Silicon Flatirons Research Fellow at University of Colorado and Executive Director, Startup Colorado. The opening keynote was Scott Case CEO, Startup America Partnership. Timothy "Scott" Case (not related to Steve Case) is a technologist, entrepreneur and inventor and was founding CTO of Priceline, the "Name Your Own Price" company that was one of only a handful of startups in U.S. history to reach a billion dollars in annual sales in less than 24 months. As Chief Technology Officer, he was responsible for building the technology that enabled Priceline’s hyper-growth. Most recently, Scott was named CEO and board member of the Startup America Partnership, where he’ll invest his energy to drive American entrepreneurship to create jobs and sustain our nation's global leadership. Listen to his exciting address...
Related Links: Twitter @scottcase || Startup America Partnership || Startup Colorado public launch || Silicon Flatirons Home || Entrepreneurs Channel || Keywords: Scott Case, Startup America Partnership, Startup Colorado Public Launch, Silicon Flatirons Center, Brad Feld, Jason Mendelson, Silicon Valley Bank, and Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association, Vic Ahmed, David Mangum bytes=11289394
LISTEN to: Scott Case, CEO, Startup America Partnership

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Critical components of a winning second stage company
1111_ 11/23/11 - Talk about an important, wonderful organization that is Colorado Companies to Watch and Stephanie Steffens, the program director, COCTW is part of a national program, the National Company Select Program was founded and hosted by the Edward Lowe Foundation out of Michigan. The first State to do a company select program was Michigan, eight years ago. Colorado was the fourth state in the nation to create a statewide program. Local economic developers came to Stephanie who was at the time the business retention coordinator for the Office of Economic Development and International Trade, and said we need a program like this, let's create it. So Colorado Companies to Watch was created in partnership with the Edward Lowe Foundation, local economic development groups - cities, counties, trade associations and businesses to recognize second stage companies across Colorado. And, to bring attention to the fact that these companies that are beyond startup but not yet mature, are creating a larger percentage of jobs for the percentage of companies than any other segment of our economy. Typically they fly under the radar, people don't even know they're there - but they are creating jobs and fueling the economic fire of Colorado... which is why we made that the tag line for the program. They need to be acknowledged and thanked but more importantly we need to give them the visibility that will help their businesses grow, and help them to continue to be successful and create jobs in Colorado. Being statewide makes this program unique and they work hard to make sure they get companies from all over the state, and every industry. Truly unique about COCTW is the focus on second stage companies. A second stage company is beyond startup but they don't have everything figured out yet. They obviously know what they're doing or they wouldn't have gotten beyond startup. They have between $750K and $50 Million in annual revenue; At least six employees including the owners, but no more than 100 ; and Demonstrate they are not only surviving but growing and dealing with challenges that make them more innovative and standout above companies like them...Listen for more...
Related Links: Colorado Companies to Watch || Colorado Companies to Watch Channel || PodCast Directory || Gala Event || w3w3 Blog || Keywords: Stephanie Steffens, Edward Lowe Foundation, Colorado Companies to Watch, COCTW, Second Stage Companies, Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, bytes=4777590
LISTEN to Stephanie Steffens, Program Director, Colorado Companies to Watch

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It's not just charity and philanthropy. It's about the bottom line
1112_ 11/22/11 - We're talking about one of Larry's favorite subjects, social enterprise, and he's cornered Chris Pelley, the founder of CIMCO a private wealth management firm. Chris has really been behind the social enterprise movement in our area and has organized an annual social enterprise program for years. ACG Denver is hosting this program on December 6th at the Denver Athletic Club, featuring Kim Jordan, Founder and CEO of New Belgium Brewery. Chris got involved with social enterprise seven or eight years ago as a result of his teen age daughters' interests and it was a big theme in major universities around the world. Social enterprise and social entrepreneurship really were an outgrowth, within the academic community and amongst non-profit people attempting to solve social problems in a more creative fashion. Social enterprise is a little bit of social justice with business acumen. As Chris and others talk about the ABCs of Social Enterprise; Collaboration, communication and, sustainability between academics, business and the citizen sector, they've realized they need more business acumen because they're top heavy with academics and nonprofits. Chris said, “It's getting business people involved because it's business metrics and business drive that makes a difference. Now we're seeing business enterprise that really is driven to solve problems that can make a profit. BTW that's not new; clean water is a social justice issue - try going without it for a few weeks. Yet water companies have been designed since the Roman Empire built the aqueducts. Sometimes our society overlooks that much of what business does is to promote social good, like creating jobs. But now there's more of a theme around clean and green and helping with starvation and all of these issues. To recap what we're trying to do is promote and highlight the fact that major global companies and middle market companies here in Colorado can actually improve their bottom line by being more mindful of social enterprise. It's not just doing well by doing good. It's not just charity and philanthropy. It is about bottom line results." There's much more to listen to...
Related Links: 5th Annual Business Social Entrepreneurship Event || Social Entrepreneurship Channel || Community Reach || CIMCO || Keywords: Chris Pelley, CIMCO, Capital Investment Management Company, ACG, Social Enterprise, Social Entrepreneurship, ICOSA, Kim Jordan, New Belgium Brewing bytes=7964946
LISTEN to Chris Pelley, Founder/CEO, CIMCO

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Spending time in the cloud and developing new products
1109_ 11/18/11 - Here in the midst of DefragCon 2011, [BTW 5th Anniversary] we've corralled one of the keynote speakers, Jason Carolan, the VP of Product Development at ViaWest. Jason says he has the 'funnest' job at ViaWest, he gets to develop crazy new products and see how they're used, spend a lot of time on cloud. ViaWest just had their launch last week and have a couple of different offerings that fit really well in the managed services and collocation side of the business. ViaWest is a super regional data center, collocation, managed services, cloud and hosting provider, with 22 centers across the western U.S., centered in Denver, but also have a big presence in Texas in the Dallas area; Salt Lake; and expanded into Portland and Las Vegas as well. Jason said, "We like to think of ourselves as being that local connection... you've got someone to call and we are really happy about our support staff and that personal data center, IP provider." There's a lot of talk about the cloud. When you talk to different people and they have different definitions or explanations of what it is... the fears and the happiness, so we asked Jason for an overview. "I think it's about getting the right resources at the right time, at the right price." and Jason said he's going to trademark that phrase. For some people it's just having their email hosted, for others it's about hosting complex applications and give them the structure around it - be able to monitor it and secure it. The right time means time to market. Jason says, ”Increasingly, the tools that developers need, which are closely aligned with the business - to get new features out, to go make money, is all about time to market, it's about how fast can I do that. The right price is the CFO, they want to know how much is this going to cost, is it predictable, how much is it going to cost when I scale it - so it's really the whole pricing model that is a big piece of cloud and how we make that very transparent for customers. Transparency is good but it's a challenge. Jason agrees and pointed out he spent 13-14 years on the vendor side of things and logging and telemetry and all these things are sometimes an afterthought. So when you're building all this and trying to get the right data back to the customer it's sometimes a challenge...listen for more...
Related Links: ViaWest || Defrag 2011 || In the News || Software Channel || Keywords: Jason Carolan, Viawest, Cloud, Defrag, Super Regional Data Center, Collocation, Managed Services, Hosting Provider, Innovation bytes=4380110
LISTEN to: Jason Carolan, VP Product Development, ViaWest

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Marketing expertise takes a Denver company global
1110_ 11/17/11 - We're back to check in on Denver based SwiftPage CEO, Bob Ogdon. It's been over a year and Bob tells us Swiftpage's world has become the whole world - in fact they've started actively working in the European countries of Germany, France and soon to be Spain. And, they do a lot of work in South Africa and Australia as well. SwiftPage is an email marketing company. They deliver, for the small business segment, a platform where they can send out their newsletters or marketing messages. It's inexpensive, targeted to that small, micro up to 100 employee type businesses - Swiftpage's main focus. Bob tells us they really get to market through OEM partnerships who have large audiences of small businesses and add a service to their service. And, they are seeing this dramatic change in the market where people have decided to try to get more money out of their existing customers. - So these small companies are trying to add new services rather than spending their money on getting new customers. You can try the SwiftPage service for free then the subscription starts at $15. They also have a service called Drip Marketing which is really bringing automated marketing down to small business. It's something that has been a mid market to enterprise solution. Larry asked Bob, “If you were to sit down with an entrepreneur, given the challenges we've faced over the past few years, what advice would you give them?” "Well as a matter of fact, said Bob, "I do sit down with a lot of entrepreneurs, and they're not all young - a lot of people are going down this path. The best time to start a business is in a down market. You spend the early phase of your business formulating plans, testing, reaching out, finding things that people need. Difficult periods are also times of change and that's when there are shifts in what would be available, opportunities. My encouragement is for people to look for what the world is going to be five years from now. Start building it and be ready when they show up." ...Listen for more details...
Related Links: Swiftpage || Try Swiftpage Free || Sage SalesLogix || Mastering Change Book || Keywords: Bob Ogdon, Swiftpage, Email Marketing, Surveys and Web Forms, Drip Marketing, Call List, Integrated Solutions, Sage SalesLogix, Newsletters - Bytes: bytes=4734540
LISTEN to: Bob Ogdon, CEO/Founder, SwiftPage

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Innovation - much less of an art and more of a science
1108_ 11/16/11 - Well we have another Colorado Companies to Watch Winner, we're with Matt Larson, CEO of Confio Software. Confio provides software that monitors two key pieces of the IT infrastructure inside of companies, data bases and the workflow environment. Data bases hold most of the companies important information and they are constantly changing and growing. The Confio data base monitoring software looks at how those data bases are performing in a new way that reveals hidden and significant problems. Confio also has software that monitors the virtual environment. Just one-and-a-half years ago Confio recognized this was going to be a major shift in the IT infrastructure and there were going to be very significant problems that needed to be solved. In the past applications would get their own individual server to run on inside of a data center. But most of the time those servers would just sit idle and that was a waste of money. Now applications are put into a virtual server that shares the physical server with lots of other virtual servers. The net effect of that is the underlying hardware is now working most of the time. So Confio's software monitors the virtual environment to make sure it's working correctly and if not how to fix it. Larry asked Matt what he felt the challenges are facing leaders today. Matt said, "I think a challenge that hasn't been nearly this significant in the past is uncertainty." The health bill is a great example, what's going to happen and regardless of which way it goes, what are the costs going to be. What will happen if Greece goes bankrupt, Italy and for that matter what happens if the U.S. can't figure out its own long term debt. These are questions that experts have a difficult time predicting what's going to happen, much less business leaders. As a result of that there is less hiring, less spending, less opportunity. When asked about opportunities for business, Matt said, "Innovation - it's become much less of an art and more of a science. The result of that is companies have a lower failure rate for new products and services than they've had in the past." Matt suggests companies should take the time to learn about these new best practices and implement them and that would be a pretty big opportunity for them...Listen for much more...
Related Links: Confio Software || Colorado Companies to Watch || Colorado Companies to Watch Channel || PodCast Directory || Gala Event || Keywords: Matt Larson, Confio Software, Lowe Foundation, Colorado Companies to Watch, Gala Event, COCTW, Second Stage Companies, Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade - bytes=5957488
LISTEN to: Matt Larson, Confio Software, Inc.

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Winning the Future through Open Innovation, Startup Colorado
1107_ 11/15/11 - Aneesh Chopra, White House Chief Technology Officer (CTO), visited the Defrag Conference, and the Startup Colorado Public Launch, to talk about recently unveiled initiatives targeted towards entrepreneurs and innovators in his keynote address entitled Winning the Future through Open Innovation. In an historic and groundbreaking approach to our nation’s most pressing problems, these initiatives seek to tap into the creative genius and solutions oriented focus demonstrated by those with the entrepreneurial spirit in an effort to “invent our way out” of some of the greatest dilemmas ever faced by our nation. Chief among these programs, a number of public – private partnerships arose from the push for bottom up change. Several regulatory agencies, such as the FDA, hope to benefit from the success and experience of entrepreneurs and CEO's through entrepreneurships in residences, and numerous contests have opened to the public designed to tap into innovative solutions. Announcements of novel, low cost, technology based solutions suggest success and significant positive movement within an atmosphere of openness, transparency, and collaboration. On Monday, November 7, 2011, the Veteran’s Job bank went live just 90 days after program conception. The job bank seeks to answer the challenge issued in August 2011 to hire 100,000 returning veterans, and does so in a manner that brings the job to the veterans, in their locale. Through open innovation and collaboration, Google, Bing, and Yahoo created schema.org , a jointly designed job-listing schema, which they in turn brought to the job search industry. SimplyHired and other job search vendors quickly jumped on board with the program, adding tags to jobs committed for veteran employment. The job schema search engine...there is much more in this article by Kirsten Nelson...
Related Links: Aneesh Chopra || Startup America Partnership || Startup Colorado Public Launch || Defrag Conference 2011 || Read Article by Kirsten Nelson || Keywords: Aneesh Chopra, US, CTO, White House, Silicon Flatirons Center, Defrag, Phil Weiser, Brad Feld, Vic Ahmed, Startup America Partnership, Startup Colorado, Kirsten Nelson - Watch Video: Aneesh Chopra US CTO the White House

Part 1 of 2 - Startup Colorado Launch

Part 2 of 2 - Startup Colorado Launch