w3w3.com

Straight Talk Series... Prepare for coming ups and downs

Straight Talk about the Ups and Downs of the Coming Market
1378_ 4/24/13 - At the 'Straight Talk' Luncheon Series, program last week, Chris Pelley, CEO & Managing Director of Capital Investment Management (CIMCO) introduced an old friend and today's keynote speaker, Mike Robertson, 'an experienced investment advisor'. Chris says, "Mike wants to share his wisdom and advice gathered over the years - he enjoys complex problem solving and helping people see there are better ways of doing things." Mike's radio show has been very successful in Texas for the past few years - they're now opening up in Denver, broadcasting weekdays from 7:00am to 8:00am on Denver radio, AM-1060 on your dial. Larry was really interested and surprised at some of the things Mike talked about that maybe coming up in this year and in the next few years... Robertson said, "Well, I'm really happy, like everyone, that we've done so well these last couple of years. You roll back the clock and talk to somebody about this time in 2009 - the market was just beginning to turn around. We'd gone through a devastating loss, the market was off by 57% and people were really depressed. Okay, it's recovered now. One of the things that's great about Americans is we wake up in the morning ready to conquer the world, but we also tend to forget history a little bit. So my concern now is that people are not preparing for the next time it's going to happen. I can't say when it's going to happen, the pull back in the market - There will be a pull back. How deep will it be? Who knows. Obviously we've done very well, we've come back a very long way. We have some systemic problems in the U.S. - We have way too much debt. We've got interest rates at zero, you have people that are investing in investments like stocks that have never been there before. There are people that literally used to invest in CDs that could get 7 - 8 - 10% on their CDs... they're actually going to invest in stocks now because that's the only place they can get in." The bond market? Your interest rates are practically zero - they peaked on September 30th of 1981 - interest rates have been dropping since that time. They've pretty well hit the floor now and there is really only one way to go now. They can stay where they are now, at zero. Or, they're going to go down in price as interest rates rise - at some point interest rates will rise... that's just the way it is, everything goes in cycles. The important thing to remember is to prepare for those cycles in advance. Mike's favorite quote, by John F. Kennedy, 'The best time to prepare the roof is when the sun is shining.' ...listen for more valuable information...
Chris Pelly, Capital Investment Management, Securities offered through First Allied Securities, Inc. A Registered Broker/Dealer (Member FINRA/SiPC) Advisory services offered through First Allied Advisory Services Inc., A Registered Investment Advisor. Mike Robertson, Robertson Wealth Management, Securities offered through First Allied Securities, Inc. A Registered Broker/Dealer (Member FINRA/SiPC) Advisory services offered through First Allied Advisory Services Inc., A Registered Investment Advisor
RELATED LINKS: CIMCO || Community Reach || Social Entrepreneurs || Straight Talk Event Photos || KEYWORDS: Mike Robertson, Wealth Creation, Chris Pelley, Capital Investment Management, CIMCO, Straight Talk, Jeffrey Hartmann, CDs, Bonds, Interest Rates, John F. Kennedy, Ben Bernanke, Federal Debt, bytes=5868119
LISTEN TO: Mike Robertson, Robertson Wealth

Powered by Podbean.com

JumpStart 2013 Denver's economic development strategy continues
1376_ 4.17.13 - There are more than 25,000 Denver businesses and enterprises, approximately 420 of which have more than 100 employees. However, the 420 firms with more than 100 employees represent nearly 50 percent of the total jobs in Denver. Compared to the U.S. economy, Denver has a significantly higher concentration of persons employed in the energy, healthcare, information technology, finance and professional/business services fields. These firms generally produce high-value products and services. Employees of these firms tend to receive higher wages and are required to hold advanced educational training. Top concerns of Denver’s employers include a strong educated workforce, safe and energetic business areas, and reasonable operating costs as compared to other parts of the state and country. In 2013, OED will continue to focus on retaining three groups of businesses: (1) the largest private and nonprofit employers; (2) high-growth sector companies; and (3) firms with soon-to-be expiring leases. A continuous outreach campaign to owners and C-level executives will demonstrate the city’s commitment to the business community while identifying issues and highlighting the benefits of operating a company in Denver. We are setting focus on the best strategies to advance economic prosperity for the city, its neighborhoods, residents and businesses. The 2013 JumpStart strategy provides a clear signal to the community as to how we are working to build a stronger Denver, with jobs and housing opportunities for all. And, JumpStart 2013 is a road map for our staff — it drives the work plans and priorities for all OED staff divisions. Because economic development is a continuous, multi-year task, this year’s strategic plan also includes a separate longer-term plan that sets forth our strategic direction for the next three years. You’ll see that our 2013 initiatives relate directly to this broader three-year plan. Similarly, our future annual plans will also support the long-term strategy. JumpStart 2013 clearly builds upon our successes from last year. We again have seven main sections, or what I refer to as “pillars” of economic development. Each of our pillars for 2013 includes a series of bold, forward-thinking strategic initiatives to help us accomplish our important mission. The OED will continue to engage in partnerships with business industry groups, including better support for renewable and traditional energy companies located in downtown Denver. This heightened focus will result in more business leaders choosing to live, work, play and stay in Denver.
RELATED LINKS: Denver OED || JumpStart 2013 Denver || Greenprint Denver || Entrepreneurs || KEYWORDS: Paul Washington, Denver, Office of Economic Development, Jump Start 2012, Business Retention, Small Business Advocacy, Business Recruitment, Sustainable Neighborhood Development, Business Lending, Workforce Development, Key Strategic Projects, bytes=6260927
LISTEN TO: Paul Washington, Executive Director, OED, City & County Denver

Powered by Podbean.com

Strategic Equity firm, focused on education & healthcare...

Kevin Custer, 15-20 million people who need product and services

1371_ 4/5/13 - Kevin Custer serves as the president of the board for the Autism Society of Colorado, he also works on the national board of directors. and Kevin is the founding partner of Arc Capital Development, a strategic equity firm that focuses on education and healthcare. Strategic equity is different than private equity or venture capital in that we invest from $150,000 up to $1 million at a strategic time in a company, when it's time for them to get to the next inflection point. Different from venture capital - it's later stage than that, earlier than private equity. Larry asked, "Why education and why healthcare?" Kevin replied, "We see a convergence of those two. We look at the healthcare space and we specialize a lot in the development of the schools. We see that as an emerging market. When you look at a healthcare market, you look at the different service providers, be it hospitals, clinics, professionals prescribing or non-prescribing, even the consumers now are starting to look at that. One of the largest providers of healthcare services in the U.S., specifically for children is the U.S. School System, because every child starting at the age of three is eligible for services through the school system. What we've seen happen is that market really starting to emerge. Larry asked Kevin what he meant when he said 'emerging market'. Kevin said, "There has always been a need for products and services in the development of the school area. What we have seen happen, specifically with Autism, is fifteen years ago there were a couple hundred thousand people with Autism in the United States - now there's close to two million. Just our school system alone has had a 10X increase and they need services, they need products, they need adapting equipment, things like that. On top of that the CDC believes one in six people need some type of adaptive or assistive help in their daily life. That is people with developmental disabilities, they've had a stroke, traumatic brain injury, whatever it is, we see that as the emerging market. That's 15-20 million people, just in the U.S. who need product and services. Products and services have been around for a long time, but they've been very expensive and complicated to use." ...there's more...
RELATED LINKS: Arc Capital Development || Autism Society of Colorado || Autism Society National || Walk Page || ASC Programs || Donate || KEYWORDS: Kevin Custer, Arc Capital Development, Autism Society of Colorado, ASC Programs, Strategic Equity, Emerging Market, Social Express, Capital, bytes=5287082
LISTEN TO: Kevin Custer, Founding Partner, Arc Capital Development

Powered by Podbean.com

Tech Transfer proof-of-concept investments work

Tom Smerdon, success in marketing new ideas
1364_ 3/13/13 - From a business person's point of view, the Technology Transfer Office is one of the most important things that the university provides, for business, individual professors and students, with everything from awards and recognition but most importantly really helping them along when they come up with an idea. Larry is with Tom Smerdon, Interim Associate Vice President of the University of Colorado Technology Transfer Office in Boulder. Tom said, "There are a couple of the things I'd like to bring to the listeners attention. One, which we're really excited about, is the recent acquisition of a CU startup. F5 Networks has acquired LineRate Systems, a Colorado startup that’s developing technologies around what’s called software define networking. F5 noted that the networking technologies will help bring superior service agility, application intelligence, and programmability to software defined data centers. The thing that is exciting about this is, not only was this a startup basically out of Computer Sciences and Electrical Engineering here on the CU Boulder campus, but the company was also an early recipient of the Proof-of-Concept investment from the Tech Transfer Office. This was the first money into the company which really helped it acquire some critical equipment early on and facilitated the development of the technology that was later further developed in its Louisville office and ultimately the subject of the sale to F5. This is one of the success stories for Tech Transfer and we're really excited for the company and the founders. A couple of events that are coming up; we are doing our Tech Transfer Awards a little differently this year. Previously there had been a single awards event covering the system campuses held in Denver. This year we're going to have campus focused events, so we have the Boulder Awards event which is scheduled for April 1st. This is in conjunction with the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship. The program, Entrepreneurship Under the Microscope, is an evening event with a keynote speaker and we will be awarding the Inventor of the Year, New Inventor of the Year, and Company of the Year during a fun networking event with CU-Boulder faculty and students, and members of the Boulder entrepreneurial community. We have the second awards event planned... there's more...
RELATED LINKS: CU Technology Transfer Office || CU TTO Channel || TTO Blog || LineRate Systems || KEYWORDS: Tom Smerdon, Interim Associate Vice President, Tech Transfer Office, University of Colorado, Technology Transfer, LineRate Systems, F5, Awards, bytes=4401426
LISTEN TO: Tom Smerdon, Interim Associate Vice President. Tech Transfer, University of Colorado

Powered by Podbean.com

Lean Startup Mode - use free web services...

Jim Franklin, it's a great idea to use free web services
1363_ 3/12/13 - Larry sat down with Jim Franklin, CEO, SendGrid at their new office in Denver to get an update. SendGrid is a cloud based email service. So they move email from an application to an application's user. The best way to describe it is by example. Pinterest is one of our best customers. When you pin somebody on Pinterest and it gets repined, the application sends you an email letting you know that your content has been repined. With that application generated email we send to the users of that application. We do that for clients like Pinterest; Foursquare; Carbonmade; Spotify; GetSatisfaction that amounts to over 135,000 customers around the world. "Almost all of our business starts with brand new startups." To people starting something, using lean startup principles, it's a great idea to use free web services to help you start faster and cheaper. SendGrid is just one of those services that many startups choose to use. Jim went onto say, "Biggest challenges facing businesses today is hiring people. As we in the technology community recognize there is virtually zero unemployment in technology, especially for people who are coders and are building things. It's just a very, very hot sector. We have offices in Boulder, Denver, Anaheim, we're just opening in San Francisco. We're looking actually on the west coast, Vancouver, Seattle, San Diego, trying to have a development team in the same time zone if not in the same city. We have people in Romania and Ireland and other places. It's challenging to manage across time zones. But, clearly the number one issue is recruiting people especially technical people. The opportunities are many and vast. With SendGrid the big opportunities we see are around cloud computing. We think it's early days for cloud computing. It's a very large strong trend that in the U.S. has very good momentum. Thanks to companies like Sales Force and Net Suite, they've really pioneered the way to show people they can put enterprise applications in the cloud and have it be trustworthy. Amazon has also paved the way for startups to use web services to very cheaply and quickly ..."
Jim offers some great business advice ...Listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: SendGrid || TechStars || Software Channel || PodCasting Directory || KEYWORDS: Jim Franklin, SendGrid, Software, TechStars, eMail, Pinterest; Foursquare; Carbonmade; Spotify; GetSatisfaction, Entrepreneurship, Brad Feld, bytes=6031885
LISTEN TO: Jim Franklin, CEO, SendGrid

Powered by Podbean.com

Bootstrapping Part 2

"Commissioned sales people may be a thing of the past..."
1362_ 3/7/13 - ...Bill Flagg was convinced he needed the service and would probably buy within the next month. But, the commissioned sales person was so motivated to get the sale in by the end of the quarter, that he gave Bill a 30% discount - on the entire contract, a big dollar amount. Not only did Bill not get value from this sales person, he had to go to the tech guy to get his real questions answered - You need a technology partner willing to work for sweat equity - cast a wide net in the beginning... Bootstrapping, more insights,
Watch Now Part 2 of 2
Crash Course, Bootstrapping || The Felix Fun || Bill Flagg Blog || Economy Builders || PodCast Directory || KEYWORDS: Bill Flagg, Crash Course Bootstrapping, Silicon Flatiron Center, Brad Bernthal, The Felix Fun, RegOnline, PosterBrain, SnapEngage, StickerGiant, SurveyGizmo, SFC Crash Course
Video - Bill Flagg, The Felix Fun - SFC Crash Course Series, Bootstrapping

TTO Covers Entire CU System

Funding biotech technologies with matching funds for startup companies
1333_ 1/11/13 - We're back with Tom Smerdon, Interim Associate Vice President of the University of Colorado Technology Transfer Office in Boulder. We are starting the new year with a look at some metrics for the past year as well as a look at the coming year. The Tech Transfer Office covers the entire Colorado University system, with campuses in Boulder, downtown Denver, the Anschutz Medical Campus and the Colorado Springs campus. The bulk of the research dollars are going into the Boulder as well as the medical campus and most of the inventions are going to be coming out of that research from those campuses. But there is still a significant amount of research going on in Colorado Springs and some in downtown Denver in terms of funded research. Tom said, "Last year we had 226 invention disclosures on a system wide basis. That was down from the year before, but still a very healthy number. Applications were a little above last year, we filed 261 applications and executed 47 option license agreements [in line with and greater than past years] but we'd certainly like to get that number up as well as the number of exclusive licenses which tend to be the real revenue generators. Last year we had 32 of those. In terms of startups, , there were ten spun out of the university system - split pretty evenly between Boulder and Denver with a couple out of Colorado Springs." This has been very steady, over the past 8 or 9 years, they've averaged about 10-11 each year. Tom is very pleased to tell us, "Most of those companies...listen for more ...
RELATED LINKS: CU Technology Transfer Office || CU TTO Channel || TTO Blog || Proof of Concept Programs || The Start-up Process || KEYWORDS: Tom Smerdon, Interim Associate Vice President, Tech Transfer Office, University of Colorado, Technology Transfer, Invention Disclosures, Start-ups, Funding, Biotech Technologies, Bio Science Discovery, Evaluation Grant Program BYTES=6922974
LISTEN TO: Tom Smerdon, IA VP, TTO University of Colorado

Powered by Podbean.com

Their mission was to seize and maintain control of space

Learn about the true heroes living amongst us
1331_ 1/10/13 - It is always such a pleasant surprise to find and learn about the true heroes living amongst us. So often they are quietly leading their lives with never a word of what they've accomplished and often continuing to give us more. We think it's part of the fabric of what makes them the heroes they are. The Community Reach Channel, sponsored by CIMCO (Capital Investment Management Company) and our friend Chris Pelley, proudly introduce us to Bud Ahearn. Bud spent thirty-four years in the United States Air Force where he retired as a Two-Star General, building and managing Air Force bases around the world, and then 20 years with CH2M Hill and over 10 years with Engineers Without Borders. Chris said, "Bud has been a role model and a guiding light in the field of social enterprise, where business people and corporations can find alignment and purpose." After graduating from engineering school in 1958, Bud joined the Air Force, stationed at Camp Cook Air Force Base, now known as Vandenberg Air Force Base. Bud said when he arrived it was a couple of posts and a rusty chain. It was chosen to be a space base where their mission in life was to seize and maintain control of space. This first assignment was awesome and filled with heroic aspiration, "...and our nation fulfilled that." This is the beginning of Bud Ahearn's career. As awe inspiring as that is, his story continues - a story that touches the world and continues to inspire and impress. Learn more about our local hero, General Joseph A 'Bud' Ahearn...
RELATED LINKS: Community Reach Channel || CH2M HILL || CIMCO || Engineers Without Borders Denver || Engineers Without Borders USA || Social Entrepreneurs || KEYWORDS: Bud Ahearn, Chris Pelley, CH2M Hill, CIMCO, Capital Investment Management Company, Two-Star General, Air Force, Community Reach, Hero, BYTES=10920754
LISTEN TO: Chris Pelley & General Joseph 'Bud' Ahearn, Local Hero

Powered by Podbean.com

For the holidays, Charm and humor over true grit...

Angel investor, strategic advisor and board member Video
1328_ 12/20/12 - Silicon Flatirons, ATLAS, NCWIT, and Quick Left present Wendy Lea as our featured entrepreneur with moderators Brad Bernthal, Brad Feld and Jill VanMatre. Speaker: Wendy Lea, CEO, Get Satisfaction Wendy Lea is the CEO of Get Satisfaction. Wendy founded The Chatham Group, where she currently serves as an angel investor, strategic advisor and board member for a long list of startup companies. Wendy chairs the board for women's entrepreneur group Watermark and serves on the board of Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund (SV2.org). She has been recognized as a Top 100 Woman of Influence in Silicon Valley. Entrepreneurs Unplugged is a meeting place where faculty, students and community members with technical backgrounds learn about and get involved in entrepreneurship. In particular, the program offers students and faculty an opportunity to learn how a successful start up is created as well as an opportunity to network. Each Entrepreneurs Unplugged meeting features food, drink and - most importantly - an experienced entrepreneur to discuss his/her start-up experiences. .
RELATED LINKS: Silicon Flatirons Center || Get Satisfaction || Event Photos || Foundry Group || KEYWORDS: Brad Feld, Wendy Lea, Silicon Flatirons Center, University of Colorado, ATLAS Institute, Jill VanMatre, Brad Bernthal, Entrepreneurs Unplugged, Video, Watch Entrepreneurs Unplugged with Wendy Lea, CEO, Get Satisfaction
Watch Video Entrepreneurs Unplugged, Wendy Lea

 

City of Denver Business Plan Competition

Jump Start 2012 is Denver's economic development strategy
1283_ 9/25/12 - We first met at a very powerful meeting here in Denver, Colorado. We'll talk about that, and Jump Start 2012, with Paul Washington, Executive Director in the Office of Economic Development for the City and County of Denver. As an overview, Jump Start 2012 is the City of Denver's economic development strategy for this year. Based on seven pillars of economic development 1. Business Retention, 2. Small Business Advocacy, 3. Business Recruitment, 4. Sustainable Neighborhood Development, 5. Business Lending, 6. Workforce Development and 7. Key Strategic Projects. Now, in each one of these pillars, there are a number of key initiatives and numerous milestones that need to be achieved in order to meet the strategic initiative. As part of the Small Business Advocacy focus, Paul tells us, they want to make sure they are doing everything to bring attention to the small business community in Denver. The reason this is important is because small businesses represent a huge percentage of Denver's workforce and employment base. As an economic development agency OED wants to make sure they do everything they can to support small business and bring positive attention to our entrepreneurs and then that will lead to more attraction to capital which will result in more employment opportunities, insuring that economic development will remain strong in Denver. One of these initiatives is ...Listen for more…
RELATED LINKS: Denver OED || JumpStart 2012 Denver || Greenprint Denver || Entrepreneurs || KEYWORDS: Paul Washington, Denver, Office of Economic Development, Jump Start 2012, Business Retention, Small Business Advocacy, Business Recruitment, Sustainable Neighborhood Development, Business Lending, Workforce Development, Key Strategic Projects > bytes=7085142
LISTEN TO:Paul Washington, OED, City & County of Denver

Powered by Podbean.com