Denton’s first Jelly: September 4th
August 27, 2008
In the spirit of coworking, Denton is hosting it’s first Jelly (Jellys are semi-regular ‘work-togethers’.) Stormy Shippy is hosting the Jelly in Denton in the loft above First People’s Jewelry at 117A North Elm Street. RSVP on Facebook here.
Description from the Facebook event page: Jelly is casual coworking. And a first of more to come for Denton. We invite people to work from our home for the day. We provide chairs, tables, and sofas, wireless internet, and interesting people to talk to, collaborate with, and bounce ideas off of. You bring a laptop (or whatever you need to get work done) and a friendly disposition. There will be developers, designers, musicians, and more from both Denton and the DFW area. Drop in as needed throughout the day to work. When things wind down those left will stick around Downtown to eat, drink, listen to Jazz, and dance to the 80’s. Please spread the word to any friends that may also be interested.
If you are interested you can give Stormy a call at 940-293-3626 or email him at stormyshippy (at) gmail.
Startup Happy Hour: Meet Entrepreneurs from Peru!
August 26, 2008
***DATE CHANGE*** We are moving the date of the next Startup Happy Hour from September 1st to September 8th to be able to host a group of entrepreneurs from Peru. Please RSVP HERE.
The U.S. Department of State and the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth has asked if we would be willing to host a delegation of entrepreneurs from Peru at our Startup Happy Hour on the 8th. Nancy Tourk, the Director of the International Visitor Program for the World Affairs Council, attended the last startup happy hour and thought it would be a great event for the delegation to attend. Here is an explanation of the program:
The World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth in collaboration with the World Learning Visitor Exchange Program will implement a practical and stimulating training and exchange program with Peru to educate 30 emerging young entrepreneurs in entrepreneurial thinking and business leadership skills to empower them to engage in business development. This program is designed to increase the participants’ understanding of how individual entrepreneurs create economic growth, strengthen professional ties between U.S. and Peruvian business organizations and provide an appreciation of American business practices and the rich diversity of American society.
To achieve these objectives, the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth will work with its many member organizations and existing business relationships to match participants with companies that meet their interests and will expose them to professional training and networking opportunities that will enhance the development and completion of their action plans. In addition to a challenging professional program, the WAC will offer the participants many cultural opportunities to learn more about the region and to interact with American citizens. Finally, to complement the entrepreneurs’ professional and cultural program, each participant will be hosted by an American family for their duration of their time in the Metroplex.
The Dallas Startup Happy Hour is the talk of the startup community in Dallas. As a result of the events, several startups have found a) employees, b) co-founders, c) angel investors and d) had a few free drinks. We are moving the September 1st event to September 8th to be able to host a delegation of entrepreneurs from Peru. Are you interested in connecting with the local startup community? We are working to build a vibrant startup community here in Dallas every bit as interesting and dynamic as San Francisco, Boulder, Boston or Austin. The first step is engagement. This week we are excited to be able to potentially help make a few international connections possible thanks to the U.S. Department of State of the World Affairs Council. Come meet a delegation of entrepreneurs from Peru as well as a host of local entrepreneurs who live in your backyard.
Sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, the World Affairs Council and of course SpringStage - you are invited to attend, but please RSVP on upcoming.
What: Startup Happy Hour
When: Monday, September 8th, 5PM-8PM
Where: High Tech bar at the INFOMART (corner of Oak Lawn and I35)
Why: To meet entrepreneurs like you
Cost: FREE
The Startup Lawyer - Ryan Roberts
August 25, 2008
Ryan Roberts and I became acquainted this summer at our Startup Happy Hour events. He writes a top notch blog titled, “The Startup Lawyer”. Ryan is helping out with our Angel/Entrepreneur efforts (ironically I only found his blog when he wrote a post titled, ‘Making Dallas the City of Angels‘). After several conversations it became clear that we both shared a similar view of the startup world. I have referred a few entrepreneurs his way, but I figured I better get some first hand experience so this weekend I engaged him to do some securties work for a new startup we are organizing. I’ll keep you posted on a) the quality, b) the speed, and c) the affordability of his legal work. In the meantime, I will be subscribing to his blog - you should too.
Made for Hollywood: Ben Mezrich
August 25, 2008
Lots of you ask, “What are you reading these days?” Yesterday I managed to finish Rigged, by Ben Mezrich. Ben has been a favorite ’summer’ author of mine for quite some time. He wrote ‘Bringing Down the House’ also called ‘Busting Vegas: The MIT Whiz Kid Who Brought the Casinos to Their Knees’ in 2005. The book was turned into a movie called 21. Around the same time as ‘Busting Vegas or Breaking Vegas (as it was known in paperback) was released he wrote ‘Ugly Americans: A True Story of High Stakes, Dirty Deals and One Man’s $500 Million Gamble.’ His books are interesting on a number of levels. First, they don’t take much attention to read (i.e. you don’t have to concentrate very hard to enjoy them). Second, they are ALWAYS ‘high concept’ involving youth, money and risk - BUT you get a payoff in that you learn something. Ben’s latest book is called ‘Rigged: The True Story of an Ivy League Kid Who Changed the World of Oil, from Wall Street to Dubai‘.
Rigged was a fun little book from start to finish. Ben’s description of the New York Merchantile Exchange was facinating. Amazon explains it better than I would, “After conquering the hallowed halls of Harvard Business School, he enters the testosterone-laced warrens of the Merc Exchange, the asylumlike oil exchange located in lower Manhattan. A place where billions of dollars trade hands every week, the Merc is like a casino on crack, where former garbagemen become millionaires overnight and where fistfights break out on the trading floor. This ordinary kid has traded Brooklyn for the gold-lined hotel palaces of Dubai. He keeps company on the decks of private yachts in Monte Carlo—teeming with half-naked girls flown in by Saudi sheiks—and makes deals in the dangerous back alleys of Beijing. But the Merc is just a starting place. Taken under the wing of another young gun and partnering with a mysterious young Muslim, the kid embarks on a dangerous adventure to revolutionize the oil trading industry—and, along with it, the world. Rigged is the explicit, exclusive, true story behind the headlines that dominate the world stage.”
Fun, light reading that will surely find its way onto a theater screen near you next summer!
83 Beers on the wall!
August 23, 2008
Wired magazine has a hit piece on Dallas-based Stampede beer. Now that Jessica Simpson owns the vitamin-enhanced beer it would seem the company is now the target of ridicule ~ undeserved in my opinion. According to Wired you could drink an infinite amount of Stampede beer and NOT get your daily allowance of vitamin A, C or E. But, in what I suspect is a shrewed business strategy on the part of Jessica, you CAN get your daily allowance of vitamin B by drinking 83 light Stampede beers. Sort of like the old shampoo trick, “apply, rinse, repeat” ~ if Stampede can get their customers to drink 83 light beers each day, imagine the return on Jessica’s investment! And they say Jessica isn’t that smart…
Developer with business, needs business partner!
August 22, 2008
Devon Cannon had been running a family community website called FamilyLobby for the past couple of years. Devon, a reader of the blog, called me the other day and stopped by the office earlier today. The site is generating about $120,000 a year in revenue (90% from subscriptions) and he feels that with a little outside funding he can easily grow revenues signficantly. He has over a million page views per month so I suspect he could generate even more with a little targeting sponsorship dollars from someone like Geni.
My first thought was that he needs a partner. Someone with business, marketing and advertising experience. Basically a new set of experienced eyes to help look at the business and position it for the growth investment capital could help drive. Are you looking for a startup to join? Are you a non-technical business expert looking for a technical business partner with a business? Give Devon a call at 972.741.6125 or email him at davon (at) familylobby.com.
Services Startup Cash Flow Trick!
August 22, 2008
Is your startup in the services business? Having a hard time supporting your existing clients, much less new clients you want to bring on? Need to hire a few more employees to make it happen? We had this experience at one of our companies a while back. We were having a hard time finding people we wanted to hire. Lots of applicants, but none of them were a perfect fit. So instead of hiring people we didn’t like or losing our existing clients (offering a reduced service level) we increased our prices 30% across the board. We lost a few clients, but in the end the additional margin from the existing clients more than offset for the client losses. The real upside was we had a reduced workload ~ fewer clients generating the same revenue at a higher margin! (oh and fewer employees to manage makes life exponentially easier)
My two favorite marketing strategies in the services business are scarcity and exclusivity. By keeping headcount lean, you reduce your ability to add new clients. This is not a bad thing assuming you are not funded by a venture capital firm with deep pockets who wants hockey stick top line growth. In a bootstrapped services startup, this scaricity will work to your advantage. Imagine sitting with a potential client who wants to hire your firm and trying to explain that your service is so popular and sought after the first available turnup slot is three months from now. Further imagine having three clients all ready to hire you, but you can only pick one. Guess what, you get to raise your prices. Raise your prices to the point that you only have one client begging you to start. This scarcity and relative price advantage will make your service exclusive. Not everyone can a) get your service and b) afford your service. Of course your service needs to be better ~ you can’t offer subpar service for more for very long.
Jason Calacanis is DEAD wrong!
August 22, 2008
Last week in a post titled, ‘Startup PR - the don’ts‘ I asked for advice on how to get PR for a startup. Jason Calacanis was nice enought to respond in a post yesterday titled, “How to Get PR for your Startup: Fire Your PR Company“. I reviewed his post in detail and found his advice to be VERY useful. The only problem with his post is the title, ‘Fire your PR Company‘. Asumming, of course, that your PR folks are ‘doing no harm’ nothing about Jason’s advice is mutual exclusive to having PR professionals on your team. PR folks, instead of spamming people, could easily help many CEOs implement Jason’s advice. Assuming he didn’t ‘lift‘ this advice from DEMO I highly recommend taking his advice to heart: “be amazing, be everywhere, be real” in ten easy steps:
- Be the brand
- Be everywhere
- Always pick up the check-always
- Be a human being
- Bond with journalist
- How to email a journalist
- How to speak to a journalist
- Invite people to ’swing by’ your office
- Attach your brand to a movement
- Embrace small media outlets
Not every CEO is great at say, ‘being a human being’, a savvy PR professional can help turn a nasty Klingon into a loveable Vulcan in no time. Seriously, PR people can help you execute on Jason’s advice. So fire your PR company if they suck, but keep them around if they ‘get it’ and can help you execute on a PR strategy that works. Oh and I don’t really think Jason is DEAD wrong, actually I think he is mainly right.
KBZZ radio is now Big in Japan!
August 20, 2008
The KBZZRadio guys are our first colo-only coworking tenant. They are housing their online radio program in our data center free of charge. KBZZ is lead by John Porter who got into computers over twenty years ago. He began his business focusing on computer and network support. On the side he did radio in production as well as doing interviews and found out radio was something he really loved.
Approaching a VC (How-to)
August 19, 2008
Chris Wand offers advice worth a read titled, “How do I approach a VC I don’t know?” Check it out.
Startups are made of people!
August 19, 2008
Fred Wilson has an interesting post titled, “The Human Piece of the Venture Equation” where he wonders aloud how he is going to deal with the fact that so many of his CEOs are so young (Tumblr CEO is 21, Disqus CEO is 22, Etsy founder is 28, Pinch Media CEO is 29, Twitter CEO is 31, Return Path CEO was 28). He explains,
But as a company grows, the rookie mistakes become harder to manage around. The value that everyone has invested in the business, most importantly the work of the team, starts to weigh on everyone’s minds. The CEO’s job goes from managing the product, writing a little code, doing customer support, and raising money to managing people and teams, processes and priorities. It’s not a job that most people enjoy doing and it’s a job where experience really does matter.
Suggesting that many founders simply don’t scale into the ‘permanent’ CEOs, he is worried that he and his peers may not be “prepared to deal with these issues. They are hard. And each one is different. But in order to build the best companies we can, we need to get the people side of the equation right.”
Dallas coworking coverage from Launchpad
August 19, 2008
Spike Gillepsie covered our coworking space here at Big in Japan in a post titled, “More coworking models: from high end to zero down“. Thanks Spike.
Careerbuilder, wonderfully exasperating!
August 19, 2008
Yesterday our operations manager suggested I post three openings we had on Careerbuilder. Instead of turning over the task to our in house recruiter I decided to post the jobs myself. Three 30 day job postings were over $1,000! Anyway, I completed the forms and entered my AMEX information into the site. I received an email indicating that the jobs would be posted in a couple of hours. Around 8PM I received this email:
From: “CareerBuilder Site Integrity” <CSI@careerbuilder.com>
Date: August 18, 2008 3:22:00 PM CDT
To: “Alexander Muse”
Subject: CareerBuilder Order RejectionThank you for choosing CareerBuilder.com. We apologize for any inconvenience; however, we need more information in order to complete our verification process for Order Number: CT-1233356 . Please contact our Trust & Site Security Team at 1-800-891-8880, Monday through Friday, between the hours of 8 AM to 7 PM EST; Saturday and Sunday, between the hours of 4 PM to 6 PM EST. We welcome the opportunity to speak with you directly so that we may gather the necessary information. CareerBuilder’s Site Integrity and Compliance Team. This is an automated message. Please do not respond to this email address.
I called the number and was advised that EVERY order over $1,000 is rejected and the customer is sent the same standard email requiring a call to their 800 number. Really? Why bother taking orders online over $1000? Why not tell me that I need to call to verify my order IMMEDIATELY? Why waste a full day? The funny part was that the person I talked to NEVER actually verified my identity, instead he only asked if I was aware the charge was over $1,000. I told him I was and that was the end of the call - he accepted the order. My advice to Careerbuilder:
- Since you don’t sell anything physical (i.e. a TV) there isn’t much risk in taking the order. If AMEX declines the charge you simply take down the posting. There is no additional cost to taking the order.
- If you must phone verify orders over $1,000, offer to do it at time of purchase or at least generate an outbound call. Do NOT require the customer to call an 800 number with long hold times the day after you take an order. It is just rude.
- Also, don’t have your operators say, “How can I provide you wonderful service today?” It is a stupid thing to say and falls on very cynical ears.
Why DISD is failing our kids. . .
August 17, 2008
Failing your kids anyway, I wouldn’t send my kids to DISD if you paid me and I live in the district. DISDs new grading policy is plain crazy:
- Homework grades should be given only when the grades will “raise a student’s average, not lower it.
- Teachers must accept overdue assignments, and their principal will decide whether students are to be penalized for missing deadlines.
- Students who flunk tests can retake the exam and keep the higher grade.
- Teachers cannot give a zero on an assignment unless they call parents and make “efforts to assist students in completing the work.”
- High school teachers who fail more than 20 percent of their students will need to develop a professional improvement plan and will be monitored by their principals. For middle school the rate is 15 percent; for elementary it’s 10 percent.
Lots of folks agree including Ms. Floyd from the Dallas Morning News and Tim Rogers from D. Tim’s explains, “My favorite directive is this one: homework grades should be given only when the grades will “raise a student’s average, not lower it.” Hinojosa says, “Our mission is not to fail kids.” The district’s stance is that students who get bad grades fall behind, lose hope of catching up, and simply give up. The district’s solution, in short: don’t give students bad grades. This is worse than absurd.”
I have written about DISD before, noting that the district only graduates 44% of students who attend. I assume that if they stop flunking kids they assume their graduation rates will increase. Great stuff guys!
Startup Happy Hour on Monday
August 16, 2008
This summer we began experimenting with the Startup Happy Hour. The idea was to hold several casual meetups for entepreneurs over the summer. To that end we have been holding a ‘Startup Happy Hour’ every other Monday at 5PM where around 50 people (20 regulars and 30 uniques) have shown up throughout the summer. I think I have met around 110 people I didn’t know over the summer. In my opinion the happy hours have been a success and quite a bit of fun - hopefully they have been fruitful for some of you.
On Monday we will be hosting the last summer Startup Happy Hour at the usual place and time (5-8PM at the High Tech Bar at the INFOMART - please RSVP here). Starting in September we will be moving to a once a month format. The new format will allow for a little more planning including perhaps organized demos or presentations. I hope you all can make it on Monday the 18th. Let us know if you are planning to come (on the Upcoming page) so that we can plan accordingly.
Finally, we are having a small get together an hour before at 4PM to talk about the angel/entrepreneur group I have been talking about. If you would like to join us just come upstairs at 4PM on Monday before the happy hour. Hope to see you either way. Cheers!
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