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iVentures10: Starting up in Illinois

Posted on May 1, 2008
Filed Under VC, Technology, Chicago, Business | 1 Comment

As programs like Y Combinator and TechStars gained popularity I started to wonder why something along the lines of those programs didn’t exist here in Illinois. After all the modern web was pretty much born at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (mosaic/netscape, apache, etc.) and other notable web superstars like PayPal and YouTube have come from the minds of U of I grads. Well, I didn’t have to think about this idea for long…

Enter the iVentures10 program. iVentures10 is a program created by Illinois VENTURES initially as a “new kind of internship” for U of I computer science students. However, they recently announced a partnership with Mozilla along with their intention to take applications from around the world.

I think this is a fantastic thing for tech entrepreneurs based here in Illinois and a great way to get others that aren’t based here to spend a summer here in Illinois building their companies. Hopefully we can all show them such a good time they won’t want to leave! Keeping our tech talent here in the state is crucial to Illinois becoming the tech center it deserves to be and this program will clearly help with that effort.

You can learn more about the iVentures10 program on their site and if you think you want to submit an application make sure to get it together soon. The final day to submit applications is May 15th.

Side note: You can also learn more about the iVentures10 program at the next TECH cocktail mixer on May 29th. The team will be at the event along with some of the folks who have been accepted into the program.

TECH cocktail takes home the 2008 ITA CityLIGHTS Award

Posted on April 4, 2008
Filed Under Technology, Chicago, TECH cocktail | 6 Comments

Wow. Twelve hours later I still don’t really know what to say. For people who know me well they know that says something (yeah, I talk a lot).

Frank and and I were nominated for the Illinois I.T. Association CityLIGHTS award along with some truly incredible people last night (my friend Brad Spirrison and super angel Bob Geras among them) who all deserved the award as much if not more than we did. Winning this award is a huge honor and incredibly humbling. I can’t stress that enough. I was simply stunned we took it home.

As I said in my short speech last night TECH cocktail has really been a story of community. Frank and I look at ourselves as facilitators but the tech community here in Chicago is where the magic is and always was. We just brought it into the light.

Another key point to note is that the tech community here will grow much faster if we all work together. Every chance we get we help other events, startups and people because we need an ecosystem. Other organizations, the ITA being one of them, feel the same way and always try to help others. Bottom line: we need to work together. TECH cocktail certainly can’t do it alone (nor has it - we’ve had a lot of help in the last two years) and it will be much more powerful as part of a larger whole.

I am excited for the future of Illinois technology and for the Midwest overall. I think we’re heading into a new age where we can become the technology center we deserve to be. Do we want to be Silicon Valley? No, I don’t think we do. We want to solve real problems with solid technologies in order to create real revenues and long term sustainable value. This isn’t to say that Silicon Valley doesn’t do that as well but I do think that we tend to escape some of the irrational exuberance that is prevalent in the Valley and that should be looked at as a strength not a weakness.

Here’s to the future. Onward!

My Visit to skinnyCorp (threadless.com)

Posted on March 4, 2008
Filed Under Technology, Chicago, Web | 2 Comments

Harper Reed, the CTO of skinnyCorp, was nice enough to invite Frank and I down for a visit to skinnyCorp HQ last week. I had been dying to check out their offices as I was sure they would be pretty unique (plus I like the guys and their products) but I had no idea of the wonders that were in store for us (it was Willy Wonka style except with t-shirts instead of candy).

skinnyCorp is definitely one of the most interesting companies in Chicago today. Their tag line is “skinnyCorp creates communities” and that they do.

The most famous of their communities is threadless. Threadless is a community based t-shirt site. Designers (and even non-designers) can submit t-shirt designs to the site which are then put up to a vote. Once the community votes the scores are tallied and the best shirts are produced for sale at the threadless site. The winning designers also get paid if their shirts are selected.

Being a t-shirt junky I was naturally drawn to threadless but the other skinnyCorp communities like ExtraTasty (cocktail recipes) and I Park Like An Idiot are also a lot of fun.

Needless to say the office visit was a blast and Frank and I are now entering into the ThreadLe Manss 48 Heures race in May. It is a 48 hour pinewood derby run off. What could be more fun than that? Have I told you how fun these guys are? If you can’t participate but want to watch the action you can do it live on May 16 and 17 via threadless.com.

For more skinnyCorp fun times and a tour of their facilities check out the segment from SomewhatFrank TV below.

2008 Tour of California: Check out the Adobe Tour Tracker

Posted on February 20, 2008
Filed Under Technology, Sports | Leave a Comment

I am not sure how many of you out there are cycling fans but I am one. A big one in fact. Yeah, I know there have been a lot of doping issues lately but the sport, in my eyes, is still beautiful and also a display of pure suffering and perseverance. The sport is also cleaning itself up aggressively but that’s the focus of a whole other post.

Anyhow, the Amgen Tour of California is going on right now and it is a great race. Yesterday Tom Boonen, a sprinter with team QuickStep, took the win and today there was a hard fought battle between Gesink (Rabobank) and Leipheimer (Astana) for the stage win. Gesink prevailed but Leipheimer got the 7 seconds he needed to snag the gold leaders jersey for the first time in this tour (Nice work Levi! Note: Leipheimer won last years Tour of California.).

If there is any race that newbies should watch to get a feel for the sport it would probably be the Tour of California because it is so accessible. You can catch it on cable via Versus (formerly the Outdoor Life Network) but what makes this Tour truly accessible is the fact that they broadcast each stage live on the web.

The Tour of California’s Adobe Tour Tracker is freakin’ awesome in terms of live streaming sports coverage. Not only do you get the live video/commentary you also get a ton of metrics (speed, distance to go, GPS based overlays of the riders on a Google map, etc.).

They launched the Tour Tracker last year but they had a lot of problems with it. This year everything seems to be ironed out though and I am loving it.

If you are new to cycling and want to check out a race check out the Tour of California on their live Tour Tracker. It is easy to access and free so you have no excuse. I bet you’ll be hooked once you start picking up on all of the strategy and witness the drama that is bike racing (don’t say I didn’t warn you). And, hey, if you’re not hooked after watching for a while at least you can say you checked out a nice application of a handful of technologies.

(If you’re not new to cycling you should still check out Tour Tracker. It’s the best way to watch a race in my opinion. When will the Tour de France (or any of the grand tours) get something like this?)

DEMO Conference Update: LiquidTalk and Good2Gether

Posted on January 28, 2008
Filed Under Technology, Business, Web, Social Ventures | 2 Comments

Unfortunately I was unable to make the DEMO conference this week due to scheduling issues which is a bummer but I will be covering some of the companies I find interesting right here anyhow (with the aid of Frank Gruber who is on the scene). Without further adieu here is the first DEMO update:

LiquidTalk

I was very excited when I first heard that LiquidTalk was going to be at DEMO this year. LiquidTalk is a Chicago based company (yeah, I may be a biased because of that) that has come up with some great enterprise technology that brings new media to the corporation.

LiquidTalk’s core technology allows corporations with large distributed sales forces to easily distribute corporate knowledge to these remote individuals via podcasts. This timely and easy to consume media helps sales professionals stay up to date while they wouldn’t normally be able to be productive (i.e. driving between appointments, on a flight, etc.) which ultimately will help them close more sales.

At DEMO tomorrow LiquidTalk will show off their new BlackBerry based technology for the first time. I have no doubt it’ll be a pretty sweet demo as their prior demo of their iPod technology at TECH cocktail a while back was a lot of fun.

From all of us in Chicago - good luck guys. Make us proud!

Good2Gether

As you guys know I am a sucker for a good social venture (aren’t all social ventures good… clearly I should use a thesaurus more often) and this looks like one.

The idea behind Good2Gether is to bring together not-for-profit organizations, volunteers, the media and large corporations with what it calls a “philanthropic social networking service.”

The issues Good2Gether addresses are:

Corporations are always looking for ways to make themselves look good in the eyes of the world via supporting not-for-profits but they often have a hard time finding them (and of course the not-for-profits can use the support).

Media companies have a lot of eyeballs and not-for-profit websites do not. Media companies are also looking for good stories which they could potentially get from the not-for-profits.

Not-for-profits are always looking for volunteers and but, due to in part to poor websites, volunteers who want to help are often left out in the cold (I can say this has happened many times to me. I want to volunteer my time but find it very hard to do so.)

Good2Gether aims to alleviate all of these issues through their product which will bring together all of the groups that play in the not-for-profit space and help them find ways to interact.

Good2Gether has already landed a handful of the top media outlets in the country along with a number of large not-for-profits and corporations so it seems they are off to a great start. I am all for this application and I really hope they are able to keep up the momentum.

Just imagine seeing a news article about a natural disaster with a Good2Gether box listing opportunities for the public to help right next to it. You click an opportunity and you are brought to a page that allows you to easily apply to volunteer. Large corporations will also find it easy to donate and send employees to help and the media can even get a story out of all the people brought together via the web to help out in a disaster. Not bad at all.

Midwest Venture Summit 2008: Business Plan Submission Underway

Posted on January 24, 2008
Filed Under VC, Technology, Chicago, Business | 1 Comment

I received a note from the IVCA today about the Midwest Venture Summit that is coming up and I wanted to make sure I got the info out to all of you.

The Midwest Venture Summit is a great way for entrepreneurs of Midwest based early stage* and series A+** companies looking for funding to get in front of the Midwest’s top VCs. In fact, you can get in front of over 100 of them by presenting at the summit. Not too shabby.

The Midwest, as defined by the IVCA, includes these states: IA, IL, IN, KY, MI, MN, MO, NB, ND, OH, Western PA, SD, WI. These are the areas from which the VCs and various service providers will be coming from and from which your company needs to be from in order to participate in the summit.

I would suggest submitting your business plan if you are looking for funding in the Midwest. Sure, it costs $175 but you will get far more value than that if you are selected to present.

Even if you do not end up raising any money via your presentation at the summit (although companies that presented at the past years summit have raised $222mm to date so chances are pretty good that you may land a deal) you will get great feedback from the top business and technology minds in the Midwest that will help to shape your business going forward.

The deadline for submitting plans to the Midwest Venture Summit is January 31, 2008 so make sure to submit your plan sooner rather than later.

Again, this is a great opportunity for Midwest startups and VCs alike. Events like this one will help to put the Midwest on the map as the technology hub that it is.

Disclaimer/clarification: I do not receive any money from promoting this event. I just wanted to help get the word out.

MVS Details:

Dates: March 17th & 18th, 2008

City: Chicago, IL

Venues:

Day 1 will be located at the University of Chicago Gleacher Center, 450 North Cityfront Plaza Drive, Chicago

Day 2 will be located at the Sheraton Hotel & Towers, 301 East North Water Street, Chicago

—————-

IVCA Company Stage Definitions:

* Early stage companies typically have:

• product or service in development
• key management in place
• have done initial marketing or pre-sales
• friends & family money invested in the company

**Series A+ companies typically have:

• already received institutional/angel money
• are seeking investments to expand working capital or marketing and sales capabilities

The Billion Dollar Corporation: Is it something all companies should strive for?

Posted on January 15, 2008
Filed Under Technology, Business | 4 Comments

Reading time: 3 minutes (I know it looks long but it only took me 3 minutes to run through it which is why I added this helpful “reading time” guide.)

I think that may be the longest headline I have ever written and it is an equally big question. Through my teenage years when I spent a lot of my free time researching companies, new technologies and stocks (Don’t get the wrong idea. I did get outside, had my own rock band (we had an EP - oh yes, we did) and even dated my share of girls, I swear!) and then subsequently through my college years studying business, finance and technology at Bentley College I came to believe that the corporation was where it’s at.

By “it” I mean wealth, prestige, challenges, fulfillment, big problems to solve, the ability to be creative, you know, everything one wants out of business. Now I don’t doubt that there are people that find a lot of these things, if not all of them, in large corporations. I am not saying that you can’t find fulfillment there but what I am wondering is whether every company should strive to attain “giant multi-national corporation” status.

I began to really think about this question more as I delved into the world of web start-ups. Web start-ups in particular are a place in which you can do very well with a small team of people and a good idea. There are a lot of examples of this. Business that throw off lots of cash for minimal work from a small team. Sure, they aren’t Google but they provide their founders and their employees a great life and, if the founders are smart, a great work environment.

A lot of these “lifestyle” businesses or what used to simply be called small businesses have another characteristic in common as well. If the founders wanted to try and make them huge corporations they may not work as well anymore.

I have to say that even I thought I was a little crazy for picking this up. I mean, this is anti-capitalist talk. Right? I don’t think it is. I am simply just not convinced that the modern corporation is the be all and end all pinnacle of business.

At the same time I was coming to these conclusions I happened to catch a piece by Saul Hansell on Bits (the New York Times’ tech blog). Hansell ws inspired by the talk about Twitter’s business model that was a hot topic a few weeks ago and the topic of Mozilla perhaps going public.

I think Hansell sums up my thoughts in the second paragraph of his piece which I will quote here:

Behind both of these [Twitter and Mozilla] is the presumption that the highest form of organization is a company valued at billions of dollars. The Internet now creates so much leverage for certain activities, that it is possible to create services that are incredibly useful, widespread and economically self-sustaining, yet involve very few people and not many dollars. This can sometimes be better for customers, business partners, and even founders, than trying to turn every good idea into a giant company.

The Internet does create a lot of opportunities for companies to form with small teams that, while running on small dollars (as Hansell says above), still take in big dollars. Look at the latest example that is the buzz of the blogosphere, PlentyOfFish.com. That site is by all accounts ugly and hard to use but it was built by one guy and it hit a niche. He works on it 10 hours a week and, wait for it….., takes in $10mm a year in revenues. Now that’s the power of the web. (Of course there are more examples - like 37signals - but if I listed them all this post would be way too long. Heck, it probably is too long as it is!)

I also feel like the web is a place where you can build a business that is geared toward a niche which is simultaneously a passion. This niche may have not supported in a business in one particular town or in a handful of towns but when exposed to the world on the web it can garner enough mass to make things work.

The web is to the virtual world like New York City is to the real world in that there are so many NYC businesses that couldn’t exist anywhere else but due to NYC dense and diverse population niche businesses can work (case in point: the shop near my office that sells only rice pudding - over 30 flavors of it - and always seems to have a line around the block). I hope that analogy makes sense.

Hmmmmm I don’t really have a good segue here and I am too tired to really think of one so I will just jump into it (Mind blowing moment: Is that non-segue I wrote in fact really a segue? You decide…). The other thing I love about building a smaller or niche business and not trying to make it a huge corporation (if it isn’t meant to be one) is that you can keep your culture in tact.

You can now truly build the environment that you, your founders, your employees and your future employees always wanted to work in and you can also make sure that it stays that way. You don’t answer to shareholders you only answer to your customers, partners and employees and that creates a good situation for all stakeholders.

This is the place where building a business really starts to meet zen for me. Ok, that was a little new age… My apologies. However, I think its true. I know the reason I always wanted to build a company was to create an entity that embodied me. My beliefs, my thoughts about work, etc. Create my perfect workplace and the perfect workplace for people like me (it’s scary I know but I believe there are actually others like me out there).

After all, a person spends most of their waking hours at work so trying to make work a better and more enriching experience should be something we all strive for. Sadly, I feel those ideals get lost in the shuffle of shareholder issues, quarterly analyst calls, profits and the like once big corporation status comes into play.

I’ll leave you with a link to an article Yvon Chouinard penned for Outside Magazine (thanks JZ) which outlines his thoughts on company building which he expands on further in his new book Let My People Go Surfing. For those that don’t know Chouinard is the founder of Patagonia. Patagonia did $241mm in sales last year, is still private, still allows their employees to check out early if the waves are good, donates 1% of gross sales to eco/conservation based charities (even if they are losing money that year) and a host of other good things. He has to be one of the poster children for doing good by doing good.

Here’s one of my favorite lines from the Chouinard’s piece that I had to put in this post:

This kind of independent thinking applies to our management philosophy as well. In fact, our employees are so independent, we’ve been told by psychologists, that they would be considered unemployable in a typical company [emphasis is mine]. We don’t want drones who will simply follow directions. We want the kind of employees who will question the wisdom of something they regard as a bad decision but, once they buy into something, will work like demons to produce something of the highest possible quality—whether a shirt, a catalog, a store display, or a computer program.

Who wouldn’t want to work hard for a guy like that? This guy really cares about and trusts his employees to do right by him and the company. How about that? There is clearly a reason why Patagonia does so well and I have to figure that the paragraph above is a big piece of it.

In my mind at least Chouinard proves you can build a company that is a platform for a rich life for not only you but also for your employees while also making lots of money. I am not sure if this is as possible if you are a publicly traded company or if you strive to be a big corporation when you are building a company that shouldn’t go that route.

Next time you have a chance to think about things you should ask yourself what kind of business you are building (or want to build), listen to the answer and then move forward with the new information in hand. Remember, we all don’t have to strive to build the next big corporation to do well in business especially with the advent of the Internet.

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