I love Vancouver. I think if you took the best things about Chicago and mixed them in with the best things from Seattle, then added in a touch of London for fun, you would end up with Vancouver. So, this report from Grow Conference 2012 is going to be tainted. It’s a great show, and if you read this blog, you are probably in the target market. So, I’ll try to limit it to the top 5 or 6 things I picked up there:

- Oh Canada! The country has a program where if you invest in a Canadian based startup, you can receive up to 50% of that investment back in tax credits.
- Oh Canada, part deux. There are a wealth of developers up here. Studies have found the AVERAGE Vancouver developer is stronger than the AVERAGE Silicon Valley dev. Now, they freely admit the TOP developers are in the Bay, but if you need competence, you can find it. Supply outweighs demand, so a decent dev comes in at $60-80k.
- The Canadian Angel scene is funny, because there’s a lot of money, but most of it was NOT made in tech. Tons of money in Calgary made by people in the oil and gas industry. Tons of money in Vancouver from the real estate industry. So lots of money sitting on the sidelines, bu the holders of that money don’t necessarily know how to invest in tech.
- I can’t explain exactly what made the Grow Conference more friendly than just about any other conference I’ve attended. There was pretty much no one that I talked to that I didn’t want to talk to. People were outgoing, lively and fun. It was probably the nicest – and maybe the smartest – mix of people I’ve attended a conference with.
- BTW, the train from Seattle to Vancouver is great. It’s about an hour longer than it should be, but a pretty easy way to make the trip and still be productive. Amazing views.
- From this point forward, I have a giant section of notes that I am keeping more private. Let your imagination wander. Email me if you want details.

Now if you want a play by play of all the speakers on Thursday, I suggest you head over the TechVibes Live Blog. It is a much better recap than what I could pull together for you.

If you get a chance, here are some companies I hope you will check out. I knew these guys before, but talking with their exec teams at lengths made me like them even more.
- Liquid Planner
- OfferUp
- 9Slides
- Freak’N Genius

Thanks to the folks at Geekwire for convincing me to go. Time well spent.

Pics to come.

I took an afternoon this week to check out Startup Riot at the Sodo Showbox.  This was the second year the event was held in Seattle, and I’ll say both years I’ve had a great experience.  The event has some unique touches; sprinkled between the 30 3-minute pitches, are 2 keynotes, several networking opportunities, and a long lunch in which you can walk around and meet new people.

Rather than just recap the whole event, I took some notes on what start-up marketers could learn from some of the 30 presenters, both when pitching to customers, or investors.  Note, the majority of this post is also up at www.relaborate.com/blog.

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It’s gutsy to take the plunge into the entrepreneurial waters.  It’s even scarier to get up in front of 250 people, explain your entire company in 4 slides and 3 minutes, and take 3 more minutes of grilling from some judges.

But that’s what 30 brave entrepreneurs did Wednesday at Startup Riot in Seattle.  To reward their courage, Startup Riot judge and keynote speaker Andrew Hyde asked everyone in the audience to blog about at least one of the companies.  Blogging – well that’s something we can do. So here are a few things we learned about marketing your company, from both the judges and the start-up CEO’s who took the stage.

1) Show your excitement in everything you do: More than once, the judges asked the entrepreneur, “Are you excited about this project?  If yes, then show us.  Prove to us with your passion that this project will work.” This means in every powerpoint, blog post and meeting you attend, make sure that your excitement for your idea is contagious.

2) What is your 5 second 1-liner?  Can you explain what you do in 5 seconds?  Cindy Wu described her company, Microryza, as “Kickstarter for Science.”  That’s easier to remember than, “We built a platform where people can fund scientific research, in an online market and where scientists can go and present their projects to try to receive funding.” Can you describe what you do in 5 seconds?

3) Prove you are the team to do it: Parend Paresh may be tackling an unsexy problem with VendScreen.  But, it is so obvious that they know what they’re talking about, I would invest in a heartbeat.  VendScreen is a touchpad that will be attached to vending machines and enable customers to pay for sodas or snacks by phone or credit card.  Neat idea maybe, but why will it work?  Well Parend explains his domain expertise, illustrates his partners’ domain expertise, and then tells a fact that all vending machines are going to be required by Federal law to put nutritional information somewhere on the outside of the machine.  The fact that he knows this obscure legislation demonstrates that he knows the market for vending technology, and knows how to capitalize on emerging trends.

4) Talk about your wins: iHearNetwork, led by Paul Simonds, is a startup with 3000 users.  Not only that, they have a 125 Daily Active Users and 250 Weekly Active Users.  Taskk, has 7000 users already in a totally different market, adding 2000 in the last month. When you are a startup, find a number that you can trumpet.  I don’t know if 3000 or 7000 users is a lot for the spaces these companies are in, but I wrote the numbers down. They sure sound good. And as one judge said to Placeling’s CEO, “If you aren’t bragging, you sound small.”

5) Show your product: Personify makes it easy for people to find social good opportunities and volunteer events.  They already have 500 users.  And yet through their presentation, they never showed us the product – which is actually quite lovely. People want to see that the product is live and working.  Don’t make them imagine what it will be like.  It’s too much work.  Show your product everywhere you can.  Your product is your story.

6) Explain the problem: Tim Hermanson of Arch started his presentation with a shot of a traffic jam.  He asked that since we all have these digital devices in our pockets, why couldn’t anyone, anytime, see something that was happening in a different location so that we could avoid these traffic jams.  If I was stuck in that traffic jam, why couldn’t I anonymously upload a photo from my location so others could see my pain and take another route?  With the problem framed in a simple scenario, I can now understand the solution. The product becomes real when there’s something I can identify with.

7) Understand your competitors: Shawn Burke of Crowd Picsell wasn’t just asked to name some competitors, judges wanted to understand what he did better then them.  If you are a customer, you want to know exactly what the benefits are of one company over the other.  Don’t make the customer guess. Be the best at something, and explain exactly what it is that makes you the best over all others.  It’s hard to lose when you are the best.

8) Tell a good, humanizing story: Jon Poland created Crowdegy, joining an already crowded survey space. But, he explained why his product would succeed by telling a story about his 5 year old. In his story, he shows his 5 year old how to use his product, and then the next day his 5 year old asks, “Daddy, can I play the dot game again today?” Jon got the point across: His product brings visualization to surveys, is fun enough to do over and over, and is so easy a 5 year old can do it.

There were a number of other startups to keep an eye on.  Check out the whole list at StartupRiot.com.  And if you were there, did you see any companies that stood out?

I hear a lot of stories about Seattle’s start up scene, and that for all it’s tech prowess, we don’t really garner the attention of the VC community when it comes to launching fundable companies.

Well, I have to say it’s not due to a lack of trying on the entrepreneur side, as everywhere you look, people are trying to get out of their garage and onto Sand Hill. In the last year alone, I’ve attended or been a part of the UW Biz Plan Competition (~80ish companies), Start-Up Weekend (~100ish attendees) and NWEN’s First Look Forum (~50 companies). The area also has hosted Mobile Hackathons, Thinkcamps, more Startup Weekends, Angel investment groups, and even more places where would-be entrepreneurs are pitching ideas.

Wednesday, we saw a new entry to the Seattle space – StartUp Riot. Originally started in Atlanta, StartUp Riot has a familiar model. 25 start-ups do 3 minute pitches and do 3 minutes of Q+A from a table of esteemed judges. To keep the event from being monotonous, they split the 30 companies into 3 blocks, and inserted 2 keynotes and a long networking lunch. SoDo Showbox proved to be a great venue for this kind of event, and added a little bit of a “cool” factor.

So what did we see?
If you go to enough of these events, you start to see some of the same companies. And that really is a great thing, because you see people who are passionate and committed enough about their idea that they are taking feedback, evolving their company, and putting it out there again and again. It’s really easy for someone who has never tried to start a company to bash ideas that aren’t all the way baked. And it’s even easier for the entrepreneurs to just give up when they get that feedback.

On the other side, I did hear the comment that StartUp Riot had a lot of “Apps,” but not a lot of “Companies.” That’s probably a fair point. Things like NWEN’s First Look Forum have a longer vetting process, so you’ll see more companies with full business plans there. But even Apps need to start somewhere, and StartUp Riot presenters threw out enough interesting concepts to keep you entertained and your brain stimulated.

So what did we learn?
If you peel yourself away from listening to the presentations a little, and focus on the judges feedback, you catch a few trends.

1. “Is your product solving a problem? And is it really a PROBLEM, or simply a nuisance? And if it really is a problem, how many people have this problem?”
2. “I have no idea what you actually do. I see your slides, I heard the market stats, but I don’t get what the product actually DOES.”
3. “Why doesn’t (Google, eBay, Amazon, etc….) already DO THAT? And what is stopping them from throwing 3 developers at it next week?”
4. “And HOW are you guys going to make any money? Who would pay for that?”

All in all, StartUp Riot is a good addition to the Seattle scene. The more chances entrepreneurs have to get constructive feedback from people who invest in Bay Area companies, the more chance we have at getting some more of that money. Make sure to check out the next one when it comes to town.

So let me paint the picture for you….  

It’s the day after the child’s prom.  In either a moment of wisdom or stupidity, I had allowed child and friends to have their post party at my house, which sent us to a hotel. So, we went to the SAM Remix party that night and had a great time with friends.  Then, we stopped by the house and brought the kids pizza late night just to make sure the world wasn’t collapsing. 

So now it’s noonish on Saturday when Garrett and I head down to Safeco Field to catch the Mariners vs Rays game.  And I admit, I feel a little like an old guy who went to one party, stopped by a prom party and then spent a night in a hotel.

So Garrett and I are walking thru the north lot, and we can hear Lenny Kravitz’ sound check.  We ask ourselves why we aren’t going to this concert.  What stopped us from buying tickets? And hearts full of regret, we sullenly walk past Qwest.

Except…..  suddenly…..  we notice…..  

There’s a line outside the Qwest field box office.  We investigate.  We ask a few questions.  We do a few mental calculations.  And a few short minutes later, we are holding U2 concert tickets.  AND we’re walking to Safeco for a Mariners game on a 72 dgeree day.  You go draw up a better day than that.

Anyway, here are some pics from the 300+ level.  Great show.  Fun pics.

We had the chance last week to check out SAM Remix at the Seattle Art Museum.  Now, a few weeks ago, I complained about the lack of unique events in Seattle.  So of course, here comes the slew of unique events – SAM Remix being one.

If you haven’t checked out SAM Remix before, it’s definitely worth blowing a Friday night for.  You get to bundle together some cocktails, a trip through a cool exhibit, 1000 or so party revelers, and some wild cards, all in a single evening.  It happens every quarter, so I suggest you add it to your “date list.”

Anyway, I didn’t take pics from the party, but I did break every rule at SAM and took pics of the exhibit itself.  Apologies to both SAM and Nick Cave, but the exhibit was pretty cool and should be shared.

Now this may not seem like a fair post, since I go to more marketing events than the average person should.  But for a community as creative as Seattle, I’m beginning to think the networking event space has become pretty tame and uninspired.  Don’t get me wrong – the people are great, the venues are fun, and there are certainly more than enough to choose from.  Shauna Causey’s Twestival is awesome, and so is Gigs4Good, but there’s room for more creativity. Here are a few things that strike me.

1) We need to train up a slew of talented moderators.  It’s tough to admit this, but moderated panels are starting to become the death of a good event.  5 people on a panel is too many, and we don’t need to ask each person the same question.  Let’s put together a diverse panel, let them talk about their expertise, and have moderators ask pointed questions.  We should move away from round-table, generic subjects that the people in the crowd can just as well comment on.

2) We seem to use the same speakers over and over. I love that Seattle wants to promote its home grown stars.  And I get that there aren’t 500 local celebs to choose from.  But it does seem like we burn up the star power of these folks by putting them everywhere.  There are only a few events like the Ignite series where we get to see a cavalcade of new speakers that don’t have much experience.  And this is great, because it’s a safe environment where people get to work out the kinks in their presentation style, in front of audiences who are forgiving and encouraging. We need a few more places like this, where speakers can take the stage and gain the experience to hit bigger venues.  Let’s break away from the usual 20-30.

3) We need diversity in the subjects. I think it’s time we go a little bit outside the echo chamber.  Let’s talk to four Bay Area VC’s and find out why they think Seattle is a Tier 2 Startup city.  Let’s invite oil companies and find out why the rest of the country doesn’t mirror our love for green tech.  Let’s listen to politicians explain to liberal Seattle why people still vote Republican in other parts of the country. Basically, let’s bring in people that don’t already think like us.  What do we have to lose?

4) Can we do something new? Sure, I like standing around and drinking a vodka soda at happy hour with colleagues.  But I also like “doing things” in the few hours I have to spend on these events.  I think NWEN does a nice job of mixing it up.  You have some educational events, some pure networking events, and some that are a hybrid of both.  But overall the whole scene needs more Trivia Quiz, Karaoke nights, ping pong tourneys, miniature golf outings.  We need more places for startups to “launch” their companies in front of a crowd of 200, and networking orgs like SMC Seattle to partner more with volunteer orgs like Seattle Works.  I think it would be way more fun to work at a food bank with my Seattle Marketing colleagues, than just belly up to a bar.  

These are my quick thoughts on the matter.  I’m not complaining at all, and I think we still have a wealth of interesting people to talk to at these events.  But maybe, just maybe, we have some room for improvement. 

From TechFlash.comI’ve always raved that some of the most dynamic, powerful, inspiring bosses that I’ve worked for during my years as a technology marketer have been women.  I guess “growing up” in an environment like RealNetworks, where everyone was pretty dang smart, you just didn’t see much labeling of team members by gender.

However, it’s easy to look around the web sites of technology companies and notice there are far more pictures of men in the “Executive Team” pages.  So, I was really interested to hear the perspective of Dawn LePore, the CEO and Chairman of Drugstore.com, at the recent TechFlash Women in Technology event.

3 thrings stuck with me from Dawn’s conversation.

1. The crowd was 30-40% men.  I think these kinds of event are more powerful when both genders are in the room.  We have lots ot learn from each other, so I was really excited so many men in the audience.
2. Dawn’s main advice was pertinent to both men and women.  She spoke a lot about her career path, and it’s clear that she wasn’t promoted out of luck or chance.  She made a real decision at some point in her career that she was going to be an executive.  So instead of just executing upon the tasks given to her, she sought out mentors who get help get her to the next level.  She understood that merely doing her current job well wasn’t going to get her keys to her own corner office.  He was going to have to be trusted to to the job of the people abover her if she wanted promotion.  I think too many people do their job well and expect to be moved up, rather than seeking out help on how they can attain the next level.
3. It was also clear that she had to make difficult family choices, but her and her family made them unapologetically and without regret.  She made the conscious choice to forego a family until she had risen to the top level.  Her husband made the choice to stay at home and be a house husband to help her attain her goals.  These are hard choices, but when you are shooting for the stratosphere, hard choices need to be made.

One final thing resonated throughout the Q+A.  Women from both large and small tech companies grabbed the microphone and asked Lepore how she adapted to a world where she was such the minority.  I think it’s aninteresting point for men – and women – to keep top of mind.  That even in organizations that handle workplace gender differences with the utmost care, there is still usually a disparity between the number of men and women in the halls. It’s something to keep in mind, that no matter how hard you try to level the field, there will still be a majority / minority dynamic at play.

Finally, I think Lepore glossed over something we all should at least think about a litlle.  One reason there are fewer women in technology excecutive positions, is that fewer women are entering the technology workplace in the first place.  We need to figure out why so many of our bright and talented women students aren’t considering careers in math and science.  I would have liked to hear her talk more about this.

For all the heat Seattle gets for – well the lack of heat – one thing that often goes overlooked is the amount of stuff to do here.  It’s really easy to fall into the trap of focusing on one activity.  We have tons of great venues for watching college and professional sports.  Too many music venues to count.  A vibrant arts and theater community.  And enough trails, likes and mountains for even the most adventurous explorer.  But we also have this educational environment that has a tendency to put amazingly inspirational people on stage.  Sometimes these events try to sneak by you, so you have to pay attention.

In fact, the other day I tried to run through a list of people I have either had the chance to listen to or actually talk with over the last few years.  I’ve been in a crowd listening to Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Colin Powell, Steve Wozniak and Carol Bartz, and actually have been able to chat with or work for Howard Schultz, Jeff Bezos, Rob Glaser, Richard Tait, Maria Cantwell, Geoffrey Moore, and a host of technology whiz kids like Rich Barton, Nick and Adrian Hanauer, and TA McCann.  I don’t know if you can do that everywhere in the country.

Last Friday, I added to my list, giving up my Marines tickets to spend a few hours listening to Paul Allen, who was being interviewed at Town Hall by Geekwire’s Todd Bishop.

I’m not going to lie.  Part of me was hoping that Allen would stand up and say, “You know what.  David Stern is a $%#&ing a$$.  I don’t care how much he fines me.  I could buy the whole league in cash if I wanted.”

Now of course that didn’t happen, and I didn’t expect it to.  The irony is, I don’t think I can remember a specific thing from any of those speakers, and I doubt there’s anything from Allen’s talk that I’ll take to my grave.  But there were some things about his attitude and ways he tackles problems that I’ll probably walk away with.  Examples…

In two seperate questions from the audience, he was subtly being criticized for not solving the world’s energy prolem or the country’s education issues.  He didn’t come out and say, “Oil Dependency and Teacher’s Unions” but he made it clear that there were external issues that made it impossible to solve these problems right now.  He basically said that throwing blind money at these problems was a waste – and why waste money if the problem can’t be solved without major changes.

Allen also had a subtle shot at all the people who stopped his Seattle Commons project.  Years ago I used this blog as a forum to blast everyone who brought the Seattle Commons to its knees because they didn’t want public funds to go to building a giant central park that might improve the real estate value of the land around it (which was owned by Allen.)  Now, since Allen owned all the land that he was going to donate for the park anyway, when the people voted down the park, he had no choice but to build on it.  So now we have the super cool South Lake Union business district that houses Amazon, MSFT and more.  And ironically, he made a boat load more money on it than had it just been a big greenspace.  It was interesting that he brought up that he was almost forced to make money on that real estate deal since Seattle wouldn’t accept his land for free.

There is some irony in the fact that so many people who attended Town Hall to see Allen, might be characterized as “anti-business.” Some were the kind of famous Seattleites who pay their mortgage from the money they made from Microsoft stock splitting 20 times, but also sent flame emails to politicians trying to stop the building of Qwest, Safeco or a new Key Arena. 

I guess the moral of this meandering blog post is that you really need to pay attention in Seattle.  There are Town Hall events like Paul Allen all the time, and the UW hosts a ton of similarly impressive luminaries.  They may not change your life, but we all should try to collect info from smart people that don’t always think like we do.  Different perspectives can be valuable, even if they dont change your mind.

Wednesday night, Seattle’s top names in the sports community gathered in Benaroya Hall for the 76th Annual Sports Star of the Year Awards.

If you are any kind of fan, then you need to attend one of these.  Part cocktail party, part ESPY’s, it’s a unique collection of season ticket holders, athletes, corporate sponsors, coaches, front office execs, broadcasters and writers.  You feel like you “almost” recognize just about every person in the room, but no one looks in place in their suit and tie.

This year had its share of highlights, but the sentimental moment for me (predictably) revolved around Dave Niehaus.  There was the standard video montage, but it was made more special by the man who introduced the clip.  I can’t explain exactly what made it so cool, but seeing Keith Jackson – the real Keith Jackson – on stage seemed surreal.  I know he’s a WSU grad and former KOMO broadcaster.  But when a national legend takes time from his schedule to pay tribute to the memory of our local Play-by-Play man, you begin to appreciate the breadth of Niehaus’ popularity.  

Kudos to the Seattle Sports Commission for doing a great job pulling this event together.  They did a great thing by saving it when the P-I went out of business.  

It goes without saying that a room full of sports stars, legends and fans makes for a great party.  Try to fit this in your 2012 plans next year.

For all you M’s and Niehaus fans.