Andy Boyer

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Recapping NWEN’s First Look Forum 2011

October 19, 2011 /

I always enjoy attending business plan events such as NWEN’s First Look Forum, the UW Biz Plan Competition, Startup Riot, etc… I tend not to call them competitions, and lean towards words like “showcases.” Sure the teams may be competing for a prize, but what they are really doing is showing the public the amount of work they’ve done on taking an idea from imagination to execution.

The real inspiring part of days like this is to see people striving to reach or exceed what is generally concluded as their “potential.” For every 100 people sitting in Westlake Park complaining that the world is unfair and out to get them, there was 1 person in the NWEN First Look Forum pitching an idea that they believed would create jobs and money. If I had my way, that would be the 1% / 99% ratio we should be trying to change.

This was the first year I was involved with a team (Relaborate) that made it through the process, even succeeding down to the final 5 companies. And now I’l use the term “competitor” because from the team’s viewpoint, making it from 37 to 20 to 12 to 5 really is a gauntlet, and you do feel a measure of success each time your name is called to advance.

But when you look at the other 11 companies, you can’t call it a competition, because I don’t know how any consumer would ever be making a choice between any of our products.

  • BAM Testing, What’s your athletic potential.
  • FanZappy, “Social-to-Store” service attracts social fans to local businesses and further converts fans to repeat in-store customer via our mobile app.
  • Glacier Peak, Nature does nothing uselessly.
  • Green Simian, Renewable Mobile Power.
  • Grid Mobility, Connecting Power to People.
  • Lacuna Systems, Expert Web Performance Management.
  • MotoVolta, Inc., High Performance Electric Motorcycles.
  • Mountain Logic, Halves heating and cooling costs for 100 million homeowners with central forced air by only conditioning occupied rooms.
  • Phytelligence, Smarter plants.
  • ProtoSec, Creating the next wave of Internet and Web vulnerability detection giving enterprise customers novel and low-cost vulnerability information about their applications, helping them meet compliance and security requirements.
  • Radiate, The Future of Internet Radio.
  • Relaborate, Blogging Made Easy.
But no matter what, here are 12 people – from an original list of 37 – who are attempting to build and create jobs, not protest that no one is creating jobs for them.  Maybe not all of these will turn a “profit” some day, but if you are looking for ways to stimulate an economy, I think these are the kinds of events and people you should be investing in.  They may not all show a return, but at least there’s a chance.

Two Fun New Projects Enter Alpha

September 30, 2011 /

As we enter Q4, the team over at Social3i is happy to release two new products into a private alpha stage.

Relaborate is a tool for helping professionals with Blogging. We’ll debut publicly at NWEN’s First Look Forum.
Animakast is a project we’re doing with our friends at FlyingSpot. It’s the simplest, easiest and cheapest way to turn new or existing audio content into compelling animated video.

We love the prospects of both these little start-ups. Let me know if you would like to join our private alpha program for either.

Drugstore CEO Talks Technology

May 16, 2011 /

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.

NWEN First Look Forum – Connecting the Dots

April 18, 2011 /

The Northwest Entrepreneur Network hosted one of its signature events last Wednesday, the spring version of First Look Forum.  (For those who want to know the whole format, check the appendix at the bottom of this post.)  In a nutshell, it’s a several month process that brings 12 entrepreneurs who have never pitched their business before, together with 60-70 VC’s and Angels.  Very cool format. 

This year’s group of 12 finalists spanned the gamut from fusion to chocolate.  My colleague Shelley Whelan already posted a nice follow-up on the NWEN blog.  But Alissa Johnson from the Alliance of Angels had a clever idea for a blog post, and allowed me to steal it from her, since she is too busy at VCIC to put it together.  Her idea – explain how if all of these companies became successful, how might one use all of them in a single day.  So here goes, using me as the example.

As soon as I woke up, I’d log into the dashboard of FLF winner Guide Analytics.  The company helps patients manage heart failure and avoid hospitalization through the continuous monitoring of edema.  Patients wear a bracelet around their ankle, measuring ankle size and relaying that info via bluetooth and wireless devices to the main computer.  Now I don’t have heart problems, but I’d be able to check on my aunt’s status, and make sure everything was ok.  The system will tell us when she is in danger of a heart attack, and lets us get her to the doctor before it happens.

I’d get in my car and head to work.  I’d stop for coffee first at a certain store, because I could get some valuable points to help me in the BodSix game I was currently engaged in.  (This is still in development, so I can’t share too much here.)  But soon I’d get into the office and say hi to the staff.  One of my team members, a woman getting married soon, would be choosing bridesmaid dresses from Little Borrowed Dress. Her bridesmaids would be able to rent these silk dresses for $75, rather than spend $230 for some taffeta number they’d never wear again anyway.  Our happy bride-to-be is also showing pictures of the bridesmaid dresses to her fiance, who lives in New York, on their private page at SnuggleCloud, a personal online space for couples.

We’d probably have a client coming in that day, and undoubtedly, there’d be some furniture issue in some hard to reach angle of the room.  Thankfully, we’d have our new Flipout Screwdriver, which would enable us to fix it.  Before the client got to our office, we would have downloaded the reports from ReadyPulse, a company that provides insight on what works best to grow your audience on Facebook and Twitter.  Our client – a software company – is probably using AgileEVM, a product that helps with agile software developments.

We’ll want to take the client to lunch afterwards, so we’ll check UrbanQ a way for us to discover places and experiences we’ll like, from our mobile device.  UrbanQ might recommend a nice waterfront restaurant, where we notice all the ships using Fusion Engines developed by Woodruff Scientific.  These ships are actually sing sea water and the elements inside of it, to generate fuel through fusion.  The restaurant is great.  So I log into Meevine and ping my friends about it.  Hopefully we’ll all be able to pick a date soon.  

It was a long day.  So when I get home, I open up a high-end chocolate bar I got from Chocolopolis, something that goes nicely with my Spanish Rioja, and that I’ll probably pick up more of for the dinner party I’m throwing later this week.  I end the day reading a book about baseball history that had been turned into an iPad application by Appitude.  I use this app because I get to do more than just read the book – I’m part of a virtual book club, chatting on my iPad while scrolling through the text and pictures.  Some of my real life friends happen to be reading, and I’m connecting with other baseball history fans. 

That’s how I’d be able to utilize all the businesses who made it to the finals of this First Look Forum.  I encourage you to go check out the companies who already have products live, and signup to get ont he beta list for the others.

———

Appendix: About First Look Forum

  1. Over the course of several months, about 70 entrepreneurs, who have never pitched their business plan to an investor group, apply to FLF.  Everyone who applies gets some business plan coaching from NWEN’s Exec Director, or someone from the investment community.  
  2. A screening committee then whittles those 70 plans down to 20.  More coaching.
  3. Those 20 get parsed to 12.  Still more coaching.
  4. Then the even itself.  Each of the 12 gets 5 minutes in front of the most influential group of VC’s, Angels and investors in the Puget Sound.  5 finalists are chosen for 2 more minutes of pitching, and then a judging panel selects a winner.

 

Recap of Startup Weekend

December 14, 2010 /

A few quick notes on a fun event I attended the last few days.  Startup Weekend is a 54 hour event that provides the networking, resources, and incentives for individuals and teams to go from idea to launch.

In a nutshell, I was one of 80 people to show up on Friday evening, where 28 people pitched ideas for products/companies that they wanted to build in the next 2 days, with this event being focused around mobile and gaming.  We whittled the 28 ideas down to 13, and everyone split into teams to tackle the projects.  

The crowd was an eclectic mix of developers, designers, database guys, product managers and a few random biz dev and marketing guys thrown in.  I’ll admit I was a little nervous venturing into this crew.  I’m a marketing guy, so I get pretty intimidated by guys who have the technical firepower to make things suddenly appear.  But the goal of something like this is to surround yourself with big brains and meet people who inspire you through their expertise and accomplishments, so I tried to dive right in and meet as many interesting people as I could. 

The product ideas ranged form the ridiculous to the useful, to the obscure to the just plain odd.  But at the end of the weekend, a few groups had launched some pretty cool stuff.  And even though some of the projects weren’t fully baked by Sunday night, there were definitely a few things to watch out for.  A few highlights:

(Keep in mind that these projects went from an idea to execution in 54 hours…)

Nubi Nubi: A bunch of talented artists and dev guys created a little app where a little avatar would dance to the beat of music you picked for him.   You could change the dance moves by clicking on different buttons.  Cool revenue opps as you buy more avatars, dance moves, music, and more.

Doodle A Doodle: The winner of the event, this iPad app is designed so that kids can learn to draw (or trace) by tracing over images on the screen.  There’s a social network component that parents and kids can enjoy.

Hold It: The crowd favorite for humor.  In this game, you are a Men’s room Attendant, and you must coordinate what people get to use what stall in the john.  Some characters need privacy, some need space, some are obnoxious, etc…  But you must use your skill to gain points by putting people at urinals and toilets they feel comfortable at.

Happy Food:  Think a cross between Foursquare, Yelp and Urbanspoon.  This app allows you to search for restaurants that cater to special diets, such as Vega, Gluten Free, Nut Free, etc…make recommendations, and provide useful feedback.

Task Me: I dug this organizational app, even though it’s not done yet.  I spend enough time using iPhone’s Notepad as a To Do list, that this would be huge if they get it done.  Please do it guys…

There were a ton of other cool ideas, and the density of super smart people and knowledge sharing was something I hadn’t been part of for years and years.  It was amazing to see such a spirit of collaboration amongst people who don’t know each other.  Plus, many of the people there were actually doing pretty interesting things with their real job.  

Startup Weekend is one of those events where you can just go and get energized by the spirit and collective intelligence of the people in the room.  On one hand, it’s a great place to get humbled, as you see people doing things in real time that shouldn’t be possible to do that quickly.  On the other hand, you get an ego boost, because you are able to make an impact and provide your area of expertise to a group of people whose skills you admire, but who have no ability to mimic your own abilities.

I have 100 good stories to tell you about my team.  My group’s leader was a fascinating guy by the name of Michael Crick.  He would tell these random stories all thru the weekend, and many of them would make me stop what I was doing, look over with a curious stare and say, “Shut the h— up, you did not do that.”   Here’s a teaser.  I was trying to bang out a marketing plan, while Michael offhandedly told a story of a video game he built long ago.  I almost broke my neck when I asked, “Wait a sec.  You wrote the spec for the original Madden Football?” I can’t even do the rest of the stories justice in print, but trust me, they are worth buying me a beer to hear.

Moral of the story.  Whether you can market, develop, design, or whatever other talent you have, get yourself to a Startup Weekend.  Because anything else you have planned for the weekend is less fun, less interesting, and will get you less satisfaction.  Bring a good idea, build a team, and make cool stuff happen.

The Question No One is Asking About the iPad

April 6, 2010 /

I’m not writing a review of the iPad.  Since I’m not a tech blogger, I’ll leave that to JetCityDigital, Mashable, Jeff Jarvis, and AllThingsD.  (And yes, I did put Ron Schott in the same sentence as Walt Mossberg, so remember this post in 10 years people.)

I don’t want to debate if the iPad is a laptop killer, or simply the media companies’ attempt to put us all back in a walled garden.  I have a much simpler question.

In every publication I read, articles focus on 10% unemployment, a looming deficit, and the fact that we’re all doomed.  So why on earth do we need a laptop that’s not a laptop, or a phone that’s too big to be a phone, or a $500 way to read magazines that still cost $5 per issue to download?  The iPad seems like something we should have gotten in 1998, when we all used $100 bills as post-it notes.  But in a recession?  Who needs to drop that kind of coin on a device that serves a secondary function for all the functions we already have solutions for?

I got the iPod.  I got the iPhone.  I get Android.  I get the iPad in Tokyo or Shanghai.  I may even get the iPad in the U.S. in 2 years, or if the content was all free.  But I have to admit, I’m not sure how far “shiny” and “new” takes you in 2010 middle America…  I’m looking forward to being wrong on this…  

Why 30+ Year Olds Have More Fun on Facebook than Our Junior Counterparts

February 6, 2009 /

I just don’t understand when people my age tell me, “Facebook is just for kids.”  I will argue that the best part about Facebook is in fact lost on these newbies, and us more mature folks are getting the best it has to offer.

To wit: My friend’s daughter is 15.  She has something like 700 friends.  Basically every person she has ever met is on her Facebook page.  There has never been a time in her life in which she was not keenly aware of what her people were up to.

No consider the 30-something year old who is tip-toeing into Facebook for the first time.  First he finds some work friends and maybe some folks he plays soccer with.  Then a few folks from his last job.  Then a few people from the town he used to live in, then college guys and then back to high school and elementary school.  People he hasn’t talked to or heard from in 20 years are now available.

I mention this because this has happened to me twice now in the last few weeks.  An old friend from college disappeared off the planet, reappeared on Facebook and it allowed us to have lunch and catch up.  Meanwhile, the next time I’m in New York in June, I will be able to meet up with a friend I last saw in New Orleans circa 1986.  

Now, today’s 15 year olds won’t get to enjoy this type of reunion.  So I’m sticking with my story – Lil’ Green Patches and SuperPokes may be fun and all, but it’s the reconnecting with long lost friends that makes Facebook as powerful as it is.

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