Category Archives: Venture Files

Beg, Borrow, or Steal (Okay, Maybe not) Your Way into O'Reilly (Pt. 1)

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Conferences, MeetUps, BarCamps, (even Par-Tays) play a critical role in your startup’s development. Don’t underestimate their value in networking, knowledge-building, and recruiting. Get out there, don’t wait. And budget for one big one.

In an earlier post, I talked about PodCamp/SearchCamp Philly — these, like Refresh DC (and other Refreshes) are no-brainers, because they’re mostly free. Get on their lists — and check DC Tech Events for others upcoming.

Now I’ll tell you about the other end of the spectrum — the vaunted O’Reilly experience (cue the ethereal angelic choir) — that was my epiphany in April.

My partner and I often talked about meeting up at some event (he’s in Phoenix), if nothing else, for the inspiration and change of venue (that’s French for ‘a place where our wives can’t bug us’). But with a self-funded start-up, the ~$1,500 Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco was a tad out of reach. Now, necessity is a mutha, so here’s what I did: I found every blog I could that offered free tickets, and entered their contests. Some were raffles, others with deep questions I spent hours working on responses to.

And I won.

The email arrived just before midnight — I woke up my wife like the house was on fire. “I won I won I won!!” It was fate — meant to be! An omen (the good kind) for CHALLENJ.

Just after midnight, I got the kicker while checking SideStep for flights. Since winners weren’t notified until four days before the conference, the cheapest airfare was $700. Gakk! Find some points — “Honey, wake up! Where are those vouchers we had”" — must get there, I said.

I even called a cousin who lives in SF whom I’d hadn’t seen in over twenty years. (“Hey, cuz, how the hell are ya? Mind if I crash at your place for a few days?”). As I said, necessity. . .

(btw, I have since learned about AirBed&Breakfast — a startup (of course) that enables people to offer their place (pad?) for you to crash at for way less than a hotel. (It kind of takes me back to my hitchhiking hippie days — my wife thinks it’s a perfect scenario for murder.)

Anyhow, somehow, it all came together. California, here I come!

Remind yourself that this is what startups do, that someday when you’re on your yacht in the Caribbean, you can bore people with this story!

Next post: Part 2: Why you must get to at least one O’Reilly a year.

Entrepreneurship in Perspective

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It’s pretty easy to be self-obsessed when you’re in a startup, or immersed in the world of startups. Tune in to TechCrunch50, the Silicon Valley startup pageant that wrapped earlier this week — sparring with DEMO, running simultaneously down in San Diego, and you’d think nothing much else was going on in the world — “More on hurricanes, war, election year, and trillion-dollar bailouts . . . later in today’s program.”

Seven years ago yesterday, things got put in perspective real quickly. I was attending a morning panel session on raising capital at Accenture’s Reston, VA headquarters, organized by the Greater Reston Chamber of Commerce. The details of the panel have long since faded from memory. I remember local VC Don Rainey was on the dais — at the time running the VA office of Durham, NC based Intersouth Partners — because I was in the middle of asking him a question, when my wife Cecilia interrupted me (happens at home a lot; in public, not so much). She was managing the event, and stepped up to the mic to let everyone know “there’s been some kind of attack on New York,” and everyone had best just go and check on their families.

My recollection following that moment remains quite vivid. Very first thought (after the interrupting thing): what presence of mind Cecilia had, to quickly transition the context of the meeting to the important one — family — without causing panic. Then she and I immediately devised our plan: she would continue to try to reach our daughter in DC, while I would drive down to pick up our son at school. Come what may, our family would be together.

I remember how details of the attack were just trickling in over the radio — a plane or planes, one or both of Twin Towers — as we sat anxiously in our cars, crawling through the crush of cars trying to exit the multilevel parking garage. I remember the constant beeping of failed cell-phone calls from an overloaded system. I remember getting my son with me in the car, trying not to alarm him. I remember finally hearing that our daughter was okay.

I remember my heart going out to the thousands, and their families, who would never be okay.

What I was not thinking about were the consequences the terrorist attack would have on my startup at the time — client/server systems providing music and information in hotel rooms. (The hospitality industry sank like a stone after 9/11, as did our prospects for success.)

Then, at some time, days or weeks later, I remember an oddly comforting feeling of being united with people I’d never met.

Things had really gotten into perspective, for a while anyway.

What, Couldn't Make it to Pod/SearchCamp Philly?

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Why not” Here’s the scenario: Two and half hours away, dozens of very smart people were availing themselves to anyone with $21 interested in learning about podcasting, search engine marketing (SEM) and optimization (SEO) from 10am to 4pm on Saturday and Sunday. Did I mention that it was only $21? And the organizers (bless their hearts) were apologizing for charging at all — even though 100% went to charity — acknowledging they did it only to minimize the excessive no-shows.

To be sure, it was a BarCamp style event — you won’t find the sheen, food, and glitz of an O’Reilly affair . . . but then, it’s not >$1k either. I was particularly interested in the SearchCamp side. What I did find was a superb set of speakers — folks who’ve been working the search engines since AltaVista was a pup — and who were there to answer questions in true interactive fashion (meaning, you shout out at will). Try that at most other confabs and they’ll probably call security.

I shouted at will — actually, at Wil Reynolds. Wil said he “eats, drinks, and sleeps” SEM, and you believe him. Likewise, with Greg Meyers, Giovanni Gallucci, and Brian Cosgrove, to mention a few others. Now, we entrepreneurs probably can’t afford what their organizations would charge (yet), but that’s my point: they were right there, ready to help. And they all offered email, phone, and twitter outreach for questions you might have once the event was over.

Plus, every speaker I heard had nuggets to offer — from basic tips like using search data to create keyword lists, naming images with keywords, and using subdomains to improve organic search — to dozens of free tools. You probably know about Google Analytics — an important first step — but how about Trellian Keyword Discovery, SeoTools, IndexTools, LinkDiagnosis, Link Assistant (gives you a history of all of a site’s links), SheerSEO (gives you the Google and Yahoo ranking for each of your keywords — no more endless clicking through pages), Search Engine Genie (find out if you’re anywhere in the top 1,000 listing), QuantCast.com (gives you demographics of users of your site), and SpyFu (find your competitors’keywords and adwords)? Oh, and be sure to check out Compete, Digital Point, SEO Egghead, and BruceClay.com. (Sorry, you have to do a little work to look these up.)

Worth 21 bucks, wouldn’t you say?

So why didn’t you go? Maybe you didn’t hear about it — one of my missions at Technosailor is to make sure these opportunities are flagged. But what amazes me is that I attended a DC New Media Meetup two days earlier that was combined with an SEO Meetup — two dozen folks attending — told everyone about it, even offered a ride (I drove up to Philly), and no one took me up on it. (Okay, I’ll allow for the possibility that you weren’t sure about getting in a car with me.)

So I got up at 6am Saturday morning and drove to Philly alone.

I think you know where I’m going with this. If you consider yourself a seriously committed entrepreneur, killing a weekend is something you’d better plan on doing every now and then. (Evenings, forget those.) Especially when the ROI is such a no-brainer. Not conducive to family life, you say? I say, the only way to succeed with a bootstrapped business — or convince VCs to give you money (they’re very good at detecting passion and commitment) — you’d better be ready to make the sacrifices.

Technosailor Venture Files — Hello World!

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It was a fateful moment when I learned Aaron was looking for an entrepreneurship blogger. Pumped up after a day-full of Podcamp/Searchcamp Philly — drinking from the yet another firehose — I made the promise to myself: it was time to share my 20+ years as an entrepreneur. Blog I must.

And lo! A light shone in the heavens. Okay, maybe it was just a tweet — but here before me was the springboard to blog stardom: love him or hate him, Aaron’s a social media playa . . . and it just made more sense to hitch my wagon to Technosailor than trying to build from scratch.

So what can you expect from me? Experiences — good and bad — in funding, growing, staffing, powering up. . . and winding down . . . startups. Thrill of victory and agony of defeat, all that. I’ll write about the DC startup scene (although my flying radius extends to New York, and occasionally Silicon Valley). And about events (like Podcamp) that I attend. And, as appropriate, I’ll relate some real-time experiences with my current [stealthy] startup, CHALLENJ (though I promised Aaron I wouldn’t shill).

And maybe the occasional rant — about the self-obsessed San Francisco startup scene (what — you’re missing TechCrunch 500″) . . . lawyers . . . and bloviating CEOs, VCs, and other tech ego-trippers lacking the humility gene.

My first co-founder used to say, “I’d rather be lucky than smart.” (Then, coming from a megalomaniac hell-bent on global domination, the words didn’t exactly ring true.) The point is, a heckuva lot of what we entrepreneurs have to confront is neither predictable nor under our control. Still, we prefer it this way.

My hope is that some pearls appear in forthcoming posts that will help you navigate the shoals of murky startup waters. (Warning: more metaphors ahead.)

Hello [brave new entrepreneurs'] World!

Entrepreneurship Writer Wanted

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There’s an immediate opening here at Technosailor.com for a writer on entrepreneurship. Steve Fisher, who has provided a tremendous amount of insight and knowledge over the years of covering the Venture Files beat, is retiring to bigger and better things. You can keep up with him over at Network Solutions on their Solutions are Power blog.

In the meantime, I’m looking for a passionate and knowledgeable editor for the Venture Files portion of the site. The topic is entrepreneurship and includes marketing, business and the world of Venture Capital from the perspective of an entrepreneur.

This is a great opportunity to create a name for yourself, and increase your visibility using the Technosailor.com brand and platform. If you’re interested, drop me an email at aaron@technosailor.com.

5 Things Small Businesses Can Do To "Be Green"

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The last few years have really seen a push toward making everything “green”. Generally this means supporting efforts and organizations that help the individual offset their “carbon footprint” or the environmental impact they have on planet earth. On the business side, large companies in the past did things like installing systems to make their buildings more energy efficient or improve sustainability. What characterizes a green business is that it is run in such a way as to conserve natural resources, eliminate waste and remain ecologically in balance. So where does that leave small businesses?

Small businesses which comprise up to 97% of the businesses across the United States (Source: SBA) have been kind of left out because it requires large investments that are not really feasible. In support of “Green Week” here at Technosailor, we have taken a look at different ways small businesses, even a one-person shop, can “be green” while not negatively impacting their bottom line. We have come up with five simple things that businesses can do to “Be Green”.

Promote Telework at least one day a week

During these hot summer days, running the A/C in many offices is extremely expensive because of rising fuel prices. As winter will be fast approaching, heating bills will be going up which means you might have to raise prices or not hire someone because you can’t afford it. Keeping the power off and having everyone telework from home or a coffee house at least one day a week can really cut down on the impact employees have on overhead costs. If you are a small firm you are probably utilizing services (e.g. web conferencing, VPN, VoIP) that make everything virtual, so having people work remotely might not be a far stretch.

While many offices still need to have people in the office for meetings, smarter scheduling can still keep the “Water Cooler” environment that all business need in some way. A good way to start is to have it come from the top down as a mandate that Monday or Friday as work remotely day. Tell everyone that power and AC/Heating will be shut off that day so that they know if they come into the office it isn’t going to be a comfortable ice box with everyone around. As more people get into the routine you will be surprised how fast you could take this to two or three days a week and really keep energy costs low.

Offer mass transit voucher/reimbursement program

Living here in the DC area there is a pretty good mass transit system with the Metro. They have a program called SmartBenefits where you can actually load their Metro Cards with a certain dollar value. This can also be done as a pre-tax benefit and you could reimburse the employee because they have the incentive to use mass transit instead of their car.

Offer incentives to be eco-friendly even outside of their job

Now metro and buses are not everywhere and not everyone lives right near easy access mass transit, so people must use their car. In this case, many companies have begun to offer a subsidy for using a hyrid vehicle. For example, Livingston Communications CEO, Geoff Livingston offers his employees a $1000 subsidy toward buying a hybrid vehicle.

Recycle Office Equipment

If you have operated your business for any length of time you probably have office equipment that is collecting dust and if simply thrown away would hurt the environment. There is a great site, called UsedComputer.com, that has all the resources on where to take your electronics. Officefurniture.org has a list of resources on what to do with old printer toner and office furniture that can found here.

Buy Green

This is the way to support other businesses that are going green and in a way motivates others if it becomes a preference by many companies as part of their vendor selection process. SmallBizTrends.com refers to two studies done on the impact of whether people care to “Buy Green”. They found:

A recent survey by Landor Associates suggests that the majority (58%) of consumers do not care whether a business is green. According to the survey, that still leaves 42% who are interested to some degree in the environment.

Another set of market research “” more extensive “” was done by the Natural Marketing Institute for LOHAS. LOHAS stands for consumers with Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability. The LOHAS research found that 23% of the U.S. adult population is “œclassified as a LOHAS consumer, meaning that they have a profound sense of environmental and social responsibility.” These are the people most likely to buy green products.

Twenty-three percent of the U.S. adult population is no shabby number “” it exceeds 50 million people. So obviously a decent-sized market exists.

Good examples of this are buying biodegradable office supplies or looking for companies that incorporate green behavior as a part of their production/manufacturing process.