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 Marc Nathan  Thursday, 26th of January 2012 at 10:19:11 PM 
Get Your 5-Minutes of Fame! Submit Your Talk to Ignite Houston
Howdy Future Igniters! Interested in sharing the stage with other amazingly awesome & talented Houstonians? Here’s the deets: Talk about what you love for 5-minutes, 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds. It’s challenging – but we promise it’s worth it! Want more info on Ignite – visit http://igniteshow.com/ Important Dates: Submission Deadline – January 29th, 2012 Talks Announced – February 8th, 2012 Ignite Houston – February 23rd, 2012 6:30 – 8:30 PM at C2Creative (2115 Taft Street)
Marc Nathan Monday, 23rd of January 2012 at 09:26:55 AM
HATCH is a pitch competition at the SXSW 2012 Startup Village for startups with revolutionary ideas. Fifteen finalists will be selected to present their business plans to a panel of corporate, angel, and venture investor judges in front of a well-connected SXSW audience on March 11th, 2012 in Austin, TX. The event, presented by Houston Technology Center, is geared toward tech startups with an interesting or disruptive product and strong growth potential.
HATCH is looking for companies in the following categories:
• Cloud tech and services
• Mobile and connected devices
• Web tech
• Collaborative tech
• Big data
• Virtual tech
• Media and entertainment
• Health and healthcare IT
Learn more about this exciting program at www.hatchpitch.com. Spread the word to your network. If you know of someone who may be a candidate, please encourage them to apply online at www.hatchpitch.com.
Website
Facebook
Twitter Hashtag #HATCH2012
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Marc Nathan Monday, 16th of January 2012 at 08:21:14 AM
Javid Jamae Thursday, 8th of December 2011 at 11:47:21 AM
The Houston Lean Startup Circle has invited Steve Blank, to video conference in to its December meetup hosted at the Houston Technology Center, tonight (December 8, 2011) at 6:30PM CT. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, the event will be live streamed and recorded for future viewing.
The live-stream link is not available yet, but will be posted on the event page for the December meetup as soon as it’s available.
The live-stream link can be found here: www.businesscubenetwork.com/view.html
If you’re not familiar with Steve Blank, here is a short profile:
Steve Blank is a Silicon Valley-based retired serial entrepreneur, founding and/or part of 8 startup companies in California’s Silicon Valley.A prolific educator, thought leader and writer on Customer Development for Startups, Blank teaches, refines, writes and blogs on “Customer Development,” a rigorous methodology he developed to bring the “scientific method” to the typically chaotic, seemingly disorganized startup process.
Now teaching Entrepreneurship at three major Universities, Blank co-founded his first of eight startups after several years repairing fighter plane electronics in Thailand during the Vietnam War, followed by several years of defense electronics work for U.S. intelligence agencies in “undisclosed locations.”
“The Four Steps to the Epiphany,” Blank’s book, details the Customer Development process and is considered a “must read” among entrepreneurs, investors, and established companies alike, when the focus is optimizing a startup’s chances for scalability and success. Blank views entrepreneurship as a practice that can be managed rather than purely an art form to be experienced.
His Customer Development methodology is rooted on startups “getting out of the building,” talking to customers and using that feedback to develop and refine their product.
You can read more about Steve here:
- http://steveblank.com/about
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Blank
Marc Nathan Saturday, 3rd of December 2011 at 02:18:51 PM
Who ever says that things slow down for the holiday season hasn’t looked at the Houston tech calendar lately (probably because there isn’t One, single calendar – but that’s a rant for another day. There are a few big events happening over the next couple of weeks that you should know about and make every effort to attend.
- Houston Experience Design Group – Kelsey Ruger presents, “How to INSPIRE, communicating through stories” Tuesday 7pm Caroline Collective 4820 Caroline St.
- Android Meetup – Critiques of Your Android App Idea Tuesday Dec. 6 6:30 Idea.com 3200 Southwest Freeway, 9th Floor Conference Room
- Hadoop Meetup – Bring more BigData understanding to Houston – Tuesday Dec. 6 5pm Freed-Montrose Library 4100 Montrose Boulevard
- Rice Alliance 9th Annual Web & IT Venture Forum – Rice Jones School – Thursday Dec. 8 all day – This is one of the biggest startup events of the year for Houston – 50 new startups are pitching to VC’s and one of the keynotes is VC Mike Maples Jr. who just launched http://rogerandmike.com/ and invented the term Thunder Lizards for investing in seed stage startups.
- Big Data Meetup -Introduction to Big Data - Thursday Dec. 8 6:30pm Datafiniti 1250 Wood Branch Park Dr., Ste. 610
- Lean Startup Circle Houston – Steve Blank – Customer Development – Thursday Dec. 8 6:30pm Houston Technology Center 410 Pierce Houston, Texas – This is a really big one, since Steve Blank is the godfather of the Lean Startup movement. This meetup has quickly become the most valuable startup meetup in just a few short months due to the organizer Javid Jamae‘s dedication.
- Social Media Breakfast Houston – The Gift of Guidance – Friday Dec 9 8:30am Canopy 3939 Montrose
- NetSquared - December Houston Net2 – holiday cheer and stories! Tue Dec 13 7:00pm Stag’s Head Pub 2128 Portsmouth
- OpenCoffee Club – December Meetup Thursday Dec 15 8am CoffeeGroundz 2503 Bagby
Any other events you think we should know about? Put them in the comments. Also, if anyone wants to comment on what the best way to form a consolidated tech calendar – I’m going to post the question on the Houston Startups Facebook group.
Javid Jamae Tuesday, 22nd of November 2011 at 10:27:50 PM
Houston Startup Weekend was last weekend and of the 12 teams that pitched, the winning teams were:
#1 Tapja
An interactive childrens E-book for iPad
#2 MyFlashSpy
A flash sale aggregator. All flash sale sites in one place. Spy on your favorite brands, spy on over 85+ flash sale sites. All customized to you.
#3 TalkTheatre
TalkTheatre is a service that allows independent filmmakers to obtain detailed, granular feedback data from a varied demographic audience for their works in progress.
Now that Tapja has won Houston Startup Weekend, they are eligible for the Global Startup Battle. You can help Tapja win this competition by going to this Facebook page and voting for them.
Unfortunately, the video that is referenced from their voting page has problems and flickers quite a bit. You can view a working copy of the video on the Tapja Facebook page. Feel free to “Like” them while you’re at it.
Javid Jamae Sunday, 20th of November 2011 at 04:26:22 PM
This weekend’s Startup Weekend has been an incredibly exciting event. As I write this, teams are frantically preparing their presentations for their pitches this evening. Video of the presentations will be made available after the event, but until then here is some information on the startups that are participating.
Jobbawalkie
Hype local job searching using Google / Bing maps
Web: http://jobbawalkie.com
Twitter: @jobbawalkie
Vidivise
Veni. Vidi . Vici. Face-to-face advice. Instant compentation.
Twitter: @vidivise
SnapHang
Mobile app that allows users to tag art they have seen in public places, share art with friends, find nearby art, and in the long term, buy or rent the art for their home.
ThePointster
The Pointster is a social platform for organizations to motivate and reward members.
Web: http://pointster.net
Twitter: @thepointster
Facebook: The Pointster
Bionic Education
Tech-enabled, high-performance private schools affordable to the middle class
Twitter: @bioniceducation
Facebook: Bionic Education
BuyLeftovers.com
An innovative solution for delivering time-sensitive inventory to new consumers in search of value focused offers. BuyLeftOvers is a system that allows customers to receive SMS and email notifications of time-sensitive offers which are distributed through web or mobile formats. Customers receive a bar-coded voucher with purchase that they are then able to redeem at the supplier’s business.
Web: http://www.buyleftovers.com
Twitter: @buyleftovers
Facebook: Buy Leftovers
Calorify
We’ve all been peer pressured into breaking our health routine or diet to join friends or family out at a restaurant or bar. With Calorify you can make conscious eating choices regardless of where you end up. Coming soon to a smartphone in your pocket!
Twitter: @calorify
Web: http://calorify.me
Web: http://signup.calorify.me
TalkTheatre
“TalkTheatre is a service that allows independent filmmakers to obtain detailed, granular feedback data from a varied demographic audience for their works in progress.
Through the TalkTheatre web site, indie filmmakers can issue private screenings to limited audiences. These viewers are encouraged to give detailed feedback on all aspects of the video. This feedback can then be used by the filmmaker to determine which parts of the film/clip resonated with the audience and influence post-production decisions.”
Web: http://yourtalktheatre.appspot.com
MyFlashSpy.com
“Flash sale aggregator. All flash sale sites in one place. Spy on your favorite brands, spy on over 85+ flash sale sites. All customized to you”
Web: http://www.MyFlashSpy.com
Twitter: @MyFlashSpy
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MyFlashSpy
At The Appointed Time Consulting (Prison Assist)
At The Appointed Time Consulting (Prison Assist) is a not-for-profit organization founded by CEO Nakia Franklin. Beginning with an online community we will focused on providing individuals released from a correctional institution with resources, training, information, internal networks, classes and programs that will encourage successful completion of their supervision and beyond. This will further allow them to have support, services, and mentors that will help them cope through the obstacles of life. They will ultimately have added value in their lives by reducing recidivism and becoming upstanding citizens that contribute to the communities.
Web: http://www.AtTheAppointedTime.com
Facebook: At The Appointed Time (page)
StarvingStudents
Facebook: Starving Students
Web: http://www.wix.com/devonyjackson/starvingstudents
Tapja
Interactive Children E-book for iPad
Twitter: @apptapja
Web: http://www.tapja.com
Marc Nathan Saturday, 19th of November 2011 at 09:21:38 AM
This is a Guest post from Daniel Wu – a startup entrepreneur who is using the Unity 3D engine for some very interesting rapid prototyping applications.
Daniel Wu writes:
Unity3D Houston hosts a showing at the Houston Museum of Natural Science on Tuesday 11/15 at 7 pm to view an immersive simulation of ancient Mayan culture used to educate kids. Tony Butterfield of the museum is sharing the latest on his project that uses the Unity3D game engine.
The Unity3D Houston monthly meetup is a group of designers and developers who use the Unity3D engine to develop games/simulations that can be published via multiple platforms including web, iOS app, and more.
http://www.meetup.com/Unity3DHouston/events/38091882/
Robert Brackenridge started the Houston Unity 3D group back in August of 2010 to get the game design engine enthusiasts together to discuss ways to implement and push the platform. Robert is the founder of Game Factor-E, a game design studio and was the former Director of IT Entrepreneur Development at the Houston Technology Center.
Marc Nathan Tuesday, 15th of November 2011 at 10:11:29 PM
Marc Nathan Monday, 14th of November 2011 at 01:28:28 PM
There’s a new player in the Houston investment scene and they launched in a big way last Thursday night.
RedHouse hosted a party at their offices at 802 Lovett that featured beer, food, Lemonade Day (they raised $7000 from the party-goers, that was split with a group supporting Navy SEALS), and more beer along with over 300 people from the investment (think bankers and VC’s) and technology (think developers, product managers and service providers), most of whom had worked for the principals of RedHouse at some point in their careers.
RedHouse Associates is an angel investment and consulting firm made up of a tight-knit group of seasoned enterprise software veterans based here in Houston. Their focus is on cloud-based, enterprise companies that are looking to ramp up their existing sales processes. To say that these are “Brand Name” people is a bit of an understatement. Mike Clark and Keith Kreuer have a long history of starting (and more importantly, finishing) enterprise software companies, the most well-known being PentaSafe. The two of them have been privately investing as angels in other companies like BBS Technologies and R1Soft for several years. They are both venture advisors to DFJMercury, the most active early-stage VC firm focused on tech in the Houston and Mid-Continent areas. Mike and Keith joined forces with their long-time friend Doug Erwin – a man who needs no introduction to those in the Houston technology community. Doug was most recently the CEO of the Planet who engineered several successful mergers before selling the whole consolidated company to SoftLayer in Dallas a few months ago. Doug is widely known as a world-class CEO, who has a career spanning IBM, BMC, RLX, PentaSafe and the Planet in leadership and sales roles. The other two principals are Doug’s son Ben Erwin (a successful executive in his own right) and Joseph Horzepa, the General Counsel to many of their portfolio companies.
Back in the height of the PentaSafe days, they would throw legendary beer bashes and crawfish boils every quarter at this location. When PentaSafe merged with NetIQ, they went all out with a beach themed party and flew in The Beach Boys to play for the crowd. The fact that Surge Accelerator is now housed there, along with several of the RedHouse Associates portfolio companies like Eric Elfman’s OnIt Software are an indication that this party is one of many more to come, which means that Samantha Vilaysane, the “Ruler of the House” will have the chance to do what she does best – plan awesome parties.
RedHouse is a big deal for the Houston technology community and will fit in very well with the existing infrastructure of HTC, Rice and DFJMercury, while adding a great deal of experience and talent to our ecosystem.
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