Marc Nathan Tuesday, 31st of August 2010 at 09:44:08 AM
Bryan Jowers, the CEO of Houston-based startup Giftiki has (reluctantly) started a blog at bryan.giftiki.com about his experiences in the new Seed Accelerator Brandery in Cincinnati, which is supported by Houston VC firm, DFJMercury. Follow him and his business partner Justin Stanislaw to gain some insight into the process and be ready to welcome them home when they graduate.
Marc Nathan Tuesday, 3rd of August 2010 at 08:36:20 PM
TiE Houston is hosting the first inaugural BizCrawl 2010 that brings you the opportunity to connect with founders, CEOs and head honchos of Houston for mentoring and knowledge-sharing .
What is BizCrawl? Inspired from Houston’s ArtCrawl, an 18-year old legacy, that allows visitors to meet local artists in the Artist Warehouse District on a select date, BizCrawl creates an open environment for entrepreneurs and executives to exchange ideas with each other and learn from the success of those around them.
BizCrawl is an extension of TiE’s mission of fostering entrepreneurship through education, mentoring and networking, and of TiE Houston’s 10-year history of helping individuals get to the next level in their careers.
BizCrawl 2010, will be held this year on September 1st, 2010, with 6 meet-up sessions across 6 locations in the Uptown and Galleria area. Registration is limited to members and the entry price is $10.00. If you’re not a member, it’s not too late, just go to the link below and sign up.
Register Here: http://bizcrawl.ning.com/events
Come, gather industry best practices, get personal advice, enhance your network, learn about future job opportunities… the list is endless…
Registration is on first come first served basis and is limited to 6-8 people per session, for the price of $10.00 per registration. This is a member only event and you CAN sign up for more than one session.
Entrepreneur Camp is a BarCamp style event with the goal of bringing together entrepreneurs, investors, VC’s, business leaders, and anyone interested in starting a business to network, share ideas, and explore opportunities.
The Second Annual Entrepreneur Camp Houston will be held August 21st, 2010 at the Wolff Center For Entrepreneurship on UH campus. Breafkast and networking begins at 9 AM, and the camp starts at 10 AM.
WhoisInvited?
Anyone who is interested in entrepreneurism and business! We welcome those who want to form a startup, those who already have a startup, those interested in investing in startups, and anyone else looking to learn from the entrepreneur community.
Why is it called a Camp?
Our event is a community-driven conference in the style of BarCamp. “Camp” implies that the event is informal with an emphasis on face-to-face interaction with other attendees. “Community-driven” means that the attendees of the conference actually run the conference by discussing topics appropriate to the subject of the event. The presentation schedule is determined on the morning of the conference and anyone who attends is welcome to present.
Attending the camp is FREE!
To all of those that attend, the camp is free, and supported by sponsors, volunteers, and the community.
What’s Different About EntrepreneurCamp Houston?
We wanted to take the un-conference a step further, and offer a bit of structure to some of the event to make it more dynamic and rewarding for all of those involved. Because of this, we will have a separate room dedicated to those with startup ideas or existing companies that wish to pitch their company to a panel of investors and business leaders. The participating companies will have 2 minutes to make their elevator pitch to the panel. The winner of the pitch contest will win a prize…yet to be determined, but we’ll make it fun and beneficial.
Tickets to present your company to the panel will go on sale a week before the camp, August 15th, and are $25 to purchase.
It was just over a year ago that Adeo Ressi launched the Founder Institute, a very early stage startup incubator. Since then they’ve expanded the program well beyond Silicon Valley.Affiliated programs are now available in 11 cities around the world – with Houston opening up now. The Houston semester will be run locally by the Managing Partners of Enterprise Builders. Applications for the Houston program are due by August 22.
Applicants are required to take an aptitude test that ranks them against other applicants. The test scores IQ, aptitude and personality. In Silicon Valley, 79 of 250 applicants were ultimately approved, and 41 companies were formed.
Ressi says the test is very good at predicting high quality entrepreneurs. 27% of accepted entrepreneurs perform worse than expected in class. 57% perform as predicted, and 16% perform better than predicted.
Want to see where you rank as an entrepreneur? For the first time the Founder Institute is offering the test to anyone that wants to take it, and they’ll tell you how you ranked against other applicants.
Take the test here – apply now and the test will be sent out on August 3. The application takes a couple of minutes, the test about 40 minutes. I’ll be taking it and will post my results as well.
It is an exciting time to be a part of Houston’s startup community! Stay tuned for more exciting announcements in the days and weeks ahead!
kurtstoll Thursday, 22nd of July 2010 at 12:17:12 AM
Here is the full Press Release:
The Founder Institute Launches Entrepreneur Training Program in Houston
Now Operating in 12 Cities, the Program Aims to Strengthen Houston’s Tech Start-Up Environment
HOUSTON, TEXAS – July 19, 2010 - The Founder Institute (www.FounderInstitute.com), a four-month training and mentoring program for technology entrepreneurs, is launching a new Summer 2010 semester in Houston, Texas. The Founder Institute aims to strengthen the technology start-up ecosystem in Houston by creating a team-work environment where equity is shared amongst all participants in the companies formed. Training sessions run on Thursday evenings from August 30th until January 13, 2011, so participants are not required to quit their day job or discontinue their university studies. Applications for Early Acceptance into the program start today and are due by August 10th, with the Closing Application Deadline on August 20th, 2010. Anyone starting a technology company or with a dream to launch an innovative business is invited to apply at http://www.founderinstitute.com/apply/25.
The Houston Semester will be run locally by the Managing Partners of Enterprise Builders (www.EnterpriseBuilders.org); including Dan Valdez, who assisted in the creation of the original program for the University of Houston’s Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship, ranked the number one Undergraduate Entrepreneurship program by Entrepreneur magazine.
“The Founder Institute program is exactly what Tech startups in Houston need to keep our City in the forefront for Entrepreneurship and job creation” said Dan Valdez.
With the addition of Houston, the Founder Institute will now operate in twelve cities worldwide, putting it on pace to graduate over 700 founders creating over 500 companies per year.
“We have discovered a formula to help passionate founders create meaningful and enduring companies in different markets around the world,” says Adeo Ressi, CEO of TheFunded.com and the Founder Institute. “We leverage leading social science methods to identify top talent, and then we offer an intense startup curriculum focused on teamwork and guidance from leading local and global CEOs. Our unique approach has allowed the Institute to scale almost ten times larger than comparable incubators or accelerators.”
Confirmed CEO mentors for the Houston Summer 2010 Semester include;
Marc Nathan Friday, 16th of July 2010 at 06:59:44 AM
The Caroline Collective is celebrating its two year birthday today starting at 4pm at 4820 Caroline St., Houston, TX 77004. Anyone involved with startups, social media and the tech and creative community should come by and help them mark this incredible milestone.
It’s hard to believe that such a critically important part of the Houston community has only been in existence for two years. The original founders, Matthew Wettergreen and Ned Doddington as well as the core supporters, who really are more like co-founders, Grace Rodriguez and Monica Danna have a lot to be proud of today and deserve a huge amount of credit for making Caroline the central hub of community activity. All of the coworkers, supporters and volunteers who have shaped Caroline to what it is have a hand in this success.I’m sure that those intrepid individuals who showed up to clean and paint a disused old warehouse in a not so great part of town never really thought that they would end up turning it into the home base for countless incredible events where friends are made, ideas are hatched and a community is strengthened.
Caroline has followed the path of many successful startups. They first uncovered a demand and then found a way to serve their audience. Sure, they’ve had their share of common startup issues – founder disputes, cash flow problems and market education obstacles. In the end, the passion of the founders enabled the organization to learn, pivot and execute. What started out as an interesting social experiment has turned into a flourishing movement.
I am in awe of what the Caroline Collective has accomplished in two short years and I’m eagerly looking forward to many more in the future. Startup Houston raises a St. Arnold’s to the people that have made Houston’s grassroots startup community a reality.
P.S. I hear that Caroline Collective has a big announcement at 6pm tonight, so expect to be surprised.
UPDATE: The big announcement really was a big announcement – Grace Rodriguez, the founder of http://www.aynbrand.com and tireless supporter of the Houston community was given a full partnership of Caroline Collective. She was completely taken by surprised and the crowd burst into applause. She absolutely deserves this and the picture I sent out just afterwards says it all:
Marc Nathan Wednesday, 14th of July 2010 at 01:15:03 PM
Black Sheep recently launched a contest to find other businesses/organizations that identify with standing out in their industry…Self-proclaimed “Black Sheep,” if you will. And I’d like to ask for your help in spreading the word.
If you’re a Black Sheep yourself, I’d love for you to apply. If you don’t fit the bill, but know a good candidate, please forward this email along. It’s a simple process (4 questions, either written or submitted by video) and the winner will receive $10,000 in free PR, social media and marketing services.
Submissions are due by Aug. 15, 2010, and video applications are encouraged (bonus points for creativity).
For more information and to fill out an application, visit our website at http://theblacksheepagency.com. Video submissions can be mailed to the following address:
The Black Sheep Agency
ATTN: Aimee Woodall/Contest Entry
215 W. Norma, Suite 201
Houston, Texas 77009
Thanks for helping me spread the word!
Aimee Woodall
Leader of the Flock
Black Sheep | PR & Marketing
832.971.7725 Mobile
@aimeewoodall
@shearcreativity theblacksheepagency.com
facebook.com/theblacksheepagency
shearcreativity.blogspot.com/
linkedin.com/in/aimeewoodall
Marc Nathan Thursday, 17th of June 2010 at 11:05:24 AM
I just received this email from Aziz Gilani who was inspired by the wildly successful Office Hours hosted by First Round Capital. It seems like an incredible opportunity for aspiring startups to meet informally with the VC’s that have the biggest presence for early stage deals in Houston.
—
At DFJ Mercury, nothing excites us more than interacting with entrepreneurs. To this end, we are pleased to announce the launch of DFJ Mercury Office Hours!
DFJ Mercury Office Hours
Friday, June 25 from 3:00pm – 5:00pm
Coffee Groundz 2503 Bagby St. Houston, TX 77006
Attending VC’s: Blair Garrou, Dan Watkins, Ned Hill, and Aziz Gilani
Sign Up/RSVP: http://bit.ly/alHG97
To learn more about us: www.dfjmercury.com
Our Office Hours series is intended to provide a forum for entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to exchange ideas in a casual environment. If you want to think through the market opportunity for your technology, figure out a fundraising strategy, or talk to someone about that great business idea that’s been lingering in your head, this is a great place to start that discussion. Our target audience includes all entrepreneurs, ranging from students with cool ideas to established companies that are already generating revenue.
Follow the link below to sign up for the event. We will allot 10 minutes for each entrepreneur(s) to meet with us. We will start with your 30-second elevator pitch (have one prepared!), which will be followed by a brief discussion. Please note that this is simply an informal discussion so that we can meet you and hopefully offer useful advice, and we are not evaluating your business for funding purposes.
This event is intended for entrepreneurs local to Houston. If you are not from Houston, not to worry, we are in the process of scheduling more office hours throughout Texas and the midcontinent. So hang tight, and we will definitely meet you soon.
If you have any feedback or questions, e-mail zafir@dfjmercury.com. Spread the word, and we will see you on June 25th!
Marc Nathan Sunday, 13th of June 2010 at 12:45:28 PM
Yesterday represented what the Houston community is all about – taking a great idea, adding our our local flavor and executing it flawlessly. The Culture Pilot team deserved the thunderous applause they received for all the hard work that obviously went into pulling off an incredibly successful event.
The theme that emerged through all of the speakers and presentations was “Storytelling”. It started with the very first speaker, U of H Professor Dr. Brene Brown who set the tone with this very tweetable quote, “Stories are data with a soul”. Her talk was both informative and emotional, as well as personal and powerful – it was the perfect lead off choice for the conference. The next speaker, Dan Philips of the Phoenix Commotion was quirky and funny in talking about how salvaged material and unskilled labor make (im)perfect homes with personality. Cristal Baylor rounded out the first session with her stories of training women villagers in the remote mountains of Pakistan in the art of bee farming in a program dubbed ‘Plan Bee’ through the Hashoo Foundation that is transforming economic and family relations in the region.
After a quick break, we heard from four Rice Professors in a row – first up was Cary Wolfe who discussed transhumanism and our perception of animal rights, which affects how we farm, eat and live. Next was a fascinating discussion by Dr. Rebecca Richards-Kortum and Dr. Maria Odem who relayed the story of how their students were delivering healthcare technologies a a fraction of Western costs to emerging countries.
The last talk before lunch was Dr. Stephen Klineberg – Rice University professor and worldwide expert in the changing demographics of Houston. He pulled facts and trends from his 20+ year annual report about Houston and gave a spirited talk about the effects of immigration law and the economy. He concluded with the theory that Houston is the demographic model for every Western city for the next century.
After lunch, we got a very entertaining lesson in storytelling through music from the 2 Star Symphony and then heard from Rick Pal, a Houston-based entrepreneur talked about the Indian concept of ‘Jugaad‘ – the practice of innovation through constraint. This talk had direct parallels to the Rice Professors talk about their students creating simple and ingenious solutions for developing world healthcare like a blood centrifuge, necessary in diagnosing certain diseases, made from a As Seen on TV Salad Spinner. Mark Johnson, the co-founder of local Houston dotcom Hometta echoed earlier speaker Dan Philips sentiment of impressing yourself, and your family instead of strangers with your home design choices. He wants a ‘Slow Home’ movement to take hold like the ‘Slow Food’ movement has across the globe.
Local favorite, and now national celebrity chef, Monica Pope explicitly stated that her cooking was less about the food and more about the storytelling behind it. She talked straight from the hip, and though she seemed a bit unprepared at the beginning – her message came across loud and clear. Grace Cavner, of Recipe for Success who Monica is closely aligned gave an impassioned talk about how to change our nations eating habits by taking chefs into schools. Michelle Obama is listening, and Gracie has very ambitious plans for a 100 acre urban garden right in the middle of downtown Houston.
The final break featured delicious bite-sized mini cupcakes by local company Jody Cakes and the first speaker of the last session was choreographer Dominic Walsh who had two of his dancers perform. David Crossley of Houston Tomorrow showed map after map and chart after chart about the way Houstonians live, work and commute and made a very compelling argument for elevated light rail alongside existing highways. Mat Johnson, U of H Professor and author talked about issues surrounding race relations and the process of creating his graphic novel Incognegro. The events final speaker was Dr. David Eagleman who discussed the overwhelmingly vast universe and how that its sheer size cannot be measured, much less explored in it’s entirety in less than one million years.
The Leadership team did a stellar job of curating the speakers and topics as well as the crowd itself. The army of volunteers made sure that everyone was well fed and the program ran on time (a miraculous occurrence happened when they were actually running early at the beginning). Even the protesters in front of the venue were well-behaved – probably because it was a protest against Apathy that was coordinated by Aimee Woodall of PR and event marketing firm Black Sheep Agency, herself a strong advocate for the Houston creative community. [On a side note, as I was walking into the Wortham Theatre on the U of H campus I saw the protesters yelling and holding signs. I intuitively wanted to avoid them entirely, desperately hoping that they weren't protesting one of my personal hot-button issues, but mentally preparing to get into a fight with them if they were. My head was down, but I heard one of them call out my name and went over to Kerri Ryan who could tell I was relieved. When I saw a lot of other familiar faces in the mob, she told me that they were protesting apathy so I told her with a big smile that 'I didn't care'.]
If there was any controversy at all, it was the fact that attendees had to apply. This made sure that the ‘right’ people were there, but if it was handled incorrectly – it could have easily devolved into a argument about elitism. None of that sentiment was present in the 450+ attendees, and no one had heard of any one that was rejected based on their application. Those that weren’t able to attend we able to watch a free live stream provided by Paul Sedillo of Media975. Videos from the conference will be posted shortly.
Overall, the event was interesting, provocative and stimulating – everything that a TED is supposed to be and more. This first TEDxHouston is a major win for our city and I believe that it sets the bar very high for events like this in the future. One person who had attended TED in the past told me that this one in Houston had the same electric vibe. This is probably the single most telling sign that our TED was a smashing success.
Marc Nathan Wednesday, 26th of May 2010 at 09:38:45 AM
Houston-bred startup founders Mark Schmulen and David Lyman sold their web-based aggregation tool, NutshellMail to email giant Constant Contact: Press Release
I’ve spoken with Mark and he named a few Houston-based advisors and investors, specifically Phil Fraher, a seasoned CEO and now a special advisor to the Houston Technology Center, Andrew Clark also an Executive-in-Residence at HTC and one of Houston’s most active technology angels as well as Roger Friedberger who is a member of the Houston Angel Network who all helped guide the company through the complicated startup process and even more complicated sale process.
Due to the deal they structured and the fact that Constant Contact is a public company, Mark and the advisors can’t tell me the total price, but they assure me that everyone is very, very happy with the outcome and that the investors were paid back with a profit less that a year after the first investment closed. From an angel standpoint – this is a massive win.
Mark, David and David Neubauer, the company’s CTO will be building Constant Contact’s West Coast operations and leading their Social Media initiatives, as well as spearheading future startup acquisitions for the next three years. This is a great place for them and Constant Contact will now be able to capitalize on the lessons Nutshell has learned about trends in social media. Aside from the work cut out for him in their new day job, Mark, always the standup guy, has plans on giving both his time and money to new startups (he’s already looking at two) – and I know that he’ll be accessible to Houston startups for advice. He is built to be a startup mentor and I know that he’ll thrive in that role.
The inevitable question has already been raised, “Is this good for Houston if the principals have moved to Silicon Valley?”
On the face of it, the answer is no if you are looking at it from a strictly job-and-tax base-growth perspective that is held by most Economic Development organizations. Modern early stage web-based startups will always fail in this category for the simple reason that startups can now do much more with much less in terms of staff, tools and time – it’s the basic premise of the remarkably brilliant new book REWORK by 37Signals. Nutshell Mail, like scores of other web-startups had a very Lean mentality and growth for growth’s sake always took a back seat to figuring out the product-market fit.
I would argue that that Nutshell has already been a huge win for the Houston Startup community. First off, they
started
– jumping off the cliff into a startup is incredibly motivating for other would-be entrepreneurs. Secondly, they took a risk and it paid off – this is not just true of the founders themselves, but their families. David Lyman is a newlywed, and strictly based on his wife’s Facebook updates, it has been a struggle at times for them on an emotional level since they were living in separate cities for a while. Spouses are very often the unsung heros in a startup – earning enough to keep the family going and offering emotional support through all of the lows that startups endure. I bring this up only to use this as an argument to all the other aspiring startup spouses that there can be a light at the end of the tunnel. Third, lots of Houstonians were involved along the way who were compensated both in cash as service providers and experience, as they can now proudly place Nutshell Mail in their portfolios. I want to call out out three people in particular: 1) Scott Mury – the original architect of Nutshell Mail. He made the (right) choice to stick with his own startup but should get a lot of credit for Nutshell. 2) Aaron Baxter – the incredibly, almost supernaturally talented designer who handled most of the branding and user experience for the company and 3) Erica O’Grady – our very own Social Media expert (a truly earned title, not in an ironic way) who for a time spent every waking moment talking (and IMing) about Nutshell to anyone and everyone – that happened to include Guy Kawasaki, Robert Scoble and Pete Cashmore Erica was instrumental in getting the Houston community to know about and support Nutshell – even going so far as to arrange a few Jelly!’s at the global headquarters of Nutshell Mail and the home to Nathan Nut (Mark’s grandmother’s condo near the Galleria – certain to be a historic technology landmark like Hewlett and Packards garage or the House of Pies on Kirby where the first Compaq laptop was sketched out). Fourth winners: the investors. Nutshell Mail started out with a healthy friends and family round, that was later followed up by a group from the Houston Angel Network led by Andrew Clark. They were admitted to the Facebook incubator that made a small investment through REV, the fbFund led by none other than the Master of 500 Hats himself, Dave McClure. This in turn led to a Series A round by Jay Levy at Zelkova Ventures. A local investor win from our angels is a local win any way you look at it. Now those local angels have both domain expertise that comes from a solid exit not to mention the cash available to invest in other deals of the same nature. Fifth winner: the haters – that’s right, there were a lot of very smart, very respected people who passed on the deal or denied their support for Nutshell Mail since they either didn’t get it or they didn’t see the financial return possibilities. There were quite a few – and I spoke to many of them personally – that said the team was not good enough or that they didn’t have the right skills/knowledge/connections. I told Mark the old saying, “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan”. What I meant was that Nutshell was an orphan last Friday, but now people are going to come out of the woodwork to say how much they helped/believed/supported them now that they have a mark in the Win column. This is a common thing – a lot like a university who gave you a lot of trouble to graduate, but is now asking for your donation. I strongly believe that Nutshell is a win for these naysayers because it proves that these deals can make money and it gives them a reason to take a second look at a risky investment. This is exactly the kind of thing Houston needs to shake our perception as a very conservative investment environment for web-based startups.
Congratulations again to the Nutshell Mail team, the investors and once again Houston.
Tuesday, 31st of August 2010 at 09:44:08 AM
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