Let’s Get Started!
I had an interesting conversation with a client yesterday regarding raising private equity. The issue is that the business is thriving without the capital infusion but if new investor funds were to come into the company, the business could flourish at a much more rapid pace, which brings my client closer to an exit event that may be more material for him.
The question is: “Is this new infusion of capital needed?”
How do you see it?
Purva Patel of the Houston Chronicle wrote a brief piece on the recent study by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation on America’s New Immigrant Entrepreneurs which highlights the shifting landscape of entrepreneurs starting new ventures in the United States towards foreign born individuals. I would attribute Texas’ higher than average ranking to our diverse culture in major cities like Houston and San Antonio (meaning that Texas has a much higher concentration of educated foreign immigrants than other states, possibly with the exception of California, which is likely due to our international airports and wide open spaces.)
However you look at it, this creates an interesting political dilemma for immigration reform. The chance of all of these great visionaries leaving the US for home where they can take their new business ideas may have an interesting impact on US competitiveness.
For my initial post I wanted to give our viewers an idea of the types of posts I plan to contribute:
I relish in constructive feedback so let me know what is on your mind; I assure I will let you know what’s on mine.
I am very happy to announce that Josh Tabin has agreed to be a co-contributor to the StartupHouston blog. Josh brings an outstanding background in all things finance and is the President and CEO of MosaicCFO, a consulting firm that specializes in providing financial and operational guidance to small and medium size firms. Josh will be contributing entries that are designed to help small and startup companies make intelligent funding and operational decisions, in addition to helping StartupHouston cover the broader startup scene for the greater Houston area.
For a preview of the type of content that Josh will be adding, go and check out his existing MosaicCFO blog here.
Stay tuned for other great things coming soon!
Saturday, August 25th
10:00am
Location - TBD
BarCamp is an annual event that offers a great opportunity to meet some of the best technology minds in Houston (and beyond) and the next one is coming up in July. Here is a quote from the BarCampHouston meetup site:
A BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from participants. The name BarCamp was inspired as a complement to FooCamp.
You can sign up for this year’s event at the official BarCamp site (here) or through their Meetup site (here).
Update - June 24th: I had taken the July date from the Houston BarCamp Meetup site, but it looks like it has now been updated to the same August date as the official Barcamp site, so I have changed the dates appropriately.
I was excited to see Marc Nathan with BullDog Financial report that Richard Yoo (founder of RackSpace) had recently moved to Houston to put together his latest startup company Hush Labs. (You can see a mention about how he is already making his presence felt here in Houston in this Chron.com article) Anyway, Hush Labs has just launched Natuba.com which is available through invitation only. According to their site, here is what Natuba is all about:
Give your friends a single place to follow everything happening in your online life with Natuba.
Trying to keep up with all your pages on all the different web sites has been a pain (just ask your friends). You have a MySpace page, a blog at LiveJournal or Blogger, photos at Flickr, videos at YouTube, and of course you can’t go 5 minutes without texting to your Twitter account. Just because you use all these sites doesn’t mean that your friends should have to visit all of them to keep up with what you are doing.
Natuba gives you a way to create a single page from all of your sites around the Internet.
I’m trying to get an invitation and I’ll let you know when I get mine and if I have any extra to give out myself.
The location is still TBD, according to the Refresh Houston site, but you can at least mark your calendars. Who’s speaking? Chris Bernard, User Experience Evangelist for Microsoft. Even though I am always somewhat wary of Microsoft propaganda, you have to admit that they build great interfaces and I’m sure there will be some good things to learn here.
June 8th
2pm to 5pm
That’s how this article on Read/Write Web describes the quickly growing open coffee club trend. Here are some good quotes:
From Cork to Capetown, Seattle to Sydney, and Paris to Palo Alto, people are getting together on a weekly basis to discuss all things startup and to meet and pitch their ideas to VCs. For an idea that only kicked off last February, it is beginning to take the world of web entrepreneurs by storm.
The main attraction for people who come along seems to be the relaxed atmosphere. It’s a great way to meet other startups in your area and build new relationships. For VCs its a quick and easy way to meet with a group of local entrepreneurs and to get to see their products/ideas in action.
Interested? Houston’s very own Open Coffee Club will be having it’s second meeting at the Uptown Starbucks at 2pm on Friday, June 8th.
From the site:
This month, Aaron Baxter will be doing a short 10-15 minute presentation — and then we will have an “Ask the Experts” question & answer session. Be sure to come with all your CSS questions, and our panel will help solve your CSS woes.
Find out more info and RSVP here.
Learn something new and get free beer in the process. Interested? I thought you were! The Houston Web Design Meetup Group is focusing on designing web mashups for their June meeting. You can find out more info and RSVP here.
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