For those of you who are not familiar with her, Erica O’Grady is a tireless promoter of the technology community within Houston. You can see her influence in groups ranging from Refresh Houston to the NetSquared Meetup Group, as well as BarCamp Houston, and everything else in between. She is also a regular part of the Business Maker’s Radio Show where you can listen in on Saturday and Sunday mornings to some great interviews on right and wrong ways to start a business and she has her own blog, Reinventing Erica, which has garnered a lot of praise nationwide. Yeah, she’s that plugged in.
It was also with great interest that I followed one of the latest projects that she has been involved in, called StartupWeekend, which was the reason why I decided to write this post in the first place. StartupWeekend was an effort by approx. 70 people passionate about technology, including developers and veterans from other startups in the Denver area to completely create a Web 2.0 company in one weekend from scratch, including everything from working product, to legal, marketing, and everything else.
According to her blog site, Erica helped to inspire the concept and you can see her listed as one of the founders on the StartupWeekend web site. The final outcome of the exercise was that the group came really close to realizing their goal and I think that anyone who is considering a startup would do well to checkout their blog and comments and understand more about all of the lessons learned. In the meantime, we are anxiously awaiting the launch of their product VoSnap.com and what future adventures Erica will lead us on in the world of Web 2.0.
A Few Updates:
• I just found out that there is a planned Startup Weekend Houston, for the weekend of Sept. 29th. I will post more details as soon as I have them.
• Erica was interviewed this evening on the Technology Bytes radio show. You can listen to the podcast here.
• Dwight Silverman with the Houston Chronicle provided coverage today on Erica on his Tech Blog. You can see the post here.
Get ready to mark your calendars because the Rice Alliance has just announced their schedule of events for the rest of 2007 and 2008. We have the quick reference version for you below and you can get additional details on all the latest Rice Alliance goings-on at the events section of their web site.
Rice Alliance Entrepreneurship and Mentoring Series
Wednesday-Thursday, July 25-26, 2007 – SOLD OUT!
8th Annual Rice Alliance Kick-Off Celebration
Thursday, August 23, 2007, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
5th Annual Energy and Clean Technology Venture Forum
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Life Science Entrepreneurship Certificate Program
Fridays and Saturdays - September 28 - November 2, 2007
5th Annual Information Technology Venture Forum
Thursday, November 8, 2007
7th Annual Nanotechnology Venture Forum
Thursday, January 24, 2008
2008 Rice University Business Plan Competition
Thursday-Saturday, April 3-5, 2008
7th Annual Life Science Technology Venture Forum
Thursday, May 15, 2008
I guess you can never start planning too early for some of these things and as you can see some of them are already selling out (especially the Entrepreneurial Workshops) and of course we will be posting reminders here in the blog and on our event calendar as things get closer. Judging by the response I have seen at these events it looks like there is a lot of startup interest in Houston for now and the forseable future.
Thanks to local entrepreneur and current honeymooner (shame on you for posting this) Richard Yoo for finding this for us. A great tool for trying to lure talented employees to Houston for startups…
Governor Perry was downtown at the Greater Houston Partnership today to roll out Texas’ new Bioenergy Strategy and introduce the newly formed Texas Bioproducts Industry Council. This links to an MP3 of the press conference.
Alternate energy will have an incredible amount focus over the coming years. I received the upcoming events calendar from the Rice Alliance and the 5th Annual Energy and Clean Technology Venture Forum coming up on September 27, 2007. It is geared to bring start-up technology companies together with venture capitalists and other potential investors.
Are you a small or startup technology company that is looking for an additional source of funding? Well, the Texas Emerging Technology Fund might be something you want to check out.
A good friend to the Houston startup community and blogger, Marc Nathan of Bulldog Financial, managed to get himself interviewed by the Houston Chronicle in the Moneymakers column a few weeks ago. Marc will be moving into a more active role at the Houston Technology Center as the Director of the IT group as soon as he is able to tear himself away from caring for his new baby daughter who was born just last Thursday.
Congratulations to Marc on the baby, article and new role.
Nick Carr has written a very topical piece in the Guardian about the changing fundamentals regarding software business operations. This opinion piece is very relevant to anyone contemplating starting a software business.
Several friends in the data center space have been very active in securing more data center space to keep up with growth of their business: both internal and managed service providers who manage servers for their customers. I attribute this increasing demand to the developing processing power needed to compete in the digital age.
Local star DataCert closed on what looks to be a $10 million Series E (?) round of funding with Memphis-based SSM Partners. This Houston based company “is the industry leader in corporate legal and IP spend and matter management solutions.” The funding will be put towards international growth of their array of offerings. DataCert is both an Inc 500 and Deloitte Technology Fast 500 company.
CSIdentity, an Austin based startup that provides identity-theft protection and background screening services, closed a $2.5 million Series A round with the four major angel networks in Texas, including our very own Houston Angel Network. Terms of the transaction were not readily available.
The Houston Angel Network (or HAN as it is endearingly called around town) has become a powerhouse among angel networks. I have heard that Han averages a little more than a deal a month, which is tremendous. Visit the website or contact Kala Marathi, Managing Director for more about how HAN might be able to help you.
Looks like Don Ellis was able to grab a couple of guys away from Sterling Bank to head up the new Patriot Bank branch in Clear lake (HBJ link). That puts them at 5 branches in Houston with plans to expand in Dallas in the future.
I had Don and Bill Holmes look at a deal recently and liked their direct approach. They definitely have an understanding of the Houston market and are developing an interesting model. Given the rapid growth I have seen from this team, I expect Patriot to become a more active player in the Texas capital markets.
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