Monthly Archive for April, 2008

Apr30th2008

Join us for the next Houston Startup Happy Hour on Thursday May 1st

Published
by
kurt
on April 30, 2008
in Conversations, Houston Startup Happy Hour, Houston Venture Capitalists, IT and Web 2.0 and VC and Angel Funding
. 0 Comments

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Startup Houston and the Houston Technology Center are proud to present
The May Houston Startup Happy Hour.

Demo by Strongroom Solutions

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The May Houston Startup Happy Hour features a live presentation of StrongRoom Solutions. StrongRoom Solutions offers a B2B service called the Payables Lockbox that is an online bill-pay service that lets business customers view, approve, and pay invoices online. There will also be an open mic opportunity for all startups to share recent announcements with the rest of Houston’s startup community.

New Location! New Format!

Here is your chance to meet Houston’s growing network of emerging startups, entreprenuers, investors, and technology enthusiasts to share drinks, tips and beta invites. Swap business cards and war stories and learn something new about Houston’s Tech Scene!

Join Us For:

  • Free drinks for the first 25 people
  • Wine-by-the-glass drink specials from 6 pm to 8 pm
  • Complimentary hors d’oeuvres
  • A live demo of the Strongroom Solutions site
  • Open mic for all startups to make announcements and provide sneak peeks of their latest sites and services
  • Meet Houston’s hottest innovative startups and entrepreneurs

The Tasting Room

When:
Thursday, May 1st (tomorrow)
6pm - 9pm

Where:
The Tasting Room @ River Oaks
2409 W. Alabama
(713) 526-2242
(Click here for map)

RSVP (here)
Sponsored by Phillips & Reiter, LLC

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Our sponsor for the May Startup Happy Hour is Phillips & Reiter, LLC. Phillips & Reiter is a new kind of law firm, offering an innovative approach to managing legal services. Their senior legal executives provide counsel to growing organizations on an as-needed basis, at a fraction of the cost compared to hiring a full-time General Counsel or traditional law firms. P&R has offices in Houston, Austin, Dallas and Fort Worth. Continue reading ‘Join us for the next Houston Startup Happy Hour on Thursday May 1st’

Apr29th2008

Houston got Kawasakied!!!

Published
by
Josh Tabin
on April 29, 2008
in General
. 2 Comments

So I missed Guy Kawasaki speaking live at the Houston Technology Center last week but caught most of it on Upstream.TV while I sat in San Francisco (irony can be quite humorous). Here is a copy of the presentation Guy gave (Guy Kawasaki at The Houston Technology Center). I have heard nothing but great things about the event and hope you enjoyed the experience.

Perhaps we’ll get him to come back and bring some friends with him next time.

Apr28th2008

APB for Developers: Make Yourselves Known

Published
by
Josh Tabin
on April 28, 2008
in General
. 3 Comments

I hear this from startups all day long: I need developers; know any?

Frankly I don’t know enough of you and desperately want to.

Here’s what I suggest. If you are a developer looking for something interesting to work on, go to our forums and post your name so we can refer you when we get requests. You can also comment on this post.

I suggest you put your name and skills, but leave off your email address so you don’t get spammed. You can email me your contact info and we will make the connections for you.

Additionally, there are the job boards with openings for startups as well.

Apr25th2008

Buy & Sell Your Stuff on Campus with Bubblevine

Published
by
Josh Tabin
on April 25, 2008
in IT and Web 2.0
. 4 Comments

Bubblevine

Local entrepreneur Monica Yoo, sister of serial entrepreneur and Natuba founder Richard Yoo, has just launched her first venture, Bubblevine, a marketplace for college students within a school commuinity to buy and sell stuff to fellow students in a safe and comfortable environment: campus. 

“While I was a junior in college at Trinity, I was looking for apartment furniture on Craigslist but found that the stuff I needed was all over town, often in sketchy areas that I wasn’t comfortable going to,” says Monica. ”Meanwhile, college kids were throwing away stuff at semester’s end. So I set out to create a market on campus for selling and buying stuff and Bubblevine was born.”

Bubblevine is free for students and only for students (you need a college email address to join). The intent is to develop a micro-local marketplace on campus so non-students are excluded from buying or selling items. Current schools listed on Bubblevine are:

Additional schools will be added over time.

Apr23rd2008

Constant Contact is in H-Town to Show off their Email Marketing Service

Published
by
kurt
on April 23, 2008
in Education and General
. 0 Comments

I received an email earlier today from Julie Niehoff of Constact Contact informing me that they are having a lunch-n-learn at the UofH Small Business Development Center on how effective ways of using their email marketing service.  Constant Contact is one of the better known email marketing services out there so if you are looking for some good info on making the most out of your email marketing campaigns it might be a good idea to check this out.

Here are the details:

Date: Friday, April 25th
Time: 11:30-1:30 pm
Cost: $19 if you pay online

Location :
University of Houston SBDC
2302 Fannin, Suite 200
Houston, Texas 77002

Class Description:

This session covers best practices in email marketing and how to use it in your business planning and strategy to achieve specific goals. Topics will include list building, how to avoid spam, tips for scheduling and examples of successful email campaigns and how they were set up to build business and drive sales.
– Specific instruction on how to get your email promotions and updates opened
– How to position the value of your message so that recipients will act on it

Click to register online!

Apr23rd2008

Guy Kawasaki is speaking at the Houston Technology Center tomorrow night (Thursday)

Published
by
kurt
on April 23, 2008
in Conversations, Events, General, IT and Web 2.0 and VC and Angel Funding
. 3 Comments

guy.jpgAs we wrote here, Guy Kawasaki is coming to Houston to speak at the Houston Technology Center about his book, The Art of the Start.  We will be there covering the event and asking questions that we hope will help Houston’s entrepreneurs and startups.  In addition, we’d like to ask for your input. 

What questions would you like to see us ask Guy that you think would help entreprenuers and startup companies in Houston to succeed?  Add your questions in the comments section.

Apr8th2008

April Houston Startup Happy Hour Jams with JamsBio

Published
by
kurt
on April 8, 2008
in Events, General, Houston Startup Happy Hour, Houston Venture Capitalists, IT and Web 2.0, VC and Angel Funding and Video
. 0 Comments

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 We had a great time at the April Houston Startup Happy Hour this past Thursday with the JamsBio launch.  The turnout was greater than we expected and filled the entire bar area (see photos and video below).  We went with a different venue (The Tasting Room) and format (Demos + Networking) for this month’s startup happy hour and I’ll have to say that while we still have some tweaking to do, it was a great event. 

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Stephen Newman, Matt Williams and the rest of the JamsBio crew did a great job with their demo as well as bringing lots of free T-shirts for everyone and we were excited to be part of their launch.  Also, many thanks to JamsBio for also sponsoring the event so that we could offer free drinks to many of you who made it by early.

http://www.vimeo.com/877795

I learned of two new social media startups at the event that are due to launch in private beta soon, and one established startup that just successfully secured their second round of funding.  Unfortunately, I can’t report on them yet, but there are a lot of details that will be coming out soon.  Marc Nathan of the HTC also announced Guy Kawasaki’s upcoming appearance at the HTC to give a presentation on The Art of The Start.  Overall, very exciting to see the many new things going on in Houston’s startup community.

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Here are some of the other startups and tech companies that were seen at the event:

Based on our April experience, here is how we plan to run the May event.

  • We are looking for a startup company to demo their latest and greatest features or newest version of their site. Please send an email to [events 'at' startuphouston 'dot' com] if interested.
  • The demo will be held in the back room (called The Wine Cellar) of The Tasting Room on the big Plasma screen TV.  This will help to cut down on some of the crowd noise we experienced in April’s event and will let the demoing company present longer if needed.
  • We are also looking for sponsors for the event.  The cost is $200 and goes directly back into promoting the event.
  • The startup that is demoing their company can also be the sponsor, but does not have to be.  It does make some sense though because the funds will be used to drive more people to the event who will also see the demo.
  • We will provide as much promotion as possible for both the demoing company and the sponsoring company

Let us know your thoughts.  Did you make it to the Happy Hour?  Was it a good event?  Did you meet new and interesting startups and people?  Did you like the demo or would you recommend another way to show off Houston’s hottest startups?  Tell us what you think in the comments section.

Apr7th2008

Small Business Marketing Unleashed Conference

Published
by
Josh Tabin
on April 7, 2008
in Events
. 0 Comments

The first ever Small Business Marketing Unleashed Conference is being planned by the team behind Search Engine Guide and Small Business Brief, two sites that have long devoted themselves to demystifying online marketing for small business owners. They’ve taken the feedback their readers have shared about other marketing conferences and decided to put their own spin on this event to help small business owners get the knowledge they need to market themselves online.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux9V_NRfxC8

Instead of hearing a panel of speakers share four different viewpoints, (leaving you to figure out which one is right) they’ll give the stage to one expert who knows how to explain the nuts and bolts of their topic to the small business audience. You’ll get the information that’s vital to improving your online marketing techniques and you’ll get it without the techno-talk and industry jargon so common to larger online marketing conferences.

On day two, they’ll take things a step further, breaking the show down into intensive work-shops that actually walk you through the process of beginning to market your site. Whether it’s keyword research, viral marketing, paid search advertising or a variety of other topics, their expert marketers will walk you through the actual steps of launching your online marketing campaign and will send you home with the knowledge you need to finish the job.

Cost: $975 (includes breakfast, lunch and dinner)
Discount: STARTUPHOUSTON = $125 off
When: April 21-22, 2008
Where: Northwest Forest Conference Center, Cypress, Texas

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Apr7th2008

College Station Rising Star

Published
by
Josh Tabin
on April 7, 2008
in General
. 2 Comments

Bill Erickson

Friend of Startup Houston and all-around good egg, Bill Erickson got some spotlight from the Mays Business School online recently. Bill is a frequent Houston visitor and part of the Creative Space in Bryan/College Station we wrote about some time back. His biggest claim to fame so far has been his involvement in creating and organizing BIL conference in Monterey earlier this year.

Buy his stock; it’s on the upswing

P.S. Great picture Bill. Is that the “one-eyebrow” lift pose?

Apr4th2008

Angels Staying in the Outfield

Published
by
Josh Tabin
on April 4, 2008
in VC and Angel Funding
. 0 Comments

Center for Venture Research

Angel investors are approaching investments with a more cautious eye given recent market volatility claims a recent research report by the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire. The 2007 Angel Market Analysis showed that the growth of investments were relatively steady while the amount invested grew at a slower pace implying that deal size was on the downswing.

Since angels invest their own capital, unlike venture funds that invest funds of their limited partners over a set time frame, any economic downturn is likely to cause a retraction in the amount typically invested by angels. For those without a finance background, increased volitilty is tantamount to increased risk, which is not an investor’s friend. Granted that there is a risk-reward relationship which implies that angel investing has inherent high risk in order to meet ample returns. However, when usually stable investments (such as mutual funds, stocks, bonds, etc.) become more volatile, angels need to reduce their overall exposure which tends to result in lower angel investing.

Interestingly enough, the report shows that 27% of angel investing went to software firms with biotech/life sciences getting 31%. The remainder went to indutrial/energy and retail to round out the top groups.

All of this just builds on earlier comments I made about the changing landscape for early stage comapanies.