http://entrepreneurcamp.us

Twitter: @Untrepreneur

http://entrepreneurcamp.us/

EntrepreneurCamp
Saturday, August 21, 2010 from 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM (CT)

Bauer College of Business on the
University of Houston Main Campus Map

http://entrepreneurcamp.us

Twitter: @Untrepreneur

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SPONSOR: http://entrepreneurcamp.us/sponsorship/

What is EntrepreneurCamp?

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.

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 [...]]]>

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:

marc1919

This is @gracerodriguez right after she was surprised to learn that she’s now a full partner@carolineco – 100% deserved http://twitpic.com/25yxej

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 [...]]]>

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.

Date: Thursday, April 8, 2010 Time: 6:00pm – 10:00pm Location: pg+co loft Where: 1305 Sterrett Street Houston, TX 77002 View Map RSVP on Facebook

We’re making it a neighborhood affair… with an open house at our new digs slated for April 8th, the lovely colab ladies and the Primer Grey team wanted to make it about more than just us. Over [...]]]>

Date: Thursday, April 8, 2010
Time: 6:00pm – 10:00pm
Location: pg+co loft
Where: 1305 Sterrett Street Houston, TX 77002
View Map
RSVP on Facebook

We’re making it a neighborhood affair… with an open house at our new digs slated for April 8th, the lovely colab ladies and the Primer Grey team wanted to make it about more than just us. Over the last couple of months in our new space we’ve kept an open door policy, and people have taken us up on it.

We’ve quickly learned that our neighborhood is filled with some amazing talent, and not all of them hang a sign from their door. It was after spending a Sunday on our patio cleaning up some winter brush–and after word got out–that we started getting some cool visitors.

Music talents like Andrew Karnavas, David Wrangler; photogs and visual folks Zen Film, Everett Taasevigen, Clint Shuttlesworth, Imelda Bettinger, and the Studio Holloman folks; Hung et al. over at Ray’s Franks and More; art talents like DiverseWorks, Ray and Rosie Phillips and Kat Sola, Cel at Stella Rose; Dan Joyce and company over at Net Victories; loft mates Jay and Jessica Grieves; neighbors IST and M Architects, 002 Magazine ; the deliciously mobile, Stella Rose, the kind folks of Last Concert Cafe; and of course, you can’t forget Saint Arnold. The list goes on and on and on.

Then we thought, wow, there’s so much talent in this little corner of the world that some people probably don’t even know exists. Wouldn’t it be great if we could introduce all our new friends to all our other friends? And so our lil’ open house became a block party, one inspired by movements like Support Local. Grow Together. (SLGT) and Only in Houston (OiH).

We hope everyone can make it, because there are old friends to see and new friends to be had.

You can expect music inside, booze (thanks to Saint Arnold) and the like, as well as DJ requests via Twitter (DJ Good Grief & Young $quaddy), awesome folks and good times. If you’re one of the above mentioned people and want to bring something to the party, feel free, it’s a blank canvas of activity.

Katie Laird of The Business Makers’ Overtime Show will be in the house recording for an upcoming show.

WHO’S IN?
We have confirmed neighbors: 002 Magazine, Stella Rose, Zen Film, Saint Arnold, Net Victories, and more.

Bring people you want other people to drink beer with. We welcome you to the neighborhood.

More details as they’re available via updates here and @pgteam and @hellocolab.

The comments of this post would be a [...]]]> Hopefully everyone that is going to SXSW has confirmed places to stay, picked panels and parties and broken in those comfortable shoes (can’t over emphasize that enough) and those that are staying here have unfollowed their Austin-bound friends and blocked the hashtag #SXSW for the next week.

The comments of this post would be a great place for any one from Houston to leave your name and twitter handle as well as recommend anything interesting from panels, to food, to non-badge events. I’ll start:

Marc Nathan @marc1919

Google Spreadsheet of almost all parties and events

http://blogs.zdnet.com/weblife/?p=1508 15 Can’t Miss Parties and Meetups

Texas Coworking Meetup
Sat, March 13, 6pm – 8pm
Where: 200 E. 6th Street, 3rd Floor

Live Taping of This Week in Startups (TWiST)
Jason Calacanis is interviewing Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos.com
Sat Mar 13 4pm – Sat Mar 13 7pm
Where: Six Lounge 117 W Fourth St Austin, TX 78701

and of course, the Houston@SXSW party on Monday March 15:

Monday, March 15 from 7:00 pm to 2:00 am
Where: Hudson’s 301 W 5TH., Austin TX 78701

Date: Tuesday March 9, 2010 Time: 6:00pm – 9:30pm Location: Caroline Collective 4820 Caroline Houston, Texas 77004 RSVP on Facebook

Since that starts at 6, you can then go to the monthly NetSquared meetup – generously sponsored [...]]]> Even if you’re not planning on coming to Austin for SXSW, you should plan on coming to the Houston@SXSW Pre-party at Caroline Collective

Date: Tuesday March 9, 2010
Time: 6:00pm – 9:30pm
Location: Caroline Collective 4820 Caroline Houston, Texas 77004
RSVP on Facebook

Since that starts at 6, you can then go to the monthly NetSquared meetup – generously sponsored by Schipul, The Web Marketing Company where I’m giving a talk on why Non-profits need to foster a vibrant Tech Startup Community and vice versa.

Date: Tuesday March 9, 2010
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Stag’s Head Pub 2128 Portsmouth St. Houston, TX 77098
RSVP on Meetup

On Wednesday, you can show up to the Social Media Shin-Dig hosted by new marketing firm, The Black Sheep Agency but only if you’re one of the lucky first 100 to RSVP:

Date: Wednesday March 10, 2010
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Beaver’s 2310 Decatur Street Houston, TX 77007-7519
RSVP on Pingg

Oh, and that bonus

fourth

event this week: There is an intimate little gathering of 25,000 in Austin starting on Friday that you might not have heard of called South by Southwest. Don’t forget to register for the Houston@SXSW party on Monday night starting at 7pm

Anthony Broussard gave a great interview about his company Quantum Potato to the BusinessMakers radio show. You can hear the entire interview here http://www.thebusinessmakers.com/episodes/shows/2010/january-2010/episode-240/anthony-broussard.html

He talks about how his [...]]]> In light of the article written in the Houston Chronicle by Purva Patel last week: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/tech/news/6808624.html# some other news has come out about the Houston mobile development scene.

Anthony Broussard gave a great interview about his company Quantum Potato to the BusinessMakers radio show. You can hear the entire interview here http://www.thebusinessmakers.com/episodes/shows/2010/january-2010/episode-240/anthony-broussard.html

He talks about how his very first game called Enlightenment Vision: http://linktoapp.com/enlightenment_vision was approved in four days by the App Store.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGEs0arX5qM

There is still time to register to attend the iPhone Dev Camp Houston

What is iPhoneDevCamp Houston?

iPhoneDevCamp Houston is a participant-driven gathering of like-minded individuals – also known as an unconference – with the goal of bringing together current and future iPhone developers and business owners to network, share ideas, and explore opportunities.

Dates:  Jan 30 – 31, 2010
Location:  CoffeeGroundz at 2503 Bagby Street
Registration: http://iphonedevcamphouston.eventbrite.com/?ref=ecount
Web Site:  iPhoneDevCampHouston.com
Facebook Fan Page:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/iPhoneDevCamp-Houston/207773391733
Twitter Page:  http://twitter.com/ipdchouston
Twitter Hash Tag:  #ipdchouston

Matt Mullenweg, the founder of Automattic, and recognized leader of the Wordpress revolution is coming back home to Houston for the holidays. He’s going to be giving the RefreshHouston talk tonight at Poplab’s new Westchase Technology Center. Around this time last year, Matt spoke at HTC to a huge crowd and gave them [...]]]>

Matt Mullenweg, the founder of Automattic, and recognized leader of the Wordpress revolution is coming back home to Houston for the holidays. He’s going to be giving the RefreshHouston talk tonight at Poplab’s new Westchase Technology Center. Around this time last year, Matt spoke at HTC to a huge crowd and gave them one of the best unscripted, from the heart and powerful talks you could ever get from technology entrepreneur. Expectations are high for this evening, but we’re absolutely certain that they will be exceeded.
Topic: Matt Mullenweg Presentation & Q&A Forum
Who: Matt Mullenweg
What: Matt will be presenting on the state-of-the Web, status of Wordpress and other Automattic endeavors
When: Tuesday, Decemeber 22, 2009 / 6:30pm
Where: Westchase Technology Center
Address: 7850 Parkwood Circle Dr. Ste. B3 (upstairs)