Join us for the next OpenCoffee Club!

About : The Houston OpenCoffee Club encourages open and informal discussion and networking among entrepreneurs, technology enthusiasts, and investors to help grow startup companies in the Houston area.

Thursday, February 21st, 2008 8:00AM – 10:00AM

The Coffee Groundz 2503 Bagby St Houston, TX 77006 (713) 874-0082 Map

You can RSVP and see who else [...]]]>

Join us for the next OpenCoffee Club!

About : The Houston OpenCoffee Club encourages open and informal discussion and networking among entrepreneurs, technology enthusiasts, and investors to help grow startup companies in the Houston area.

Thursday, February 21st, 2008
8:00AM – 10:00AM

The Coffee Groundz
2503 Bagby St
Houston, TX 77006
(713) 874-0082
Map

You can RSVP and see who else is attending here.

You can find additional information on the Houston OpenCoffee Club on our Meetup page and on the StartupHouston blog. You can also find information about how OpenCoffee Club got started and what it is all about here and here.

 We are proud to have Misty Khan as our first guest blogger for January.  Misty is the President and CEO of Advena Artemis, [...]]]> For 2008 Startup Houston has invited some of Houston’s best and brightest to provide guest posts on topics that they feel can help the Houston startup community to experience more success in 2008. 

 We are proud to have Misty Khan as our first guest blogger for January.  Misty is the President and CEO of Advena Artemis, which provides sales consulting and the HuntressPro sales productivity software package for Microsoft Outlook, and has a wealth of experience in the areas of entrepreneurship, business development, CRM implementation and optimization, business process mapping, project management, and engineering.

We look forward to many more great posts in the months to come from Misty and others.

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Feeling a Little Lost & Overwhelmed as a Start-Up Company?

If you are, then as one of my old bosses used to say “don’t feel like the lone ranger.” I see a lot of questions on LinkedIn.com from start-up principals who feel the same way (especially in the technology sector) where founders may have more technical than business skills. But never fear, because there is a great solution to help ease these feelings called ‘networking’ and you may be surprised how much it can really help you out.Here are a few things networking can do for you as a start-up:1. Introduce you to other start-up principals who are or were in the same boat as you. These folks can be a great source of not only a sympathetic ear (don’t underestimate the value of the ear), but also of solutions they used to get past common hurdles. Why reinvent the wheel when someone else has probably already come up with a great solution that they are more than willing to share with you.

2. Introduce you to potential investors, advisors and board members. I see a lot of VCs and angel investors hanging out at OpenCoffee Club meetings as well as the Houston Technology Center (HTC) and other great networking events here in Houston. These guys are interested in hearing about new opportunities to invest in, and you have one, so why not seek them out where they congregate. Even if you don’t find a willing investor, you are going to get some great feedback from these folks on what you need to do to get an investor’s attention or where to find the kind of investors that will be interested in your opportunity.

3. Give you a chance to perfect your elevator pitch in a friendly environment. If you haven’t come up with a good 30 second elevator pitch yet, then do it – do it now! With a lot of potential investors and clients, you have a very short time frame to capture their attention so you need to be able to deliver your message readily and concisely. Networking events (especially entrepreneur friendly ones like OpenCoffee Club) are great places to practice and perfect your elevator pitch – see what works and get feedback from fellow attendees. You will find that regular members of networking groups you join are more than happy to act as a mirror for you and give you honest feedback about what works and doesn’t work.

4. Provide potential business and referral sources. Many networking groups like Business Networking International (BNI) have turned referral giving into an art form, complete with custom referral slips and training on how to give and act on referrals. This process may sound a little daunting itself, but if you don’t already know how to give and act on referrals, then you really need to learn anyway and these groups will help you. Members of referral groups will act like extensions of your sales team, listening for opportunities among their clients and prospects for your business as well as their own. They will also help you hone your marketing by coaching them on how to refer you – you never learn quite as well as when you are teaching someone else how to do something.

5. Introduce you to potential resources you may need such as employees, contractors, or vendors that understand your unique needs. We all need these kinds of resources and what better place to find them than somewhere where you can meet several in person and then ask other members of the networking group about their experiences with these folks. Some of my best suppliers, clients and business partners have come from networking events.

So the next question is how to find the right networking group for you. You can start with a few of the ones named in the list above – OpenCoffee Club meets the third Thursday of every month at the The Coffee Groundz from 8:00 AM until 10am. I really like OpenCoffee Club because there is steady group of new faces each week while there are also always regulars to maintain continuity and it is open to everyone. There are over 30 BNI chapters in the Houston West region alone to check out – go to http://www.bnihouston.com/ to learn more. You might want to also check out Meetup.com for other interesting groups in your area. And don’t forget all the great events sponsored by HTC listed right here on StartUpHouston.com.

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Misty Khan and Advena Artemis will also be releasing a new course titled “How to Profit by Networking & Prospecting” this Tuesday.  You can find the article on the Misty’s Arrow Tips blog here.

Are you interested in providing guest posts for StartupHouston?  If so, send an email to guestposts “at” startuphouston.com

Pardon my excitement, but yesterday’s OpenCoffee Club event had our best attendance ever (between 40 - 50 people).  I think the coverage that OpenCoffee Club and StartupHouston received at the Rice Alliance IT and Web 2.0 Venture Forum helped and I also think the mention by Marc Nathan at the HTC Orientation event helped as well.  We [...]]]>  

Pardon my excitement, but yesterday’s OpenCoffee Club event had our best attendance ever (between 40 - 50 people).  I think the coverage that OpenCoffee Club and StartupHouston received at the Rice Alliance IT and Web 2.0 Venture Forum helped and I also think the mention by Marc Nathan at the HTC Orientation event helped as well.  We saw lots of new faces and, as always, found new companies to report about.  Here are some of the things I heard and saw:

• 
  • Spoke with a new company called REV that is trying to set up all-electric vehicles in downtown Houston and at special events for short-hop taxi service.  They should be operational in a couple of months with some help from the city.  They are looking to branch out from here and serve other dense metro areas.  I like what this company is trying to do, as we need more green technology here in Houston.
• 
  • Saw John and Carrie Pacini talking with Erica O’Grady about OpMom.
• 
  • Spoke with Dayna Marcum about what she and her company Local Reach / NeedToFinda are doing to serve the hyper-local market in Houston and how to connect small businesses with people who need their services.
•  
  • Spoke with Brent Williams about AptConnect and how they provide an online social environment for apartment communities that helps them to retain and enrich residents. (Disclosure: I have just joined the Advisory Panel for AptConnect) 
•  
  • Hung around with Erica O’Grady, Chris Pitre, Marc Nathan, Dayna Marcum and Josh Tabin for JELLY, heard some new ideas, and learned a lot of cool new things (which is what JELLY is all about anyway).  I’m definitely looking forward to the next JELLY get together on November 30th, at Solento.  I also found out that Erica is looking for someone to donate space for a permanent Coworking group.  I tell ya, this town wouldn’t be the same without Erica and we are lucky to have her.

Did you attend OpenCoffee Club?  Did you meet new people and have a good time?  Do you have a new startup that we didn’t cover in this post?  Have any suggestions for the next one?  Let us know in the comments section of this post or in our forums section.  It’s a great time to be in Houston’s startup scene!

Join us for the next Houston OpenCoffee Club on Thursday, November 15th! 

About : The Houston OpenCoffee Club encourages open and informal discussion and networking among entrepreneurs, technology enthusiasts, and investors to help grow startup companies in the Houston area.

Thursday, November 15th, 2007  8:00AM – 10:00AM

The Coffee Groundz 2503 Bagby St Houston, TX 77006 (713) 874-0082 Map

You can RSVP here: http://entrepreneur.meetup.com/1424/calendar/6356792/

You can find [...]]]>

Join us for the next Houston OpenCoffee Club on Thursday, November 15th! 

About : The Houston OpenCoffee Club encourages open and informal discussion and networking among entrepreneurs, technology enthusiasts, and investors to help grow startup companies in the Houston area.

Thursday, November 15th, 2007 
8:00AM – 10:00AM

The Coffee Groundz
2503 Bagby St
Houston, TX 77006
(713) 874-0082
Map

You can RSVP here: http://entrepreneur.meetup.com/1424/calendar/6356792/

You can find additional information on the Houston OpenCoffee Club on our Meetup page and on the StartupHouston blog.  You can also find information about how OpenCoffee Club got started and what it is all about here and here.

Finally, make sure to also save the date for our other upcoming OpenCoffee Club meetup on Thursday, Jan. 18th.  You can see the latest event info here or on the StartupHouston Calendar.

Note: After OpenCoffee Club plan on hanging around and join us for Jelly.  Jelly is a way of ’working from home’ or ‘working remotely,’ but doing so while hanging out with a group of your peers from different companies and getting a chance to do some cross-pollination.  Find out more about how Jelly works here.  Thanks to Erica O’Grady for organizing this.

Right after OpenCoffee next Thursday, November 15, Startup Houston will be sponsoring Houston’s first Jelly event starting at 10:00 AM CST at Coffee Groundz. For those of you who are not familiar with Jelly meetings, they are basically a coworking event for folks who usually work from home to get out and interact with other [...]]]>

Right after OpenCoffee next Thursday, November 15, Startup Houston will be sponsoring Houston’s first Jelly event starting at 10:00 AM CST at Coffee Groundz. For those of you who are not familiar with Jelly meetings, they are basically a coworking event for folks who usually work from home to get out and interact with other coworkers in a social and collaborative environment.

A special thanks to Erica O’Grady, Houston’s foremost Social Media Strategist, for bringing this event together. BTW, if you haven’t met Erica yet, you need to. She is a very special person and another super advocate for the Startup Houston cause.

@ericaogrady thanks for everything!

WARNING: The following section contains extreme sarcarsm not suitable for all social mediarians.

Although coworking is very Web 2.0, the idea of open spaces for working collaboratively has been around for a long time. Long ago, people would gather in places called “malls” where commerce, entertainment and other social interactions normally reserved for MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, IM or even e-mail would occur. Even today, you may find these antiquated sites still operating.

This touch of humor brought to you by your friends at Startup Houston.

We were very excited to learn that StartupHouston was featured in an article about StartupWeekend Houston in last Friday’s Houston Business Journal, however it appears that they gave us too much credit.

While it is true that StartupHouston helped to promote the event, participated in the event, and helped to even find sponsors for the event, the main credit [...]]]>  

We were very excited to learn that StartupHouston was featured in an article about StartupWeekend Houston in last Friday’s Houston Business Journal, however it appears that they gave us too much credit.

While it is true that StartupHouston helped to promote the event, participated in the event, and helped to even find sponsors for the event, the main credit for organizing the event and bringing it to Houston in the first place goes to Erica O’Grady.  You can see the video interview I did with her here where we talked about her being one of the original founders of the event and how she sees Houston startup community evolving.  Many thanks to Erica for getting this started, as well as all of the other great things that she has organized such as Refresh Houston and BarCamp Houston.  We wouldn’t be the same town without her.

We’re also happy that TipDish got a lot of coverage in the article, but TipDish would not have happened if not for the hard work and creativity shown by all of those who attended the event, those who sponsored the event, and those who hosted the event.  So to share the love, I’ve listed them here:

StartupWeekend Houston Founders: 

• Andrew Hyde, Anthony Nguyen, Chris Doelle, Chris Massey, Chris Pitre, Chris Pratt, Chris Schilling, Erica O’Grady, Geri Druckman, Greg Thibodeaux, Gwendolyn Bell, Josh Tabin, Kelsey Ruger, Kurt Stoll, Laura Mayes, Marc Nathan, Marco Ramirez, Marcus Mateus, Matthew Alberty, Matthew Wettergreen, Melissa Garcia, Robert Gremillion, Tony DeMaria 

TipDish Concept

• Laura Mayes came up with the concept for TipDish, and what a great concept it is.  Out of all of the previous startupweekend events, most people think this one has the best chance of making money.  You can see my video interview with her here to see where she got the idea and what’s up with her new venture Sk*rt. 

StartupWeekend Houston Sponsors

• DFJ Mercury, Linux Journal, Tendenci, The Method Agency, The Planet, Mosaic CFO

StartupWeekend Houston Hosts

• The Method Agency generously let us invade their digs for the full weekend and all I could keep telling myself as I looked around was ‘What a cool place to work.’  They said they had an interview with the Mayor there the day after we left.  Hope he helped himself to some leftover pizza and granola.   
• You can see some pics from their office on our Flickr set.

Finally, a big ‘Thank You’ to Andrew Hyde and Gwen Bell for bringing StartupWeekend to Houston.  We appreciate the chance to show the other cities what makes Houston a great place for startups.

If we’ve left anyone out, feel free to drop us a line in our comments section or come tell us about it at our next OpenCoffee Club meetup.

Misty Khan with Advena Artemis told us about her company and the benefits of their HuntressPro CRM product.  A contact management tool that operates with [...]]]> Speaking of OpenCoffee Club, at last month’s get together we brought our video camera and let people there give us their elevator pitch.  Two companies took us up on our offer:

Misty Khan with Advena Artemis told us about her company and the benefits of their HuntressPro CRM product.  A contact management tool that operates with Microsoft Outlook®, HuntressPro can help increase sales by helping sales people be more efficient and effective. 

Carrie Pacini with OpMom told us about her company and what OpMom is doing to provide a social community for Mom’s where they incorporate the collective wisdom of thousands of mothers of all ages, sharing advice and ideas around the world’s largest coffee table.

You can see their video below: 

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/clip:334045[/vimeo]

Wanna keep the buzz going after BarCamp?   Join us for the next Houston OpenCoffee Club on Thursday, August 30th (tomorrow)! 

About : OpenCoffee Club encourages informal discussion and networking among entrepreneurs and investors to help grow startup companies in the Houston area. Houston’s success continues to grow and thus, we are happy to announce that we [...]]]>

Wanna keep the buzz going after BarCamp?   Join us for the next Houston OpenCoffee Club on Thursday, August 30th (tomorrow)! 

About : OpenCoffee Club encourages informal discussion and networking among entrepreneurs and investors to help grow startup companies in the Houston area. Houston’s success continues to grow and thus, we are happy to announce that we are holding our fourth OpenCoffee Club at the following time and location.

Thursday, August 30th, 2007
8:00AM – 10:00AM
@ The Coffee Groundz

Map
2503 Bagby St
Houston, TX 77006
(713) 874-0082

Please share this invitation with anyone whom you feel has an interest in participating in the Houston entrepreneurial community.

You can learn more about the OpenCoffee Club here and here.