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.
Continue reading ‘5 Ways Networking can help your Startup stand out in 2008′
Published on
January 7, 2008 in
General.
Thanks again to everyone who came out last Thursday night and helped the Houston Startup Happy Hour to be a great success. We had a lot of new faces and heard about a lot of new positive developments from startup companies here in Houston (and Bryan-College Station). This time we got lots of great pictures and you can see them all here:
Companies that made it an event to remember:
Best Quotes of the night:
- Roby Fitzhenry of Always Creative – “If it’s not unique and authentic, it’s just stupid”
- Nathan Eror of Natuba – “Twitter has become a big IRC channel”
Did you go? Did you meet new people and have good conversations? What more do you feel we can do to make this a great event for everyone? Share your thoughts in the comments section or in our forums.
Also, make sure to join us for OpenCoffee Club on Thursday morning, Jan. 17th and the next Houston Startup Happy Hour on !
Start your New Year right by joining us for the next Houston Startup Happy Hour this Thursday (tomorrow), Jan. 3rd!
Our first Houston Startup Happy Hour was such a smash (over 100 people) that we decided to make it part of a full time schedule. From now on the happy hour will always be on the first Thursday of every month, starting with our next event on Thursday, January 3rd (tomorrow). Sonoma Wine Bar has a great venue where everyone feels instantly relaxed, can try some great wines (and other mixed drinks), and share the latest and greatest info on themselves and their new tech ventures.
So 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!
Here are more of the specifics:
When: Thursday, January 3rd (tomorrow), 6pm – 9pm
Where: Sonoma Wine Bar
Map: Click Here
RSVP: Click Here
Hope to see you there!
Recently myself and Josh Tabin interviewed the founders of FireSabre Consulting who have built a business in Second Life constructing virtual environments for businesses, schools and nonprofits. The founders, Fred Fuchs and Kevin Shaum, who go by their avatar names of Gus Pliskin and Tinker Lafollette, are based here in Houston and took us for a tour showing us some of the worlds and models they have created.
http://www.vimeo.com/462611
One of the great things about using Second Life for school environments is the ability to demonstrate physics concepts in 3D space. Gus and Tinker showed us some of the recent projects that they have been working on, which include projects on both what are called the Main Grid and Teen Grid (separate areas with different permissions and protections for the age groups involved). One of FireSabre’s biggest projects, and most long-running, is the Suffern Middle School on Ramapo Islands, a private estate in the Second Life Teen Grid. The Ramapo Central School District Suffern was the first school or school district to develop a presence in Second Life.
FireSabre represents what the future could look like for schools and other training institutions. The Future Room (which you can see in our video) is another example of an environment that FireSabre created to demonstrate different communication methods and concepts in Second Life. Based on what we saw and heard, we look forward to seeing more of what FireSabre and Second Life will bring in the near future.
You can see the latest news on what FireSabre Consulting is up to here.
Operating about as far apart on the spectrum as you can get for two technology companies, both The Planet; the Number 1 privately held, dedicated server hosting provider in the world, and AptConnect; a social networking startup for apartment communities, both got coverage in a recent article by Chron.com real estate reporter Nancy Sarnoff.
The article spoke about The Planet’s new headquarters at Bayou Place in downtown Houston (which we covered here).
and also talked about the inroads that AptConnect is making in providing social networking services to Apartment and other living communities. (We also covered AptConnect previously here)
You can access the full Chron.com article here.
Published on
December 31, 2007 in
Events.
Startup Houston invites you to explore what is possible inside your organization with two FREE Workshops from Houston based The BEST Places To Work. Each are designed for you and your team to have a breakthrough in the way you view your business such that 2008 could be the start of a whole new way of doing things, producing remarkable results for the bottom line!
The first workshop:Building A BEST Place To Work Company with a Culture of Engagement & High Performance is for any Business Leader at the executive level within your company, who authentically wants to have a direct impact on employee engagement and bottom-line performance, including:
- Higher levels of revenue and profit
- Greater management and employee trust
- Higher employee commitment
- Lower employee turnover
- Improved customer support
Workshop: Building A BEST Place To Work Company with a Culture of Engagement & High Performance
Thursday, January 10th, 2008
9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
For more information and to register: http://buildabestplacecompany.eventbrite.com/
The second workshop: The Source of All Results Workshop will wake you up, put you in charge, and create your plan for:
- A Clear Vision;
- An Executable Strategy; and
- Unprecedented Results.
The Source of All Results Workshop
Thursday, January 24th, 2008
8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
For more information and to register: http://www.thebestplacestowork.com/workshop-source.html
Published on
December 23, 2007 in
General.
GlobalPitch has offered our readers free job postings on the GlobalPitch site for January and February. GlobalPitch is a Houston-based startup that is trying to transform how job seekers and employers leverage rich media technologies to improve the recruiting and interview process. We ran a feature about them here.
Job Postings (usually $249 per month) are free to all Startup Houston readers – to redeem your free postings simply enter our discount code (”StartUpHou”) when you post your job at http://jobs.globalpitch.com. When you get to the payment screen, enter the “StartUpHou” discount code and you will not be charged. You will not be required to enter your credit card information.
Help a local startup and get a great value in return. Your job will be posted on the GlobalPitch job board, AND distributed to a number of other job sites for posting.
Our first Houston Startup Happy Hour was such a smash that we decided to make it part of a full time schedule. From now on the happy hour will always be on the first Thursday of every month, starting with our next event on Thursday, January 3rd. For now we will be calling Sonoma’s Wine Bar our home base (unless we get a more attractive offer from some other venue – hint,hint).
This now makes for two events that we are organizing every month (The Houston Startup Happy Hour on the first Thursday of each month -and- The Houston OpenCoffee Club on the third Thursday of each month) to give everyone in Houston’s startup community an opportunity to get together and compare notes, learn about what’s new, and meet new people who are doing great things in Houston.
So 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 watch your network grow!
Here are more of the specifics:
When: Thursday, January 3rd, 6pm – ?
Where: Sonoma’s Wine Bar
Map: Click Here
RSVP: Click Here
SEE YOU THERE!
Houston based incubator, Hush Labs, has re-released their first product, Natuba, with an entirely new design and mission: to make it easy for people to get content off of their phone and on to the web to be shared and enjoyed by all. This represents a shift from the RSS-based version that was launched earlier this year but seems to focus on a much larger market opportunity in mobile content.
I spoke to Richard Yoo, founder of Hush Labs about this shift earlier today. While evaluating the initial model focused on RSS aggregation and use, Richard and his team noticed that the adoption rate for RSS was not developing as expected. This was the same time that the iPhone was launched.
“The majority of people today have some sort of fancy cell phone, whether it is a smart or regular phone, that allows users to record video and audio as well as capture pictures through their phone. However, most owners of these devices had their content locked into the phone because of the challenges that non-technical people have with getting it off of their phones,” Richard said. “We believe that there is a market for an application that unlocks this content to share with the world.”
Richard was quick to point out that Natuba is not a social networking site in the sense of Facebook or others, although having Natuba as a destination site is part of their long term plans. “Our short term mission is of unlocking content; as we develop more features, the path will include some ties to social networking.”
There seem to be a lot of similarities to both YouTube and Flickr, although it feels a lot more like YouTube because content is available to all.
Check it out for yourself at Natuba.com where you can import your content from Twitter and Flickr today.
We first mentioned the call for presenters here. The deadline for application has been extended. Executive Summary must be submitted no later than: Friday, January 11, 2008, 10:00 AM CST. In addition, the keynote speaker will be John Hofmeister, President of Shell Oil Company.
I have uploaded the call for presenters here. This is a premiere event so get on the roster as soon as possible.
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