StartupHouston Event Videos
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 kurt  Wednesday, 23rd of April 2008 at 04:27:33 PM 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!
kurt Wednesday, 23rd of April 2008 at 03:18:40 PM
 As 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.
kurt Tuesday, 8th of April 2008 at 11:10:15 PM
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.
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.
[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/877795[/vimeo]
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.
 
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.
Josh Tabin Monday, 7th of April 2008 at 03:05:26 PM
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.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux9V_NRfxC8&eurl=http://unleashed.smallbusinessanswers.com/details.html[/youtube]
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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Josh Tabin Monday, 7th of April 2008 at 12:00:52 PM
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?
Josh Tabin Friday, 4th of April 2008 at 09:18:53 PM
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.
Josh Tabin Friday, 4th of April 2008 at 02:51:10 PM
New startup BidMyCleaning.com launched this week in Houston and San Diego. The company founder and CEO, Raymond Aker, moved to Houston from San Diego in 2005 to open and manage the local office of AW Cleaning Services. According to company materials, the founding team’s goal in founding BidMyCleaning was
“to remove the pain involved in finding cleaning services for the customer and to allow providers to do what they do best instead of spending their time on logistical issues and marketing efforts.”
The site is touted as a “one-stop-shop” for all of your cleaning services needs where you can bid, screen, select, schedule, rate and even pay for those services online. Along with a nice dashboard, there is a Cleaning Calculator which records all of the details of your home or office and then provides specific quotes back to you on your job requests.
One thing that stood out was their resources section that provided information about “green cleaning.” I could not determine if there were any service providers listed that offered “green cleaning” but if there was, that would be an interesting competitive advantage.
Check out the site and let us know your thoughts. Our community should be about constructive feedback and support. Best of luck to the BidMyCleaning.com team!!!
Josh Tabin Friday, 4th of April 2008 at 12:31:43 PM
Houston based Vision 20/20 (a wholly owned subsidiary of ThinAir Wireless) has launched three new services targeted towards safety minded consumers and touted as Peace of Mind (POM) products:
My first encounter with the Vision 20/20 team was some time ago when Tech Crunch had done a write up about the POM Offender Locator last year. The product is basically a mashup of sex offender data and Windows Live Maps.
The POM Alert System at first glance seem very similar to First Alert System Text, which Ed Schipul introduced me to some time ago, although F.A.S.T. is more focused on disaster events while POM Alert can be more user-designed.
POM Pilot is a more robust GPS system that I will let the team at Vision 20/20 explain.
Josh Tabin Friday, 4th of April 2008 at 12:09:34 PM
I had a chance to catch up with Kurt this morning and heard that last night’s event was a stellar occasion. Looking through the pictures makes me really miss seeing everyone. Unfortunately, I have been under a cloud of allergies and a sinus infection which kept me bedridden for most of yesterday. Sounds like we may need to make a few tweaks to the format but overall it was a huge success.
So we do this event and the Open Coffee event (with the HTC): what else would you like to see us do? I am all ears (now that they have unclogged).
Josh Tabin Wednesday, 2nd of April 2008 at 09:37:28 AM
AeA, the nation’s largest technology trade association, released Cyberstates 2008: A Complete State-by-State Overview of the High-Technology Industry report on national and state trends in high-tech employment, wages, and other key economic factors today. According to the report, Texas ranks behind California and ahead of New York in tech job employment with 459,500 high-tech workers in 2006 (yes, 2006 data…apparently that is the most recent data available).
So the report is a very slightly dated:
“With another solid year of growth under its belt, Texas’ tech industry continues to be on the upswing – much like the technology industry as a whole,” said Douglas J. Bartek, chairman of the AeA Texas Council and chairman emeritus and co-founder of Dallas-based Tango Networks. “In addition, this report shows that tech industry workers are well paid in Texas, and signs point to continued growth in that area.”
Here is the breakdown by industry segment:
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1st in computer training employment with 1,600 jobs
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2nd in engineering services with 88,100 jobs
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2nd in computer and peripheral equipment manufacturing employment with 20,200 jobs
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2nd in semiconductor manufacturing employment with 36,000 job
I find it unfortunate that in today’s world, state economic data is only available with a one year lag while national data is relatively current. that being said, woohoo!!! Go Texas!
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