AWS Anonymous meets again February 18th
January 22, 2009
Boulder AWS Anonymous held its first meeting last week, and there were eleven attendees despite the fact that the meeting had been inadvertently scheduled at the same time as Obama’s inauguration. Attendees represented a wide variety of uses and potential uses of Amazon Web Services, ranging from hosting popular websites and application development to load balancing, autoscaling, and internet telephony. The group is encouraging anyone in the area interested in getting updates to join their Google Group and/or to attend the next meeting at The Cup, 1521 Pearl St, at 10:00 am on Wednesday February 18.
Boulder Startup Execs mailing list
Eric Marcoullier of Gnip has set up an email list exclusively for local startup executives.
Here’s who’s eligible to join:
1. Your company must be funded (at least some angel money)
2. C-level and VP level folks only; and
3. Open to all verticals, not just IT / Internet, etc.
There are already 70+ on the mailing list. Apply to join here.
CU Student Web Development Club
Kudos to Cameron Robertson and the other organizers for kicking off an on-campus web developers club at CU.
The first meeting of DIV, CU’s new student web development club, is taking place on January 28th at 6pm in the Bechtel Collaboratory (check out http://cudiv.com for full details). DIV was created to foster discussion about topics like PHP vs. Ruby on Rails, building scalable web apps, and creating clean HTML & CSS, while exploring potential startup and career paths. We are planning on pulling in a couple of local developers to offer their own take on working in Boulder’s startup community on the code side.
Check out CUDiv.com or drop them a note if you need more info.
Why 99% of entrepreneurs fail
I love this post by Jessica Mah (thanks for the link to Dave McClure). Jessica talks about 3 types of “amateur entrepreneurs” and says she’s “been every single one of them.” And she’s learned from those experiences and won’t make them again.
Type 1 Amateur Entrepreneur: All ideas, no implementation.
Type 2 Amateur Entrepreneur: Lots of ideas and half assed implementations.
Type 3 Amateur Entrepreneur: Lots of ideas, lots of implementations, and absolutely no focus.
Have you been guilty of of being a Type 1, Type 2, or Type 3 amateur entrepreneur? Jessica explains that it’s not too late to reform.
If you find yourself as being an amateur entrepreneur, it’s not too late to change. Pick one idea that you’re passionate about, and whole-heartedley follow through with your implementation.
Great Events Galore soon in Colorado
January 18, 2009
Here’s a trio of interesting events coming up soon.
Web Directions North is taking place in Denver from February 2-6 and features 8 half-day workshops, a full day seminar focused on educating web professionals, a free education summit, parties, receptions, and two days skiing or boarding at Breckenridge. It’s aimed at all web professionals, and has a very diverse program.
WordCamp is taking place in Denver on February 28th. This WordPress centric event is for local bloggers, web developers, publishers, designers, internet and marketing enthusiasts, companies interested in blogging and/or building on WordPress. Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg will give a keynote talk, and there’s a great list of other presenters.
Finally, the Glue Conference is taking place in Denver on May 12 and 13. This conference is about the web as a platform and all of the bits and pieces, APIs and meta-data, standards and connectors that will help us to glue together the varying applications of the new platform. David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of Ruby on Rails, will keynote as part of the fantastic agenda.
I hope to see you at one or more of these events!
Don’t hide behind your board
January 15, 2009
This is a lesson that first time entrepreneurs in funded companies usually learn very quickly. I’m on the board of several companies currently, and if you know me you know that I rarely take an aggressive stance. I use the magic of subtle influence, not a brick over the head.
I’ve adopted Brad Feld’s mental model and I try to think of my role on the board as one in which I work for the CEO until the CEO no longer has my support. It’s binary. If I support the CEO then I work for him or her. If I don’t support the CEO, then it’s time to find a new one or to get off the board.
Using this framework I think of my role on the board as a my conduit to make constructive suggestions. I’m very careful to make sure my suggestions are never perceived as marching orders. And I’m supportive and not disappointed when my suggestions are not taken as long as I know the management team has been thoughtful about my suggestion.
Something I’ve seen a couple of times now is a CEO hiding behind the board. This is almost always going to backfire. Here’s how it usually works: Someone on the board or the whole board has a strong opinion on an issue, and the CEO points something out as a board decision to a vendor, employee, investor, or partner. The cart is then pulling the horse - this is the definition of dysfunction. Here’s the punch line. Often, the CEO will actually agree with the board on the issue, and usually the CEO is on the board too! It’s just easier to say “well, the board decided that…”
As a general rule of thumb, a CEO should never start any sentence with “The board said …” or “The board decided…” The CEO makes the decision. Always. Presenting something to a third party as a board decision is simply going to cause a loss of respect for the CEO. Replace “The board said…” with “I’ve decided…” Parenthetically, the advice of the board was taken. So what. That’s irrelevant.
The bottom line is that the CEO is the CEO and as such should make and take responsibility for all of the decisions made by the company. This is true even in the face of a strongly opinionated board member. Magically, when they do so, they’ll almost invariably earn respect from the board members rather than losing it as they might have feared.
Two CU startup events
January 14, 2009
At CU, Silicon Flatirons is hosting two events associated with the campus wide New Venture Challenge soon. January 20 is the last day to submit an intent to compete with the CU NVC to qualify for mentoring office hours. To learn more about the CU NVC final challenge for cash prizes, visit http://cunvc.org. Here is some information about these upcoming events.
Introductory Business Workshop:
Marketing Your Product
Thursday, Jan. 15 in ATLAS
(networking 6:30, workshop 7 pm)
Learn about Marketing Your Product: Connecting with Customers, and the requirements for the CU NVC final challenge and the competition for cash prizes. Networking begins at 6:30 pm in the lobby of the ATLAS building. The Deming Center introductory business workshop, led by Frank Moyes of the Leeds School of Business and the Deming Center, begins at 7 pm in the ATLAS auditorium. Registration is not necessary.
Crash Course Series for Entrepreneurs: Marketing for Web-based Startups
Tuesday, Jan. 27 in Wolf Law Bldg. Room 204 at 5:15 pm
The crash course, led by Laura Kornish, Assistant Professor of the Leeds School of Business, will be held in Room 204 of the CU Wolf Law Building (5:15 pm - 6:45 pm). One of the cornerstones to any successful startup is its marketing strategy, and web-based ventures have unique considerations.
To learn more about the free course and to register for the event, visit http://www.silicon-flatirons.org/events.php?id=553.
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AWS Anonymous
January 12, 2009
UPDATE: After I posted this, the group changed the time from 9am to 10am.
Amazon Web Services users might be interested to know that a group called AWS Anonymous is getting together to discuss the technologies and learn from each other. It’s happening at The Cup in Boulder on January 20th at 9am 10am, immediately following the Boulder Open Coffee Club. The group says “just show up if you’re interested.” They’ll be the group of geeks talking about EC2 and S3 - I’m sure you’ll find them.
If it’s a hit, the group hopes to organize regular meetups.
Hiring is Hard
January 11, 2009
Josh Fraser of EventVue totally nailed how to think about hiring in his Ignite Boulder presentation “Hiring is Hard.” Josh talks passionately about how important it is to communicate a clear vision to prospective employees. Some other points Josh makes well with his William Wallace (Bravehart) analogy:
- Appreciation is the best motivation.
- Startups don’t want to compete for employees on price.
- The best people can work anywhere they want.
- Trust your gut when hiring.
- If you’re not sure, pass.
Right on Josh - lead them to freedom! More of the Ignite Boulder presentations are here.
Don’t prop them up
January 9, 2009
I had a very short but interesting “random” call with Taylor Davidson today, after I had commented on his blog a while back. Taylor recently drove across the country stopping along the way to meet as many interesting entrepreneurial people as possible. He’s been thinking about early stage company development extensively, so it was one of those rare times when I wanted to jump on a quick phone call to say hello. He’s also leading a discussion at SXSW called “Venture Capital for Long Tail Entrepreneurs” which I plan to attend to meet him in person.
On the call, Taylor and I talked briefly about how some incubator models take a very service heavy approach. Some offer up sustained “marketing services”, or other “business services” and work with companies for many years. We both talked about how we’re not huge fans of that model. At TechStars, we like to teach them how to fish (in 3 months), then let them go fishing. We don’t want to catch all the fish for them. If they catch fish, they live. If they don’t they die. And that’s natural selection, and that’s good.
We talked about the need to force companies to sink or swim early on in their lives, and to focus on building their teams and fixing their weaknesses from day one. Perhaps that’s why I’ve always disliked it somewhat when people call TechStars “an incubator.” Don’t get me wrong, some true (old school) incubators are fantastic for the right kinds of companies, I’m sure. But right or wrong, for me, the term incubator evokes an image of companies who can’t (or won’t) survive in the wild.
