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Congrats to the LivePitch winners

March 2, 2007

Congrats to today’s LivePitch audience favorite, Chaperon, and to the investor panel favorite Livengood Engineering. Each company received $500 cash and $500 in legal services from HRO. Thanks also to Silicon Valley Bank for sponsoring the event, as well as to the other companies who also did a great job presenting - Kerpoof.com, Magic Home Entertainment, and Torii Medical.

The guys from FundingUniverse.com did a great job of putting this event together in only about 10 days. We had about 50 people in the audience, and each person got $100 in “funny money” to distribute to their favorite companies after the pitches. This was kind of a neat way to go, because it got the audience talking up close and personal with the entrepreneurs.

In the end, it was a good networking event and seemed to live up to the spirit of EntrepreneurshipWeek USA. Hopefully FundingUniverse.com will come back to Colorado in the near future and hold another event, maybe with a bit more time to plan for it.

Thanks also to everyone who came out to check this out. I hope the networking and the experience was worthwhile.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups | 7 Comments 

CTEK Angels Live! (The Podcast)

November 13, 2006

Podcast episode #7 is a six part podcast covering the CTEK Angels Live event from October 17th. About 400 people attended and three companies pitched to about 25 angel investors. As far as anybody knows, this is the first time an event like this has been done in public and been podcasted.

Since the event was two hours long, I’ve broken it up into six parts so you can focus in on what you’re most interested in. Here’s the deal:

I applaud CTEK for exposing their process to the public so folks can get a sense of what it’s like to pitch and how the process works. Of course, these pitches typically only get a company noticed (or not) and the real work comes later during one-on-ones between the investors and entrepreneurs. It’s nowhere near this easy for the entrepreneurs - nobody writes a check after a first pitch like this. But it gives you a sense of how investors think, so if you’re seeking angel investment or will be in the future, it’s probably worth listening to each of the three pitches at a minimum.

Sorry that this took nearly a month to get out. I just got the audio from DU a few days ago, and it took me a few nights to mix it all. I am now officially sick of editing podcasts, and am going to bed.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

CTEK Angels Live recap

October 17, 2006

Despite the bad weather, the CTEK Angels Live event was still packed. About 25 angel investors took the stage and opened up their regular meeting to a live audience of nearly 400 people. Three companies pitched (including Hypersites and Chaperon, both covered here previously), and each of them did a great job under stressful conditions. It’s hard enough to pitch to angel investors and try to explain your business in eight minutes and it’s even harder to do it in front of 400 additional strangers.

After each company made their pitch, the panel of angel investors took turns asking probing questions and seeking clarification or further details. The questions came in rapid-fire fashion, and often related to business model or market size. The presenters did a great job, often pulling up backup slides to address the question more directly. The presenting company then left the room and the “angels only” (+400 listening in) discussion continued. Audience members would later tell me that this was the most interesting part of each segment, because they got to hear the normally private thoughts and concerns that the angels expressed to each other.

“We own a small business and we’re thinking about going after angel funding. It gave us a great look at the kind of questions that investors asked. They were legitimate and fair questions“: Entrepreneur in the audience.

“It was really interesting to see the different perspective of the investors who were looking at opportunities from a very high level. There was so much experience on that panel, it was amazing to watch them dig in.“: Internet entrepreneur with a successful exit looking to build a new startup.

Nobody at CTEK knows of any other highly organized angel group that has ever exposed their process to the public in this way. I applaud CTEK for doing this, and I also think the angels who attended should be thanked personally. Many of them are very private people and obviously worry about everyone knowing their identity. But this was good for entrepreneurs to see, there is no doubt about that.

I’ll follow up in a day or two with a full end-to-end podcast of the event (it takes some time to produce) as well as some post-event reaction from some of the angel investors, presenters, and audience members.

Other bloggers on this event:

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups | 2 Comments 

Does your code need a Chaperon?

September 25, 2006

snipshot_6rf3wv4bm.jpg Chaperon: A guide or companion whose purpose is to ensure propriety or restrict activity.

Got code? Outsourcing? Worried about theft of your IP? Check out Chaperon of Louisville.

Chaperon provides a secure development environment that protects code from being copied.

Here’s the story in a nutshell. The founders of Chaperon have another company called X, Inc. No, not the one that Kimbal and the gang were involved in that eventually became Paypal, this one. This X offers business development, marketing and other consulting services. The founders of X needed to cut their software development costs and were contemplating outsourcing their development overseas. Worried about their intellectual property, they developed Chaperon in order to safeguard their code. They loved it, other people wanted to buy and it use it, and thus Chaperon, LLC was born.

I wanted to know more about the business model, how Chaperon actually worked, and who was using it, so I recently met with the founder and CEO of Chaperon, Ashif Dhanani. Here’s Ashif’s elevator pitch for Chaperon:

Chaperon solves the problem of source code being stolen, pirated and copied by developers (Outsourced, off-shore, untrusted, etc.). It also protects the source from casual theft (Laptop, Break-ins, etc.).

The business model is to sell directly to corporations and through partners using a recurring revenue license model. Chaperon already has some customer validation (these customers prefer to remain anonymous at this point, I suppose they don’t want people to think they’ve had these sorts of problems). Early adopters include offshore development companies, a large online job board, a web collaboration tool company, and a copyright litigation and code escrow company. There is also progress on the partner front. Here’s an example of a partner that is private labeling Chaperon.

Chaperon actually works by extending popular open source development environments. Currently, Chaperon is available for NetBeans and Eclipse, which covers the non-Microsoft universe fairly broadly today. Essentially, you’re getting a customized version of NetBeans or Eclipse with the extra security capabilities embedded into it. Chaperon securely transports code, authorizes developers, prevents developers from copying text outside of the project or saving files to unauthorized locations, etc.

“You know the glass box with the two rubber gloves that you use to manipulate the substance inside the box that must be protected? That’s what Chaperon is providing for your source code.”, Ashif explained.

This seems to me like it has broad application in two major settings. First, the smart outsourcing firms will want to have something like this to differentiate themselves and to provide their customers with an extra level of comfort. Second, medium to large corporations should be thinking about protecting their code assets internally, and this sort of tool can help them to do that with minimal annoyance to their development teams. I haven’t played with the product at all, but if it can really provide this sort of security using familiar toolsets and causing minimal annoyance, there should be broad application for Chaperon.

Ashif told me that the company is self funded to date ($300k+) and is seeking investment of $350k to $950k via a private placement prior to the end of this year. I explained to Ashif that this was a fairly broad range, and that it might put some people off. Ashif told me that in order to execute their full plan they’ll need $950k, but are seeking a minimum of $350k to execute a reasonable secondary plan.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups |