Gwin Scott

Intel Capital Forum

EmergeMemphis yesterday hosted an investment forum by Intel Capital that brought together vc's, angels, tech transfer folks, and entrepreneurs here in Memphis. There were stimulating conversations about the startup community here and where certain gaps were. Mark Rostick of IC did a great job of presenting and helping define what successful characteristics they look for in both entrepreneurs and early stage companies....as well as covering areas like sectors they invest in and current trends they see in the vc world. Being a worldwide investor, in 08, IC invested about 1.6 byn in 170 deals around the world with a good percentage of that being in early stage companies. generally they invest about 4-600 million per yr on new stuff and reinvesting in current deals.

Building a sustainable community that attracts vc's from all over is certainly a goal, but we as a community need to focus on current wins and even starting small and building on success. it is a long term proposition and will require a certain amount of filtering to make sure the most qualified and experienced entrepreneurs are showcased. Angel networks are a necessary ingredient to helping build companies to get them to the level of being vc worthy. Memphis needs to focus on its strengths and certainly not try to replicate what others are doing.

we are working on doing a full scale assessment of public needs of entrepreneurs and what it takes to further build and prioritize the right strategy so that others know that Memphis is on the map...

Hatching Success

The Commercial Appeal here in Memphis just completed a compelling article on EmergeMemphis and the value of incubators. Profiled were 2 of our companies, RemitDATA and Gaskill Strategies, as well as some interesting stats. Remit has just recently graduated and has been in a hyper growth mode, after securing 5 million in venture funding from noro-moseley in atlanta and ssm partners in memphis. Bently Goodwin has been at the helm since inception and has done a masterful job of managing growth and incrementally building revenues to @ 6-8 million dollars. You will be hearing more from this company, esp as they continue to build further momentum. Check out the article which further validates why it is important for startups to launch in this sort of environment : Comm App

Thx to James Dowd for getting it right!

5 Primary Startup Documents

For those early stage startups out there, here are a few key documents out there that are worth understanding more about....as compiled by david cohen of Techstars  in boulder and his legal counsel. Pay close attention to the term sheet and subscription agreement, as those go into detail about ownership percentages, capitalization and valuations, and other rights and covenants that any entrepreneur needs to be aware of. Many folks got burned and dont fully comprehend some of the intricacies and details involved of these and that is why getting legal help is imperative, esp in helping set up the correct company infrastructure beforehand. Startup docs Thx to Brad Feld's blog for making me aware of this, as he is always an informative and well-connected source that has been a success with most everything he touches when it comes to startups.

Simplicity Simplicity Simplicity

Maybe Ive been reading too much Thoreau and/or Richard Hamming, but I think it is important that we dont get 'frittered away in details' (thoreau) in our daily work and personal lives....and try to figure out ways to simplify things in all that we do. Getting drowned in the day to day seemingly unimportant tasks often tends to cloud the big picture of where we are heading. Hamming really hit the mark on focusing on work that was significant:

In order to get at you individually, I must talk in the first person. I have to get you to drop modesty and say to yourself, ``Yes, I would like to do first-class work.'' Our society frowns on people who set out to do really good work. You're not supposed to; luck is supposed to descend on you and you do great things by chance. Well, that's a kind of dumb thing to say. I say, why shouldn't you set out to do something significant. You don't have to tell other people, but shouldn't you say to yourself, ``Yes, I would like to do something significant.''

Hamming also allocated 10% of his time to trying to understand bigger problems in his field and esp on what is and isnt important. For years he and a group would meet on Fri afternoons and think--'great thoughts only' on what direction their lives were taking.

Hopefully we are not doing trivial work and/or working on the wrong priorities in our daily lives..Reassessing things on a regular basis is something we could all be more cognizant of....

TTDC Conference

I just attended the Tennessee Innovation Conference in nashville last week that the TN Technology Development Corp sponsored which is lead by my friend eric cromwell. The purpose of this org is really to help advance the competitiveness agenda throughout the state of TN by formally bringing a coalition of entrepreneurs, researchers, vc's, and govt leaders together. specifically the 3 main goals are to 1)deepen the R & D and commercialization base in TN, 2)accelerate entrepreneurship, and 3)increase access to risk capital.

hopefully by having statewide cohesion amongst all the partners that that will yield better economic returns for the state and to help fill some necessary gaps, but we cant be naive to think that this will just happen overnight. this process will take several years to come up with quantifiable results, and many of the stakeholders have to be hyper committed to their own local domains in order to make a difference. it was a good first step in getting some viable attendees come, that can in fact make an impact.

some of this might sound to be overly general, but there are specific organizations that we involved that will help facilitate/rollout these objectives in hopes of creating a multiplier effect on early stage development and funding. Let me know if youd like to hear more. check out their whitepaper too at    TTDC.

An Atlanta perspective on startups

Jeff haynie of appcelerator is frustrated with atlanta and is moving to mountain view. In his compelling analysis he basically states that the VC community in atl isnt very startup centric or focused or even understanding of the entrepreneurial startup life and challenges. I commend him for doing something about it and moving. His org is an open source platform for building rich web apps and has thousands of developers who are making contributions on a regular basis. It appears that there is an aversion to risk and that many VC's want to see more revenues and sustainability bf committing funds to a company. I dont blame them and if that is their calling then stick with it. Jeff complains that there arent any real early stage funds in atl that are helping incubate new ideas/concepts/ and companies. I mean this is extremely risky money...BUT it is needed to help build the right entrepreneurial community.

His solution is to have a fund that invests in a bunch of smaller deals aka a micro VC. perhaps it is a cultural thing where only the big markets ie silicon valley/boston/ny can support, as there arent enough small deals to support...something that memphis can relate to as well. i do like his suggestions on how to help the situation which of course wont happen overnight:

--build a better base of entrepreneurs/angels/risk capital

--deals will fail, but encourage those same people to try again and not give up

--build an ecosystem around startups ie all those community centric events ie startup weekend, barcamp, investment forums, user group forums, etc

--entrepreneurs must give back--via checks and mentoring. think boulder where they have an org where startups give back a percentage of profits...after a liquidity event

-cultural shift---a better corporate acquisition mentality

Take a look at his blog introspection on what the issues are, as i think that many cities can probably relate to this and assess how to improve their own environments.

Sarah lacy article in Commercial Appeal

Thx to the commercial appeal and mr dowd for a great segment on the sarah lacy event here at emergememphis thurs night. a very descriptive article that did a good job of summing up the scene here.:sarahlacy article this was an excellent entrepreneurial community building event that brought a lot of interesting folks together in a lot of various industries. 

Sarah Lacy Event

Last night, over 100 memphis based entrepreneurs got a chance to meet and hear, my new favorite friend, sarah lacy, who was back here in her hometown to promote her latest book, Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good. EmergeMemphis and LaunchMemphis hosted the event that the founders of LaunchMemphis organized. Sarah is a dynamic and totally plugged in personality/reporter in silicon valley and has firsthand seen some of the inner workings of the founders of paypal, facebook, ning, slide, digg to name a few...all known names in the web 2.0 world. sarah, it appears from the book, has done a great job of really getting to know all these entrepreneurial personalities and has developed a trust that has been the content foundation for the book. i look forward to keeping in contact with sarah and in hearing her stories and how what has been created out of the valley might be able to be learned/replicated/and differentiated here in memphis....as we need to continue to have our own success stories and let those be the springboard to other companies being launched.

Slideshare

i just came across a cool site that is an aggregated search for ppt's, slideshare www.slideshare.com it is very informational and great that you can search by topic on whatever subject you are looking for. the best examples are where the full audio is embedded vs just the ppt itself. now, no more shows!  maybe a potential youtube acquisition.

Spynnr Wins

Startup Weekend www.startupweekend.com occured this past weekend in Memphis and there was no surprise in seeing firsthand what was accomplished. Having 100 entrepreneurs of all business disciplines come together and actually create a company was an impressive feat. The winning idea was Spynnr www.spynnr.com ...a Facebook app for sports enthusiasts which manages the scheduling of games in local areas as well as rates individual performance levels by player. Im hopeful that the company will take off as there are others already in this space...which helps with validation and demand..

There were a lot of other great ideas that were brought forth and Im looking forward to seeing some of these ideas be further evaluated and cultivated into hopefully something more than just an idea. Sustainability will be the next opportunity/challenge of all the great stuff that came out of this weekend and im greatly encouraged that several other noteworthy startups will be launched in due time. mentors and angels be on the alert!

Congrats to Eric Mathews and the founding team http://www.launchmemphis.com/about/ for making this happen...as there is a lot more to do in keeping and building on the momentum that has been created!!