Gwin Scott

What it Takes

Great article today in the NBJ on Michael Burcham & the EC in Nashville.  Every city needs someone driven, obsessive, passionate, and almost mad about building entrepreneurs and validating what is being built. Michael is committed and dedicated to that cause and putting the state of TN on the map nationally for the place to start a high growth business. He is a bit of a freak of nature on delivering results and bringing the entire community together with mentors, angels, sponsors, etc to get the job done now. He tirelessly leads by example and in holding himself accountable for building/driving new opportunities to create something new everyday. Obviously it isnt a one-man act, as that wouldnt work and he has built a great group of advocates to implement the plan each day.

Nice mention too on Vic Gatto and Solidus, as they are putting some of their money behind these efforts in helping seed these orgs/concept stage co's and hopefully getting them to a point of self-sustainability.

It is a 8-10 yr ride on a never ending cycle of teaching and trying to develop the right stuff to seeing entrepreneurs thrive and survive (and failing) and Burcham certainly has what it takes..

http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/print-edition/2013/05/10/firestarter-burchams-drive-ignites.html?ana=e_ph_prem&u=wRqEi+SQc4SU8NBctEW01wqgTzX

SeedHatchery of Memphis

Ever heard of Techstars or Y-Combinator in Boulder/Boston?  SeedHatchery, a similar program, has been created here in Memphis! SeedHatchery  The concept is a collaborative venture between Solidus (a vc firm out of Nashville) and EmergeMemphis. We are a very early, seed stage investment vehicle with a heavy mentorship driven program behind it. For $15,000 and a 10% equity play, an entrepreneur with a great idea (mainly technology driven, but all ideas are welcome) can apply to get the venture off the ground, incorporated, and into reality....if committed enough to the idea. The setup will be a 90 day cohort effort where there will be accountability events 2-3x a week to make sure that the idea is growing and being further developed. 

There are a lot of entrepreneurs in this area that need a small funding jumpstart to help them get their ideas off the ground, so we feel like this plan will help find qualified others who have a strong desire to get something tangible actually launched. Behind SH, will be a group of 25-30 mentors who all have various backgrounds in a variety of areas, ie angel and vc investing, sales, financial and legal, pr, IT, etc. This should provide the necessary platform and firepower to assess whether any of those that apply has the potential to scale and grow. If an idea gets a user base and further customer attention, then as a next step.... an angel base will be attracted and ready to have more conversations about increased funding opportunities, if there is enough interest.  This will help ensure additional continuity of a concept so that a better chance will be enabled for success.

The location venue will be at the Launchpad here at EM. Eric Mathews will be the lead hatcher and myself/Vic Gatto at EmergeMemphis/Solidus, resp will be providing additional resources to help with this compelling initiative.  Applications are being accepted now and due by FEB 11th at SeedHatchery so APPLY!!

David Sacks back in Memphis

My high school, Memphis University School, honored David Sacks this week and EmergeMemphis was fortunate to grab him to get him to speak to our entrepreneurs. It was really great to see him again, as David has had a nice ride, so far....and I was glad he was able to tell his story to a few folks here in Memphis. The whole Paypal story is an amazing one, where David rose to COO, bf they unloaded to eBay for 1.5B. Hearing how Peter Thiel recruited him and all the other rockstars that Paypal subsequently 'incubated' ie Max Levchin of Slide, Reid Hoffman of Linked In, Jeremy Stoppelman of Yelp, Elon Musk are all worthwhile individual home run case studies worth reading about. Something genetic about Paypal has produced what every place strives for with' recycled entrepreneurship'. 

Geni www.geni.com and yammer www.yammer.com are David's more recent exploits and im particularly interested in watching yammer, the private social network for enterprises which seems to be gaining a lot of momentum. He made some other remarks about the importance of relationships in silicon valley and how it is hard to tap into those without a referral, as that is how deals get both looked at initially and executed. Without that, it is hard to garner the attention of influencers and funders....unless you have a product that is so unique and differentiated with a high barrier to entry that everyone wants to be part of it. It is tough to argue with those points. Having a product go viral and generating/acquiring an exponential user base each month, are both models that he has tried to position his companies of replicating.

Kudos to Scott Brown of Marks Menus for asking if David would briefly hear his pitch. Maybe there is funding opportunity there!

We look forward to keeping up with David's progress and in hearing more great news come out of his early stage companies.

CEO Profile of an Early Stage Company

This is one of the best articles that Ive ever read on the makeup of a successful (or not) early stage CEO. ACEF/Angels Forum does a great job of recruiting Tom LeFevre, a co-founder of Intuit--to give his perspective on what to look for in a CEO and especially when making an angel investment. If you are an angel investor, id really grasp this interview as it is a good/brief study of self-awareness of what you will be getting from the leader of a company that you invest in. It gives all sorts of scenarios and ive personally witnessed several of these situations which sometimes it would have been better to walk instead of going through the pain of having to deal with a non-performing CEO on the front end. (and in being aware of their background bf hiring). I like the fact too that Tom doesnt give us a winning formula for a successful CEO and is honest in saying that there isnt one.....but that there are common themes of 'not' CEOs.

Check it out. 

http://www.angelcapitaleducation.org/newsletter-detail/114-id.209715312.html

48 hour launch weekend

Congrats to Eric Mathews and everyone at LaunchMemphis for an excellent 48 Hr Launch weekend. This is the 3rd yr that the event has occured (originally was called Startup Weekend) which 'starred' about 65 folks who camped here to EmergeMemphis. For those that arent aware of the format, there were about 15 ideas that were presented to the entire group and the goal was to develop a team comprised of various skills ie developers, programmers, designers, marketers, legal, etc---with the end goal to come up with an outline of a actual working prototype. obviously this is all at a very concept stage, but maybe a few of these ideas will get launched into a company and at a worse case, get further explored to assess marketplace validation. this effort is an entrepreneurial grass roots movement to get as many like-minded people to come together to build a product or service that has the potential to be bought.

So the winning ideas that were developed were 1)Tippjar; 2)TourneyCaddy; 3)Thelistofbands; 4)Onesongconcerts; 5)Romantic Playbook; 6)One Day Pro; 7)MyRepresentative; and 8)ChronoComics!! The ideas ranged from heavy in the music space ie selling art/media on a pay as you can model in the form of tips--artists can explore the biggest tippers and reward them.......a directory of musicians/bands organized by city......1 song concerts that are streamed live then archived..... a platform for advertising golf tournaments where courses around the us list their events to recruit others to play in.... a web based tool to educate the public on who their local/state/federal politicians are based on zip code and what the issues are that they are supporting or not.....a virtual assistant that is for hire on a project basis.

Urls and more info to come, but the expectation is for the development of these ideas to turn into a company with revenues, and entrepreneurs who have the wherewithall to see the implementation will be mentored to help review all possibilities for growth.

Great weekend, great work everyone!

Bootcamp Emergence

Great article today in the WSJ on an entrepreneurial case study, noting the importance and significance of boot-camp style programs to help with the funding efforts of those with a solid idea. Memphis entrepreneurs note a few things: 1)importance of networking even if you feel like the source is a dead end; 2)get out of your comfort zone; 3)develop a user base bf getting/going after funding; 4)note where his revenues are--$1.5 mill--they exist!!; and 5)be hungry and persistent--Fienberg pitched hundreds of contacts in and out of his network and came up with 17 who were interested.....and they werent all local, but located around the US. Message there is to find other angels outside of where you live and dont put all of your efforts in one location.   WSJ article

Entrepreneurial Superstars

Check out the latest INC which is the annual Entrepreneurial Superstars edition of the fastest growing private companies in the US. One interesting stat that I noticed, as a result of their CEO survey of 250 execs, was the statistical mix of the leaders and their companies.

Of the companies that were profiled 1) 42.5 was the median employee count; 2) $9.9 million was the median 08 revenue; 3) 888.5% was the median growth rate.

Of the CEO's 1) 90% were male; 2) 10% were female; 3) 21% were minority

Age range:  1% < 25 yrs   27%--25-35   41%--36--45    22%--46--55    9% > 55 yrs

Marital Status  1) 80% married  2) 5% divorced  3) 15% single

Im not sure what exactly this means, but there are some trends of this group---everyone is in a high growth sector with thriving industries---most were male---68% were from the ages of 25--45 so this is a young person's game---majority were married which i guess brings forth greater stability and enhances that hunger factor bc there is someone else out there that matters/that you have to provide for.

Also in another edition, I wanted to point out a slide show that INC did on 6 ways to be a better CEO. They are:  1) Delegate More  2) Become a Better Judge of People  3) Communicate well with your Board  4) Get Better at picking winning Ideas 5)Develop a sense of Humor 6) Just Be more Patient  http://www.inc.com/ss/6-ways-be-better-ceo#5  All are great instincts which have come from some solid leaders ie Twitter, Zappos, Y-Combinator, Enterprise Rent a Car, etc...

Entrepreneurial Superstars

Check out the latest INC which is the annual Entrepreneurial Superstars edition of the fastest growing private companies in the US. One interesting stat that I noticed, as a result of their CEO survey of 250 execs, was the statistical mix of the leaders and their companies.

Of the companies that were profiled 1) 42.5 was the median employee count; 2) $9.9 million was the median 08 revenue; 3) 888.5% was the median growth rate.

Of the CEO's 1) 90% were male; 2) 10% were female; 3) 21% were minority

Age range:  1% < 25 yrs   27%--25-35   41%--36--45    22%--46--55    9% > 55 yrs

Marital Status  1) 80% married  2) 5% divorced  3) 15% single

Im not sure what exactly this means, but there are some trends of this group---everyone is in a high growth sector with thriving industries---most were male---68% were from the ages of 25--45 so this is a young person's game---majority were married which i guess brings forth greater stability and enhances that hunger factor bc there is someone else out there that matters/that you have to provide for.

Also in another edition, I wanted to point out a slide show that INC did on 6 ways to be a better CEO> They are:   1) Delegate more  2) Become a Better Judge of People 3) Communicate well with your Board  4)Get Better at picking winning ideas 5)Develop a Sense of humor, and 6)Just be more patient http://www.inc.com/ss/6-ways-be-better-ceo#5  All good insights from some noteworthy stars of Twitter, Zappos, Y-Combinator, Enterprise Rent a Car, etc....

Fixed vs Growth Mindset

 I just read a great book entitled Mindset by Carol Dweck, who does an excellent job of describing the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth one. She explains that it isnt merely about our abilities and talent that bring us success on how we can learn to fulfill our potential, but more in the attitude and mindset. There is both a business and personal relevance to this (ie with kids why praising their intelligence and ability doesnt necessarily develop self-esteem and lead to accomplishment, but could endanger being successful). 

The premise is based on intelligence where it is static with a fixed mindset and it is always being developed in a growth one. The highlights are that a fixed mentality leads to a desire to look smart and therefore a tendency to:

--avoid challenges

--get defensive or give up easily

--see effort as fruitless or worse

--ignore useful negative feedback

--feel threatened by the success of others

So as a result one may plateau early and achieve less then their full potential, while a growth mindset leads to a desire to learn and therefore a tendency to:

--embrace challenges

--persist in the face of setbacks

--see effort at the path to mastery

--learn from criticism

--find lessons and inspiration in the success of others

So as a result, one can reach ever-higher levels of achievement.

Check it out. I know this is one, ill try to read every year and many Memphians could benefit from too!

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.