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Now is the time to start a new Business

September 29, 2008

With all of the hysteria in the market, the credit crunch, probable recession, you may think the above statement is crazy, non-sensical or absurd. The reason now is the time to start a business is that starting a business is hard, you rarely have enough capital and their is a lot of risk, even in good times.  If you have a solid plan,can bootstrap, build market share and execute then doing so in a bad economy will position you to take off when the economy turns.  Many existing businesses will be cutting back which will provide opportunity for the agile entrepreneur to find cracks to compete in.

Essentially, you will not be disproportionately affected in a negative sense starting a company in a poor economy, it just makes the attributes of a successful business such as focus on your customer, execution etc more important.

Written by Richard Stump · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

2 new startups

September 24, 2008

The featured companies at this months Venture Club were Lucky Day Studios & Connexxus.

Lucky Day Studios is a movie production company.  They are working on an original script called Unrequited.  They are raising 500K and have interest from actors Jeremy Sumpter (Friday Night Lights), Cody Linley (Hannah Montana show & Movie) and Hilarie Burton (One Tree Hill). The movie is to be directed by Jason Epperson who competed on the Fox show “On the lot”.

Connexxus is a software company that provides a compliance content management system for Sarbox compliance.  Founded by Jeff Reibel, a former sudit consultant and Chief accounting officer for a public company and Jim Orms, a serial entrepreneur who co-founded Advanced Imaging Concepts, a software documentation company, which was acquired for $19 million.  They have raised over 400K to date, have revenue and are raising an additional $1 million for scale-up

Written by Richard Stump · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

Geeks night out

September 19, 2008

Last night was Geeks night out sponsored by Intelex, a new organization for the Lexington tech community. Nearly 100 “geeks” of all types turned out for the event which had free food and two free beers from Budweiser.  As others have mused, Most tech people have a side project and i discovered a few interesting ones:  Pete Pickett, an engineering manager,  has a side business Pickett brass that makes custom mouthpieces for musical instruments and Evan Morris, an electrical engineer and MBA, runs a DJ service bluegrass beat. Below are pics from the event:




Written by Richard Stump · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

No Startup Culture in Kentucky?

September 15, 2008

A lot has been written lately about how cities like Boulder Colorado became start-up meccas and entrepreneurial hot-spots.  The key to this happening in a new city has a lot to do with grass roots efforts and little do with government intervention or economic development.  In Boulder, efforts by entrepreneurs, VC’s and others who wanted to live in Boulder but were passionate about start-ups started meeting, gathering and talking and importantly, Blogging.  From these efforts came Tech Cocktail, Start-up Weekend and eventually Techstars.  It was not an overnight revolution but a gradual transformation.  

In Kentucky’s main two cities, Lexington & Louisville, some of the basic building blocks are in place:

  1. Large Tech/Biotech Companies located in each city (Lexmark, Exstream Software(HP), IBM, Geek Squad, Hosting.com, Humana,)
  2. Research Universities: University of Kentucky, University of Louisville

The 3rd and probably most important criteria is a place where people want to live.  This is the thrust of the arguments made by Dr. Richard Florida.  This is where a state like Kentucky, especially in the cities of Louisville & Lexington,  get a bad wrap.  People move to Boulder in part because they want to Live in Boulder. Kentucky’s reputation as a backward state or the fact it is more conservative than San Francisco or Cambridge, MA gives people a false impression that all the people here are uneducated, bigoted, backwater hillbillies.  Of course this is not the case.  

courtesy of jon collier

courtesy of jon collier

Kentucky rates high on all ranks of quality of life and Lexington& Louisville are each ranked in the among the most educated cities.

An example proving my point is the start-up I work with Transposagen.  The founder, Dr. Eric Ostertag, has relocated his company from Philadelphia to Lexington. What first attracted him was grant funding but as he investigated Kentucky and Lexington, He realized many of his preconceived notions were in fact myths.  He liked the quality of Life, cleanliness of the city, nightlife, Arts and cost of living.  Lexington, Kentucky beat Philadelphia Pennsylvania hands down.

What is to be learned?  It is important for the government, Chambers of Commerce, Universities etc to be supportive of entrepreneurship and start-up culture but they need to realize that they cannot legislate, dictate or control it into existence.  It is necessary for grass roots groups to meet, grow and form ideas that can percolate upward.  What is more important for governments, Universities and economic development groups is to focus on developing quality of life factors, an educated workforce and to spread the message outside the borders of why Kentucky is a great place to live and work. 

Selling Kentucky is not explaining why we are the next Silicon Valley, Alley, Holler or Boulder, Colorado.  It is important to focus on what sets Kentucky apart.  We are never going to offer exactly what another city or state offers and that is the point:  We offer what others don’t or can’t, our competitive advantage.

In the end if smart, creative people want to live here then a smart, creative  entrepreneurial culture will develop.

Written by Richard Stump · Filed Under Blog, Politics, Startups |  

Pitching to VC’s

September 10, 2008

At the Techcrunch 50 event, they had a panel of VC’s answering 20 questions on a wide variety of subjects.  You can read the full text here or watch the video but i think the following exchanges go a long way towards understanding how VC’s think when it comes to evaluating entrepreneurs and pitches:

Schonfeld: What are the most common mistakes by entrepreneurs in pitches or in the early stages of a business?

Levinsohn - if you can’t tell the story in a couple of sentences, its a problem. You need a story. Pincus asks what percentage of investments are made on formal pitches versus connections. Levinsohn says more formal pitches because they are fairly new.

Zachary: Whatever the mistakes, recognizing them quickly is important.

Botha: Number 1 indicator of entrepreneurial success is how good of a listener they are?

Mandal: In a pitch, make sure you prepare and understand your audience. Also, realize that VC decisions are largely emotional, you have to tell a story and connect with the VC.

Question: Number one indicator of success in a company? Botha says good listener. Thiel says low paid CEO.

Zachary: A good team that doesn’t want to take too much money early. Shows they believe in themselves.

Levinsohn: A sincere passion for the product.

Mandal: People. And honesty.

Kapoor: Ability to adapt

Written by Richard Stump · Filed Under Blog, Venture Capital |  

Geeks Night Out

September 8, 2008

Commerce Lexington has put together the InteLex meetup called Geeks night out.  It is scheduled for September 18th from 5:30-8:00pm at the Victorian Square Atrium & Shops.  For $10 you get two free drinks and hopefully the opportunity to meet some smart folks in Lexington

 

Written by Richard Stump · Filed Under Blog, Personal |  

Startup Weekend coming to Lexington

September 3, 2008

I am excited to announce that we have brought Startup Weekend to Lexington, November 21st-23rd.  It wil be held at the University of Kentucky’s Student Center.  In addition to myself, Brian Raney and Luke Murray are organizing the event here.  This is the link to the official site and this is the link to purchase tickets.  If your coming, send me a comment.

Written by Richard Stump · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

Ideafestival 2008

September 2, 2008

The annual Idea Festival is coming again to Louisville, September 25th-27th.  The Idea Festival has a series of speakers and events covering a broad range, technology, art, science etc, basically bringing together a group of the smartest thinkers in a variety of disciplines. Past speakers have included Steve Wozniak and Sir George Martin (of Beatles Fame).  The speakers I am looking forward to this year are Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, and guru of high impact rare events and Diandra Leslie-Peleckyon the physics of Nascar.  Tickets and agenda are available here.

Written by Richard Stump · Filed Under Blog, Personal |