Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

Archives for April 2010

Angel-backed Startups 30-50% More Likely To Be Successful

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A landmark study was just released by two professors, one from Harvard Business School and the other MIT, which reveals that, for the most part, angel-backed companies enjoy performance gains of 30-50% when compared to other non-funded startups.

From the executive summary:

What difference do angel investors make for the success and growth of new ventures? William R. Kerr and Josh Lerner of HBS and Antoinette Schoar of MIT provide fresh evidence to address this crucial question in entrepreneurial finance, quantifying the positive impact that angel investors make to the companies they fund.

Angel investors as research subjects have received much less attention than venture capitalists, even though some estimates suggest that these investors are as significant a force for high-potential start-up investments as venture capitalists, and are even more significant as investors elsewhere. This study demonstrates the importance of angel investments to the success and survival of entrepreneurial firms. It also offers an empirical foothold for analyzing many other important questions in entrepreneurial finance.

Key concepts include:

  • Angel-funded firms are significantly more likely to survive at least four years (or until 2010) and to raise additional financing outside the angel group.
  • Angel-funded firms are also more likely to show improved venture performance and growth as measured through growth in Web site traffic and Web site rankings. The improvement gains typically range between 30 and 50 percent.
  • Investment success is highly predicated by the interest level of angels during the entrepreneur’s initial presentation and by the angels’ subsequent due diligence.
  • Access to capital per se may not be the most important value-added that angel groups bring. Some of the “softer” features, such as angels’ mentoring or business contacts, may help new ventures the most.

I came across this post from the excellent blog of David B. Lerner, a guy who describes himself as, “a Serial Entrepreneur, Director of Columbia University Venture Lab/Spin-Offs Program, Angel Investor, and Golfer-in-Exile” but who is, most importantly, someone who tracks this space and has this series on angel investing if you’d like to know more.

University of Minnesota Participates in Google Books Project

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A recent news release from the University of Minnesota announced that they have sent their first shipment of books over to Google to participate in the Google Books project. The University of Minnesota is the first school in the state to participate in this program.

The initiative will take approximately two years to complete. The idea behind this is to preserve legacy library works, but it will also provide university students the luxury of having these volumes available online to search, and perhaps even read in their entirety.

According to the CIC projects site, “Google will scan and make searchable public domain works as well as copyrighted materials, in a manner consistent with copyright law.” In the case of the University of Minnesota, over one million works will be digitized from their libraries. All works will be fully searchable, and some will be fully readable.

While this may be inconvenient for students looking to check-out works that are currently in Google’s hands, they will have the ability to find them through inter-library loans. In addition, the books will only be unavailable for a short time. According to Marlo Welshons, Communications Director for University of Minnesota Libraries, “The timeframe for the books being ‘checked out’ by Google for digitization is about the same as the loan period of any other patron.”

This process comes at a low cost to University libraries: Google is footing the bill for book transfers and scanning. The library is only responsible for finding and returning the books to their shelves.

For more information, check out the University of Minnesota’s Google Digitization Project page.

Minnesota’s MOJO

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Minnesota’s innovators require many resources to be successful and a new entity, MOJO Minnesota, has been formed to thwart what the founders see as “an innovation crisis in Minnesota” and since “entrepreneurial advances and business revolutions thrive in a culture and community of risk and innovation.”

The catalysts for MOJO Minnesota read like a “Who’s Who” of successful entrepreneurs, innovators, investors and intellectual property experts such as: Brad Lehrman; Ernest Grumbles; Kim Garretson; Mary Meehan; Tim Bachman; Rick Brimacomb; Andy Halper; Joy Lindsay; Damien Novak and Marti Nyman.

As they so engagingly point out, “Minnesota has amazing creative, technical and financial capital – yet new business launches and exits are scarce agitation is needed to – promote a culture of risk – and to – support innovation on the path from launch to exit the need for leaders Minnesota needs business revolutionaries to:

  • boost emerging business and technology models
  • spark the innovation community; and
  • promote use of risk capital
  • the path to mojo – a movement.”

The Minnov8 team met with the founders Wednesday to talk about their vision and what’s next. Here’s a snippet of that conversation where Phil Wilson asks Brad and Ernest for an overview of MOJO MN:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_fn8H6-R74

Workface Presents at AlwaysOn

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For more than two years, Minnov8 has monitored the progress of Workface and founder/CEO Lief Larson. Especially the continued evolution of BusinessCard2, a technology which you can see a part of if you click on the tab on the right side of your browser.

Besides being a good guy and friend of Minnov8, Lief is someone who is cut from the proverbial entrepreneur’s cloth: highly focused; persistent; always seeking; and someone who will make his offerings successful no matter what (disclaimer: Graeme Thickins has been assisting Workface as a client). It was with great delight that we saw Lief have an opportunity to present at the Always On/On Demand 2010 Conference this week and you can see him in action below.

Minnov8 Gang 76 at the Minnesota “High Tech” Association

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The Gang is joined by Rick Mahn, founder of the Social Media Breakfast Minneapolis/St. Paul, for an end-of-the-day podcast at the Minnesota High Tech Association Spring Conference. We talk about the missing “high tech” (e.g., Wifi) at the event and its impact on our ability to publish to this liveblog and other general impressions about the day that is mostly favorable.

Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 41:39 — 24.4MB)

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MHTA 2010 Spring Conference & Minnov8 Liveblog

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Tomorrow is the Minnesota High Tech Association’s 2010 Spring Conference and the Minnov8 Gang will be liveblogging here. Check us out throughout the day and watch for the hashtag #MHTA10 as you search Twitter.

MHTA positions the conference this way:

As we enter the second decade of the 21st Century it is time to examine the assumptions and approaches that are fundamental to our success.  The New Deal of the last century was about getting the basics right – productivity and efficiency, providing people with meaningful work, getting the economy on its feet – using production lines and automation tools.

Today, the New Way Forward is about achieving these same goals while using distinctly different tools and approaches. As Minnesota business leaders look at a greatly changed global economy, they know their companies not only measure up – they frequently outperform global competitors.

Join us April 22, 2010 at the Minneapolis Convention Center for another outstanding program filled with immediately applicable strategies and practices to help you do the same.  Collectively, these ideas will do more than just get us back on track – they will propel us forward faster than ever before!

Minnov8 Gang 75: Is “Free as in Beer” Over?

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We catch up on last week’s big happenings, have on a guest and talk about the premature talk of the death of the “Free as in Beer” or “freemium” model. Joining us for our guest segment is Gary Doan, a Minnesota serial entrepreneur who recently joined the Australian email provider, Atmail, as its Vice President of Business Development.

Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music by Boo Boo Davis in a song titled, “Sad Thing” from Music Alley, purveyors of podsafe music.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 59:52 — 34.8MB)

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Discussed during the show:

+ MinneWebCon (site; Minnov8 Liveblog archive)

+ Minneapolis CrowdPitch event covered by Graeme: his FlickrSet; 4Crowd; MobileRealtyApps; Funding Universe

+ Ning soon to charge for their service

+ SMBMSP Event & Lisa Grimm’s Posterous blog where she placed a request for input since she’s hosting that event

+ Video Stuff: H.264; patent licensors (i.e., owners); good explanation of H.264 by Apple; nice overview of the issues of HTML5 video over Flash and the possibilities if Google does toss VP8 in to open source

+ Gary Doan Atmail links: Live Demo – Atmail Webmail; Live Demo – Atmail WebAdmin

Newsbytes for Friday, April 16, 2010

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Here are a few items from around the ‘net of interest to Minnov8 readers:

  • Ars Technica has this post, “Welcome to Mound, MN: home of the $249.99 DSL broadband plan” about Frontier Communications placing a $249.99 price on their DSL service for a “handful of subscribers in Mound, MN” who are “simply excessive residential users” of Frontier DSL broadband, according to the quoted SVP in the article.
  • Julio Ojeda Zapata highlights Video Game Live which was at Orchestra Hall this past week and so good (especially for those of us who have kids that are rabid gamers like my 15 year old son) that he encouraged me to take a road trip to their next venue!

DoApp Signs L.A. Newspaper Group to Mobile Local News Publishing Platform

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DoApp Inc., the Rochester-based mobile development company behind such apps as WCCO for iPhone, Mobile Local News, iKenex for Real Estate, Adagogo mobile advertising, and mRemedy, a partnership between The Mayo Clinic and DoApp, just nnounced their Mobile Local News publishing platform has signed the Los Angeles Newspaper Group (LANG). LANG properties include: Los Angeles Daily News, Long Beach Press-Telegram, Los Angeles City Guide (LA.com) and seven more properties.

The key thing about the Mobile Local News publishing platform is that it integrates directly in to a publishing groups infrastructure and extends it into the mobile space and that “...publications can get up and running quickly with their own, branded mobile app. A Mobile Local News app can be ready within 30 days. The app is usually in the iPhone App Store or Android Market in less than 10 days if all news feeds are ready to go.”

Nice client. Congratulations to Wade Beavers, Joe Sriver, Dave Borillo and the team at DoApp.