Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

Get in Their Shoes: 1:1 Interviews for You

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Wouldn’t it be great to have a chance for a 1:1 mentoring from former Apple evangelist and current VC Guy Kawasaki? Or time with the former CEO of GE, Jack Welch? Or a chance to ask Wired magazine’s Chris Anderson about all the things he sees that might be germane to your startup? Or talk about your social media startup with Charlene Li, co-author of Groundswell?

Here’s your chance.

Patrick Tedjamulia, one of the founders of a non-profit in Utah called the International Mentoring Network Organization (IMNO.org) reached out to me about a “Mentorship Auction” they’re holding and their Get in Their Shoes Campaign to promote it (thanks to Doug Pollei for the connection). Thinking a post about it might be a bit of a stretch for Minnov8’s mission focused on internet and web innovation in our state, I reached out to Patrick by email and tossed the ball in his court to give me a call so we could kick it around.

Tedjamulia is a brand manager at General Mills and he grabbed a few minutes to launch a call to me this morning. As we talked I quickly realized that yes, this sort of thing would definitely be of interest to the Minnov8 readership!

The first auction is currently running and is a 1-on-1 mentoring opportunity with one of my favorite authors Daniel Pink, the NY Times Best Selling author of “A Whole New Mind”, and “Drive”. Daniel’s auction ends Feb. 11th so there is still time for you to bid. The winning bidder will get a thirty-minute phone conversation (mentorship) with Daniel Pink.

Today, Feb. 8th, the next auction is opening and will be a mentoring opportunity with Caterina Fake, the co-founder of Flickr and now Hunch. Coming up are auctions posted for mentoring opportunities with the following individuals:

  • Fernando Aguirre, CEO and Chairman of Chiquita brands: Feb 15- 24
  • Lawler Kang, author of Passion at Work: Feb 22-Mar.3
  • Dave Logan, author of Tribal Leadership and The Three Laws of Performance: Mar. 1 – 10
  • Chris Anderson, editor of Wired magazine and author of Free!: Mar. 8-17
  • Charlene Li, founder of Altimeter Group and co-author of Groundswell: Mar. 15-24
  • Stephan Roche, CEO of Kapitall: Mar. 22 – 31
  • Dr. Clotaire Rapaille, author of The Culture Code: Mar. 29 – Apr. 7
  • Geoff Colvin, Senior Editor, FORTUNE and author of Talent is Overrated: Apr. 5 – 14
  • Robbie Vitrano, CEO of Trumpet Group: Apr. 12 – 21
  • Jeff Hayzlett, CMO of Kodak: Apr. 19 – 28
  • Jeffrey Veen, web design and development guru and co-founder of Adaptive Path: Apr. 26 – May. 5
  • Aaron Magness, Director of Brand Marketing, Zappos: May 3 – 12
  • Rafe Furst, entrepreneur, investor and business leader: May 10 – 19
  • Guy Kawasaki, managing director of Garage Technology Ventures: May 17 – 26
  • …and more.

Proceeds from the campaign will go directly to the International Mentoring Network Organization (www.imno.org), a 501c3 non-profit organization aimed at making professional mentoring available to everyone and truly founders of what they term the “Open Source Mentoring Movement”. Also, stop by their site to listen to some recorded calls to get a sense of what these sorts of mentorship opportunities are like.

Don’t miss the chance to be mentored by Daniel Pink, Guy Kawasaki, and many others and bid today at Get in Their Shoes.

Minnov8 Gang 66: Flat Is The New Up?

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Is it true that “Flat Is The New Up?” Not if you’re a company just outside St. Cloud, Sartell-based w3i, which is consistently proving that “Up Is The New Up” every quarter through quite impressive and sustained growth. Our guest on this week’s podcast, co-founder Rob Weber (@robertjweber), tells us how they got started and what they’re up to now.

W3i was marketing apps when apps weren’t even cool and their founding is a great story. In 2000, the three Weber brothers (Ryan, Aaron and Rob) discovered the power of free and launched Freeze.com. Along with their team, they developed applications to satisfy users’ pent up demand for free content while pioneering new revenue models to spread the development and marketing costs across millions of installations — over 250 million to date.

This Week’s Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson (and thanks to Phil for tossing out the meme “flat is the new up” on the podcast!)
Music by Josh Woodward and the tune is “Stickybee”. From the podsafe music network Music Alley.

Discussed during the show notes:

 

Podcast: Download (Duration: 53:08 — 30.8MB)

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MN Tech Rocks – Last Night Was Proof

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If you weren’t at Minnedemo last night, well, you ain’t….  Seriously, for those few of you players in our Internet/IT community who weren’t there, you missed a damn good one.  I tweeted as I left about 10:30 pm (okay, I admit I tweet from my car) that I thought it was the best ever.  There was an energy that was not to be denied!  I’m including a few pix here — admittedly blurry as I swung a beer in my other hand. (Most are after the jump.)  It was some 300 people shoulder-to-shoulder in an art gallery talking about tech, great new startups coming on in Minnesota, with lots of new relationships being formed, old friendships and contacts being renewed, partnerships being discussed — and, yes, investment opportunities, too.  And that was just the schmoozing part! 

There were lots of live demos going on in the theater adjoining, if you could squeeze yourself in there:

1. ArtsApp – like Monster.com for artists to submit multimedia (Dejen Tesfagiorgis)
2. ReliaCloud – a cloud computing platform that allows people to build scalable computing infrastructure on demand (Jason Baker, VISI)
3. Pedal Brain – advanced cycle computer based on the iPhone platform combined with web-based data analysis (Matt Bauer)
…  [Read More…]

Zipnosis: Healthcare On-the-Go

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Zipnosis is a 2008 Minnesota Cup winner (Student category) and a pre-launch healthcare startup in Minneapolis that is zeroing in on the always-on and always-connected generation with a very interesting and potentially disruptive healthcare business model.

I sat down this week with founder Jon Pearce to discuss Zipnosis and what they were trying to accomplish. “When you’re sick and need to go to a doctor or visit a clinic, you have to take time off work, pay a co-pay, sit in the waiting room, and then just get seen by a nurse,” says Pearce. This occurs even for fairly routine and minor issues such as bacterial infections (e.g., strep throat) or viral ones like the flu, and Pearce has data-backed opinions about the percentages of office visits that are routine like these.

Those are the types of visits that require a considerable time investment for the patient and are low value ones for a clinician, and speeding up that process virtually and online (called a “zip”) is what Zipnosis is making more efficient for both the patient and clinician (minutes for a Doctor to turn around a diagnosis vs. 15-20 minutes of time for that same thing in-office, and undoubtedly 2 hours or so of time for the patient). What if instead you could use your computer or cell phone, answer a series of very structured questions about your symptoms, get fast clinician or doctor feedback and, if needed, a prescription sent to the pharmacy of your choice? …  [Read More…]

Startup Roundtable to Convene, Huzzah!

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Thomas Knoll is gathering the Knights of Tech Entrepreneurship for a meeting at the MN Startup Culture Roundtable, scheduled for February 5th.

Thomas, currently residing in the sunny climes of San Francisco, is familiar to most in the Minnesota tech and social media world through his time working as a web designer here. He made the move west in 2008 to work with Seesmic and has since since gone freelance, working with the likes of Swordfish.

Though this would appear to be a result of the recent discussion surrounding Paul DeBettignies’ article on less talk and more walk when it comes to our own start up community, it had it roots well before it. “I was motivated by the startup atmosphere in San Francisco and wanted to get more of that vibe back to Minnesota.” He goes on to note, “There are so many people that are working on startups here. In fact, I know two baristas that have real, viable projects going on the side.”

The timing isn’t lost on Thomas. “I originally wanted to talk culture but it morphed into a call to action in response to the current local startup discussions. Paul outlined what he would do to help and I felt I should to the same.”

The roundtable discussions will highlight the differences between here and ‘the valley’. What type of differences for example? “Here we are so secretive. We keep everything quiet, rather than share it with the community. In San Francisco you are constantly putting out ideas. So many that you hope someone will pick it up and run.”

If you plan on attending the event there is some homework. Follow the links on the Eventbrite registration page to become familiar with the discussion so far and most importantly the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) approach Thomas is planning on including to move ideas into action.

Let the discussion…and action continue!

Swarmcast to Lay Off Half the Company

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Minneapolis-based Swarmcast has been in the business video streaming since 2002, but according to Dan Rayburn at BusinessofVideo.com, they’re laying off half the company:

Last week, rumors started circulating that Swarmcast was going out of business and had laid off all of their employees. While the company is not out of business yet, they did make some major layoffs and have changed their focus. I had a call with Christian Wilhelm over the weekend who is the chairman of the company and now runs their day-to-day operations. Christian said that at the end of December, more than 50% of the employees were let go and that about ten people still remain with the company, mostly engineers who work remotely. In addition, all of the executives are now gone, including the founder Justin Chapweske who left over a year ago, although some of the execs are still consulting to the company on a limited basis.

Sad to see a promising company and technology go by the wayside just as video online is becoming so mission-critical for virtually every company and individual.

‘The New Industrial Revolution’ and Minnesota

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I absolutely love it when my new WIRED magazine shows up in the mail.  Hey, I read as much as the next guy online (on my little 13″ Macbook screen, or my iPhone), but I still love excellence in print — good ol’ ink on dead trees. And WIRED continues to stand out in this category. (Bonus: having a print subscription means I can read the latest issue before others can online.)  The February 2010 edition has another hard-hitting cover story, as only this publication can do, declaring with bold artwork: “The New Industrial Revolution.”  These guys know how to sell magazines!  I especially liked the title of the article, which I saw as I quickly flipped to the table of contents: “Atoms Are the New Bits.” And it’s by none other than editor-in-chief Chris Anderson. This has been a favorite discussion topic of mine with some of my colleagues. Yes, there’s quite a bit more to life, and innovation, than just digital stuff.

In the article, Anderson chronicles the age of “open source, custom-fabricated, DIY product design.” He profiles a fascinating startup called Local Motors of Wareham, Mass., and another one called TechShop of Menlo Park, Calif. (which I first heard of when I met the founder at a DEMO Alumni Reception in Palo Alto in August 2007).

…  [Read More…]

Minnov8 Gang 64: “Less Talk, More Walk”

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In a post yesterday entitled, “Minnesota Startup Community: The Time Has Come For Less Talk and More Walk“, tech recruiter Paul DeBettignies (MNHeadhunter) wrote a rant about what’s wrong and right about efforts within Minnesota to connect us all. With over 30 tweets and 50 comments since last night — most of which had strong opinions and great ideas — Paul’s rant clearly hit a nerve. In today’s podcast we continue the conversation and try to come up with some ideas and answers as we explore this topic in more depth.

This Week’s Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.
Music by DJ ERIC ILL and the tune is, “8mm – Stunning remix by DJ Eric Ill and Scott Orlans”.

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:10:10 — 40.7MB)

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Discussed during the show:

+ Minnesota angel investment tax credit
+ “Film board-like” commission (e.g., MN Film & TV)
+ MN Cup
+ Mobile March at: mobilemarchtc.com

Minnesota Startup Community: The Time Has Come For Less Talk and More Walk

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“I wonder what the conversations will be like a year from now.” This is a paraphrase of a statement Doug Pollei made at the recent MinneBar hosted by Best Buy, which he said to me at the end of a startup session led by Luke Francl.

I heard some folks say how they look forward to a year from now to look back and see what has been accomplished within our startup community. I did not take the comment that way.

Most days and in most ways I am an optimist — my glass is half full and usually running over. Want proof? I have been attending Gopher football games for 28 years. (Or, hmm…maybe that makes me something other than an optimist?)

During this particular session at MinneBar there were many thoughts on what could be done to support, make better, and grow our startup community.

I hate to be one the one to rain on the parade, but almost all of those things were suggested in May of 2008 at the last MinneBar, and very few if any have been acted upon, nor have any noticeable results been achieved.

Hence the title of this post: we need to stop talking and start walking.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: We welcome guest blogger Paul DeBettignies for this post.  Please tweet your questions to @Minnov8 now so we can answer them on our Minnov8 Gang podcast tomorrow,  on which Paul will be our guest.  Please add the hashtag #MNwalkthetalk.)…  [Read More…]

Alvenda Bags $5 Million in VC

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Just as we headed into the weekend, day before yesterday, the anticipated news broke that formally identified the Minnesota firm that’s funding local ecommerce technology startup Alvenda.  I had been picking up rumblings of hiring in the suite of offices at 12th and Marquette that Alvenda shares with two other tech firms.  I guess we can now stop bitching about how Minnesota’s Internet and software startups never get any love from the VCs, huh? At least from our local VCs — because Eden Prairie-based Split Rock Partners was named as one of the investors, and I would assume led the round. The story first broke Friday afternoon locally in our weekly Business Journal, as a result of the SEC filing.  Split Rock has been quite active as of late.  According to its news page (where the Alvenda announcement does not appear as of this writing), this would be the firm’s third funding announcement so far in January, two of which are for Minnesota companies.
…  [Read More…]