Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

MN Light Rail Gets a New Brain

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trainapp

Entrepreneurs go with their gut when they see a need and have the skills or moxie to fill it with some innovative technology or approach. When developer Andy Atkinson, a light rail rider, found himself uncertain as to whether his train was on time or when others might be available if he happened to want to catch one earlier than usual, he knew that the GPS-enabled iPhone in his hand was the perfect device to deliver an application that would fix this problem…and he had the skills to create it.

Enter Train Brain. This $1.99 iPhone application (available here in the iTunes store) is for Twin Cities Metro Transit light rail riders. Though you can walk around with a paper schedule in your pocket or pull up a PDF of that schedule on your iPhone, with a couple of taps Train Brain can tell you when the next train is scheduled from the station you’re standing in, how much the fare will cost and and a countdown for the trains arrival.

I had a chance to talk with Andy this week and find out more about this guy and why he created the application. He told me the backstory I alluded to in the opening paragraph along with being a bit self-deprecating about the limited nature of the app and that it wasn’t “complicated.” I’d beg to differ since “perfect is the enemy of good” and what he’s already delivered meets the need squarely and is a tool that will delight Light Rail riders.

Turns out Andy is a web application developer, Objective-C coder and has the technical chops to put out this first Train Brain version and to keep it going (he has lots of ideas and next steps in mind for it). You can read more of his thoughts on his technical blog here and I’m sure he’ll talk more about his new gig with Tightrope Media Systems (a recent Minnedemo presenter) and the great work they’re doing in digital signage and broadcast when he’s able to do so.

One of the things that came up in our conversation was the design of the website and application. I’ve yet to meet a solid developer who’d admit to possessing any modicum of strength in graphic design. Andy was quick to point out that the website and application design I was praising (as clean, functional and fresh) was done by Nate Kadlac Design and Nate deserved the praise.

The only thing that came to mind after talking to Andy was this: Metro Transit ought to buy this app and get behind it. With the future continued rollout of light rail in the Twin Cities, likely delays as the system expands, there is no question riders will need better tools to manage their ridership instead of just a PDF of a paper schedule or, God forbid, having to carry a schedule around in your pocket.

Minnov8 Gang Podcast #50: A Chat with MNCup’s Dan Mallin

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danmallinThe Minnesota Cup is an effort to identify, reward and kickstart Minnesota entrepreneurial effort and the Gang is pleased to have its co-founder, Dan Mallin, on the podcast. Dan gives us an overview of what transpired last night (the event at the U of MN where the finalists were announced) and it was quite enlightening.

This Week’s Show Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott and Graeme Thickins (Phil Wilson is on assignment shooting video for the upcoming MIMA Summit).

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 49:54 — 28.8MB)

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Discussed during the show:

+ The winners in each category at the Minnesota Cup:
– Bio: Pursuit Vascular
– Green: Packet Power
– Social: Rural Renewable Energy Alliance
– HiTech: Alvenda
– General: Drazil Juice
– Student: ManCave

+ Minnesota Cup Review Board mentioned on the podcast is here

+ Graeme’s Flickr photoset from the MNCup event

+ RAIN Makers Conference, 9/23-24

+ MIMA Summit, October 5th

Web Design Workshop/Seminar for Creatives

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tenseven If you’re a designer creating websites, web applications are someone working with a developer on a project or initiative, then this workshop and seminar will empower you with the things you should know before you design your first website; what the content management system Drupal can do for you and your clients; and simple project management for design projects using the wildly popular web application called Basecamp.

If you are a person who will somehow be interacting in the process of creating a website, but won’t actually be doing the coding or development of it, and are a copywriter, graphic designer, illustrator, art director, creative director, or project manager, then you’ll find the $149 fee for this full day session incredibly beneficial.

I interviewed Ivan so you can hear him describe the day and also so you can gain some insight in to the strategic reasons why you must pay attention to what’s happening on the web, and how this session would enable you to learn in ways you might not expect.

Listen to the interview with Ivan by hovering over the ‘speaker’ icon on the left, or download it as an mp3. (Note: The Drupal 7 user interface project mentioned is here: http://www.d7ux.org).


Podcast: Download (10.9MB)

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Pranah: Data Storage for SMB Wins Sprout Award

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pranahChances are that the computer you’re reading this post on contains a minimum of a 160GB hard drive. Like mine, it might be connected to a multi-TB backup device which, in turn, is connected to the cloud for online backup. Add to that all of the other computers and servers in our office and you can see that even a small firm like ours finds our needs for digital data storage is constantly outpacing whatever size drives or backup scheme we put in place for our network storage.

Pranah Storage Technologies, a company based in suburban Saint Paul, designs and manufactures data storage systems that “…bring simplicity and high efficiency to data-intensive environments in small to midsized businesses (SMBs)” and is a local company that should be on your radar.

Computer Reseller News (CRN), a trade rag I used to read faithfully when I was dealing with the reseller channel, has an offering called the “Everything Channel,” a sort of one-stop-shop online for I.T. value added resellers, system integrators and computer consulting groups. Because their readers look to them as seekers of the new and thought leaders when it comes to what they need strategically for their businesses and clients, the Everything Channel folks are always on the hunt for innovative and disruptive technologies.

Enter the Sprout Awards, a competition enabling them to discover all startups that fit within the innovative and disruptive category.  …  [Read More…]

FanChatter Goes to the Valley, Tapped by ‘American Idol’ for Startups: Y Combinator

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FanChatter-logoHere’s a story many in Minnesota have been waiting to hear — including several of you out there in the local developer and ad communities who knew something was up. FanChatter-clients Yes, our friends at Minneapolis startup FanChatter have finally gone public with what they’ve been doing for the past four months.  FanChatter is a site that “helps sports franchises and other businesses create a more profitable level of fan involvement through real-time content sharing.”  (More on the company’s About page.)  In April, it was chosen as one of the lucky few to be accepted into the summer program of Y Combinator (YC). Though the actual numbers aren’t announced, I’ve heard only 30 startups were chosen out of almost 1000 that applied. YC is an organization founded in 2005 that does seed funding for startups. Here’s how it explains what that means:

“Seed funding is the earliest stage of venture funding.  It pays your expenses while you’re getting started. Some companies may need no more than seed funding. Others will go through several rounds.  There is no right answer; how much funding you need depends on the kind of company you start.  At Y Combinator, our goal is to get you through the first phase. This usually means: get you to the point where you’ve built something impressive enough to raise money on a larger scale.  Then we introduce you to later stage investors or occasionally even acquirers.” (More on Y Combinator’s About page.)

YC’s application process is well explained on their site, a process FanChatter went through earlier this year, before their selection in mid-April.  After sitting on this story for some time, waiting for the TechCrunch post to break first (which is the normal way YC companies get announced), what follows is the result of a phone and email interview I did over the past few days with FanChatter founders Marty Wetherall and Luke Francl, who remain in Silicon Valley through August. (The third founder, Norm Orstad, was not available.) …  [Read More…]

Minutebids: Get Free Bids on Commercial Property Services

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minutebidsDo you own commercial real-estate or manage commercial property? Probably not – but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be paying attention to local Minnesota web startup Minutebids.com and the brains behind it:  Jon Coudron, Jeremy Raadt, Jerad Parish, and Seth Heiserman.

Minutebids is a free service for property owners/managers that saves them time by streamlining the process of obtaining multiple bids from reputable local service providers for property maintenance needs. Think lawn-care, snow removal, parking lot maintenance, landscaping, etc.

Of course there already are established players in this space, notably ServiceMagic.com (turn your speakers down) & ServiceLive.com – owned by IAC & Sears holding corp, respectively.  Yet Minutebids has some unique competitive advantages that, when added together, make it a compelling alternative:

  • A focus on commercial property: neither service is clearly targeting commercial property owners/managers.
  • Pay for performance model vs. pay per lead model: service providers only pay for bona-fide, actionable, and closed leads – contrary to the pricing model of the other two.
  • Service wizard with Microsoft Virtual Earth integration through the Bing Map API: This allows RFP’s to be uploaded/submitted painlessly and for service providers to bid projects online, in real time, without having to do a site visit/walk through. The competition doesn’t even come close to this feature.
  • Option to combine multiple properties and service types into one request: This saves the owner/manager time and increases the likely- hood for volume discounts. Again, unique to minutebids.

Minutebids has gone from concept, through R&D, to their recent beta launch (mid July) in less than six months and they’ve clearly established themselves as “better than the rest”. Their next step is to work directly with local service providers and property owners/managers to iron out any kinks, listen & lean from said users, and otherwise evolve as they prepare for their nation-wide roll-out campaign.

Time is of the essence as Minutebids must close-in on the incumbents before they discover the Minutebids difference for themselves, and thus potentially implement the very same feature-sets and technologies that minutebids is using to differentiate itself.  This is a common challenge faced by any startup that’s not first to market, and  in this case, I’d place my bets on the startup side with consideration to drive and agility.  Plus: how do you re-engineer your pricing model in the middle of the game if you’re ServiceMagic or ServiceLive? Remember, the primary differentiating factor is the Minutebids pay for performance approach to lead generation–a fundamental difference.

According to co-founder Jon Coudron, the market for commercial RE services is at-least a $40 billion/year industry and he’s not shy about his ambitions:

“We want to dominate this market segment and want to talk if you think you can help us”

It’s the NGIN that will make TST Media go

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tstmediaA company started in Eau Claire WI, TSTMedia, has moved to the Twin Cities in order to capitalize upon the talent pool, venture capital and (I assume) the balmy winter weather and to get faster access to Minnov8.

Seriously, this company has a uniquely strong value proposition that has already put them on the map in Eau Claire and in several markets where organizations have adopted TSTMedia’s offerings for mission-critical sports websites.

Founded in 2004, TSTMedia started off as a web development shop but focused their efforts around the sports passions of college buddies and co-founders Justin Kaufenberg (CEO) and Carson Kipfer (COO). Quickly they identified that the sports niche was woefully underserved and filled with group and collaboration needs not being addressed in the marketplace.

They quickly began moving forward with Team Sport Technologies, building out sports-specific web applications. The applications enabled amateur sports organizations to efficiently manage a website with little or no previous technical knowledge. TST Media, under the Team Sport Technologies brand, then released a complete roster of sports specific products for hockey, soccer, basketball, lacrosse, baseball, softball, football, volleyball, swimming and others.

The websites they built and delivered for sports clients included a combination of online tools (online registration, interactive multi-team calendars, highly sophisticated statistic engines, etc.) that made publishing website content, sharing information and communicating with members extremely easy.

In 2009, they combined their Ruby on Rails experience, knowledge of the sports domain, and the engine they’d already created to make it brain-dead-simple for non-technical users to deliver a great team or organization website, and consolidated their various organization products and features into a single platform called NGIN.  …  [Read More…]

BusinessCard2: “The Big Upgrade” Launch is Near

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bizcard2-newSince I’m a user of BusinessCard2 — and been following CEO Lief Larson’s journey to make it the killer app for your web identity — I’ve been staying close to what they’ve been up to as the next version, the “big upgrade”, looms near (disclaimer: they’re also an advertiser on Minnov8).

Though they’ve been playing it pretty close to the vest for months, and I’ve been bugging Lief the entire time, he did agree to a quote and my posting of the graphic above. From Lief, “For the last 24 months our team has been working hard behind closed doors to create something we think has transformative potential.  What we have up our sleeve, nevertheless, is not being released until August.  We want to under promise and over deliver.  The internet is changing rapidly and we intend to launch something leveraging the cutting-edge.  Think web container, meets social, meets cloud.  Best of all, it’s 100% made in Minnesota.”

Go sign up now so you’re in the queue to get “the big upgrade” when they launch.

Microsoft Launches Expression 3 & Sketchflow

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silverexpressSaw a tweet yesterday from my buddy, Microsoft’s Doug Olson, that said, “Getting ready for a very exciting day tomorrow — the culmination of why I am working at Microsoft.” He was either finally getting a free Zune, he’d completed that Redmond, WA to White Bear Lake, MN fun run, or his group was going to ship a major release. I suspected the latter so pinged him right away and he emailed me a bit ago since he’s in the midst of launching now.

douglaskolsonDoug is the Product Unit GM of the Expression group (who recently put in place a Microsoft engineering office in St. Paul), is today launching Silverlight and Expression 3 at a press event in San Francisco. It’s a big day for his main product, Expression Blend 3, which finally gets to the point where is it very competitive with Flash & Flex. Not only that, but Microsoft is including a major innovation with it called SketchFlow (here is a good overview of it) which is getting tons of buzz and changing the way folks think about conceptual design (prototyping).

One other note: SketchFlow, and another big-deal feature (fully enabled Photoshop file format support, apparently done better than even Adobe’s Flash CS4 does it) have both come out of the team based right here in St. Paul lead by Bob Pappas and Rick Keeney.

Extendr: Your Web. One Place.

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extendr

If I googled you – what would I find, how fast would I find it, and what initial impression would I form?

Personal branding is in and the premise is simple: people search for other people online and extendr.com makes it easier to be found online while enabling one to retain control over their own unique digital introduction destiny.

Call it a launch pad, virtual porch, or online hub. It’s all the same if you can take your digital breadcrumbs (social links, contact info, portfolio, CV, favorites, etc.) and aggregate them into one customizable & search engine friendly source.  It’s simple, free, and it works especially well for those too illiterate and/or cheap for a professional personal website and too busy to consistently maintain a functional blog.

The tour feature allows for someone to visit your extendr page and browse the various links/websites that you have included, all within the extendr frame.  This offers two distinct benefits: (1) ensuring that whoever is seeking can find everything (and then some) under one roof, and (2) less time spent back and forth jumping from site to site.

Isn’t it pleasurable when you can efficiently locate and access what it is your looking for online? Consider extendr a great personal marketing tool, as we (as searchers) are forming unforgiving subconscious first impressions and subsequent judgments based on how accessible people are choosing to make themselves online-or rather-not.  For example, if you’ve taken the upfront time to make it easy for me to find you online then it tells me that you respect my time.  This would likely lead to a favorable first impression as opposed to having to sift through pages of SERPs.

Go to extendr.com now and get running in a few minutes.  What’s that? You already have a personal website/blog?  Already profiled in google? Fair enough… but isn’t it better to cast one’s personal branding net as far and wide as possible given the option?