David Duey

TechStars Alumni Speak

There are a couple of recent posts by TechStars alumni that are worth a read; particularly if you intend to submit, or have already submitted, an application to TechStars.

• Tom Chikoore, of FiltrBox, provides advice for TechStars applicants.
• Josh Fraser, of EventVue, compares the way things were a year ago, prior to TechStars, to the way things are today.

Heather and I submitted a TechStars application last year, and although we didn’t make the cut, we learned a lot, had a bunch of fun, and gained a mentor in the process.  We’ve submitted a TechStars application this year as well, and we’re currently working on a prototype.

TechStars For A Day

I've been neck deep in contract work, but decided to take a short break to check out the updated TechStars web site.  Version 2 is slick and there's a good video overview on the site as well.

While I was snooping around, I discovered TechStars For A Day.  Heather and I have been discussing whether we'll apply to TechStars again (we're old farts), but I think TechStars For A Day cinches that decision.  I suspect we'll be making flight and hotel arrangements in the next few days.  (Our house hasn't sold yet, so we have to commute.)

Intense Debate

I've installed the Intense Debate comment system on my blog.  It was an easy and painless installation, and it's a much more functional that plain vanilla system that I had.  The Intense Debate system is one of those great ideas; I didn't realize how dysfunctional the old style comments were until I'd used the Intense Debate system.  In addition to improving the commenting functionality, Intense Debate adds a bunch of other functionality including statistics (check out their site for details and sign-up for the beta). 

Intense Debate was one of the startups that graduated from TechStars this past summer.  Very cool stuff!

TechStars In BusinessWeek

Over the past week, my wife sent me a couple of links to BusinessWeek articles that discuss TechStars and/or TechStars’ offspring; “Y Cominator Inspires Imitators” and “Who Wants to be a Facebook Millionaire?"

The first article discusses the Y Combinator “imitators.”  According to the article Paul Graham “isn’t flattered by the unauthorized open-sourcing of his own model.”  I don’t have much time to comment right now, but I think that deserves a big WTF?  I hope that was just one of those “media misunderstandings.”  I’m sure that David Cohen looked closely at Y Combinator when creating TechStars, but I think TechStars places a lot more emphasis on mentors and community and less on Ivy League pedigree than Y Combinator does.  Is Paul Graham’s authorization required?

The second article, which is a good an exciting read for any software startup, discusses J-Squared Media (a TechStars company) and its phenomenal success so far.

Selling the House = Brick Wall

Late last spring, my wife and I decided we wanted to move to Boulder, Colorado.  We were TechStars applicants who didn’t make the cut, but we were so impressed by the Boulder entrepreneurial scene, and particularly David Cohen’s willingness to provide feedback and guidance, that we decided to move. About four months ago, we put our house up for sale.  Unfortunately, we put our house up for sale just before the height of the “mortgage crisis.”  Things have been very slow lately; we haven’t had many potential buyers look at the house in the past month. 

The main problem is that were joesin’ to move to Boulder.  The sale of the house is holding us back; even though it’s not imperative that we move to Boulder at any particular time, it’s amazingly hard to wait and bide our time.  It’s our brick wall.

And that’s my segue into an excellent video of Randy Pausch, a CMU professor.  I discovered the video via a Brad Feld entry titled “How to Lead Your Life.”  It’s a long video, but worth the time.  Randy Pausch covers a lot of ground, but he has an on-going “brick wall” theme:

Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things.

I’ll have to continue to remind myself that the sale of the house is just one of many brick walls we’ll face on our entrepreneurial journey.  The house will be sold and we’ll move on to our next hurdle.  I can’t wait!  And, our problems seem trivial compared to what Randy Pausch has to face; he's dying of cancer.

EventVue Closes Round of Funding (correction to previous post)

When I first posted this, the title was "Another TechStars Company Funded."  The title wasn't correct and I got a bunch of other stuff wrong as well.

First, the comapny that closed the round was EventVue not Online Aspect.  Online Aspect is the name of Josh Fraser's (an EventVue founder) blog.

Second, EventVue was announcing the closing of the Series A round of funding.  EventVue was the first of the TechStars companies to close a round of funding. 

Third, my facts and figures were obviously incorrect.  As far as I know, seven TechStars companies have been funded of the nine companies that were seeking funding.  That's still an impressive figure.

For more facts (and better writing) about the EventVue round of funding from the source of all things TechStars, check out David Cohen's post on the TechStars blog.

Many thanks to Josh Fraser for clarifying things for me!

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Online Aspect has received funding! 

TechStars has had a great inaugural class.  If I have my facts and figure correct, seven out of nine of the TechStars companies have received funding.  One company, decided to forgo funding because they had enough cash flow to sustain themselves (aka bootstrapped).

I realize that funding doesn't equal success, but they're off to a great start.  Amazing!

I'm Over Here!

It looks as if the bright guys (and TechStars graduates) of Brightkite are building a platform that, hopefully, will be available to developers, to help answer the question, “Where are you?”  That sounds like a nice horizontal problem space and the solution will help spawn a bunch of vertical applications.  I think they’re on to something big, and we might just have a use for the Brightkite Location Platform in conjunction with Georneys.

At the beginning of TechStars our team was gung-ho about creating location dependent applications such as a location blogger and a proximity friend finder. We soon discovered with each application we were forced to answer the same fundamental question of “Where is the user?”. Not necessarily an easy question to answer semantically or technologically. Instead of solving the problem of “Where are you?” over and over again for each application, it was clear that we needed a location platform that allowed multiple apps to query, and update a users given location.

TechStars Have Been Quiet

The TechStars companies have been pretty quiet this week.  I’m sure it’s self-imposed; they’re all working away getting ready for Investor Day, which evidently is today or yesterday or tomorrow (i.e. sometime this week). 

I can feel the tension and excitement in the air, and I’m nowhere near Boulder.  I’m just “street riff raff,” but the vicarious excitement is almost too much for me.  I can’t wait to hear about the outcome.

Forget the Book, Watch the Video

I read a lot of books; many of them are business books or business related.  In my opinion, one of the major problems with business books is that they’re too long.  They’re often repetitive and filled with too many anecdotes and stories that do little to support author’s assertions.  I’d much rather pay an equivalent price for a good, concise business book than I would the typical bloated business book that’s heavy on the anecdotes and light on insight. In fact, I believe that if you could iterate through the typical business book and remove redundancies and anecdotes, you’d probably reduce most of them down to a one page summary, or at best, a magazine length article.

That’s my segue to a really good TechStars video of the MyBlogLog founders’ session with the TechStars crew.  The video is a gold mine of information and advice for any web startup.  It’s 80 minutes long.  I’ve watched it twice.  I wish I could buy the book.  There’s a ton of information and I think watching the video is time well spent.  My only advice is to be sure to keep your favorite note-taking tools handy; there’s a lot of stuff you’ll probably want to jot down and think about.

Selling and Moving: Lots of Hard Work

My wife and I are preparing to put our house up for sale very soon.  We’ve been cleaning, packing and getting rid of excess junk and treasure.  It’s amazing how much stuff we’ve accumulated in the seven years that we’ve lived in our current house.  It’s a lot of hard work, but it’s also kind of cathartic to get rid of excess junk.  In some respects, I think it metaphorically parallels the entrepreneurial process and our growth as entrepreneurs.

Although we didn’t make it into TechStars, we did decide that Boulder was the ideal place for us to push forward with our entrepreneurial pursuits.  Boulder has a very active and open entrepreneurial community.  As we prepare for the move, I think the whole family is getting more and more excited about the prospects and change that’s looming in the near future.