Startup Texas launched today.
With Michael Dell on the board of Startup America, it’s natural that Texas is one of the latest regions selected by the organization to help foster entrepreneurship.
Startup America launched earlier this year and is a private-public partnership initiated by President Obama and the White House. But Steve Case, CEO of Startup America Partnership, sees the organization as rallying private companies to help spur innovation and create jobs through startups.
The Startup America regions already include Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts and Tennessee. The Austin Chamber of Commerce is spearheading the Startup Texas effort. Its goal is to provide more jobs in central Texas and the chamber plans to provide funding through its Opportunity Austin initiative.
“Cities like Austin prove that as young companies are founded and grow, they create the jobs America needs right now,” Case said a in news release. “We’re thrilled to work with the Austin team to initially launch Startup Texas, and look forward to integrating our resources and reach throughout all of Texas, with its formidable and well-established culture of entrepreneurship.”
John Price, CEO of Vast.com will serve as chair of Startup Texas.
Author: LauraLorek@gmail.com (Page 345 of 352)
LauraLorek@gmail.com
Local tech start-ups want to keep as much homegrown talent in town as possible.
So they created Made In Austin, a job fair that matches area students with start-ups looking for technology talent.
The first event, featuring 100 tech companies and more than 500 registered students, took place Tuesday night at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center downtown.
The 3-hour job fair, which started at 6 p.m., drew a big crowd of students, some guys dressed in suits and ties, others wearing hoodies, jeans and polo shirts and some women in sweater dresses and knee-high boots.
The event organizers banned swag like free T-shirts, stickers and other giveaways. The crowd munched on pizza bagels and brownies and drank ice tea.
Jacqueline Hughes, founder of Austin Start-up Week, organized the event along with Joshua Baer, head of the Capital Factory and OtherInbox. Other organizers included Campus2Careers and other start-up companies. Large companies like American Express, Dell and Rackspace sponsored the tech meet-up.
At the OtherInBox table, Baer, CEO, had already collected several resumes and talked with lots of people. Baer has hired from local universities to fill openings at his start-up in the past. In fact, OtherInBox’s lead product developer started out as an intern when he was a student at St. Edward’s University.
“It’s worked really well for us,” Baer said. “ I love hiring really great experienced people. I also like hiring inexperienced passionate people who I can teach.”
Luke Carriere, who just founded Approachab.ly a few weeks ago at 3 Day Start-up Weekend San Antonio, had a place at a table recruiting Android and iPhone developers, Bluetooth and Near Field Communication specialists. He was also looking for marketers and sales staff.
“I’m looking for business majors who might be able to help me with market research,” Carriere said.
Events like Made In Austin help Carriere network and make connections that eventually help to further his business, he said. At a mobile conference a few weeks ago, he met a guy who has joined him to become technical co-founder of his start-up.
“What’s been amazing is meeting people who want to help you by opening up their rolodexes,” he said.
The event provided an opportunity to recruit young talent, said Ramin Jahedi, CEO and founder of CaniSolutions, restaurant consultants. He runs the start-up FindWaiters.com.
“Our market is just exploding,” Jahedi said. Early on during the evening, he had already collected a few resumes and talked with several people.
Patrick Mizer at SpareFoot also talked to a lot of students and planned to follow up with a few of them following the fair.
“We are looking to hire some young engineering talent,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of success hiring engineers in their last year of college.”
Kevin Chu, a junior majoring in management information systems at the University of Texas, attended the fair to find a Spring internship.
“Start-ups give you the opportunity to learn more,” he said. “They’re small so you can do a variety of jobs.”
Linda Ye, a junior majoring in management information systems, was also looking for a Spring internship with a start-up. She already has a summer internship set up with a large company.
“Austin is a start-up city,” Ye said. “Start-ups tend to be more flexible with hours. They are also able to teach you a lot. Start-ups fit me the best right now.”
So many central Texas start-ups have taken off recently and some of them may need a boost to get to the next level.
This list of Austin and San Antonio incubators and accelerators help companies with a leg up in the marketplace.
Some of them have rigorous application and screening processes. Check them out to find the one that’s right for your venture.
Tech Ranch is a for-profit incubator founded in 2008 by Kevin Koym and Jonas Lamis. It offers co-working space for start-ups, consulting services and specialized programs to help entrepreneurs launch their ventures. Its flagship programs are Camp Fires, which are informal gatherings on Friday, Venture Forth, an 8-week program, and Pioneer Program, a weekly meeting coupled with monthly rent for office space.
Kevin Koym Press Kit
View more documents from Shennandoah Diaz
Capital Factory, founded in 2009 by Joshua Baer and Bryan Menell, is a seed-stage technology accelerator for startups. It runs a 10 week program that begins in May and runs through August. It ends with a Demo Day in September in which the companies pitch to potential investors, media and others.
TechStars Cloud is the newest accelerator for high-tech startups in the Silicon Hills area. It’s based at the Geekdom in downtown San Antonio. The inaugural class of TechStar Cloud companies kicks off in January. Each company receives $18,000 and access to another $100,000 loan. The 12-week program ends with a Demo Day.
Austin Technology Incubator, founded in 1989, has helped more than 200 companies. It’s part of the IC2 Institute at the University of Texas.
Texas Venture Labs at the University of Texas helps accelerate startup companies in central Texas.
SXSW Accelerator 2012 – this is the fourth year for this competition which features 48 start-up companies pitching to an audience of investors and experienced entrepreneurs. The judges then choose 18 finalists who give a final pitch and then the winners are chosen.
One Semester Start-up at the University of Texas debuted this fall. The companies will pitch to investors and others on Thursday. Professor of Innovation and Murchison Fellow of Free Enterprise Bob Metcalfe, Joshua Baer of Capital Factory and John Butler, Director of H.K. Entrepreneurship Center at the University of Texas head up the program.
This Friday, Ash Maurya, founder of Spark59 and author of Running Lean, is putting on a one-day workshop at Tech Ranch Austin. The program, which costs $249, starts at 9 a.m.
Other programs designed to spur innovation among the entrepreneurial mindset include:
If you were so busy Wednesday night preparing for the big turkey day, that you forgot to set the DVR and you missed Austin public television station KLRU’s new gem of a program that focuses on Austin innovation, don’t worry.
KLRU plans to re-run the program, Capital of Innovation: Episode #101, which debuted Wednesday night. The next showing is Sunday at 4:30 p.m.
Capital of Innovation’s first episode features Josh Kerr, co founder of Zosh, and maker of an iPhone app that allows people to sign contracts on the mobile phone. YouSendIt acquired Zosh in January of 2011.
The program also features Chris Richter who created a drink mix and Ruth Glendinning who turned an abandoned retail site into a micro incubator for small businesses.
Chris W. McKinzie with Enlyton will be giving SiliconHillsNews.com a demonstration of its bookmarking technology today. Here’s a video explaining the company’s product. I’ll have more to share later.
Are you wonder struck over the amount of money, deals and companies flowing into the Austin area?
It’s exciting times in the Silicon Hills, the high-tech region of Austin and San Antonio.
Not only is Austin, which is known for its start-up culture and high-technology ventures, taking off like a shotgun blast, but San Antonio’s tech entrepreneurial scene has begun to bubble up to the surface like Texas crude.
So much has happened in just the past week that it’s difficult to keep on top of all the activity. So we’ve rounded up the best deals below and if we’ve left anything off, please add to it in the comments section.
San Antonio-based Rackspace Hosting Inc. has opened up satellite offices in Silicon Valley. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote a nice story about their new offices. The official opening is Dec. 1, but already employees, including Uber-blogger Robert Scobel, who runs Building 43, a technology site that specializes in video interviews with technology entrepreneurs, have moved in.
Meanwhile, Geekdom, a new collaborative workspace at the Weston Centre in downtown San Antonio, continues to host events including 3 Day Startup San Antonio and Start-up Ignite’s Hack-a-thon.
In Austin, Evernote’s CEO Phil Libin flew in to open the company’s first U.S. satellite office in the Bridgepoint Parkway Office Complex. It’s hiring a bunch of people for the Austin operations too.
Speaking of moving to town, the Austin American Statesman reported that SceneTap, a social media app for bar patrons, announced plans to relocate its operations from Chicago to Austin.
And BlackLocus, an e-commerce pricing analysis company, announced Austin as the headquarters of its company, which recently graduated from the LaunchPad program at the Austin Technology Incubator.
Meanwhile, Rapid 7, an online security firm, just landed $50 million in funding and will use the proceeds, in part, to expand its Austin operations
And ServiceMesh, a Santa Monica-based cloud platform maker, has raised $15 million and plans to expand its Austin operations, according to this story by Lori Hawkins of the Austin American Statesman.
Capital Factory graduate, WPEngine closed $1.2 million in series A financing, according to this post from Bryan Mennel at Austin Startup.
Last, but not least, SXSW continues to release a bunch of news about next year’s Interactive conference. The deadline for entering your start-up into its SXSW Accelerator is today. It was actually Friday, but SXSW, which often extends deadlines at the last minute, pushed it until today. So if you’re a totally procrastinator, get your application in now.
Tech Ranch Austin’s next Venture Forth program begins Nov. 29, and full disclosure SiliconHillsNews is going to be participating in the program. Tech Ranch still has a few openings left, but it’s limited to 15 entrepreneurs.
Hackers gathered at Geekdom Friday night to socialize, listen to a speaker and build stuff.
About 50 people attended Start-up Ignite’s second all night Hack-a-thon in downtown San Antonio.
The event kicked off at 7 p.m. with pizza and soda and socializing, followed by a candid presentation from start-up entrepreneur Vid Luther, CEO of ZippyKid.
Luther launched ZippyKid, a wordpress hosting site, in May of 2010, with three customers. He received his first round of angel funding this past April. ZippyKid now has more than 1,000 customers and Luther’s hired four employees.
ZippyKid just turned profitable, Luther said.
Luther told the crowd that he didn’t have a clue what he was doing when he started the company. In fact, he just did it as a hobby at first. He helped people with their WordPress sites during his spare time, while working a full time job for Pear Analytics. But he soon realized the value in providing personalized service to people who have WordPress blogs.
“I could charge $100 to fix a problem that took me five minutes to fix,” Luther said.
Some larger hosting sites didn’t always have time to provide the best help to non-technical WordPress bloggers, and that’s where Luther found his opportunity.
Luther encouraged the crowd to try their own ventures. He tried several other ventures and had some great ideas that didn’t pan out before he found success with ZippyKid. He attracted his angel funding through a blog post he did explaining his vision for the site.
ZippyKid competes with other WordPress specialization sites like WPEngine in Austin. But ZippyKid focuses on non-technical customers, Luther said. Since launching, ZippyKid has lost only 11 customers and half of those went out of business, Luther said.
Following Luther’s talk, the crowd dispersed and began working on their laptops in small groups.
Stephen Young, Igor Gregorio and Daniel Semmens created Start-up Ignite because they wanted to work with other like-minded people.
San Antonio lacked a catalyst to bring together its technology community, Gregorio said.
“We heard that there were more and more people in San Antonio doing start-ups but none of them were connected,” Young said.
A few people came from Houston and Austin to attend the event, Semmens said
“The focus is on getting things done and helping people,” Semmens said.
Building a strong community of people working on start-ups only helps make the existing start-ups stronger, said Young.
Young and Gregorio travelled to San Francisco earlier this year and when they hopped in a cab, the cab driver asked them if they ran a start-up and asked them for their pitch. Then he gave them his pitch. They want to see that pervasive entrepreneurial spirit in San Antonio, Young said.
“It’s possible,” he said
The next Start-up Ignite Hack-a-thon is Dec. 9th and features Dirk Elmendorf, co-founder of Rackspace, as its guest speaker. They have 100 people on the Start-up Ignite mailing list and they’re hoping to attract even more as word of mouth about the events spread, Semmens said.
“Bring what you have and come and work around like minded people,” he said.
Niyolab CEO Toyin Akinmusuru travelled from Austin for the event. He’s also co-founder of HubAustin, a co-working space on South Congress Avenue. He was seeking feedback on his new venture, Niyobooks, an online customized children’s book site for families.
“This is the perfect environment for people to come and get feedback,” said Gregorio.
Dan Stuckey attended 3 Day Startup last weekend and learned about Startup Ignite’s Hack-a-thon there. So he showed up Friday night to work on a new idea.
“This is the perfect place to meet people who code,” Stuckey said. “Coders are like the golden Unicorns. They’re hard to find.”
Tim Peters, president of MartFlash.com, an e-commerce site, that he plans to launch within 18 months, attended the event to look for talent for his new venture.
“The next step is putting together a team,” he said. He’s looking for 5 people and he found some potential employees at the event.
Most start-up entrepreneurs talk about exiting the company within five to seven years, but not Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote.
“We’re creating the 100-year start-up,” Libin said. He also calls it “The Forever Start-up.”
Evernote explicitly does not have an exit strategy, Libin said. He doesn’t want to sell the company or take it public or merge with someone else. He’s building something that he loves and he wants his customers and employees and everyone else to love it too.
That’s a pretty bold strategy for a Silicon Valley-based technology company. But the 100-year startup appears to resonate with the least likely crowd, the venture capitalists, which have given Evernote $100 million. Investors include Sequoia Capital, Morgenthaler Ventures, Troika Dialog and DOCOMO Capital.
“I may not be the CEO 100 years from now but I would like to be involved in the company,” Libin said. “There’s no exit strategy. That permeates everything we do.”
Libin spoke at the official opening of its first U.S. satellite office in Austin on Thursday.
“Austin is the ideal place to try this first,” Libin said. “Austin is a great place to build things. Austin is a crappy place to raise money.”
But Evernote already has its money in the bank and now it needs talent to create and expand its product line. That’s why Austin and Evernote make the perfect fit, Libin said.
Evernote also has offices in Tokyo and Moscow. And in the next few months, Evernote will open additional offices in Europe, Beijing and Singapore. Libin believes in going where the most talented people live. He wants to keep the “studio” offices small and nimble like start-ups but connected to each other as part of a larger mission. That mission is to put Evernote in the hands of everyone on the planet.
A Japanophil, Libin explained that Japan has many companies that are 100 years old. The country and its people believe in long term planning. He wants to combine that business longevity and ethics with a start-up’s ability to quickly change and adapt to the marketplace.
Evernote’s business model is not “clever” or “complex,” Libin said. Its model is to build something great that people will pay for, he said.
“We want Evernote to be a tool, like a hammer is a tool,” Libin said. “The right tools change your brain.”
“With Evernote, we want you to know you’ll never have to forget anything again,” Libin said.
Evernote is a free application that lets people take and save notes. It also offers a premium version that costs $5 a month or $45 per year. Its paid product offers bigger upload capacity, greater sharing options, a note history, better search tools and no ads. Evernote has more than 17 million customers worldwide and of those about 800,000 pay to use the product.
“Our product becomes more valuable over time,” Libin said. “People hate to be forced to pay for things. But people love to pay for things they love.”
In the first month, less than 1 percent of Evernote users pay for the product, but by the third year, more than 20 percent are paying, Libin said.
“We want people to use this for the rest of their life,” he said.
Evernote has more than 17 million users worldwide.
“This is all organic growth,” Libin said. “This is word of mouth growth in a little over 3 years.”
Evernote, founded in 2007, has never taken out ads or done traditional marketing. Its never appeared during the half time of the Superbowl like some other technology start-ups.
“Everything we do – all of our efforts – are put into making the best possible products,” Libin said. “We want the first time you hear about Evernote not to come from us, but to come from a buddy in a bar.”
Evernote also recently acquired Skitch, a free app that allows people to draw pictures to communicate ideas. Skitch takes communications back to the stick in the sand concept, Libin said. E-mail has become a frustrating way for many people to communicate, especially visual ideas, he said. Skitch makes it easy, he said. Anyone, who works with their hands, in the blue or white collar industries will like Skitch, Libin said.
The Evernote family of products now includes Evernote, Evernote Peak for education, Skitch and Evernote Clearly, which creates a better reading experience online. Evernote plans to add two more “super-secret mystery” products this winter, Libin said.
Evernote has 115 employees, tripling in the last year, Libin said.
“We’re hiring like crazy,” he said.
The Austin Evernote office hopes to have 25 employees by the end of year and has space to hold up to 60 employees, Libin said. It’s mostly looking for product designers, artists, engineers and product managers, but it also hires writers, marketers and others. Libin worked in Austin more than 10 years ago. He lived in Boston and commuted to Austin to head up a company called Engine 5, which he sold to Vignette in 2000.
“We’re really happy to be here,” Libin said. “I really developed a huge sense of respect for Austin and building things.”
It took an hour and half to get everyone checked in at the door of Evernote’s new offices in Northwest Austin Thursday night.
A guy in the parking garage said it was easier to get into a ZZ Top concert than Evernote’s new offices, said Rich Warwick, its vice president and general manager for Austin products.
More than 470 people registered to attend Evernote’s open house, he said. Warwick made some brief remarks at the event, which ran from 6 to 9 p.m.
In August, Evernote announced plans to create a satellite office in Austin. It moved into the fourth floor offices at 6504 Bridgepoint Parkway.
At the event, a couple of bars offered frozen margaritas, beer and wine. A buffet featured Mexican fare like fajitas, beans and rice.
The green-clad tables hosted packets of peanuts sealed with green sticks featuring the Evernote elephant logo and a note “I’m not being rude. I’m taking notes in Evernote.” The Jessie Torrisi & The Please, Please Me band entertained the crowd.
Evernote’s office also includes a virtual window to its Mountain View, California headquarters. Through high-definition video conferencing, people in the two offices can virtually bump into each other in the hallway.
“You can literally talk to the person just like they’re standing there,” Warwick said.
Warwick said he had to hire a team and ship a product by Christmas. And the company is on track, he said. Evernote is hiring software developers and other employees for its Austin office. Their main product is Skitch.
Skitch, a free app for Macs and Android platforms, created for artists and designers, helped Evernote design its new office.
“I could literally communicate what would take me 20 minutes to type out in an e-mail, it took me less than a minute using Skitch,” Warwick said. The app helps people communicate their ideas visually.
Skitch’s creators, Cris Pearson and Keith Lang moved from Australia to Austin to head up the product’s development team. Skitch is Evernote’s first acquisition.