Tag: Austin (Page 26 of 37)
BY DAMON CLINKSCALES
FounderDating (and no, it’s not romantic) has just launched in Austin.
The online network allows you to connect with other talented folks who are ready to found a company in your area. The first live event for Austin will be held on May 23rd (apply by May 15th).
About the network:
High Quality – members are carefully screened for quality and readiness. Applications and members’ identities are confidential, but a few of the folks who are part of the network are former founders or early employees of: StackMob, Snapfish, Asana, Soundtracking, and hi5 just to name a few.
Balanced – 50% engineering & 50% non-engineering
Online Network – The event is just the beginning. FD is an invite-only online network of entrepreneurs looking for co-founders around the country that you become a part of.
You can apply at here (you don’t need to have an idea, just ready to work on a serious side project).
Here’s some more background: in a TechCrunch article.
Photo by John Rogers of Visualist Images Photography in Austin
Adecco Staffing U.S. compiled a list of the 10 best cities to find work in the U.S. with Washington, D.C. and the Arlington and Alexandria, Virginia area take the top spot, followed by Austin.
Adecco compiled the list from information gleaned from its 900 national branches as well as other factors such as local unemployment rate, job opportunities based on number of job openings in the past six months and an overall assessment of the economic environment of each city.
A diverse economy with plenty of opportunities and an unemployment rate of 6 percent, below the national average of 8.1 percent, helped Austin claim the number two spot on the list.
“Top industries hiring in Austin include technology and manufacturing, but leisure and hospitality, education and health services, professional and business services, and financial activities are also fast growing sectors,” according to Adecco. “Among the most in-demand skills are customer service, call center, pharmaceutical customer support, assembly, and warehouse.”
The complete list of best U.S. cities to find a job:
Washington, DC and Arlington/Alexandria, VA
Austin, TX
Ithaca, NY
Boston, MA
Portland, ME
Dallas, TX
Nashville, TN
Columbus, OH
Baltimore, MD
Pittsburgh, PA
Ziften Technologies just closed on $5.5 million in its Series B financing.
And the Austin-based startup released its first software product, Behavioral Lightweight Intelligence for Stressed Systems, nicknamed BLISS, which lets companies easily manage and deploy software across Windows desktop computers.
Ziften’s software leds to “improved uptime, business alignment, performance, security, and reduction of errors and annoyances,” according to the company.
With the latest round of funding, Ziften plans to add additional software products and market BLISS.
“We are ready to deliver BLISS to IT organizations everywhere,” Mark Obrecht, Ziften’s CEO, said in a news statement.
The two year old company has raised $11.3 million so far with the latest round led by Fayez Sarofim & Co. Other investors include Andrew Busey, former CEO of Challenge Games now with Austin Ventures.
Ziften serves several Fortune 500 companies in the aerospace, chemical and publishing industries already with its BLISS software product.
CopperEgg has raised $2.1 million to complete its first round funding.
The Austin-based cloud monitoring and analytics company also hired Bob Quillin as its new CEO.
Silverton Partners led the investment along with Webb Investment Network and several private investors including Kenny Van Zant of Asana.
To date, CopperEgg has raised $4.1 million.
“Cloud computing has grown dramatically over the last few years to address a broader base of customers who have ever increasing demands for speed, simplicity, quality of service and value,” Quinllin said in a news release. “CopperEgg is at the forefront of a second generation of companies who are enabling this mass adoption, through SaaS-based solutions that are smarter, faster, lighter weight, and more accessible than the previous generation of cloud monitoring tools.”
Quinllin previously worked at Hyper9, EMC Lonix and nLayers.
BY L.A. LOREK
Founder of Silicon Hills News
“Those who tell stories rule the world” – Plato
Lyn Graft at SXSW Storytelling for Entrepreneurs
He risked everything and his hard work paid off.
And Schultz, by all accounts, is a great storyteller who can articulate and share the passion of his vision.
That’s an essential part of storytelling for entrepreneurs, says Lyn Graft, chief storyteller and founder of LG Pictures in Austin. He has produced more than 450 videos for companies like CNBC, Microsoft, Dell, SXSW, Sweet Leaf Tea and RISE Global. He has filmed 300 entrepreneurs including founders of Starbucks, Whole Foods, Paul Mitchell, Playboy, Baby Einstein, Clear Channel, Craigslist, BET Television, The Knot and Tom’s Shoes.
Graft shared his knowledge of storytelling recently at a panel at SXSW in Austin.
“It’s about leaving an impression with the person you are talking to,” Graft said. “That’s the art and core of storytelling.”
Graft, who has founded eight companies, has pitched more than 200 people on his ideas and he’s been turned down 95 percent of the time, he said. The competition for startups is stiff, he said. What sets a company apart from the crowd is its story.
“We are all unique,” Graft said. “Your story should be unique. We’re all competing against deep-pocketed companies, what do you have that differentiates yourself?”
A good story has a beginning, middle and an end, Graft said. He recommended everyone listen to author Nancy Duarte’s TedX Talk on “common structure of greatest communicators.”
“You want to transport people to where your vision is,” Graft said.
Another great way to tell a story is to set up the problem, present the opportunity and provide the solution, he said.
A great story leaves the audience with a physical reaction like goosebumps, Graft said. He looks for the “GBM” or Goose Bump Moment in a story. How do you create that? You’ve got to reach down deep into your passion and tell why you do what you do, he said.
“Bottom line: speak from the heart,” he said.
It’s also important to know your audience and figure out how can you reach them.
And avoid ugly babies, Graft said. That means find the beauty in every story that you tell.
Learn from great storytelling entrepreneurs, Graft said. For example, Austin’s Clayton Christopher, founder of Sweet Leaf Tea and Deep Eddy Vodka, has the amazing ability to turn everything into a story, Graft said.
Stories don’t have to be complex, Graft said. “Fred Smith’s story: I can get your package there overnight. That’s the story of FedEx.”
Graft recommended other great sources to find entrepreneur storytellers: TED, TEDx, Entrepreneur Magazine, Inc. and Fast Company.
If you have a good story to tell, tell it, but you can’t fake it, Graft said.
“You can only put so much lip gloss on a pig.” Graft said.
Photo courtesy of 1 Semester Startup
That’s what the co-founder, known as Dr. T, president and CEO of National Instruments, said last week during an interview with Bob Metcalfe, University of Texas professor of innovation and coinventor of Ethernet and cofounder of 3Com.
Unlike some of today’s technology billionaires by the name of Bill, Michael and Mark, both Truchard and Metcalfe finished college and obtained PhDs before becoming entrepreneurs.
Metcalfe interviewed Truchard at 1 Semester Startup Demo Day last Thursday evening in the Lady Bird Johnson auditorium at the LBJ Library and Museum. Metcalfe said Truchard played a huge role in convincing him to move to Austin from Boston more than a year ago.
Metcalfe quizzed Truchard on his background. He was born and raised in Austin County. Neither of his parents had a college degree. He received his bachelors and masters degrees in physics and a PhD in electrical engineering from UT. And in 1976, he cofounded National Instruments, in his garage in Austin with Bill Nowlin and Jeff Kodosky. The company makes test equipment and software including LabVIEW, a graphical development program. The company just reported revenue of $262 million for the first quarter of 2012, up 10 percent from a year ago and a profit of $18.6 million. It had revenue of more than $1 billion in 2011.
“I was always determined to be successful, I never thought of any other option,” Truchard said.
Truchard didn’t have a business plan when he started National Instruments.
“We just started working,” he said.
They also never sought out venture capital. Instead, they secured a $10,000 bank loan and they ran the company by bootstrapping operations.
Truchard also read hundreds of books on entrepreneurs including Crossing the Chasm and Thriving on Chaos. He also consulted with the IC2 Institute at UT.
“Keep as much of your capital to yourself as possible.” Truchard advised the crowd of student entrepreneurs. He also told them to make sure they have a good idea and to find as many mentors as possible. And great technology is at the base of innovation.
And nothing beats dumb luck, he said. “Don’t exclude it.”
Truchard took National Instruments public in 1995 to offer liquidity to its employees, not because they needed to raise money.
The company culture was born when National Instruments started, Truchard said. He tries to make the company a fun place to work and focuses on cultivating a leadership culture as the company grows. The company regularly makes it on Forbes’ best places to work lists.
In response to a question from a student about how he communicates the company vision to 6,200 employees.
“Well, I’m very repetitive,” Truchard said.
To share his ideas, Truchard has used 1,500 slides throughout the years in presentations to employees. His employees took all of those slides, shrunk them and then they made a portrait of him out them and presented to him as a gift.
It looks like Leisure Suit Larry will make a comeback in the 21st century.
On Kickstarter, Austin-based Replay Games has raised more than $600,000 
exceeding its goal of $500,000 to remake the popular game from 1987. It has 13,610 backers showing that Leisure Suit Larry is still in demand.
Al Lowe, the game’s original developer, has agreed to come out of retirement to work on the new version. And the game developers have secured the license to reinvent Larry for the modern world.
Replay Games is giving away all kinds of perks to people who pledge to its Kickstarter campaign including the chance for a $5,000 contribution to be a character at Lefty’s bar where Larry hangs out. Only 13 hours remain before the campaign wraps up but since it already met and exceeded its goal it’s a sure thing that Leisure Suit Larry will prowl again.
And the game makers have cut prices on perks during the last day to lure even more backers and money to the project.
In Austin, software, hardware, semiconductor and information technology skills are in demand, according to Door64, a 20,000 member technology organization, which Monday released a Hiring Priority Survey of technology companies.
Startups were not included in the survey.
For the first three months of 2012, software is the biggest skill in demand. Companies are specifically looking for Java, User Interface/User Experience, Software Quality Assurance, and .NET experience.
“We all know, it is often one or two key holes in a company that can impede growth,” Door64 founder Matt Genovese said in a statement. “We are stepping up and surveying the hiring managers of a set of sizable Austin area technology companies every quarter starting now with today’s survey results, to get deliberately granular about what these hiring shortages are.”
More than half of the 54 managers surveyed reported software as their main hiring priority, followed by information technology with skills like systems administration, network engineering, project management, security.
The third priority was the hardware or semiconductor category, at 14%, meaning chip design, verification, embedded software.
The biggest software category was Java, at 16% of all respondents, 30% of the software needs. Java is still king in Austin, used for developing in a variety of business needs, from enterprise Java to mobile technologies built in Java.
Door64 will be holding the Austin Pain-point Job Fair on June 29 at the AT&T Conference Center at University of Texas.
Austin Hallock and Joe Vennix, both juniors at the University of Texas majoring in computer science, have founded Clay.io, a platform for HTML5 games.
Their startup is based at the Longhorn Startup Camp, a 30,000 square foot building at 1616 Guadalupe St., which has housed 27 student run companies during the Spring Semester. Bob Metcalfe, professor of innovation at UT, secured the space, which also served as an incubator for ten 1 Semester Startup companies. Its goal is to foster student entrepreneurship and collaboration among startups.
Clay.io is a marketplace for HTML5 games.
“The beauty of HTML5 games is they’re completely cross-platform, meaning they’ll work on mobile, as well as desktop, without having to port the game,” Hallock said. “We want to take advantage of that, and act as the app store for those games.”
Clay.io also offers an Application Programming Interface, a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications known as an API, for developers to add game features. “With just a few lines of code, developers can add leaderboards, achievements, payment processing, user login, social integration with Facebook and Twitter, screenshots, and a few more features,” Hallock said.
Clay.io has released three games so far including Word Wars, which is like the popular game Boggle. People compete against others in real time.
“Since it’s an HTML5 game, it will work on your phone or tablet just as well as on your desktop,” Hallock said. “It’s gotten a great reception so far, and even made it to the front page of Hacker News.”
The other two games are Slime Volley and Falldown.
Clay.io differentiates itself from competitors like GameSalad, another game platform developer which sprung out of UT, because they’re more focused on enhancing games that can use any engine.
“There are dozens of HTML5 game engines out there so we plugin to all of the open ones and add in our extra features,” Hallock said. “If they were to open their marketplace up to other game engines then we would be competitors.”
