Tag: technology (Page 13 of 25)

TrueAbility Wins San Antonio Startup Weekend

July 22, 2012 / / 7 Comments

Team photo of TrueAbility, which took home the top prize at San Antonio Startup Weekend. Photo courtesy of San Antonio Startup Weekend.

A team of four former Rackspace employees claimed the top prize at San Antonio Startup Weekend.
True Ability, a service that lets companies test the technical aptitude of job candidates, won the panel of judges over.
“TrueAbility helps companies hire great techs,” Frederick Mendler, CEO, said during his pitch.
One of the things lacking in the startup community is domain expertise, said Nick Longo, director of Geekdom.
“The biggest missing element is someone who knows the business they’re getting into,” he said.
TrueAbility knows the marketplace, Longo said. The need exists for startup companies to tackle bigger problems and TrueAbility is doing that, he said.
The company has 30 years of experience hiring technical talent and has hired more than 1,000 people at Rackspace, Mendler said. The TrueAbility platform will allow companies to know in advance how competent its job candidates are in different technical skills like Unix, Php and Java Script among other skills.
The team is made up of Mendler, Marcus Robertson, Luke Owen and Dusty Jones.
Following the big win, the team retired to their office at Geekdom to drink champagne and celebrate.
“We’re going to take tomorrow off and let the Red Bull wear off and get out of our systems,” Mendler said. “Then we’ll come back and focus on building the site out. We think there’s an opportunity to have $1 million in revenue in the next eight months.”
The judges thought TrueAbility had a solid business model and a well-formed and experienced team.

Frederick Mendler pitching TrueAbility at San Antonio Startup Weekend photo courtesy of San Antonio Startup Weekend


The judges also liked BikeIdentity, which garnered second place. BikeIdentity reported that 1.5 million bikes are stolen every year and 48 percent are recovered but less than 5 percent go back to their owners. BikeIdentity wants to solve that problem with NFC tags on bike frames that the police could scan to find the owners. The tags would retail for around $10. BikeIdentity estimates it will reach $12 million in revenue in 3 years. The team was seeking a $150,000 investment to bring its product to market.
SoundFly, a seven second broadcasting service on Twitter, took the third place prize.
“What would you say to the world in 7 seconds?” asked Ramesh Danala, during his presentation. SoundFly gives people the ability to accurately convey tone, emotion and personality with friends and family.
“People can Tweet and text, but the power of talking is amazing,” Danala said.
Dan Pernik first pitched the idea for SoundFly on Friday night. The idea didn’t get enough votes to become one of the selected projects. But when a team broke up over night, SoundFly got a new life. Inaddition to Pernik and Danala, Sundip Lal and Elliot Adams from New Orleans, joined the team.
“SoundFly was one of the ideas that has big potential,” said Pat Matthews, a senior vice president at Rackspace and one of the judges. “It definitely is an exciting idea.”
At the end of the day, most of the ideas that come out of San Antonio Startup Weekend won’t work, Longo said.
“That’s not why they’re here,” he said. “They leave here constantly learning. They now have a network.”
People can have ideas all day long, but they’ve got to execute on them, he said.
“This program forces them to execute,” he said. But people can’t fall in love with their ideas, he said.
“Never get married to your ideas” Longo said. As San Antonio Startup Weekend proved, they change and teams must adapt or die.

54 Hours with No Sleep, No Problem at Startup Weekend San Antonio

July 22, 2012 / / 1 Comment

Danny Willford, a developer, has been up since San Antonio Startup Weekend started on Friday. He’s working for two teams.

When the sun set Friday night in San Antonio, a group of dedicated entrepreneurs and entrepreneur wannabes gathered to create new companies during a 54 hour period as part of San Antonio Startup Weekend.
By Sunday morning, about a dozen people had dropped out. They either left because their idea wasn’t picked as a project on Friday night or they didn’t like the team they joined or they just wanted to go home. No one really knows why they left because they are gone. Ideas pivoted. Personalities conflicted. Teams disintegrated. Others formed.
Only the hardy remain, and these men and women are a dedicated bunch who have toiled all night long, in many cases, to bring their companies to life.
Tonight they will pitch their ideas in front of a panel of judges.
Danny Willford, a developer from Kyle, hasn’t gotten a wink of sleep since the event began. He left briefly on Friday night to meet some friends in San Marcos to celebrate his 26th birthday. But instead of driving the short distance to Kyle from the party, he turned around and came back to Geekdom, a collaborative workspace on the 11th floor of the Weston Centre downtown, which is hosting the event.
When he returned at 3 a.m., he met up with Brian Curliss, one of the guys behind Massage by Students. They talked for two hours about Curliss’s idea and the project. By the end, Willford agreed to work on Massage by Students’ project even though he had already joined the OurPart.US team, which is developing a crowdfunding site for veterans.
Willford doesn’t mind the extra work. He loves Startup Weekend. A few months ago, he moved from Chicago to take a job as a PhP Java Script developer for MicroAssist in Austin. He has participated in two Startup Weekends in Chicago, the last one was last Fall.
“This is a great way to meet new people,” Willford said.
Like a few others participating in San Antonio Startup Weekend, Willford has not slept. A comfy white couch sits just a few feet from his chair in an office room. He removed the fluffy blankets to resist the temptation to lie down. He stays awake thanks to Red Bull, snacks and adrenaline.
A few hours ago, Chris Spence, one of the founders of Apartment Assurance, who vowed to stay up the entire weekend, crashed at 7 a.m. on Sunday. He’s now sleeping in a office on three red bean bag chairs with the lights off. Curliss with Massage by Students fell asleep around 5 a.m. on a red couch in a really dark interior conference room. He asked his team to wake him up at noon.
But Willford has no intention of sleeping. He’s got too much work to do. He’s creating the back end of the Massage by Students website and also working on creating the website for OurPart.us.
Why does he do all this work for free? In fact, he paid $100 to participate in this madness.
“This is really fun,” he said. “The organizers at this one are the most fun I’ve ever seen. They stay up with us. They give us free beer. I really like the Alamo Beer.”
But his real motivation for participating in San Antonio Startup Weekend is to create new products and eventually found his own company.
“I can’t wait to be my own boss and launch something successful,” he said. “Having the ability to say that I made something that people use and like. I would find that to be really gratifying.”

Geekdom Launches Seed Stage Fund for Startups

July 20, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Geekdom is taking a gamble on new technology startups.
The collaborative coworking site today launched the Geekdom Fund, seed stage capital for technology startups in San Antonio.
The fund will provide startup teams with $25,000 equity investments and free office space at the Weston Centre downtown where the Geekdom is based, said Nick Longo, director of Geekdom and one of the fund’s administrators.
The fund provides a big missing piece of the puzzle in San Antonio’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, Longo said.
“Funding is always the point people want to get to,” Longo said.
The money comes from Pat Condon, one of the founders of Rackspace, and other executives at Rackspace and other angel investors, Longo said. The fund seeks to give San Antonio technology entrepreneurs a head start in launching their products into the marketplace.
“You apply with a great idea and a great team,” Longo said. “You have to be a member of Geekdom to apply. If you want to relocate here, we want you.”
Geekdom is a collaborative workspace, which launched late last year and has grown quickly. The site occupies the 11th floor of the Weston Centre and has expanded to the 10th floor and plans to expand to two additional floors in coming months.

Nick Longo, director of Geekdom is also one of the administrators of the Geekdom Fund, a $25,000 per startup seed stage fund.

Geekdom has attracted numerous startups already including Roughneck Graphics, ZippyKid, Grapevine, Embarkly and TrueAbility.
The money allows people to build a website, build an app and quit their job and pursue their startup dream, Longo said. The Geekdom fund has already invested in some startups based at the center including ZippyKid and Embarkly.
“Part of our criteria is you haven’t received funding from somewhere else,” Longo said. “This is seed money.”
To apply, visit the Geekdom site and fill out the application. It also asks startup teams to fill out a lean canvas form and list the people on their team.

Disclosure: Geekdom is a sponsor of Silicon Hills News

Portalarium Lands $7 Million in Venture Capital

July 10, 2012 / / 0 Comments

By SUSAN LAHEY
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

Richard Garriott de Cayeux is passionate about many things. Space, exploration, the environment, the moral imperative of games, building cool houses and collecting things. So how did he choose to make his first game to launch from Portalarium, the most recent incarnation of his gaming company, Ultimate Collector?
“There are all kinds of ideas we kicked around; potential threads to latch onto …to create as our first original title,” Garriott de Cayeux said. “We wanted to create a game that demonstrates very well that we understand the game mechanics and ease of play of this new third wave of gamers.”
Garriott de Cayeux, known just as Richard Garriott until his marriage in 2011 to equity fund manager Laetitia Pichot de Cayeux, was one of the original game creators. His games, inspired by stories like The Lord of The Rings Trilogy, have been rich in stories, levels, multiple players and layers of meaning, he wanted to show that Portalarium could build games for people who weren’t planning to invest a lot of money and time. He needed a game that could show its value fast.
“We wanted an aesthetically familiar enriching experience that would start with an avatar and a world map and let you explore: go to retail outlets and pawnshops, go around collecting in a wide variety of categories. I can tell you that just through collecting I’ve become sort of an expert on fossils, weapons and armor, automatons…just through exposure a little at a time. I’m a big believer in collecting. You can become very knowledgeable and it’s still as simple and light as any other game.”
Portalarium just raised $7 million in Series A funding from M8 Capital, FF Angel, BHV Venture Capital, and Garriott himself. The company plans to release Ultimate Collector beginning with a PC and Facebook game and follow it 30-60 days later as a mobile game among other platforms.The funds will also help launch Garriott de Cayeux’s next RPG, Ultimate RPG/New Britannia, for mobile platforms.
His new company, started in 2009, began with $3.5 million in seed capital. It aims to be “platform agnostic” to adapt to constantly changing technology and gamer preference.

First Hurricane Party Failed, Now Forecast Shuts Down

July 10, 2012 / / 5 Comments

The Austin-based startup Hurricane Party received all kinds of attention at South by Southwest Interactive 2011.
Mashable wrote about them. So did Read Write Web.
TechCocktail labeled Hurricane Party the hottest app of 2011 at SXSW.
Hurricane Party was a mobile app that let people know where the best parties were at.
Then a year later, that company largely folded and reinvented itself as Forecast.
Hurricane Party received $20,000 as a Capital Factory company in the class of 2010. The company, led by Rene Pinnell and Eric Katerman, eventually raised another $80,000 and blew through it all in 12 months, according to this interview. The founders said they took what they learned from Hurricane Party’s failure to create Forecast, an app that lets friends share their plans with other friends.
Mashable, once again, named Forecast one of the hottest apps to watch at SXSW 2012. It was also one of the companies pitching in the mobile category in the SXSW Accelerator competition.
But Forecast ran out of money and shut down its website on July 1st. Forecast posted the following message on its Facebook page and sent an e-mail to all of its users.

“The time has come for Forecast to shut its doors. Starting on July 1, our mobile apps and website will not work.

Although we’re passionate about building great products that help people connect in the real world, we have run out of resources to keep the Forecast project afloat. We sincerely appreciate you taking the time to try our app, and we hope that it brought you some value.

If you have any questions, comments, or just want to keep in touch, don’t hesitate to email us!

Best,
René Pinnell and Team Forecast

Central Texas Barcamp this Weekend

July 3, 2012 / / 0 Comments

As a technology region, Austin and San Antonio combined have great strengths that rival major tech centers like Silicon Valley.
Austin, known for software, hardware and silicon chips, has also become a vibrant incubator for high tech startups.
San Antonio, home to Rackspace, a Web hosting company, is also a high tech mecca with tons of research and development taking place at Southwest Research Institute, the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, the University of Texas at San Antonio and now Texas A&M. San Antonio, with its military bases, also has one of the highest concentrations of cyber security workers outside of the Washington, D.C. area.
San Antonio is also working to nurture its high-tech workforce and encourage startup companies.
So what better place to discuss the region’s strengths and how the two communities can help each other out than at a Barcamp, which is a free event in which the participants put on the show.
San Antonio has had several Barcamps and Austin has had several Barcamps. But this is the first time the two communities have joined together at a Barcamp to cross pollinate ideas.
The Central Texas Barcamp takes place this Saturday, July 7 starting at 9 a.m. and running until 5 p.m. at Geekdom at the Weston Centre, 112 Pecan Street in downtown San Antonio. A happy hour will follow the day long camp. It’s not too late to sign up. Register here. Silicon Hills News will be there. I hope you will be too.

Startup Weekend San Antonio at Geekdom

July 3, 2012 / / 1 Comment

In the old days, inventors tinkered in obscurity in their garages, spare bedrooms and basements.
But now that cool collaboration and coworking spaces like Geekdom have arrived on the scene, there’s no need to tinker in private. And if you’ve got a hankering to make something out of nothing, but you’re not into crafting like Martha Stewart or cooking like Gordon Ramsay, then you might want to take a shot at company creation especially if you like to get your hands dirty with coding and graphic design.
And Startup Weekend San Antonio and Geekdom have an opportunity for you to spend a weekend with like-minded individuals, brainstorming ideas, pounding out code and creating a new venture.
I covered the first Startup Weekend in San Antonio organized by Jennifer Navarrete when I worked at the local paper. I hung out with the teams for most of the weekend and I can tell you this is a serious venture. The people who attend this event are passionate about entrepreneurship. And they worked hard all weekend long. Some of the teams pulled all nighters.
The event generally starts out Friday evening with a brainstorming session. The group considers the ideas and votes on the best ones. The teams are formed and then the fun begins. They work the rest of the time to put together business plans, web sites and products and at the end they pitch their companies to venture capitalists and other interested investors.
Alan Torng and Michele Stewart of Austin are organizing the event along with Cristal Glangchai of San Antonio. Rackspace, the Kaufman Foundation and Geekdom are sponsoring it.
The event takes place on Friday, July 20 through Sunday, July 22 at Geekdom, on the 11th floor of the Weston Centre at 112 East Pecan street in downtown San Antonio. The early bird registration prices are done, but you can still snag a ticket for $99 here. This event usually sells out. At the last Startup Weekend Austin, people were submitting videos for a chance to get off the waiting list and get a ticket.

Got a Great Idea for SXSW? Submit Your Panel Now

July 2, 2012 / / 0 Comments

South by Southwest has become one of the must attend technology shows for those who want to stay on top of the latest trends in technology, music and film.
And a big reason SXSW has become so popular is that the show attracts top-notch speakers.
And the selection of some of those speakers and panels are crowdsourced through its PanelPicker process which began accepting proposals for the 2013 show that takes place March 8 – 17 in Austin.
To enter your idea, visit PanelPicker and fill out the forms. The deadline to submit proposals is July 20. After that, SXSW allows the community to view and rate the proposals. Voting begins on Monday, Aug. 13 and ends on Aug. 31.
The votes and the SXSW Advisory board and staff determine the programming for the show. More information can be found at the PanelPicker FAQ.
“The core of SXSW’s programming is to involve and engage the community with diverse and compelling content,” Roland Swenson, SXSW’s Managing Director said in a news release. “PanelPicker allows our community to not only have a voice in what we program, but share their innovative ideas. Every year we are impressed by the creative and forward-thinking submissions.”

Dell to Buy Quest Software for $2.4 billion

July 2, 2012 / / 0 Comments

To strengthen its software business, Dell announced plans to acquire Quest Software for $2.4 billion.
Round Rock-based Dell, which started out as a PC company in 1984, has recently begun to diversify into more software and solutions products. Dell recently launched its software group.
Quest’s software products and technology will only strengthen Dell’s move to provide end-to-end software solutions to companies.
Quest reported $857 million in sales in 2011. It has 1,500 software sales experts and 1,300 software developers that will join Dell.
Dell’s software business is currently worth about $1.2 billion in annual revenue.
Quest, founded in 1987 and based in Aliso Viejo, Calif., has more than 100,000 global customers including 87 percent of the Fortune 500. The company has approximately 3,850 employees and operates 60 offices in 23 countries.
“The addition of Quest will enable Dell to deliver more competitive server, storage, networking and end user computing solutions and services to customers,” John Swainson, president, Dell Software Group, said in a news statement.

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