ServePath Blog

If you are a San Francisco Bay Area Start-up, Web 2.0-er, Developer, Investor, Entrepreneur or just want to attend an extremely informative and useful meetup, then look no further. The next StartUp SF meetup is just around the corner. Join us hearing Brian Solis of PR 2.0 and Bub.blicio.us talk about “Conversational PR for Startups.”

About: StartUp SF brings together technologists, entrepreneurs, developers, technologies, services and solutions in an environment designed to further your learning, meet like-minded professionals and promote networking in order to make you successful!

The next StartUp SF is schedule for Wednesday, June 18^th from 6 to 9 PM in the 8^th Floor Café at the offices of Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe (@ 405 Howard Street, San Francisco). The format is simple:

6-7 PM –> Networking and Demo Companies (Demo companies will present for 2-3 minutes)
7-8 PM –> Guest Speaker (presentation with Q&A session)
8-9 PM –> Networking and more Demo Companies

StartUp SF is a not-for-profit event with all proceeds going to charity. All proceeds from this event will be going to Inveneo (http://www.inveneo.org), a demo company at this event. The last StartUp SF raised $400 for Habitat for Humanity.

Speaker

With the success of the inaugural event behind us, we have lined up another stellar speaker, Brian Solis, of Bub.blicio.us and PR 2.0. To quote:

“bub.blicio.us is here to help capture the excitement and insight behind everything two point oh providing a lense into the social landscape that’s energizing and shaping the new tech economy.”

Following the StartUp SF theme of providing helpful information to becoming a successful start-up, Brian’s presentation is titled: “Conversational PR for Start-ups”.

Demo Companies

Throughout the evening, the following companies (subject to change/additions) will be providing hands-on demos and answering questions about their product or service:

Mosio Project – Noel Chandler – Co-Founder
http://www.mosio.com

About Mosio – “Mosio is a mobile question and answer community enabling you to text any question from your phone and have it answered by real people. Harnessing the power of helpful people, mobile technologies and the internet, Mosio gives users access to information anywhere.”

Nirvino – Phil McGarr & Meli James - Partners
http://www.nirvino.com

About Nirvino – “Nirvino is, simply, the easiest way to find great wine. Our innovative technology combines wine reviews and ratings from print, online, and broadcast wine critics into one score. Get all of the information you need to make an informed purchasing decision with just one click. If the Nirvino Rating says a wine is great, look no further!”

Inveneo – Kristin Peterson – Co-Founder & Chief Development Officer
http://www.inveneo.org

About Inveneo – “Inveneo is a non-profit social enterprise whose mission is to get the tools of ICT into the hands of organizations and people who need them most: those in remote and rural communities in the developing world.”

More about the event

At the event, you will hear some tips and tricks from a successful startup, find a good crowd, demos of some thought-provoking leading-edge products and drinks and light snacks.

You will leave better connected and educated AND with the following gifts from us:

• $100 GoGrid service credit which enables you to deploy, scale and load balance server networks instantaneously - More info about GoGrid
• Orrick’s Startup Kit CD which includes legal documents critical to every startup Venture - More info about Orrick

Please join us for StartUp SF and tell your friends about it.

When: Wednesday June 18th 6 – 9PM

Where: Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe, 405 Howard St. San Francisco at the 8th Floor Cafe

What: StartUp SF Meetup, networking, knowledge, friends and schwag to kick start your startup.

Who: Technologists, Entrepreneurs and interested folks who are over 21 years of age

Bring: Business cards, elevator pitch, curiousity, legal dilemmas and server needs

How Much: $10 in advance / $20 at the door (all proceeds go to charity)

Bring yourself and your technology friends to meet likeminded, future-looking folks who may become your next colleague, customer, vendor or competitor.

Yesterday we inaugurated with co-host Orrick a new event in San Francisco called StartUp SF. The idea behind StartUp SF is to bring together like-minded technologists, entrepreneurs, startups, Web 2.0 companies and others to engage, learn and network. The “special mix” of socializing, company demo tables and a guest speaker proved to be the perfect environment for this to take place. All proceeds from the event are donated to charity. For this event, $400 will be donated to Habitat for Humanity.

The 100+ audience not only received invaluable information on how to “kick-start their startup,” they also received the Orrick Emerging Start-Up Kit CD-ROM (containing important legal tools and document templates to help any business) as well as a $100 coupon towards GoGrid.

Speaker & Demos

After about an hour of socializing, meets-and-greets and mini-demos (by Triggit, Askpedia and MotivePath…and GoGrid, of course), attendees listened to and participated in a through-provoking and information presentation by Jonathan Cobb (CTO and Founder of Kiptronic - a long-time ServePath customer). The presentation, “Genesis of a Startup…from concept to company,” covered a wide range of important topics that anyone thinking about starting a company should consider, including:

• Early Validation (pitch, customers, risks)
• The Basics (capital, agreements, timing, records)
• Validation (milestones, customers, research)
• Core Team (people, network, skillset, compensation)
• Fund Raising (tight ship & stay hungry)
• Term Sheet (valuation, plan B)

The full presentation is available for download here.

The Audience and Photos

We took a few photos last night. They are located on the ServePath Flickr photostream. A few highlights…

John Keagy (CEO/ServePath)

Michael Sheehan (Tech. Evangelist/ServePath) Pete Cashmore (CEO/Mashable)

View from the Orrick balcony

Daniel Lieberman (CEO/bitpusher) & Robert Ficcaglia (Founder/MotivePath)

Jonathan’s presentation

In the future, we also hope to begin doing live videocasts of the event as well as make these videos available for viewing later.

More information about StartUp SF

StartUp SF will continue every other month, with the next one planned for June. Speaking topics will be geared towards different tools, techniques, methodologies and strategies to help start-ups and emerging companies grow successfully. Companies or individuals who would like to speak, be media sponsors or host a demo table are encouraged to fill out the Contact form on the StartUp SF site.

If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area tomorrow (April 30th) we hope that you can attend StartUp SF, a meetup designed to help you “kickstart your startup.”

Speaker and Demo tables

Jonathan Cobb - Founder/CTO of Kiptronic (http://www.kiptronic.com)

Topic - “Genesis of a Startup: from Concept to Company”

• Early Validation — Before you start in earnest, you might wonder — What makes a good idea? Is yours worth pursuing? How do you size your opportunity?
• Covering the Basics — A handful of best-practices recommendations for general company administration: corporate formation, capital structure, legal, accounting, etc.
• Building the Core Team — How do you attract talent at this very early stage? What kinds of players will you need pre-funding? Post-funding?
• Market Validation — How do you execute to prove you have a winning idea? What milestones make sense for your business?
• Fund Raising — When should you raise money? Who should be your target funding sources? How much should you raise? What are common investment terms?

Demo table companies: Triggit, Askpedia and MotivePath. Also come see a demo of GoGrid, a definite “must have” for any startup.

Every attendee will receive:

• $100 GoGrid service credit which enables you to deploy, scale and load balance server networks instantaneously - More info about GoGrid

• Orrick’s Startup Kit CD which includes legal documents critical to every startup Venture - More info about Orrick

Quick Details:

When: April 30th, 2008 from 6pm to 9pm
Where: Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe, 405 Howard St, SF at the 8th Floor Cafe
Who: Technologist, Entrepreneurs, Startups, Web 2.0-ers (over 21 years of age)
Bring: Business cards, elevator pitch, curiosity, legal dilemmas and hosting needs
Cost: $10 in advance / $20 at the door (all proceeds go to charity)

Register at: http://startupsf0408.eventbrite.com/

Hope to see you there!

Sorry for the late post, SFbeta was so good, I had to go on vacation to “recover.” Once again, SFbeta proved to be a resounding success and we have the photos to show. Not only did two ServePath customers (SurfCanyon and Cooliris/PicLens) have demo tables there, we also held numerous demos of GoGrid, our latest product that is revolutionizing on-demand server hosting. It was great to hear such resounding positive feedback on GoGrid. Be sure to check the GoGrid blog for timely information.

Here are a few photos to get you going:

The rest can be viewed on our Flickr account. Be sure to give GoGrid a spin so that you know what all the hype is about!

Bill Gates and Larry Ellison will be sharing a demo table at the next ServePath-sponsored SFBeta, taking place on April 1st, 2008. Promising to be an action-packed event, this latest SFBeta meetup will be taking place at 111 Mina on April 1st, 2008 from 6pm to 9pm. Tickets are $15 online and $25 at the door.

A bit about SFBeta:

SF Beta is San Francisco’s largest monthly startup mixer. Since launching in September, 2006, the event has brought together thousands of people from hundreds of startups, creating innumerable connections along the way.

Some people come to the event to be social, some come to make business connections, and many come to do both. The event, called the “king of Web 2.0 mixers,” offers something of everything.

Demo Companies (2 of which are ServePath customers) are as follows:

Table 1 (Front Room - Table)
6:00-7:30: Twine - “Twine is a new service that helps you organize, share and discover information about your interests, with networks of like-minded people. You can use Twine alone, with friends, groups and communities, or even in your company.”
7:30-9:00: Micurio - “Remember how you loved Show and Tell? Micurio takes that concept online, offering a free community for sharing all your collectibles. Whether your collection is a simple gathering of favorite items, a rare antique with provenance or interesting objects plucked from your grandma’s attic.”

Table 2 (Front Room - Table)
6:00-7:30: ToneThis - “ToneThis is a desktop application for delivering personalized and third-party content to your phone. Unlike traditional content stores (ringtones, wallpapers, videos, games), ToneThis sits on your desktop enabling you the freedom to select and personalize your own content for delivery to your cellphone.”
7:30-9:00: Viddyou - “Your Life. Your Video. Organized Your Way. Viddyou is more than a video storage site – it’s a custom built video tool that allows anyone to quickly and easily archive and express their life in short-form videos. Featuring intuitive organizational tools, Viddyou enables you to quickly record, organize, share and protect these video chronicles.”

Table 3 (Back Room - Table)
6:00-7:30: SurfCanyon - “Using semantic real-time implicit personalization, Surf Canyon develops Discovery for Search™. This patent-pending technology is embedded in a browser extension that can work with virtually any third-party search engine, and assists users in finding relevant information that’s buried within the often overwhelming amount of search results.” SurfCanyon uses ServePath’s hosting solutions.
7:30-9:00: iolo Technologies - “iolo technologies, LLC produces award-winning utility software that optimizes and protects computers running Windows. A privately held firm located in Los Angeles, iolo is recognized around the globe for providing comprehensive and effective solutions that meet a wide range of computer needs. Since its formation in 1998, iolo has established itself as a leader in the competitive utility software market, receiving awards from industry analysts and media year after year.”

Table 4 (Back Room - Table)
6:00-7:30: InMyLeague - “The FREE, fast, fun and SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN approach to online dating. We believe that online dating should be free, fast and fun. Rather than make you fill out endless questionnaires about yourself, or make you sort through the dregs of the online dating pool in the hopes of finding someone you’re interested in, we cut to the chase and introduce you to people you’re interested in meeting and have a shot at.”
7:30-9:00: Cooliris / PicLens - “Cooliris Previews is a free browser add-on that lets you preview links and rich media without clicking or leaving your current page, so you can browse the web faster than ever. Simply mouseover your link or our Cooliris icon, and a preview window instantly appears with your content. No more clicking back and forth! PicLens instantly transforms your browser into a full-screen, 3D experience for viewing images on the web. Photos will come to life via a cinematic presentation that goes well beyond the confines of the traditional browser window. With PicLens, browsing and viewing images on the web will never be the same again.” Cooliris & PicLens use ServePath’s hosting solutions.

Drop by the ServePath table and ask about our exciting new on-demand hosting solution called GoGrid!

Last week, some ServePath colleagues and I attended the Under the Radar event at the Microsoft Campus in Mountain View, CA. Touted as a “full-day networking and deal-making event,” Under the Radar showcased several hot properties and companies in the social networking and technology sectors.

About Under the Radar

Presenting companies had to be in an “early-stage” development cycle (launched within the year), an actual start-up (not affiliated with an older large company), have a beta (or beyond) product, monetization-ready and with a unique value proposition.

Instead of re-hashing all the companies and their offerings, I thought that I would take a different approach to this event summary and offer a bit of insight into what I learned as well as offer some tips and tricks on how to make good use of these types of events. Overall, the event was incredibly well organized and thought through. While it was interesting to learn about these companies, the side meetings and social aspects were and are, in my mind, much more important. Unfortunately, there was not enough time to do meet-and-greets and networking as I and my colleagues found ourselves “late” to many of the sessions because we were having engaging conversations with people next to the food and coffee.

The event was divided into two presentation tracks, each held in different auditoriums. Each track was broken up into 4 presenting companies under specific themes. The companies were given 6 minutes to present their company and offering and then were asked questions by both a panel of distinguished judges and audience members. At the end of each 1:15 minute session, the audience (and the judges) voted on the company that they liked the best (the audience voted via text messaging for real-time results). The results are now posted. The sessions were as follows:

• Business Calls
• Virtualization
• Get Aggregated
• Manage Up
• Happy Customers
• Virtual Worker
• Work Together
• Marketing and Measurement

The Sessions I Saw

Since I couldn’t be in two places at the same time, I can only comment on the sessions that I saw. But a general theme that seemed to link everything together was how business coupled social networking tools and other more traditional business practices into creating unique value propositions.

Virtualization - the common theme for this session was taking the complexity and lack-of-standards out of the equation. It’s pretty obvious that as technology advances, so does the complexity and perplexity that is tied to it. The companies at this session are making inroads on making the process easier and faster. DeviceVM makes the OS as an “instant on” option. Elastra simplifies elastic relational databases and server and software topologies through the use of markup languages. JumpBox takes the pain out of installing and configuring OpenSource applications. And Universant provides an application modeling studio. All under the umbrella of “virtualization,” these companies are aiming to create “containers” common business hurdles.

Bottom line - if you can componentize or compartmentalize a critical business issue, you are well on the way a potentially successful business.

Manage Up - while a bit of a cryptic title, I believe the gist of this session was finding a niche where your product solves a management dilemma. For Act-On Software, enabling on-demand communication and collaboration with your sales and marketing teams is critical. Magento presented a new OpenSource eCommerce platform for managing multiple eCommerce sites from a single administrative node. Mumboe showed how their product took the pain out of organizing and managing legal documents. And NetBooks brought financial and bookkeeping management to a more accessible level within the small business.

Bottom line - be sure you understand core management hurdles and bring a product that reduces the management risk as well as enables the core players to do their job better and more efficiently.

Happy Customers - this session strongly presented how critical customer service and support mechanisms are to the success of your business. Often overlooked or under valued, support can actually help you not only retain your customers, it can have an incredible impact in growing your business. The companies presenting offered innovative approaches to understanding your customers and the pain (or happiness) they are feeling. FeedbackFX provided a visual tool to enable conversation with every single customer. GetSatisfaction showed how a collaborative help network can help companies engage and get value. HiveLive showcased how their enterprise social networking platform allowed users to share anything with anyone in order to create business communities. And SupportSpace demonstrated a “new standard” of outsourced tech support.

Bottom line - to me it was pretty clear that helping the customer now goes well beyond just that. Assisting the customer actually helps your product and company. As the theme of “complexity” in business or technology grows, your customers are going to become more confused and need more help navigating the waters. If you want to start a company, keep that in mind; if you want to start a business around customer service, be sure that you focus beyond just customer service; the space is much more than just that.

Tips and Tricks and How to get the most out of these conferences and events

• At any conference, the best leads and conversations you can have are usually with the person sitting next to you are during the breaks when everyone is mingling. The “lobby” is really the best place!
• VC’s (of which there were many at this conference) are usually only interested in a few key things:
  • What place in the market do you fill?
  • How are you better than the people already out there doing the same thing?
  • How are you going to make money (and make them money)?
• Don’t be afraid to just talk to a stranger, and when you do, open by asking them questions about what they do. Many people just love hearing themselves talk (grin). You will find a time to talk about yourself, don’t worry.
• Cover the event “live.” I was using Twitter through most of the event and within an hour or so, had 6 new Twitter “friends.” I was even able to make contact with one face-to-face (the CEO of eyejot.com). Along those lines, be sure you add some of the judges or presenters to your Twitter account prior to the event, as many of them tweet out their opinions real-time and offer valuable, real-time insight (like Robert Scoble and Rafe Needleman, who I talked with at this conference).
• If you are a provider, attend conferences where your clients are presenting. One of the main reasons I went to Under the Radar was to meet Rashmi Sinha of SlideShare, a customer of ServePath’s.
• Follow up immediately with the people you meet. (I made many new connections on Twitter and subsequently got access to several private betas.)
• Figure out a unique way to make people remember you. Often people meet hundreds of people so make yourself stand out (I wore a red shirt and carried a camera, for example.)
• Attend more events similar to these. You will start to make friends and potentially find shared business practices and even business partnerships. SNAP Summit is a good example of an event coming up that has a similar audience to Under the Radar.

These types of events are very important to getting your company on the map, to find business partners or to simply expand your professional circle of contacts. Attend many and do so frequently.

A few photos from this event have been posted to the ServePath Flickr account.

This was a very special SF New Tech for us at ServePath. Last night we demo-ed our new product, GoGrid, to a packed crowd. It was actually the world’s first public demo of the new instantly scalable, on-demand, web-based hosted server offering (whew, lots of adjectives there).

At SF New Tech, companies sign up to give 5 minute demos of their product and service. The list of companies presenting were: GoGrid/ServePath, Surf Canyon, Buddy Fetch, Xeequa, and Askpedia.

GoGrid was the first demo to be seen with Paul Lappas (VP of Engineering) and Paul Lancaster (Business Development Manager) showing how a server could be created and a series of servers load balanced within the 5 minute demo window. To make matters even more interesting, “Murphy” was in the audience somewhere, causing the Internet connection to crawl, thus chopping a minute off of our demo time. That hiccup didn’t prevent the demo, and actually Lappas was able to not only initiate the creation of a server, but also clearly demonstrate how an F5 BigIP load balancer could be created and load balance 2 existing web servers in less than a minute!

I also spoke with a few people who have already signed up for GoGrid trial accounts, including one user who had successfully deployed 5 servers. The general consensus was that the service was “great” and the user interface and ease-of-use “fantastic!”

After the successful demonstration of GoGrid, Surf Canyon, a ServePath customer, showcased their powerful search-engine “enhancer.” Surf Canyon creates a “tiny browser extension that is installed in the user’s browser - either FireFox or Internet Explorer.” When a search is initiated on either Google, Yahoo! or MSN, much more targeted and relevant results are presented to the user, enabling them to truly see the results that they wanted, significantly accelerating the search process.

There were several photographers on hand for this event. My photos can be found on ServePath’s Flickr photostream.

Today I attended an event put on by SVASE, an organization “empowering entrepreneurs to realize their vision,” that had a very pertinent topic for Web 2.0 companies and start-ups. The topic was understanding how to validate whether your value proposition meets the need of a demanding market.

IT was a “round table” discussion headed by a 3 person invited panel. Jonathan Cobb, Founder and CTO of Kiptronic, was a member of the 3 person panel. (Kiptronic is a hosting client of ServePath’s.) The other two members of the panel were Skip Glass (Operating Partner of Foundation Capital) and Julie Wainwrite (former CEO of Pets.com, Reel.com, Bellamax, and Berkeley Systems).

The discussion was lively and very engaging, with seasoned and new entrepreneurs asking and answering questions. What I have compiled below is a list of 15 items that stood out in the discussions as offered by the panel members.

1. Listen to your customers
2. Have metrics showing how your compare to others in the same or similar market in a measurable way (like price per click or similar measurement)
3. Get some market research done for unbiased analysis
4. Be sure to evaluate the size and magnitude of the problem
5. Test your proposition with people who don’t have a vested interest
6. Don’t underestimate the number of people who will want to help you
7. Release your product early, release it often
8. Don’t go for a media/press push until your product, company and team are honed and fine tuned
9. Best way to kill a BAD product is with GOOD advertising
10. Skew your offering towards your largest target market; don’t try to hit everyone
11. People want to associate with a group; understand that group
12. Read any early adopter feedback through a lens or filter
13. Consider channel deals as they may be less expensive and faster to market
14. When finding a VC, build up a stellar advisory board of leaders; it will add value to your proposition
15. Find a good hosting provider, like ServePath, when you are ready to go to market (Ok, I added that one myself, sorry)

Here are some photos from the event.

The Panel (Left to Right) - Skip Glass, Jonathan Cobb and Julie Wainwrite

The Roundtable - at DLA Piper

ServePath client - Jonathan Cobb (Founder/CTO - Kiptronic) & Steven Buelow (Servepath)

More photos of this event can be found on the ServePath Flickr set.