ServePath Blog

Once again it’s time for SF New Tech, a meetup in San Francisco for technologists, VCs, geeks, social media pundits and other interested peoples. To quote: “Come on down to Mighty, grab a drink, meet cool people, see live demos from great companies, ask questions, grab the mic, have fun… and geek out!”

GoGrid and ServePath are sponsors of this event. Be sure to come by our table and learn about Cloud Computing. With all the recent hype around Windows in the Cloud…it’s important to remember that GoGrid has been providing Windows in the Cloud (both Windows Server 2003 & 2008) for over 1/2 year now and that we are a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. Drop by our table and get $100 off your next GoGrid server!

The format has not changed. Each of the companies below get 5 minutes to showcase their product or service. Be the first person in the audience to ask the famous questions “How are your monetizing?” This question is especially important in these trying times. If you are a struggling startup, I recommend reading this post for some tips and tricks on how to survive this recession.

Demo Companies

Apture
Tristan Harris, CEO
Apture helps bloggers and publishers turn flat web pages into rich, multimedia experiences by empowering them with a point & click interface to create deep links to media from a wealth of different sources.
http://www.apture.com

Lefora
Vincent Lauria, Co-Founder & Product Guy
Lefora is forums made easy and has been called the “Blogger for forums”.
http://www.lefora.com

chi.mp
Anthony Eden, Co-Founder & CTO
chi.mp gives you ownership and control of your digital life on your very own domain.
http://chi.mp

Reframe It
Brian McKinney, Founder & CTO
Reframe It lets you comment in the margins of the web as easily as you can write in the margins of a book.
http://reframeit.com

Goldmail
Tom Hakel, Co-founder
Goldmail lets you create powerful messages in just minutes, combining audio and visuals.
http://www.goldmail.com

Snappr.net
Philip Stehlik, CEO
Snappr.net allows mobile interaction with 1D and 2D Barcodes.
http://www.snappr.net

PBwiki
Brian Klug, Director of Engineering
PBwiki is the world’s largest provider of hosted business and educational wikis.
http://www.pbwiki.com

After the demos …

• Grab the microphone and speak to the room on the famous 60-Second Soapbox. Express that need, want or desire in 60 seconds — GO! (Each one is logged online so people can find you later!)
• Stick around to see who won the solar powered cell phone charger from Sun Startup Essentials. (Register online or at the door!) All attendees are eligible to win — but you must be there to claim your prize.
• Hang out and keep the conversation going… meet you at the bar for shots!

Tickets:

$15.00 online here and now
$20.00 at the door, if not sold out

Mighty is a 21+ venue.

Schedule:
6:30 pm - Doors open
6:30 -7:30 pm - Schmooze
7:30 - 9:00 pm - Demos
9:00 - 11:00 pm Schmooze

StartUp SF, an event organized and hosted by GoGrid, ServePath and Orrick, is back after a short summer vacation and raring to go with the THIRD meetup of the year. The Topic of v1.3 will be “Design for Startups” and the guest speaker is Scott Nazarian from frog design.

First the event details:

Date: Wednesday, September 10th, 2008
Time: 6-9pm
Location: 8th Floor Cafe of Orrick, Herrinton & Sutcliffe (@ 405 Howard St in San Francisco)
Price: $10 online in advance / $20 at the door
Note: You must be 21 years or older to attend

Now, a bit more about StartUp SF v1.3.

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.

StartUp SF is a not-for-profit event with all proceeds going to charity. All proceeds from this event will be going to Doctors without Borders. StartUp SF has raised $400 for Habitat for Humanity and $480 for Inveneo.

SPEAKER

StartUp SF is pleased to welcome Scott Nazarian, Principal Designer for frog design, inc., as this event’s guest speaker. A bit about Scott:

In his role as Principal Designer, Scott Nazarian meets projects with a blend of modal futurism and contemporary pragmatism, generating designs that are at once familiar and fantastic. Drawing upon a background that ranges from film, editing, and advertising to graphic and visual design, Scott works always to improve the human experience of digital technology. Recent clients include HP and OpenTV – a new paradigm in television watching.

Before coming to frog design, Scott served as a Principal Investigator for the User Experience Design Group of Sun Labs in Menlo Park, California, where he focused on the user experience within environmental, digital, and systems design. He has also worked as a creative director and designer for design firms in Boston, New York, and Los Angeles. Throughout these positions, his designs have centered upon conceptual and brand-centric web-based media and interface environments.

Scott regularly teaches design courses at the graduate level, with past engagements at both Parsons and the Art Institute of Los Angeles. He received his MFA in Media Design from the Art Center College of Design in 2004.

DEMO COMPANIES

Demo companies at StartUp SF get 5 minutes of “open mic” time to give their company’s elevator pitch, as well as demo tables where they can showcase their product or service. Demo companies for this event are:

StartUpAgents - Lee Diamond, Founder & CEO
http://www.StartupAgents.com

About StartupAgents - StartupAgents is a matching service dedicated to helping startup companies worldwide find the talent they need to build next generation products and services. Our service provides both companies and individuals the ability to create detailed profiles that allow for a faster more successful matchmaking process.

<splunk> - Kord Campbell, Splunk Evangelist and Director, Splunk Developer’s Program
http://www.splunk.com

About <splunk> - Splunk is a Silicon Valley company inventing large-scale, high-speed indexing and search technology for IT infrastructures. The freely downloadable software indexes, searches and navigates data from any application, server or network device in real time. More than 750 enterprises, government organizations, and service providers and more than 200,000 users achieve higher availability, investigate security incidents in record time, and meet compliance requirements at lower costs.

Clearspring - Mike Harkey, Director of Business Development
http://www.clearspring.com

About Clearspring - Clearspring is the leading provider of widget creation, distribution, tracking and monetization services, used by the world’s largest media companies, advertisers, and widget developers. We help publishers and marketers extend their reach to the leading social networks, start pages and blogs and to respond to growing consumer demand for a more personalized desktop, Web, and mobile experience.

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 Cloud 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

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

SFBeta 2.5 is tomorrow (7/22/08). Dubbed as the Midsummer Night’s Bash, SFBeta is a great place to socialize, compare tech stories, have a drink with friends and generally unwind after a long day doing Tech.

SFBeta takes place at 111 Mina Gallery (located at 111 Minna Street in San Francisco) from 5:00pm to 9:00pm (PT) - note the earlier start time! Tickets are $15.00 in advance online or $25.00 at the door.

As always, GoGrid & ServePath will be there giving out $100 off promotion codes to get a GoGrid Cloud Infrastructure environment up and running for no cost. Come talk to us about this revolutionary technology that everyone seems to be talking about.

According to the SFBeta Wiki, the demo companies are:

Table 1 (Front Room - Table)
5:00-7:00: BooRah
BooRah is the ultimate, personalized review guide providing consumers a smarter way to find great restaurants. BooRah’s patent-pending natural language processing technology automatically summarizes a collection of online reviews from bloggers, professional critics and consumers, and allows consumers to search based on their personal preferences. By capturing the community vibe and social essence of existing online groups, and comparing the results to an individual’s search criteria, BooRah delivers unsurpassed relevance with the broadest community reach.
7:00-9:00: Speeqe
Speeqe is group chat, simplified. Talk to friends or co-workers in real time, or search past conversations to see what you missed

Table 2 (Front Room - Table)
5:00-7:00: Dapper
Dapper aims to make it easy and possible for anyone to extract and reuse content from any website. By doing so, we hope to allow others to realize their creativity and implement new and exciting services and applications.
7:00-9:00: OpenFace Project
The Openface Project is a PHP framework (Ruby in process) used for building applications that run on Facebook and OpenSocial platforms. Openface is a set of libraries that you add into your PHP application that enables the same codebase to run within Facebook, Bebo and OpenSocial containers like MySpace, Hi5 & Orkut.

Table 3 (Back Room - Table)
5:00-7:00: Spongecell
Spongecell helps advertisers create display advertising with measurable results. Bring more people to retail sales, entertainment events, trade shows, political rallies, sporting events, or a TV show.
7:00-9:00: Notifixio.us

Table 4 (Back Room - Table)
5:00-7:00: Rofo.com
Find space and read reviews (office, retail, warehouse, subleases, co-working & shared). Post your space needs (its anonymous) & be found. Connect with professionals and get advice
7:00-9:00: Searchme
Searchme lets you see what you’re search for. As you start typing, categories appear that relate to your query. Choose a category, and you’ll see pictures of web pages that answer your search.

Hope to see you there!

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!

ServePath is pleased to announce the latest and greatest meetup in the San Francisco Bay Area: StartUp SF. As regular attendees of meetups around the Bay Area, we have experienced first-hand what we think works and what people are looking for, so we have partnered with Orrick to bring you a new technology meetup, specifically designed to help “kickstart your startup!”

The format for this meetup is simple. Socialize, hear how other successful companies got that way, see demos of products, meet with venture capitalists, and generally have a good time.

You and your technology friends are cordially invited to inaugurate the StartUp SF Meetup on Wednesday April 30^th, 6 to 9PM at the spectacular offices of Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe, 405 Howard Street, San Francisco.

Speaker and Demo Table details:

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?

About Kiptronic - “Kiptronic provides a software-as-service platform as a comprehensive solution for publishers of video and audio content. Our Media Services Platform allows our customers to dynamically deliver ads with their content, extending their reach to any device, with support for leading hosting platforms and formats. We support audio and video delivered both online, such as in a website video player, or offline to any downloadable media device.”

Demo tables

MotivePath - Robert Ficcaglia - Founder (http://www.motivepath.com)

About MotivePath - MotivePath®, Inc. provides a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution to help marketers and advertisers quickly and easily reach highly targeted audiences for their product and service messages. The MotivePath technology platform empowers Everywhere Media™, and features a SaaS service core capable of serving targeted ad units and creative interactive content across web, social networks, mobile, video, and even connects to offline media such as print, outdoor and screen media. It features content management for tailoring content for different media types and channels, reporting, predictive models and analysis. It provides full campaign management, ROI measurement, scenario analysis, and Key Performance Indicators. In addition, the MotivePath open service platform enables clients and partners to integrate directly with MotivePath technology, resulting in the availability of best of breed solutions through the MotivePath partner program.

Triggit - Susan Coelius Keplinger - COO (http://www.triggit.com)

About Triggit - Triggit makes it quick and easy for web publishers to monetize their sites with advertising. Using a cross platform web application, publishers can now drag and drop ad units directly into their pages, optimize efficacy and track the results. Triggit takes the pain out of monetization.

Askpedia - Yong Su Kim (http://www.askpedia.com)

About Askpedia - Askpedia is an online knowledge marketplace for Questions and Answers. Users post questions with optional financial rewards for best answers. Others answer questions to earn rewards and establish their reputation within the community. All questions and answers, as well as users, are tagged and indexed with tags and location information to enable content and location based discovery. Askpedia also utilizes personalization technologies to match Q&A and experts to users based on interest and knowledge profiles.

More about the event

StartUp SF brings together technologists, entrepreneurs, technologies, services and solutions to meet, learn, socialize and network to success and monetization. We hope that you will join us for a fun professional evening. EACH MEETUP DONATES ALL TICKET PROCEEDS TO A DIFFERENT CHARITY. This inaugural event will be donating to Habitat for Humanity.

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 April 30^th 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, curiosity, 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 like-minded, future-looking folks who may become your next colleague, customer, vendor or competitor.

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.

Tomorrow (March 25, 2008) is the second annual SNAP Summit held in San Francisco. SNAP Summit is a one-day, two-track conference focusing on the business and design of social applications. Held from 9:00am until 5:00pm at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, SNAP Summit promises to deliver a group of experts and timely topics.

Have you ever wondered how you could make your applications more viral or which applications advertisers like targeting the most? What will be the next “killer app” on FaceBook or is there another platform that developers or businesses should be developing on? Want to learn how to get a pre-configured, “Facebook-ready” server with a quick deployment feature? (You have to come find ServePath for that one!)

Prices are $399 online or $499 at the door. BUT, if you put in discount code “ServePath”, you get $100 off your ticket online!

Speakers include:

• Jessica Alter - Director of Platform and Business Development @ Bebo
• Kevin Barenblat - CEO @ [context]
• Jim Benedetto - VP of Technology @ MySpace
• Siqi Chen - Co-Founder/Developer @ Friends for Sale
• Jeff Clavier - Managing Partner @ SoftTech VC
• Jaren Fliesler - Director of Business Development @ Slide
• BJ Fogg - Psychology and Technology Professor @ Stanford University
• Seth Goldstein - CEO/Co-Founder @ SocialMedia.com
• Martin Green - VP of Business Development @ Meebo
• Steve Jang - CMO/Head of Business Development @ imeem
• Aaron Kahlow - Managing Partner @ BusinessOnLine
• Jeremy Liew - Partner @ Lightspeed Venture Partners
• Lee Lorenzen - CEO @ Altura Ventures
• Dave McClure - Advisor/Investor @ Blogger & 500hats.com
• Dave Morin - Senior Platform Manager @ Facebook
• Jeremiah Owyang - Web Analyst @ Forrester
• Rajat Paharia - CEO @ Bunchball inc.
• Joshua Porter - Founder @ Bokardo.com
• Jim Scheinman - Entrepreneur-in-Residence @ CRV
• Jia Shen - CTO/Co-Founder @ RockYou
• Anu Shukla - CEO/Founder @ Offerpal Media

Topics include:

• Effective Social Interface Design
• Methods of Boosting User Engagement
• Metrics: Where Users Come From
• Mass Interpersonal Persuasion
• Future of the Social Platform
• Social App Exit Strategies
• Building what Users (and Advertisers) want
• Viral Tuning and Viral Marketing - Best Practices and Real Life Examples
• Legal Issues Facing Social Media Companies
• Taking that App and Making Money - how does one really do it?
• Infrastructure Scalability 101: What you don’t know CAN hurt you
• Fundraising Strategies for Startups

ServePath is one of the sponsors of this event. We will have a table and people showcasing ServePath’s newest product offering: GoGrid which allows you to deploy a fully load-balanced server network in under 10 minutes. Look for us there!