Central Ohio IT Startups

2008-12-09T13:21:00.003-05:00

I love working at TechColumbus! Here are just a few reasons:

I see new ideas coming through every day.
I meet with and help many people that are smart, creative, passionate, and driven.
I work with a great team that is committed to doing the hard work required to grow the technology businesses here in Central Ohio.
And, I get to go to all of the events we have here, and we have many of them. This means I get to learn and help provide valuable content - and get free food (I love free food!)

Today we held the monthly episode of our E-Track Luncheons. The subject today was on thriving in turbulent times, which is quite timely. Rick Coplin, our Business Development/Startup Guru for the western portion of Central Ohio was the moderator. Rick did a great job keeping the panel on track, moving along, and engaging the audience.

The panelists were John Bair, Larry Mead, Joe Munhall, and Brad Dunnington. More information can be found on these guys at the end of the blog.

Here are the things that I took from this great panel that I think were worthy of writing and sharing.

In these times, it is important to get out and talk to your customers even more.
Focus on and communicate your secret sauce.
Communicate with your capital partners more. Let them know what is going on in the business so that you don't have to ask for help when it is too late.
Be extra transparent with partners, customers, employees, etc. This builds trust.
Focus on the basics of your business more.
Be visceral and present. Be you, be open, be visible to your team and customers.
Larry Mead commented that almost all of his clients had reduced salaries for now, including CEO's and founders.
Be the leader. Be confident, which will work well to keep key employees.
Paint the picture of what the future will look like. Be clear and make sure that the people who report to you can paint this same picture to their teams so that it trickles down.
Many companies are using visible scoreboards to communicate progress.
The farther you are away from the customer, the more at risk your position is. This bodes well for startups as normally everyone is close to the customer.
Opportunities appear in times of turbulence. Make sure you sell a clear value proposition though.
Companies are looking more for Partners, rather than simply Suppliers.
Partners are usually more willing to put some skin in the game, which is important right now.
Make sure you have your banking relationship in place now. It is too late if you start having a cash crunch.
Focus on using other people's money. There are many creative ways to do this.
Push your payables out as far as possible and get your receivables in as soon as possible.
Balance sheet is more important than your P and L.
Think through contingency plans because strange things are happening out of your control that will affect your business.
Include your family in what is going on with the business. You need everyone on the same page as to what you are going through.
The economy is de-leveraging. This means cash is king!
There is no universal answer to how many months of cash to have on hand, but you better know what it is for your particular business and then have it on hand.
Reduce the number of vendors you have and make sure you have only the best ones.
If finances are new to you, get someone on board to help you ASAP.
Spend strategically if you can. There are good deals to be had out there, especially on facilities and equipment.
Get good minds focused on your business. Get a diverse advisory board.
Advisory boards and advisers should advise. You have to make the decisions.
You would be surprised how many people there are out there that are willing to help you, but you have to ask.
Be wary of partners. Do your due diligence on them.

And my personal favorite of the day from Brad Dunnington:

"Lawyers don't make their money on your marriage. They make it on your divorce!" This means to make sure you put separation clauses (like a prenup agreement) in your contracts.

Check out our website for coming events. There are many events that add value to everyone out there trying to create a Central Ohio IT Startup, and those that will service them.

And, did I mention the free food (for employees only)...

Thanks, Kevin...

John Bair
Founder of Pinncacle Data Systems. Chairman since 1996. Chief Technology and Innovation Officer since 2006. Chief Executive Officer of the Company from 1996 to 2006. President of the Company from 1998 to 2006. Founder of this business in 1989. BS in Computer Science from the College of Engineering at Ohio State.

Larry Mead
An active member of OTAF, Mr. Mead is currently the principal of a management consulting company, Worthington Partners following a role at Sterling Commerce, where he was Vice President of Sales Administration and Operations. Prior to that Larry enjoyed an 18 year career at Bank One Corporation, where he served in multiple capacities in several Divisions and Companies.

Joe Munhall
Vice President and Senior Commercial Banker for the Columbus Region, joined CFBank in 2006. He brings eleven years of banking experience in the Columbus market, with a background in middle market commercial banking, commercial real estate lending and automobile floor plan lending. Munhall oversees all aspects of the bank’s commercial banking activities for the Columbus Region.

Brad Dunnington
Brad Dunnington is a principal with Lazear Capital Partners, Ltd. In his role as LCP’s portfolio principal, Mr. Dunnington servers as CEO of Avalinx LLC and Dismas Distribution Services LLC. He also manages an executive coaching practice providing advisory services to CEO’s of privately held companies. Prior to joining LCP, he held executive leadership roles with GE, Limited Brands and Eaton Corp.

2008-11-26T14:14:00.002-05:00

Ram Charan, Global Business Advisor and Author was the CIOhio afternoon keynote speaker. There was no presentation Powerpoint. Ram just laid it all out from his experiences. It was quite impressive!

· You must always practice to be better

· We tend to recycle leadership characteristics but some are more important at certain times

· For these times Ram suggests the following are most important

1. Inspire your people in tough times

o Requires integrity and trust

o Be engaging and substantive

o Have humility

o This is not evangelism

2. Practice realism with a touch of optimism

o Articulate opportunities for the future

o Create positive energy

3. Practice frequent communication

o Break the bunker mentality

o Communicate the good and the bad

4. Leadership by hands on management

o Requires urgency – do it now and stop discussing, make tough calls

o Requires speed

o Requires flexibility

5. See the action in the external environment

o Get out to the end consumer

o Watch what is happening there

o Take no one’s word for this, see it yourself

o See things through other people’s lenses

o Go outside your industry and function

o Probe font line people

o Ask a team member to describe a change they see in the world at a staff meeting

o This is a form of social architecture

Remember - People are very anxious when they see no solutions

CEO’s and CFO’s are wrestling with the following issues now

· CASH – weather the storm and review cash positions daily

· Reduce your breakeven point to the lowest level

· Reduce complexity

· Understand that almost all companies will be smaller and get ahead of the curve

· Put people first

o Focus on the most talented people

o Change agents are the key people to keep around

o Those that have a the attitude to collaborate horizontally

· Make the tough calls!

3 specific things that the CIO’s can do

1. Learn about your company’s cash situation

a. What is being done about refinancing the debt?

2. Visit your peers in the company

a. Where is their pain and how can IT help reduce it?

3. Align you budget

a. What keeps the lights on is first

b. Compliance spending is next

c. What projects can increase the cash flow in the short term?

How best to trickle information down to the bottom layers?

· Have layers meet at the same time and translate information into the language of the audience

· Create cross functional teams

· Practice realism with a touch of optimism

Recommendations for small businesses

· Watch your cash!

· Watch your customers!

· Look for opportunities in this crisis!

2008-11-26T14:11:00.001-05:00

CIOhio Morning Keynote – John Seral, VP and CIO, GE Energy Infrastructure

I do have his full presentation. If you would like a copy, please email me - email@kevingadd.com

· John is a member of the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG)

· He moved through the ranks at GE since coming in during early 80’s

· Energy infrastructure is the fastest growing GE line of business

o 07 revenue was $31B, 65K employees in 140 countries

· Energy and water needs in other countries will continue to grow rapidly

· GE has created the ecomagination focus

o Double R & D to $1.5B by 2010

o Grow revenues to $25B in 2010

o Reduce greenhouse gas emissions

o Reduce water usage by 20%

o Inform the public on GE efforts.

· IT Challenges at GE – Supporting global growth

o Grow GE Talent – find and grow the best people

o Globalization – put our people there

o Drive global ERP programs – close the books on Oracle/SAP and remove point solutions

· Focus on performance and availability

· Focus on systems that can help the business grow

· Do what you do but more cost effectively

· 1.3% of GE revenue goes to IT now, hoping to get to 1.7%

· Security

o John has a TS clearance and less than 10 people have it at GE

o Focus on stopping attacks. Hackers are looking to steal data now

o Soon they will be conducting regular assessments

· Disaster recovery is a big area

o Tier 1 goal of <>

o Tier 2 goal of <>

o He suggested that it is a great idea to ask business lines what they believe is acceptable and doable for getting systems back up and online after an emergency. This aligns expectations

· Demand growth is still outpacing deflation

· Moore’s law still working!

· It is a goal of GE to have all employees connected at all times

· GE is focusing on finalizing the Oracle and SAP integrations

· There is a challenge with the number of advanced PDA’s

· GE uses Cisco Telepresence, which is very cool

o They have 9 locations now with 7 more coming soon

· GE is moving to Star Office. They have frozen Microsoft Office purchases

· They are moving to cloud computing eventually

· GE has created their own MySpace type intranet

o People can tag themselves and others with their interests

· Virtualization is big and growing – it is like FREE MONEY

· He is freezing some purchases to force more virtualization to occur

· His group was spending $21MM on telephone calls annually. Moving more to VOIP to reduce this

· GE is working on “PC on a Stick” so people can take what they need with them, plug into any machine, work, then remove and nothing stays resident on the workstation.

· When outsourcing, they are looking at low cost CITIES, not just low cost COUNTRIES. Rural Outsourcing is a big innovation for them

· This is actually keeping more development here as some cities here have a lower cost than some of the larger Indian cities

o Places like Erie, PA and Macon, Mo

o 10% of their contractors are in these low cost cities

· GE defined a few areas where open source would be best. Then they moved the freed up licenses elsewhere in the country

o John recommended picking 2 or 3 apps to go deep on.

o He recommended that you then must hang around people who think differently than you to learn more about these open source apps

· GE partners with 40 universities, including OSU

· John felt that the Midwest could be a place that is big on manufacturing again, but in the new innovations such as wind turbines and solar

Notes from CIOhio

2008-11-26T13:51:00.000-05:00

TechColumbus hosted the 2008 edition of CIOhio on Friday 21 November. There were approximately 200 CIO's in attendance at the Polaris Hilton. It was a great event with many educational tracks to choose from and 2 keynote speakers. As always, the networking was top notch, too.

For me, it is always interesting to go to these events and interact with CIO's. I am 42 and have been in IT since 1985, so I have many peers in this group of IT leaders. I was on this path at one time and thought that this was what I wanted to become. But, the entrepreneurial bug bit me HARD (13 years ago) and I jumped onto that train, never to return to the CIO path. So now, my peers and I look at the world of IT differently. I look for commercialization opportunities, innovation and ways to grow new businesses. I enjoy the smell (and unique challenges) of a new company and could not see myself in a big company running a large IT organization. I am thankful that we have people that can do that, though! I am not saying either path is better, it is just interesting to think it all through.

Anyhow, thanks to Tim Haynes and his team at TechColumbus for getting this together. I know many people really enjoyed this event and it continues to get IT leaders and thinkers together to talk, network, brainstorm, and commiserate. These type of events help everyone, including the Central Ohio IT Startups. Someone in the organization of some CIO at this event has a great idea that will be a commercial success. Keep pushing them and training them and giving them freedom to innovate and make mistakes. That will help make great entrepreneurs!

Notes that I took from the keynote speakers will be in separate posts. If anyone wants a specific slide presentation, please just email me. I have them all.

Thanks, Kevin...

Microsoft BizSpark Program helps Central Ohio IT Startups

2008-11-13T14:25:00.000-05:00

I am happy to announce that I signed TechColumbus up yesterday evening as a Network Partner for the new Microsoft BizSpark program. To get more information on this program, check out the website: http://www.microsoftstartupzone.com/pages/home.aspx, or contact me.

This is the program overview from Microsoft:

BizSpark is an innovative new program that unites startups with global entrepreneurial and technology resource in one community, with a common goal of supporting and accelerating the success of a new generation of high-potential Startups.

BizSpark is uniquely designed to help Startups engaged in software development to jump-start their business, by:
• Providing them with “express access” to Microsoft tools and technologies, for their immediate use in design, development, testing, demonstration, and hosted application production and deployment; and
• Connecting them with Network Partners and a united, global community of resources designed to support them.

More detail on this great program:

Startup Eligibility Requirements:
• An eligible startup must have the following characteristics at the time of joining:
Actively engaged in development of a software-based product or service that will form a core piece of its current or intended business1,
Privately held,
In business for less than 3 years, and
Less than US $1 million in annual revenue.

• To be eligible to use the software for production and deployment of hosted solutions, startups must also be developing a new “software as a service” solution (on any platform) to be delivered over the Internet.

Term: Startups can participate in BizSpark for up to 3 years. On the first and second anniversary of initial enrollment, they must update their enrollment (e.g., confirm they haven’t gone public and their ownership hasn’t changed).

Fee: A USD $100 program offering fee is due when the Startup exits the Program. As part of Microsoft’s commitment to Startup success, there are no initial costs for Startups to join BizSpark.

Technology offering: The BizSpark technology offering to Startups currently includes:
• Design, development, testing and demonstrations rights with regard to:
All the software included in the Visual Studio Team System Team Suite (VSTS) with MSDN Premium subscription
Expression Studio (Version 2)
VSTS Team Foundation Server (Standard Edition)
• Production Use rights to host a “software as a service” solution (developed by the startup during their participation, on any platform) over the Internet, with regard to products including: Windows Server (all versions up to and including Enterprise); SQL Server (all versions); Office SharePoint Server; Systems Center, and BizTalk Server The information is representative and not comprehensive.

Products, versions, availability and additional benefits are subject to change. Because this offering is likely to be updated from time to time, Startups and Network Partners should visit the Microsoft® BizSpark website at https://microsoft.com/bizspark often to check Program Guides.

Special offers: By virtue of their participation in BizSpark, Startups may also be eligible for additional special technology or services offerings (from Microsoft or others) from time to time during their tenure in the Program. Startups enrolled in BizSpark will be notified of special offers when they become available, as well as the terms of those offerings and how to sign up for them.

Military Innovation

2008-10-07T08:03:00.001-04:00

I know this is not a Central Ohio IT Startup, but I saw this today and it is a cool innovation. I recently retired from the Air Force and Air National Guard with over 23 years of service. I still receive updates on what is going on in the Air Force, and this is where I saw this story.

I think it is great that the Pentagon is holding these contests to spur innovation. Obviously, the final products will go toward making our armed forces more efficient and lethal. Hopefully, there will be civilian uses for the technology that comes out of these contests, too.

The team of DuPont/Smart Fuel Cell has won the Pentagon's $1 million wearable power prize competition, the Department of Defense announced yesterday. Dupont/SFC was chosen from among the 169 entries by designing the lightest wearable system that provided an average of 20 watts of power for more than 96 hours and weighed less than 8.8 pounds, DOD said. DOD's Research and Engineering Directorate launched this competition in July 2007 to spur innovation to help develop a long-endurance, lightweight power pack for warfighters in the field. The batteries that dismounted soldiers, marines, and battlefield airmen carry often amount to the heaviest portion of their combat kits. Lightening that load is a priority across DOD. "The real winners from this competition are our ground warfighters, as these systems show great promise to reduce the weight of batteries they have to carry while performing their critical missions," said William Rees, deputy under secretary for defense laboratories and basic sciences. AMI of Ann Arbor, Mich., won the $500,000 second-place prize, and Jenny 600S of Middleburg, Va., won $250,000 for third place.

Keep up the innovation here in Central Ohio! I want to see some of our local innovators winning awards and making the world a better place!

Thanks, Kevin...

HELP - Innovation Needed

2008-09-30T12:30:00.000-04:00

One of the big discussion points running around my brain, and those of us in commercialization at TechColumbus, is innovation. I have been thinking about innovation and how it relates, but is different from, creativity quite a bit. I often say that I see a lot of creativity in this line of work, but unfortunately little innovation. Then, many of us attended the Dave Berkus presentation last week and his primary message was one of INNOVATION! How timely!

You can find his presentation at our website, http://www.techcolumbus.org/en/cev/297. However, you won't get his fantastic delivery!

Mr. Berkus echoed the sentiment that innovation is game, or life, changing. Creativity, on the other hand, can be a novel use of current technology, or a mix or other things that exist in a unique way. Mr. Berkus listed his top 10 dominant trends that will shape 2008 and beyond. In short (and without his great anecdotal comments and delivery), here they are. Some of the sub-bullets are from his presentation and some are from my experience.

1. The growing scope of the Internet
12 million new people join the Internet each week! This seems like a great customer base that is longing for innovative products and services.
2. The paradise of choice
I enjoyed his assertion that time and place shifting is becoming more the norm. We want what we want when and where WE want it. How can we create something new that caters to this desire?
3. The audience is the network
Anyone can create things, sell things, publish things, and help others find things! Buyers are sellers and vice versa, making us all more discerning. Innovation hits a home run here.
4. Increasing computer power drives changes in human behavior.
Cloud computing and software as a service (SAAS) are the norm. The other end (how we receive the product) is no longer a limiting factor in electronic products - take advantage of that!
5. Mobile computing changes our lives - I am the office!
I am seeing more and more startups that are taking advantage of the simple fact that most of us have a very smart phone with us all the time. We need to think about this device and how important it is to the consumers and deliver innovative and useful content to them.
6. Consumer electronics spending is growing and converging, dominated by HDTV
Computer games and simulations are growing rapidly. New technology is enabling consumer electronics to do more. This seems like a great distribution channel for innovative, or creative, content and creates a new industry of related devices.
7. Web 2.0 enters the mainstream
This is what I see a lot of these days. There are many creative uses and companies out there for this new social networking trend. This is driving more young people onto the web for longer periods of time and opens up a huge market! However, there is too much focus on just doing different things with the same old technology or web 2.0 business models. A new social network website with an advertising, or "freemium" model is not innovative. It might be creative and people might pay for it, but it is not innovation.
8. Web 3.0 and 4. 0 are coming - way beyond search
www.powerset.com was given as an example of the new semantic web search. I can see opportunities for innovation here as this is new ground.
9. Everything turns green
We know we are using more of our resources than we should and the green movement is moving. How can we produce innovative products or services that do good and take advantage of the natural movement toward this type of product??
10. The CIO becomes a business strategist
The CIO or technology person will continue to become more and more important to the overall strategy of the business. That means they will have more power to make decisions and spend money on your innovative products or services!

We have so many innovative companies and institutions here in Columbus. I am hopeful that we can start to get some of that innovation out of the research institutions and universities and create sustainable companies. I made a statement on Twitter the other day that if you create some innovative piece of technology but you don't commercialize it, you might as well teach! That was not meant as a disparaging remark to teachers, professors, or researchers. I teach and thoroughly enjoy it. The idea is that if this innovation is so great and so valuable that we can get people to buy it, and use it, we will create sustainable companies, create high paying jobs for our community, and ultimately change the view of Columbus! This is not still a cow town and there is no need to add ", Ohio" any time a national writer writes about Columbus.

So, come on Central Ohio! Bring me innovative technology ideas and let us help to commercialize them!

Thanks, Kevin...

TechCrunch50 Wraps Up

2008-09-11T09:25:00.000-04:00

TechCrunch50 has just concluded in San Francisco. This event had over 50 new IT startups present their unique products and services for the first time to a huge audience of VC's and other influential people in the tech entrepreneur world. Coincidentally, we were holding our own smaller version of this as we held our TechGenesis presentation event here at TechColumbus. Companies presenting at TechCrunch50 are very, very similar to what we are seeing here in Central Ohio and many are not nearly as beneficial, unique, or cool. Eventually, we will have competitors from here in this event and we will continue to get mentioned and respect from folks like this, as long as we keep doing what we are doing in Central Ohio and at TechColumbus.

Take a moment and check out the list of winners from this event at http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/10/yammer-takes-techcrunch50s-top-prize/.

This page will show you the full list of competing companies as well as the list of partners who were at the event: http://www.techcrunch50.com/2008/conference/.

This is one of the premier examples of this type of event and gathering of tech entrepreneurs in the country.

Enjoy and let's keep doing what we are doing! There are other people in other places that are trying to do great things, too. We can show them that Central Ohio is truly the best place to start a technology company and TechColumbus is leading that charge!

Thanks, Kevin...

Monday IT Startup Report

2008-09-08T13:07:00.000-04:00

It has been a big Monday here at TechColumbus. First, we held our 7th round of competition for a grant we manage called TechGenesis. Also, we found out that one of our recent graduates, Call Copy, was quoted in an InfoWorld article on tech startups.

TechGenesis is a grant that we manage as part of the TechColumbus TechStart program. Tech-based companies that win this competition are awarded a grant of up to $50,000 to begin the commercialization process of a new idea. This has to be a very early stage idea and many of the presenters are still working at other companies. Almost all are pre-revenue.

The process occurs 4 times per year and usually we have 6 companies that enter into each round. Typically, 3 companies are funded in this process. The companies are sponsored into the competition by someone here on the commercialization staff. My role is to find and help the IT companies and I usually work with another sponsor on our team, such as Chris Anderson who is a real up and coming "Rock Star" for finding and helping tech startups.

Companies submit a 3 page executive summary to the Deal Flow Assessment Committee and each gives a 10 minute presentation to the DFAC.

The companies that we saw today were Spotwurk, Accelerated Data Concepts, EXCMR, Epiglare, and Thermo Buffer. One company fell out at the last minute, leaving us only 5 to review. All of the presentations were very good and the ideas are unique. We will know tomorrow who was selected.

Also, check out this link: http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/09/08/37FE-startup-tech-how-to_1.html?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/09/08/37FE-startup-tech-how-to_1.html. A recent graduate of the TechColumbus Incubator, Call Copy, is featured in this article. It is a great article related to technology startups!

That's all for today!

Thanks, Kevin...

Welcome!

2008-09-04T21:35:00.000-04:00

Welcome to yet another blog about the Columbus tech community! My focus is on the IT startups in the area because that is my passion, and my job. I have been involved personally in starting several IT businesses in central Ohio, and I am sure I will be back out there in the trenches at some point in the future. Also, as the Director of IT Commercialization for TechColumbus, my job is to find, fund, coach, and help the IT startups in central Ohio. I get the pleasure and honor of using my experience, skills, network, and the resources of TechColumbus to grow great IT companies right here in central Ohio!

So, I will bring some perspective to things we are doing at TechColumbus. I will work to encourage budding tech entrepreneurs. I will do what I can to provide useful information and useful connections to keep central Ohio's IT startups going and growing.

To do my job with excellence, I need help. We need to keep blogging, and meeting, and connecting, and thinking, and trying, and failing, and getting back up, and celebrating our local successes.

So, I join my voice, my energy, and my blog, to the other passionate people in this community that want to see us known as a successful high tech town where ideas flow and businesses grow.

Thanks, Kevin...