• jqueryui
• qtip

TechCrunch has an event every year that shows off the great companies and innovation. Anyone starting a tech company should be following the site.

• Crunchies Winners 2010
• Crunchies Winners 2009
• Crunchies Winners 2008
• Crunchies Winners 2007

NYCSeed‘s managing director Owen Davis came by the Rose Tech Incubator this week to give a talk on what investors look for in startup’s. Some of the key points Owen mentioned that I took away from the talk are below. (NYCSeed only invests in the 5 NY borrows).

FUNDING CRITERIA

To anyone doing a startup, “Time matters”. Owen mentioned that committing large amounts of time to R and D is a bad mistake.
Timing has to be in your favor, things have to be aligned. Your technology and the timing is key. You can build something great but is there a demand for it?

Owen recommends 2 person teams, I hear this magic number a lot, google, yahoo, etc. Startups with 2 founders is the magic number. It shows a demonstrations team work, difference in dynamic. With a team of two you have a sounding board.

Another key thing is to have a prototype complete.

Showing you have tech leads on as founders is the DNA of the company it is important. Moment by moment technology changes.

Angels and VCs like to see a good sized market, show a clear path to revenue.

TYPE OF STARTUP COMPANIES

Network Effect
-Hard to invest in these
-Risk
–e.g.: Gaming companies
–e.g.: iPhone apps
–e.g.: YouTube lost 40 or 50 million a year
-not real innovation

Application Oriented
-look at market
-build an application
–e.g.: ticketfly.com
–e.g.:quickbooks

Innovation
e.g.: google’s rank algorithm
e.g.: Advertising space, customer segmentation of ads
Investors believe or don’t believe in the innovation you have.

Some companies have pricing power, if coke raised it’s prices they would be ok.
If a copper wire company raised it’s prices it would take a toll on them

Some examples of companies that have a little higher prices are:
zappos.com has customer loyalty.
Amazon charges more then others.
Wholefoods charges much more then others.

Team
Having a good team culture is important.
Be honest and be transparent that is what is important.

WHAT MAKES A COMPANY FUNDABLE
Big Market
Team

A “good business” is not necessarily fundable.
A lot of great biz that will be successful without funding.

GOOD TRENDS
-how do u derive meaning out of data
-New ways to data mine
-Project management tools
-Online learning
-Digital advertising
-Billboard industry
-Local search
-Building a better Craigslist
-Building better Email

Kirill Sheynkman came over to the Rose Tech Incubator and spoke about pitching to VC’s. I took some high notes personal notes from the talk.

The pitch.
Tell them what you are doing.

Market.
Why now?
“We are a _____ for ____ a market worth $$$.”
What is the pain you are addressing.
Who are the people that have the pain.
How many are there?

Product.
Why this.

Team.
Why us.

Deal.
Why now.
Let them know your realistic goals.
Milestones.
Think about the next round.
Expect 35%-40% for a series A.
2 1/2 post round B.
How are you going to get to this point?
Think about the next round
Who will sign the check?

Down Rounds are bad!

Funding cycles.
The approach.
The first meeting.
The second meeting.
The partner meeting.
Due diligence (can take weeks).
Close (4 to 6 weeks to get a deal done.)

Start to pitch 6 months before the next round. It is the CEO’s job full time to be raising money.
It is the board of directors job to manage how well the CEO’s performance is going for a company.

Check out Kirill’s blog, he is also on twitter.

I am asking myself this question.

Why did stackexchange fail? Over at drchrono.com we were JUST starting to use it. Over time I think stackexchange information silos would have grown. Joel and Jeff and the community really didn’t give it a chance. It takes over a year for an exchange like that to really become significant. Advocates of the stackexchanges needed to be found over time. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

When I saw that Joel and Jeff were taking down the stack exchange sites it was a sad day. I thought that they were really going to give us tools to expand the web. For drchrono.com we were planning on using the technology to give doctors a place to get questions answered (currentbilling.com). Now we need to look elsewhere for that technology since stackexhange is shutting down.

A great technology that wasn’t given the time it needed to really expand.

Either way Joel, Jeff and their team are doing a great job, they have built a great technology, so I am rooting for them and where they take it!

Setting up wordpress on Ubuntu 10.04

How to Backup WordPress

The best plugins for WP are listed

• WP-DB-Backup – by far the best backup tool.

Backing Up and Restoring Your MySQL Database

drop database databasename;

When setting up a Delaware Corp you should know about the following:

CSC.

I have been using SugarCRM for over a year now.
There is a free version of the software and paid version of the software.

Check out this great podcast on the CRM: TWiT focused on SugarCRM

Check out the Sugar Podcast, though it seems a bit out of date.

Places to show off your portfolio and work:

• Coroflot