593_ Hickenlooper: From Geologist to Entrepreneur to Mayor of Denver
Twenty-one years ago when they were trying to start the Wynkoop Brewing Co, John Hickenlooper came to RVC, and it was kind of a similar time. The price of oil skyrocketed and then began a very rapid decline. One thing that creates is tremendous opportunity. Kevin Johansen, Chairman of the Business Catapult and Executive Director of the Rockies Venture Club Angel Capital Summit introduced the opening keynote speaker, Mayor John Hickenlooper. The mayor shared a number of insights about his entrepreneurial beginnings. He said, " I literally went to the library with a friend and got a book on how to write a business plan. I was a geologist; I didn’t know what the word ‘Performa’ meant. No matter how tight credit is now… I think you all recognize that economic framework follows perceived opportunity. The worse the public perceives opportunity, the lower your opportunity costs are – our rent was $1.00 per sq. ft. for a year in lower downtown. When I pitched to this group, Rockies Venture Club, it was a much smaller group, I will say nobody laughed out loud. I had two great angels I think are worth mentioning was a guy named Jim Owen. His father started Home Roberts & Owen, he was the managing partner there for many years, and he loved entrepreneurs and he loved helping businesses start. The second investor was my landlord, Jack Barton, he owned Kacey Fine Furniture, and our old building was their old warehouse. After long negotiations we worked out if I put $200,000 into this empty warehouse, I would get 12% ownership in the building." It's a great story. This is 25 minutes of his address...unedited.
Related Links: Angel Capital Summit || Rockies Venture Club || Venture Capital || Entrepreneurs || RVC Angel Capital Summit || Keywords: Mayor, John Hickenlooper, Rockies Venture Club Angel Capital Summit, Kevin Johansen, Business Catapult, Wynkoop Brewing, Entrepreneur - Channels: VC Bytes: 23563601 > 12/1/08 LISTEN

586_ The Opportunities for Innovation Have Never Been Better
Jay Walker, Founder of Priceline.com and chairman of Walker Digital, a private R&D laboratory based in Stamford, CT was a featured speaker at the DaVinci Institute Colorado Inventor Showcase. He also founded Synapse, which became the world’s largest seller of magazine subscriptions and is now a unit of Time Warner. Larry asked jay, "What's coming down the pike for entrepreneurs in these tough times?" Jay replied, "Tough times are ‘good times’ for entrepreneurs and innovators. When times are good, people tend to be coasting along and changing the way they do things is not high on most peoples’ lists because things are doing pretty well. But when things aren’t going so well, people say – Wow, I better figure out how to grow this business or reduce my expenses, or how to do both. So, in times of economic difficulty, those that are truly innovative often create opportunities and inventions and businesses and great fortunes. If you look back in history, many great fortunes were created over the ‘Depression’ simply because people were open for the first time to all kinds of new ways of doing things. I expect that’s what we’re going to see in the next few years, but not a great depression." Jay offered some very good advice for entrepreneurs and voiced his opinion about innovation. "Ultimately people who can innovate literally pick an area where they feel they have some degree of expertise or some degree of competitive advantage. One of the big advantages we have today is the leaders of innovation are no longer dominated by large corporations or by government; they’re really often dominated by individuals." ...listen now.
Related Links: Walker Didgital || Colorado Inventor Showcase || Inventors' Roundtable || Entrepreneur Channel || Keywords: Jay Walker, Walker Didgital, Inventors Showcase, Priceline.com, DaVinci Institute, Innovation, Entrepreneurs > Channels: Entrepreneur Bytes: 4885841 > 11/17/08 LISTEN

584_ Murphy Beds Came First, Then Wall Beds, and Now Flying Beds
To date, Ron McKey, President and Founder, FlyingBeds, has done 204 trade shows and is known as 'The' Murphy Bed Manufacturer in the world. He started in 1981 and there weren’t many choices for companies to reach customers if they weren’t using newspaper advertising. Ron went onto say, "I had to convince people of my validity and they also had to see how the operation worked. The best testimonial is visual." About nine years ago somebody challenged Ron, 'Put up a website'. Ah sure, and you know about two years later somebody called me. So, maybe this website is something. As you know it’s been very effective. I took that visualization from my trade show, where people could actually see the bed going up and down – I put it on the web site – now I don’t do trade shows anymore. I’ve gone international with my sales, we’re selling in Singapore, Saudi Arabia, to England and you know, it’s all over the place. I manufacture unique Murphy beds right here in Denver, CO. Those are the beds that fold up into the wall. Hollywood loves those beds, they make lots of jokes about them. We have different designers. They aren’t hired or on staff. They are our clients. We take their desire for functional change and design theme, and come up with a rendering and cost of manufacture that makes their Flyingbed a signature system. By signature, I don’t mean ‘expensive’, I mean we make the bed ‘fit’ the room perfectly instead of plugging in some cabinet that is made at a workbench by unskilled labors and finished in a tinted lacquer. Flying Beds has gone from attending trade shows, to doing it all on the Web...and he's selling worldwide. They will make your bed disappear. There's more, listen now...
Related Links: Flying Beds Home || Murphy Beds FAQs || Entrepreneur Channel || Find It || Keywords: Ron McKey, Flying Beds, Murphy Beds, Entrepreneur, Wall Beds, Channels: Entrepreneurs > Bytes: 10079402 - 11/10/08 LISTEN

577_ Don't Spend a Dime Before Its Time
"The Inventors Business Plan’ tends to be, have idea, get patent, make money," pointed out Rita Crompton, Founder of the Inventors' Roundtable. Rita went onto say, "It just doesn’t happen that way. We really want to teach you how to do as much as you can before you start spending any money. Then how do you decide what money is the best to spend and where do you get the biggest bang for your buck. So we’ve really looked at bringing in resources for the inventor. Search Quest is the company that does most of the searches for our inventors. They’re one of the few that does the USPTO search by classification (so they actually go back 350 years) not just the most recent 35 that is on line. But they also do an international search and a product search. Knowing that material is critical, if something has been patented anywhere in the world at any time in history, you cannot get another patent on it. Now you’re making a big mistake that costs you money down the road and that’s why ‘Don’t spend a dime until its time’ is critical. The Inventors' Roundtable website has a number of helpful and valuable links. At The Inventors' RoundtableTM, the one and only safe, free, original inventors' roundtable, we have "inventor-approved" patent attorneys, engineers, marketing experts and others who donate their time once a month to work with the inventors." There's more...
Related Links: Inventors' Roundtable || SearchQuest || Colorado Inventor Showcase || FleCusa International || Keywords: Inventors' Roundtable, Rita Crompton, Business Plan, Patents, USPTO, FLeCusa International - Channel: Entrepreneurs > Bytes: 8231186 > 10/27/08 LISTEN

572_ Successful Serial Entrepreneur Talks About the Global Age
Vic Ahmed made made some profound predictions during a w3w3.com interview. Vic said, "“Larry, I think we are going to experience a whole new fundamental change in which we operate. We are entering a new era of the global age! I think we are experiencing an all new phenomenon, which like all the previous eras we’ve experienced, shifted the equilibrium dramatically. Now we are entering a global era which is going to shift the fundamentals again and the countries and the people that align themselves with this new age are going to prosper. A whole new set of players, I think the same thing is going to happen now. I am originally from Pakistan. The first time I came to the US with my family, I was in third grade. The second time I was 19 and came for my education. I had this perspective, I knew this, the whole world wanted to come to the US for education, for the economic opportunity, for the way the people are in this country – for the value of freedom, especially of individual freedom. I remember when I came as a teen, and I had seen a little bit of Europe, a little bit of the Mid-East, a little bit other parts of the world. But the differences were dramatic in terms of the rest of the world. But if I look to my recent travels, now to the Middle East, to China to Europe, I feel the bold differences have dramatically diminished. And we are no longer the best in the world any longer. If you go to China, Dubai in the Middle East you’ll find the infrastructure is better than ours in a lot of places." There's more...
Related Links: TiE Rockies || Find It Now || Success Secrets || Mastering Change || Keywords: Vic Ahmed, Serial Entrepreneur, Global Age, Mastering Change, TiE Rockies, Predictions > Bytes: 11794706 > LISTEN - 10/20/08

571_ I O U Takes on a Whole New Meaning in This Financial Climate
In the current financial and credit crises, people are finding it harder and harder to get funding from traditional lending sources. After seeing the IOUnote.com team being chosen as a DEMOgala Showcase winner, Larry took the chance to interview the three cofounders: Kevin Archer, CEO; Scott Archer, CTO; and Erika Archer, Director of Operations. Larry Asked, "What do you mean by 'True Social Lending?' and Why are you only interested in 1st and 2nd degree relationships (friends and friends of friends)?" A great deal was discussed and they pointed out, "In the current financial and credit crises, people are finding it harder and harder to get funding from traditional lending sources. As a result, many people are naturally turning inward - into their existing social and familial circles. This not only allows borrowers to circumvent the traditional credit scoring system and still acquire funding, but it also allows lenders to reap the benefits with the potential to make a higher return on money otherwise sitting in a low return account. "At IOU Note, we know how easy it is to let loans between friends and family slip through the cracks. We think that when everyone knows what the expectations are, there are fewer chances for a misunderstanding. We like to think that we help friends stay friends." ...listen for more.
Related Links: IOU Note || DEMOgala Showcase Winners || Meetup || Blog || Keywords: IOU note, Kevin Archer, Scott Archer, Erika Archer, Loans, Credit, Social Lending > Bytes: 11400989 > LISTEN - 10/20/08

534_ Change Is Not an Event, It Is an Ongoing Process (the Same is true with Chaos)
Mastering change is one of Pat and Larry Nelson's favorite topics. There's a good reason. They have lived in and owned businesses in five foreign countries stretching from Norway to Australia. They are truly serial entrepreneurs as they have started more than a dozen companies. Some were extremely successful and others learning experiences. One thing that was true in every situation were the rushing changes. At times they were victims and others they were victors. Larry has conducted seminars for numerous companies both large and small, public and private sectors, in a dozen countries, on the subject of 'Mastering Change in the Midst of Chaos'. In this recorded discussion Larry and Pat discuss the 'Six Truths About Change'. The topic includes; Resistance, Involvement, Making Losers, Vision, Benefits, and Follow up. Like the Nelsons say, "Master Change Before It Masters You." Listen now...
Related Links: Beyond the Trends || 3-Filters || Training Trends || Free Newsletter || Keywords: Mastering Change, Chaos, Pat and Larry Nelson, Involvement, Making Losers, Vision, Benefits, Follow up > Bytes: 8472349 LISTEN 8/4/08

531_ "We Could Change This Industry Forever With the Right Team"
“Our goal was to develop a disruptive technology, photonic integration, and use that to change the fundamental economics of optical communications for our customers. When we started the company, the experts told us it couldn’t be done. We didn’t know if we could do it. But we knew that if we could do it, we could change this industry forever.” That's what Jagdeep Singh, President, CEO and Founder, Infinera said when he received the 2008 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® Award for networking and communications in the Northern California program. Prior to founding Infinera, Jagdeep was Co-Founder and CEO of OnFiber Communications, an optical telecommunications carrier. He was also Co-Founder and CEO of Lightera Networks, an optical switching equipment company, which was acquired by Ciena Corporation. Jagdeep was the keynote speaker at a TiE Rockies event held at the Level3 Event Center and there he revealed a number of key strategies for entrepreneurs of all sizes. The focus of these three strategies is people, teams and the need to not be concerned that others don't think you are right. Listen now.
Related Links: Infinera Home || TiE Rockies || Entrepreneur Channel || Photos, TiE Rockies || Keywords: Jagdeep Singh, Infinera, TiE Rockies, Photonic Integration, Optical Communications - Bytes: 4450328 LISTEN 8/4/08

504_ Leveraging Technology to Increase Deal Flow, Efficiency and Visibility
The reality of finding quality investments is a quantity game. And the reality of investing is a quality game. So the investor has to combine quality and quantity, in turn the entrepreneur has to be visible enough to get those quantity views and then ultimately be able to deliver the quality to the investor. And that can be a very time consuming and arduous process without some technology and some tools, explains Kelly Burton, Founder, Investor Avenue.com. InvestorAvenue.com is the private equity and real estate investment community's web portal where accredited investors, entrepreneurs and service providers can present opportunities, capital sources and services to other members of the community. Investors need deal flow; entrepreneurs need visibility, and both need service providers to execute successful transactions. Post, find, and view opportunities and resources quickly and efficiently at your convenience 24/7 on InvestorAvenue.com. Listen, there's more...
Related Links: Investor Avenue || Venture Capital Channel || Rockies Venture Club || Podcast Directory || Keywords: Kelly Burton, Investors Avenue, Quality Investments, Deal Flow, Efficiency, Visibility, Entrepreneurs - Bytes: 10075222 - 6/9/08

492_ Board of Directors: To Be or Not to Be Is Not the Question
“CEO’s without a board are missing so much value,” states Sue Kunz, CEO/Founder Solidware. Just like building a good team, first look at your own skill sets and identify the gaps that you have and what you need in building a business. Then strategically look for folks who can fill those gaps. You want people around the table who are smarter than you are.” Generally investors come with a board seat. Sue pointed out that a board is not just active at the board meeting. She looks to her board for dialog, sometimes weekly, when a lot is going on, daily. When asked if there was a ‘downside’ to having a board, Sue said, “It’s a lot of work. With these top notch people you don’t want to waste their time. I try to be very organized, very focused on the dialog at hand. Sue goes on to point out, "Think small initially. You don’t want to build a huge board too quickly. Because you’re going to find over time, there are gaps you’re going to want to fill. Sit down, understand what you’re good at, and understand where your holes are. I think you can certainly find that combination of filling in your needs with someone who’s willing and able and has a proven track record. Of course, that’s a win/win for everyone. There is a difference when building an Advisory Board. Sue is a guest panelist at the Colorado Capital Conference. Listen Now for more ideas...
Related Links: Solidware Technologies || 20th Annual Colorado Capital Conference || Entrepreneurs Channel || Rockies Venture Club || Keywords: Sue Kunz, Solidware Technologies, Board of Directors, Advisory Board, Colorado Capital Conference, Rockies Venture Club - Bytes: 22736460 - 5/19/08

422_ Best Practices for Building a Successful Online Business
"When you look at the web analytics, how many people come to your site, how they got there, so many people go to the search engines. A lot of my customers find that 30 to 75% of their business comes from search engines," says Lee Kennedy. Lee has worked with Brad Feld, been the CIO at Webroot Software and today is CEO/Founder of TriCalyx, a consulting business focused on helping people build an online business. 85% of the world’s online population, purchase online! And that’s up 40% over the past two years. And then for people in the 75K and higher income bracket it’s more like 90+%. Even for people who don’t buy online, they come online to research their purchases. With search engine optimization, there’s quite a mystique around SEO because it’s not one of those things you can totally get your arms around. I'll try to demystify it. Basically it’s figuring out how to get your web site [and the words people are searching to find your web site] ranked on the first page of Google. If you are selling on your site, there are so many ways to bring traffic to your site that really cost you nothing...
Related Links: TriCalyx || NCWIT || Women in IT || Blogging || Keywords: Lee Kennedy, Tricalyx, Search Engine Optimization, Online Business, Bytes: 16982834 - 4/21/08

447_ Taking the Mystery Out Of Search Engine Optimization
Whether you are a new entrepreneur or successfully growing your company one of the things, top-of-mind for businesses and organizations of all sizes is acquiring new customers. One of the main ways of doing that on the web is acquiring them through search engine optimization. Jeff Finkelstein, founder of Customer Paradigm is an expert in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Pat asked Jeff, “Every business doesn’t sell something on line, why is it important for them to show up in the SEO rankings?" Jeff's reply really got Larry's attention beacuse w3w3.com does not sell online. "Every business doesn’t sell something on line, but if you do come up through word-of-mouth and your company still doesn’t come up top with the search engine rankings, you’re perceived by customers as less relevant, less important because your site isn’t coming up in the search engines. It is unfortunately a zero sum game," pointed out Jeff. He goes on to point out that Google is the overall market leader, they have, depending on who you talk to, between 55-85% of the search business, more so in the business-to-business community, a little bit less in the business-to-consumer realm; Yahoo is the second and MSN is the distant third. Jeff gives specific steps and metrics on how any company can make search engines work for them. LISTEN 2/25/08

Related Links: Customer Paradigm || 12 Strategies for Effective Email || Search Engine Optimization || Find It || Keywords: Jeff Finkelstein, Customer Paradigm, Search Engine, Optimization, SEO, Google, Yahoo, MSN > Bytes: 23684391 LISTEN

443_ Venture Capital, Angel Investors and Getting Involved The Rockies Venture Club annual meeting has been the place to connect with others creating Colorado success stories. For nearly twenty years, through many market cycles, the CCC has been a great place to connect with others starting and growing Colorado-based technology businesses. Jim Franklin started with RVC in 1992 with no contacts and is now the President of RVC and has a robust Colorado technology network. Hear Jim Franklin tell his story of how the contacts he made at RVC -- and the CCC in particular -- have resulted in 100x return to shareholders, 100+ jobs in Colorado and an economic impact of over $100M to the state of Colorado. Jim feels the key is to get involved. When I first showed up and didn’t know anyone, I just raised my hand and said, ‘how can I help?’. I started off on the government affairs committee where I met Eric Weissmann, who is the founder of Decisioneering. About two years later, I became the CFO of Decisioneering and that was the company that I ultimately became CEO of and we sold to Oracle with a very successful exit. RVC has the Colorado Capital Conference coming up on May 22, 2008 – a true showcase event. Jim shares some great networking advice... 2/18/08  LISTEN

Related Links: Colorado Capital Conference|| Crystal Ball || Rockies Venture Club ||   Keywords: Jim Franklin, Crystal Ball,Decisioneering, Colorado Capital Summit, Oracle, Entrepreneurs, Rockies Venture Club, Technology > Bytes: 12860084 LISTEN

446_ Looking for that next role? Networking and Beyond
Whether you are in a job search or career enhancing process, there are some should do, shouldn't do and then there are the steps you can take that are magical. Larry talked with Jim Franklin, president of the Rockies Venture Club and VP and General Manager of Crystal Ball Global Business Unit of Oracle. As a 15 year member of the Colorado tech community, Jim Franklin has been on both ends of the Job Search process. Jim has been a CEO, VP Sales, Founder and CFO at various local technology companies. After having been fired a second time, Jim decided he should be more systematic in his approach. His approach includes the Who List, the Opportunity List and the Five Criteria for assessing the Opportunities (1- Team fit; 2- Market Traction; 3- Role to contribute; 4- Location; 5- Compensation, both equity and cash). Listen to Jim describe his methodology for bringing order – and results – to the Job Search process. It's beyond networking and the process behind the chaos. As an important side, Jim says that the Annual Colorado Capital Conference is one of the 'must be there' events comig up, 5/22/08. LISTEN 2/25/08

442_ Startup Capital: Family, Friends and Fools...or...?
Entrepreneurs specifically, always face the challenge of credibility early on. David Cohen, a serial entrepreneur, co-founder of Tech Stars and founder of Colorado Startups understands that challenge, firsthand. David points out a number of the comments (often not heard by the new entrepreneur)... who are these people?, what are they building?, you know, it’s two guys in a garage – are we really going to buy something from these guys?. Just getting great people around them is a big challenge. There are lots of startup companies that are coming out of the woodwork and I think the smart ones go and find great advisors and bounce ideas off of them. Those people are pretty easy to find, but there are so many companies looking for help, sometimes it’s a challenge to find the right people to help you. And if they’re looking for funding, of course you see one percent of people getting funding from angels and VCs, that’s a tough road. Most companies need money to get rolling and they do it with ‘Friends, Family & Fools’; and I think that’s right. You should start and get to the furthest out value point that you can with as little money as humanly possible, to show a prototype and some progress. Most people who need more money say $500k or so, tend to approach angel investors, that’s the range of money typically that angel investors can put together. Listen for more TechStar solutions... LISTEN 2/18/08

437_ Colorado is as Quintessentially Entrepreneurial as We Could Ever Imagine
Our mission here is we have a responsibility of educating future business leaders to tackle the complex problems of tomorrow. And at the heart of that is entrepreneurial thinking and critical skills, approaches and innovation. Paul Jerde, Executive Director for the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship, Leeds School of Business at CU Boulder gives the credit to his team and his predesessors. Last year, MBA enrollments were up 60% and still climbing. Paul went onto explain," We launched the “Sustainable Venturing Initiative. We then launched the “Clean Tech Venture Challenge”, a business plan competition in the clean tech sustainable space, and began to do a number of other programs." The Clean Tech Challenge is really a program element of the Sustainable Opportunity Summit. The operative word in the name of this summit is 'opportunity'. Sustainability in the past may have been thought of as something having to do with environment and regulatory threats, but what’s happened today is businesses are looking at it as a necessary element of creating and pursuing opportunities and that is what the Summit (SOS) is all about. listen now.... LISTEN 2/11/08

440_ Going From Yoga to High-Tech: From Yokohama to Boulder

Her first business was a yoga studio in Yokohama, Japan. Gwen Bell, a serial entrepreneur went on to explain; After 3 years she realized she needed a web site and so she entered the world of “tech”. Since then she has created a small design firm and ended up doing blogging, branding, all sorts of work in the tech world. Today she is a member of the TechStar team.
      The TechStars success rate has been extraordinary. In 2007, seven of the ten team have done either venture or angel funding. It would be wonderful to get a team of women hooked up with TechStars. Now based in Boulder, that is exactly what Gwen is focused on accomplishing. David Cohen and the other founders of TechStars are delighted to have a person like Gwen working on this. This is a wonderful opportunity with a number of perks...$10 - 15,000, surrounded by incredible mentors from Boulder to the Silicon Valley and tons more support as well as connections. The application to apply takes only a few minutes to complete...do it now! 2/11/08  LISTEN

Related Links: TechStars Home || Apply Now || Entrepreneur Channel || GwenBell.com   Keywords: Gwen Bell, TechStars, Entrepreneurs, David Cohen, Startups, Mentoring > Bytes: 8519160 LISTEN

435_ Raising Capital for Startups, Mentoring, and Much More
TechStars is essentially a mentorship driven investment model. We invest a small amount of money, $10 - 15,000. for a very early stage company explains David Cohen, the founder and Exective Director of TechStars. David goes on,"We bring them to Boulder; surround them with incredible mentors from Boulder, the Silicon Valley and elsewhere. It’s almost like a boot camp environment where they learn everything there is to learn about running an early stage company. At the end of summer we have an “Investor Day” and they get to pitch their ideas. We take ten teams every year and now is the time to get involved. The success rate has been extraordinary. In 2007, seven of the ten have done either venture or angel funding or a combination of both and an eighth that is quite profitable and hasn’t taken investment yet. They learn how to deal with early adopters, early customers; how to bring their product to market, figuring out what the right product is and tactically how to do that, really everything to do with startups, raising money, pitches, elevator pitches. They can also expect to build a really great network and that’s one of the key benefits of TechStars. LISTEN 2/04/08

Related Links: TechStars Home || Apply Now || Entrepreneur Channel || Colorado Startups || Keywords: TechStars, David Cohen, Startups, Mentoring, Raising Capital, Entrepreneurs > Bytes: 15438056 LISTEN