Archive for the 'conferences' Category
April 7, 2009
Photo by Sandy Blanchard
I just finished the Landmark Advanced Course that builds on the lessons learned in the Landmark Forum. It was a very powerful course and although it turns out I’m not an elephant or a horse, I discovered courageous parts of myself that I have suppressed because of the fear of what other people would think of me. And worse yet the fear of what I would think of myself.
To me, life has always been a journey of learning and self discovery. The Landmark Education courses have been one of the most fascinating steps I’ve taken on that journey. I’ve gotten more out of these two courses than all of the professional and personal advisers/counselors I’ve seen and books I’ve read…especially more than the romance novels I used to breeze through for mind numbing distractions from my text books in undergrad.
Some people stop pushing the envelope of self discovery because it can be a very scary process and others stop because they realize there really is no envelope to push and are at peace with themselves and the world. I haven’t met any of the latter kinds of people who have kids…in fact, I’ve met very few of the latter kind. So I wonder if the way to achieve the rare occurrence of enlightenment is not to have kids. Hmmm.
I’ve been becoming more aware of an ability/talent I was given to sense people based on what they say, don’t say, their body language, etc. I’ve heard that 80% of what someone conveys is not through words but through their body language. I happen to be more attuned to that 80% than most people. People tell me the most intimate things about themselves and their lives and sometimes I think they are surprised at what they tell me based on how I notice them.
I am sometimes pretty raw and honest about what I see in certain people with varied results. Sometimes I don’t say anything because I sense the person would not get in the slightest what I’m saying and think I’m crazy. But ironically, this ability doesn’t work as well with my close family and friends. And people have had a hard time knowing me because to deal with the bombardment of cues I get from people, I ‘was being’ a person who unknowingly suppressed my ability to share what was going on with me. In the words of Landmark, I was not being “authentic or fully self expressed” because fundamentally I didn’t trust people with my being. I was loudly letting them trust me, but I was quietly not trusting them with myself.
There are no magic pills or overnight fixes, just different ways of looking at things, and I think the path I’ve chosen has helped me understand other people and myself a little better, and therefore be a better friend, manager and connector. I’m sharing more and being more open and vulnerable than I have ever been in my life, and my close friends (and even people I’ve only recently met) and family are responding with such kindness and support that I have found myself with tears in my eyes more often than I expected.
There is another course in this 3 part series, but for now I am not planning on taking any more courses. I’ll digest, make some changes, and consider what’s next. I know they are a business so they will do their best to up sell me on their other courses…which is fine because I know I have the choice whether to sign up or not. Landmark Education is a global, fast growing phenomenon written up in Harvard Business Review and other reputable publications, and I think they will continue to grow given how they deliver their curriculum. They don’t do any outside advertising but rely solely on word of mouth and occasional press mentions. Of course those who do the research also pull up stories of their roots in something called EST. But from what I’ve heard of EST, the courses I’ve taken are drastically different and much less intense. The only way to know that is to see how it has changed the life of someone you trust and care about.
At any rate, I have met some amazing, brilliant people in these courses who I dare say I’ll probably be in contact with for quite some time. I’m a bit envious of the younger people who are taking the course because what a head start they will have in making transformation happen in their lives and their organizations. We had a few 18 year olds in the group. What a gift they have been given to have access to this technology at such a young age!
It’s all about Living A Powerful Life and Living A Life You Love! That is the reason I signed up for the Landmark Education courses. I’m on my way…stay tuned…
Posted by Aruni
11:21 pm •
conferences •
March 14, 2009
I just finished my second day at SXSW. The first day left me a little hung over, tired, wanting a nap. I got my 2nd wind right about the time I ran into Erica O’Grady in the Microsoft Windows Mobile Blog Lounge mid afternoon. Ironically enough 95% of the people in the lounge have iPhones.
Erica is so awesome! She is one of the 25 people selected as the Austin American Statesman’s Texas Social Media Award recipients. I was also nominated but people like Erica, who are the master-esses of the social media world, truly deserve it. I don’t think I had seen her since last year. She’s one of the happiest people I’ve ever met and tweeted with. When she stepped out of the lounge, I borrowed her pink hat and asked Brian Solis (who Erica introduced me to) to take a picture of me with another social media/entrepreneur great: Guy Kawasaki.
We spoke with Garage.com (founded by Guy) back when we were doing our first high tech start-up and at one point we had a t-shirt our son wore when he was a toddler that said “Garage.com. My favorite letters are I, P, and O.“ 
Guy is one of the most down to earth tech entrepreneurs you can meet. He graciously has me and my blog listed in a few places in his AllTop library sites (Mom Bloggers, Twitterati, Startups, etc.).
I hope I and my panelists are coherent by the time my panel - Building A Web Business After Hours - rolls around on Monday, March 16 at 3:30 pm!
February 15, 2009
South by Southwest Interactive is just around the corner! I was honored to have my one and only panel idea selected and it’s called Building A Web Business After Hours. The idea/thought came to me to submit this topic because I found myself living it when I took on a day job back in June 2008 so in October when they were looking for panel ideas…. If you keep up with my blog, you’ll realize that I get some strange thoughts sometimes and I’ve been known to unwittingly follow them. This time I got lucky! It will be on Monday, March 16 at 3:30 p.m.
Many entrepreneurs spend time after hours building businesses for a variety of reasons and let me tell you it’s NOT easy but given this economy, it’s a very viable bootstrapping option. I have lined up some really credible, fun, and amazing people to be on the panel. All of them have either built businesses after hours or are currently doing so now. Here’s the info:
Building a Web Business After Hours
Room 18BCD
Monday, March 16th
3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
Many businesses are built after-hours or during odd hours of the day and night. Join us for a panel discussion by entrepreneurs who built (or are building) their Web/E-commerce/Other business while holding a day job, multiple jobs, or who are currently balancing two+ career options.
Gretchen Heber CEO/Co-founder, NaturallyCurly.com
Jeremy Bencken Co-founder, Buzzstream
Aruni Gunasegaram Founder/CEO, Babble Soft LLC
David Altounian President/Founder, iTaggit
Lisa Stone Co-Founder & Pres Of Operations & Evangelism, BlogHer LLC
Please tell all your friends who are attending SXSWi about this really cool panel.
Posted by Aruni
8:27 pm •
conferences •
December 13, 2008
Photo by my friend, Sandy Blanchard. 
Last weekend I had a profound experience at a seminar called the Landmark Forum. At the beginning of the forum, they tell you the goal is to experience a transformation. I don’t think I achieved it in the intended way but the insights I gained have been phenomenal!
I was extremely skeptical when I first heard about it. I usually approach things from a very analytical viewpoint so I had a hard time getting over ‘I’ve seen this all before‘ mentality. I even went to one of their orientation sessions at the recommendation of an amazing person, Marlene Merritt who founded Merritt Acupuncture, and left feeling like they were trying to ‘hard sell’ me on signing up. I don’t like it when people try to convince me to buy something when I’m not ready.
I saw Marlene a few times after that and each time she said she really felt I would get something out of attending and how taking it profoundly affected her life 7 years ago. She didn’t get anything out of me signing up. Nothing at all, except for the joy in seeing me go through a life changing event. And for that I’m grateful. I had been experiencing many diametrically opposing feelings leading up to my standing at The Entrepreneurial Ledge, so I signed up.
After signing up, a friend sent me a link to an article on a well respected online site with a note saying it seemed like a ponsi-scheme. In addition to acknowledging that CNN and Reebok executives have successfully participated in the forum, the article strongly insinuated that it was cult-like. I was hurt when I read the article because it took a lot for me to share that I was taking the course. After taking the class and thinking about it, I decided to re-interpret his response and apply a different meaning — one that meant he cared enough about me to research it and share his concerns.
Another friend who had taken the course also said it was a good course but she could see how people could think it was a bit cult-like because of the terminology they used. After taking it, I determined it’s no more cult-like than the Episcopal or Southern Baptist churches I attended growing up! She said she thought it might help me surface some issues so I should go in with an open mind. And boy did it really unearth some stuff for me.
It’s hard to explain everything I got out of taking that course in a mere blog post but suffice it to say, I now view the world differently. I’ve been able to have very different conversations with my kids, my husband, my mother, my sister, and my co-workers. I even called my father who I haven’t spoken to in probably a couple of years…although we exchange email from time to time.
I’m still me, but with a different view of my life and my world. They describe the transformation as something like when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. It is still the same creature but the butterfly has a vastly different view of its world because it can fly. I don’t feel like I’m a butterfly yet, but I understand more of the mechanics of how one becomes one.
The Landmark Forum can’t really be compared to anything else, but humans learn by comparing so while I was sitting there, many of the concepts reminded me of what is written in The Power of Now, Siddhartha, and A New Earth (book links below) as well as what many philosophers and psychologists have mentioned in the past. After all, even the Bible states “there is nothing new under the sun!“
I 100% believe that if everyone took the Landmark Forum, there would be fewer wars and misunderstandings in this world. Before finishing the Forum, we were all supposed to come up with a possibility we were inventing for ourselves and our lives and one 50-ish year old man got up at the microphone in front everyone and shared his. His mother and brother had both died when he was fairly young and he had been angry for most of his life. He was angry that they had left him and he had not even realized how hurt and angry he was for so many years. The possibility he invented for himself was the possibility of having every teenage orphan in the United States take the Landmark Forum for teens. He felt if he could save those kids the decades of pain he felt, he could make a huge difference in this world. I gave him both of my cards and said “let me know how I can help.”
You’ll have to take the Forum yourself for the punch line, but one of the possibilities I invented for myself and my life is the possibility of being courageous and empowering people to achieve their dreams. Now people might think I already do some of that but it’s always been laced with fear of people not liking me…or worse that I will be abandoned and not loved.
And coincidentally enough on Tuesday at my day job, before the last late night session of the Forum, I was presented with the opportunity to be courageous. And I was and still am afraid, but I took a stand anyway. I may not have this day job for much longer because of the stand I am taking, and people might not like me, but I don’t want to look back and say I was not true to the possibility I invented for myself and my life…
Posted by Aruni
10:08 pm •
conferences •
December 4, 2008
Remember when I wrote about the Clean Energy Venture Summit that’s going on in Austin, Texas right now? Well a big announcement happened yesterday at the conference (see article below). Texas is poised to be a market leader in clean energy and where I work during the day, the Austin Technology Incubator, will most likely be ‘deep in the heart of it.’ [For those who don’t get that reference, there is a famous Texas song called “Deep in the heart of Texas…”
My boss has been intimately involved in the planning meetings to make the Pecan Street project happen and we just (finally!) hired a new clean energy director to continue to lead the efforts in building our clean energy portfolio. I’m particularly excited because the new director (not yet officially announced) will be taking off a bunch of stuff from my plate. I, my boss (aka ‘the man’), a couple of interns, and one of our Advisors (who gave freely of his time) have been holding the clean energy incubator pieces together since the previous director left back in April. It has been a true experiment in juggling!
Nine companies join clean energy partnership - Participants include Dell, Freescale, Microsoft
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
By Claudia Grisales
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Austin’s clean energy future just got a major shot in the arm.
More than a dozen business and community leaders announced Wednesday that nine major companies - from Dell Inc. to Freescale Semiconductor Inc. to Microsoft Corp. - will join in a partnership to help bring clean energy to Central Texas. The companies will help contribute employees to the Pecan Street Project, a public-private plan in the works to bring innovative energy ideas and jobs to the region.
“There is not another city in the country that has the ability to bring together all these companies on a common vision,” Austin City Council member and mayoral candidate hopeful Brewster McCracken said.
The announcement, which was made at the Clean Energy Venture Summit at the University of Texas, signals that the Pecan Street Project has drawn the muscle necessary to move forward with its aggressive plans.
Read more…
November 24, 2008
In my day job running Operations for the Austin Technology Incubator, I work with great people. They were factored into my decision not to jump off The Entrepreneurial Ledge…
One of those amazing people is Melissa Rabeaux. She is coordinating the 2nd Annual Clean Energy Venture Summit happening Dec 2 - 4, 2008 here in Austin, Texas. It’s going to be a fabulous event with several top name individuals in the clean energy space speaking and attending. Texas is poised to be the hub of clean energy innovation and the conference theme is How Can Texas Win in the New Energy Economy.
There will be panels with topics ranging from venture capital, utility, agriculture, power, and state policy. The big keynote speaker is Fred Krupp, President of the Environmental Defense Fund. Check out the Conference Agenda for names of people who will be flying in from all over the country to speak.
If you are interested in clean energy (i.e., looking for a new career), this conference is the place to be!
There may even be some special passes for big time bloggers who want to cover the event. 
Check out the sponsors below:
Have a great Thanksgiving everyone! I’ll be taking a much needed holiday break…but I’m sure I won’t be able to keep myself from tweeting so if you are really that interested in seeing what I’m up to, I’ll be sending out a few tweets… @aruni.
October 2, 2008
Woo Hoo! I submitted a panel idea for the 2009 SXSW Interactive extravaganza a couple of months ago and I was just informed that it was selected! It will be called Building A Web Business After Hours. Although I have several panelists lined up, we have been asked not to finalize the panel yet — probably to make it oh so hugely compelling for all of you to attend!
One of the cool things about being selected is that I get a free Gold Badge pass to attend SXSW interactive and so do the panelists! I probably won’t have much time to party late into the evening unless my husband doesn’t mind watching the kids for 5 days/nights in a row.
Thank you to all of you who voted for the panel idea during the open voting period. It wouldn’t have been selected without your support!
August 14, 2008
Earlier this year, I had such a great time at SXSW Interactive 2008, that I submitted a panel idea for SXSW Interactive 2009 called Building A Web Business After Hours and more people than I thought are interested in seeing it happen!
Panel Description: Many businesses are built after-hours or during odd hours of the day and night. Join us for a panel discussion by entrepreneurs who built (or are building) their Web/E-commerce/Other business while holding a day job, multiple jobs, or who are currently balancing two+ career options.
For those of you who don’t know, I am attempting to build a web business (Babble Soft) after hours and lets just say it has it’s ups and downs but mostly it’s really hard and challenging with a big upside bejng that in my day job I get to be around other entrepreneurs.
How many of you (or people you know) are building sites and businesses in their spare time (on the side)? What kind of businesses are they? Many great businesses start with tinkering on the side…
I’ve started to assemble a great group of panelists including:
- One of the co-founders of BlogHer, the top female blogging site in the world that has partnerships and customer relationships with some of the top recognized brands in the world! Elisa Camahort Page, a co-founder, awesomely mentioned my panel in her Time to vote for SXSW panels post. Check out Elisa’s post to see the other great panels she’s recommending.
- Thom Singer is the director of business development for Austin based vcfo. Additionally he is the author of four books about the power of business relationships and is a professional speaker. With the support of his employer, he successfully manages his job and his own business, speaking to companies around the country on how to network. He blogs at Some Assembly Required.
- Karen Bantuveris, Austin founder & CEO of VolunteerSpot, knows firsthand what ‘juggle’ means. She’s built VolunteerSpot from the ground up while running a successful management development and executive coaching business, and being active in her daughter’s school PTO Board and Scout troop. She even manages to sleep, occasionally.�
- Jeremy Bencken, co-founder of ApartmentRatings.com, Tenant Market, and PR for Pirates. Jeremy and his wife, Katie, founded ApartmentRatings.com in 2000 out of their one bedroom apartment in Mountain View. They bootstrapped the site while attending business school at UT-Austin and then during full-time jobs for 4 years before selling the company to Internet Brands in 2007. Along the way they grew traffic to over 12M unique visitors per year (without an ad budget), built a base of advertisers, fought off frivolous lawsuits, and got their site featured on NPR Marketplace, and in stories in the NY Times and AP.
Please, please, please go vote for the panel by clicking on this link: Building A Web Business After Hours. I believe 30% of the weight on whether a panel is chosen is from people like you voting. The only downside is that you have to create a log in, but the upside is that you will be in the SXSW system and see all the other cool panels going on and vote for many more!
Thanks and I look forward to seeing some of you at SXSW next year.
May 16, 2008
So here’s the rest of my Women 2.0 Conference story. If you want to see tons of pictures (which sadly I and my deep pink Banana Republic shirt don’t appear) please check out the official Women 2.0 Conference Wrap Up post. You can also see Sophia Perl’s (another semi-finalist) post on it here.
Friday - May 9, 2008
I took my rented yellow car and drove around the Palo Alto/Menlo Park area to meet some people. I met Jeff Nolan, who was one of the venture investors in my first company, for lunch at a place called Buck’s. We only just got to know each other while at my last company before I left, but he seemed to be one of the good guys. I mentioned him in a post I did about angels and venture capitalists a while back. We might get to work together again and this time in hopefully a more creative and collaborative way.
I tried to meet up with Guy Kawasaki later that afternoon but he had something mildly important to do like make some sort of silly book submission deadline, so we traded tweets and emails instead. Then I went to the Stanford mall. I’m not a big shopper, but since I had a few hours to kill, and my husband wanted me to get him a Stanford t-shirt (It’s one of his alma-maters) I wandered around a bit and read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, but was not feeling in the “now” at the time so didn’t make much progress. So I got some hot chocolate, my rings cleaned, and happened to find a couple of light-weight jackets at really good sale prices to protect me from the Bay Area cool evenings!
Later I had the pleasure of meeting up with Maryam Scoble for wine and fabulous brie with a flakey crust. Yum! Maryam and I met through our blogs. I initially heard about her and her husband Robert Scoble from our very own Austin based Connie Reece. Robert even did a Qik video of me at SXSW but I don’t think that many pregnant moms or parents with newborn babies, preemies or twins are watching those videos. Go figure!
Saturday - May 10, 2008 (conference day)
You can see the agenda for the conference here. It was an interesting day in a tent near the Stanford golf course. Walking in grass was a challenge for many of us who were wearing heels. Those wearing pointed heels especially suffered by sinking into the grass/dirt, but since I would trip and fall on my face in pointed heels, I wear more flat ones.
The most interesting sound bites, in my opinion, came from the Power Panel: “Igniting the spark through strategies taught and lessons learned”
Terri Ghio, Unique Solutions and TBS Connect said: Make sure you have an audience, a secret sauce, strategic alliances, and ability to build the blocks and barriers for success.
Amy Love, Protégé Performance Group said: Build an inner circle, share your dream, think big, and have the confidence & energy to move forward.
Dr. Jwala Karnik, JwalaCo said: Be open to inspiration, tell people what you want to do, and just take the first step!
Dr. Maggie Haertsch, VOICEMAP said: Have passion and be totally committed, focused, and fearless!
Pat McEntee, AuxoGlobal said: Women entrepreneurs are different and that’s OK. Women look at things they want to spend their time on differently. Women build different companies. The fact that many retail companies are currently dominated by men is not going to last long, but women should build companies that men feel comfortable in. By the way, Pat is a guy!
I mentioned the winners of the napkin business plan challenge in my yellow car post, so I won’t mention it here again, but I did want to mention one company and founder who was on one of the panels: Erica Estrada of d.light design. She is impressive and her company is very cool! They make affordable, small, solar power lighting units for people in third world countries who have no access to electricity. So the kids in who live in shacks can study/read after dark and parents can cook or work after dark without having to use a kerosene lamp that not only stinks and has to be bad for your lungs, but also doesn’t last very long. I really do wish her and her company great luck, good partners, fabulous investors and perfect timing!
I ended the day by eating sushi with the friends I was staying with. They even took a picture of me (see below) drinking this huge cup of sake! The waitress finished the bottle on me, so the sake overflowed into its holding bowl. I was glad I wasn’t the one driving us home in my rented yellow car. 
Coming soon I’ll post an update on my SEO experiences, so you might want to subscribe to read more about the birth pains of a web business. It’s not pretty.
May 14, 2008
So I lost the memory stick with the pictures I had taken while in the Bay Area for the Women 2.0 conference. That’s why it has taken me this long to do my first post about it. OK, so it’s not that long because I got back Sunday and it’s now Wednesday, but it feels long in Internet/blog time! I had to harass the friends I stayed with to email me the pictures I took with their camera because, yes, I forgot to take my camera with me. I guess when your brain is also trying to keep up with two kids, things like cameras get forgotten from time to time. Thank goodness we live in a time where lost memory sticks can be backed up by good friends and email!
As you may know, I was selected as a semi-finalist but not a finalist, and decided to go to the conference anyway. I’m glad I did. I saw the 5 finalists present and was quite confident that my company, and several others I met while there, would have probably been better (i.e., more fundable) than at least 2 of the teams that presented. But hey, it would be hard for most people to decide what teams are the best based on a one-page summary and 2 minute video.
Koollage was the winner and their tag line is Kool, Kolorful snippets of your digital world to go. The People’s choice award was Gaiagy and offers residential and commercial building owners recommendations for how they can most economically make their operations more eco-friendly. To see a full write-up on the winners on TechCrunch go here. But I digress.
It all started with a yellow car. I reserved a car at Hertz and got a pretty good $22/day rate and the lady at the counter asked me if I wanted a yellow car. I had expected a compact Hyundai or something so I said sure, but what do you mean by yellow? She said it was sporty and the notes said it was yellow. She told me if I didn’t like it I could exchange it for something else. I half expected it to be some sort of light yellow, champagne color, but it was in fact bright yellow and here’s the picture to prove it. I smiled when I saw it and figured everyone could see me so chances of my being hit in California traffic would be significantly reduced so I took that Chevy Cobolt, sporty, 2-door with sun roof car and headed towards highway 101!
Stay tuned for the rest of the Women 2.0 and yellow car story by subscribing to this blog. I’ll be writing about who I met and what I learned in the days to come.
May 7, 2008
You might have heard, I was a semi-finalist for the Women 2.0 napkin business plan competition. Well, they informed me on May 3, I didn’t make the finals. Sigh. But trying to look on the bright side, I’m actually kind of relieved because now I can focus on networking and learning instead of being stressed out about giving my pitch! I’m starting to think I’ll have to get a job to support my entrepreneurial addiction. Too bad I didn’t get rich off of my first entrepreneurial endeavor…
I’d like to profusely thank Sylvester Becker (a.k.a. German Cowboy) of Dana Lynn Media for helping me pull together a very cool 2 minute pitch video which I can’t share with the world yet, but maybe soon. Sylvester was awesome to work with and so creative! We used crayons. We used Little People to illustrate our future customers as well as small figures of Dora the Explorer and her friends Boots and Benny. Although I think Boots got cut out in editing. My daughter loves Dora and in fact some people say she looks like her especially now with her new haircut.
I had already decided that even if I didn’t make the finals, I was going to the Women 2.0 conference (check out the site for the fabulous list of panel speakers - entrepreneurs and venture capitalists) this weekend in the Bay Area where the skies are blue, the weather is usually predictable, the money made in tech is gigantic, and everything is way too expensive. Except for, oddly, the reasonably priced rental car I got from Hertz. Thankfully, some friends are letting me crash at their place so I can save money by not getting a hotel.
Anyway, in case you are interested in the names of the finalists, here you go:
I’ll do a post about it after I get back, so Subscribe Now so you don’t miss a thing about my sure-to-be idyllic, fantastic, jaw dropping trip to Cali! I wonder if I can find a way to eat some sushi while I’m there…
March 31, 2008
SOBCon08 is “Biz School for Blogging.” This year’s event tracks entrepreneur bloggers and corporate bloggers alike, with an innovative format and a stellar cast of speaker/instructors. It is the brainchild of Liz Strauss, a fabulous blogger who I have mentioned often in previous posts. I was thrilled when she named me an SOB (Successful and Outstanding Blogger) back in October 2007.
She and a great group of supporters and presenters are hosting SOBCon2008 in downtown Chicago on May 2-4, 2008.
Sadly, I can’t make it this year but plan to be there next year if at all possible! I had the pleasure of meeting Liz at SXSW earlier this month and several of the bloggers who will be participating in the conference. If you are a business blogger, you should definitely check it out and sign up for this conference if you can!
March 12, 2008
Yesterday was the last day of SXSW Interactive and I have practically a desk full of business cards. Our son came yesterday (yes, it’s Spring Break here) for part of it as well but went with husband this time to a panel he attended. I was only able to make one panel yesterday and spent the rest of the time networking. Check out my posts on events I attended on Sunday (including my take on the Zuckerberg/facebook interview) and Monday.
Robert Scoble even did an interview of me that was posted to Qik but for some strange reason (due to the 3G connection) it got broken down to 16 different few second clips. Here’s the first one, here’s a middle one, and here’s the last clip. They are going to try to see if they can string it together, but it’s looking doubtful. Guess that means we’ll have to do a more official one next time!
UPDATE: Qik was able to string pieces of the video together and you can see it HERE. Once they get Robert’s phone, they will see if they can fill in some of the missing gaps using the files on his phone. Once they do that, I’ll embed the video in a future blog post.
The Insiders Guide to Angel Investing
This panel was not really a panel because the only speaker was David Rose. David is the founder of New York Angels and Angelsoft, a software application that helps angel investing groups manage plans received by entrepreneurs. He had some great info on angels and angel investing. He mentioned that he would make his slide-show presentation available and I will update this post if and when he sends the link, but here are some highlights:
- There are 600K new companies started each year. Of those 350K are self-funded, 200K are funded by friends and family, 50K by Angel investors, and a mere 1200 by venture capitalists.
- Angels are generally about 57 years old, they have a master’s degree, 15 years of entrepreneurial experience, have been involved with and/or started on average 2.7 ventures.
- To be an accredited investor you must have $1 million in assets and have to have made $200K of annual revenue for the past 2 years.
- The average angel investor has spent 9 years investing, had done 10 investments, had 2 exits (profitable or lost their money), and 10% of their wealth is tied up in angel investments.
- Angels look for companies with Scalable Business Models, an “Unfair Advantage,” a Great Entrepreneur, External Validation, Low Investment Requirement, Reasonable Valuation ($1 to $3 million pre-money range), and a 20 to 30 times return on their investment within 5 to 7 years.
- The single most important characteristic an Angel investor looks for in an entrepreneur is Integrity. Then they look for Passion, Experience, Knowledge, Skill, Leadership, Commitment, Vision, Realism, and Coachability.
David said most angel investors don’t end up making a ton of money from angel investing. In fact most lose money. Many invest because they want to give back and help other entrepreneurs. He even offered us a joke that goes like this: How do you make a small fortune angel investing? You have to make a large fortune first!
He then went on to talk about the process of applying to an Angel network and described what the entrepreneur as well as the Angel investor sees if they are using the Angelsoft software application tool. If you are an entrepreneur, he suggested you submit your plan at www.angelsoft.net/entrepreneurs. They will soon be launching a site called Open Deals where entrepreneurs who don’t have access to a local angel group can submit their plan. For a full list of angel groups, check out the Angel Capital Association site and their directory of angel groups.
All in all, I had a great time at SXSWi. I look forward to attending next year and maybe even being a panelist!
March 10, 2008
It’s been a long, fun filled day at SXSW Interactive today. So this post won’t be as meaty as my previous SXSW post. I met tons of people today and many people who know me and who I know from twitter. It was so cool to have so many people come up to me and say, ‘hey, aren’t you @aruni on twitter?’ I guess I kind of stand out in a crowd. :-) I probably gained about 30 followers just from tweeting about the panels I attended. Here’s a quick overview because honestly I’m kinda worn out:
The Care and Feeding of Your Startup
This panel was made up of some local entrepreneurs from Unwired Nation as well as a venture capitalist from Texas based DFJ Mercury and a couple of others. Some key insights:
- Someone needs to serve as the “Belief Engine” for your startup which I took to mean the “evangelist” but I thought that was a unique way of saying it.
- Make sure your product fits into your users way of life and they don’t have to drastically change what they are doing
- Understand if your concept is a feature or a business. It could be a feature that expands into a business.
- You should aim to exceed investor’s expectations.
- 9 out of 10 entrepreneurs can’t go the distance so they really should identify a strong mentor.
- Make sure the people you hire have ‘karmic velcro’ which means they have the fortitude to stick around when the going gets tough.
- There are 3 key people you need in a start-up. 1 in charge of product, 1 handling business development who can close the early deals, and 1 evangelist.
- It’s not appropriate to go to VCs in the first 2 years of a business, because in the first 2 years you are still assessing the market risk. Almost all the VC deals that occurred with Web companies in early stage have not worked out and they are struggling to get their money back.
- Keep two sets of books. One you show your investors and one with even more aggressive numbers that you aim for internally.
True Stories from Social Media Sites
This panel was moderated by Guy Kawasaki, who was so kind to put my blog near the top of his new AllTop Moms site. It was notably a panel of 5 women and 1 guy. Two of the women were twitter pals so when I got up to ask a question and say ‘hi’ one of them was tweeting about me.
I had my son with me at this panel because he’s home for Spring Break so I wasn’t able to take a lot of notes or do many tweets because half way through he wanted to play a game on my phone! He actually did really well, scribbled a bit, and then drew a funny looking dinosaur who he felt the need to show was pooping. Such a funny kid! He wanted me to go up to the mic and say something, but when I tried to get him to come with me, he got shy…he is only afterall 5 1/2.
The panelists discussed their great and not-so-great experiences using social media. What funny and sometimes unbelievable stories they shared!
I met up with my husband after that panel and we took our son for a late lunch at Bennigan’s and then he took him home, and I went to the BlogHaus to network with more bloggers.
Online Adulation: Use Don’t Abuse Your Fans
This panel had an editor from CNET as moderator and some pretty fabulous bloggers including the infamous Dooce whose current post is called Fueled Entirely by Advil.
I was sitting next to Wendy Piersall from eMoms at Home during this panel and she was twittering away. She had her laptop so she could do it much faster than I could so I let her take over so go read her twitter stream if you want to read all about it.
Went back to the Bloghaus after this panel and met none other than Darren Rowse (aka Problogger). Someone took a picture of us and said he’d email it to me so I’ll post it when I get it…assuming he remembers.
Conversation Starters
This event was hosted by DELL and Federated Media and they booked the entire Iron Cactus restaurant on 6th and Trinity. Richard at DELL was the lead blogging rep from DELL, who I had met a few weeks earlier at an Austin Tweet Up.
Because I’m twitter friends with Kim Haynes, I volunteered to help with registration since it was an RSVP only event. Of course, that meant I had access to extra drink tickets and people wanted to get to know me!
The key speakers were top blogger and FastCompany.tv producer Robert Scoble (aka Scobleizer) and Shel Israel of Global Neighborhoods.
I met so many twitter buds at Conversation Starters, including the famous Chris Brogan, and throughout the day that it would take me all night to type up their names. Already, this post is longer than I thought it would be!
Stay tuned for my next SXSWi post on Tuesday’s events.
March 9, 2008
Although I’ve lived in Austin for quite some time, I have never made it to SXSW but now since a big part of what I do for my company is social media related, I finally had a great reason to go. Most people associate SXSW with music, film making, bands, and people partying all night long. For those visiting from out of town and attending the music pieces of SXSW that might be true, but for those of us attending SXSW Interactive who live in town and have kids to take care of, we aren’t able to party (or should I say not interested in partying) all night long. Although tonight I was tempted to stay out late after having been asked by a couple of people to join some after parties. But since I just got back from Los Angeles, I figured I should get home and give my husband a little back-up break with the kids. Here are some brief overviews of the sessions I attend.
Mark Zuckerberg, Founder of facebook
Mark who is a 23 year old billionaire, seemed to be more comfortable during the interview than what I’ve heard he has been before, but he seemed to say some of the same stuff over and over again. I forgot my regular camera and my cell phone camera is not that great, hence the not-so-great picture above. However, here are some interesting things he said:
- He mentioned that facebook was going to change their incentive system to one where the more invites you send out that are accepted, the more opportunities you have to invite others to join your network.
- He also said that at facebook, they begin with the premise that everyone is fundamentally good and not trying to do evil/illicit things.
- He felt that all of the mistakes they have made so far have had to do with them not giving their users enough control over the process.
- He believes terrorism stems from people not feeling connected to each other.
The interviewer, Sarah Lacy, from BusinessWeek.com, had a strange interviewing style. Sadly, much of the audience was wondering why she was asking the questions she did and why she was asking them the way she did. Honestly, it seemed like she was a teenage girl flirting with a billionaire 20 something entrepreneur and many of her questions weren’t really questions they were statements. After, the audience turned on her, I thought she might wonder why but apparently she thought she did a great job and said Mark told her she did a great job. Omar Gallaga, who blogs for Austin 360 Digital Savant did a post-panel video interview with her that you can see HERE. Check it out, it’s a good interview. She believes that since she is one of the few women tech journalists that she always gets flack and is misunderstood. Since I’m a woman in tech, after seeing her today I wouldn’t agree with her assessment of why the audience didn’t like her, but kudos to her for putting herself out there and trying. I know she is being flamed on the Internet for the interview but if she can bounce back from this and learn & grow from this experience, she will be on her way to achieving great things.
Thom Singer, Author and Speaker on Networking
I tried hard to make it to Thom’s book reading, but after getting out of the room after Zuckerberg spoke, it was something like a 3 block hike from one end of the convention center to the other. I arrived as he was wrapping up his Q&A. Thom is an author and blogs at Some Assembly Required. He’s about to release a new book called Some Assembly Required for Women.
Kathy Sierra, Author and Speaker
Kathy Sierra was a very interesting speaker. She gave tips and advice on how to get your customers (and employees) passionate about your products. The room was packed and since I was coming back from the other side of the convention center they wouldn’t let us in! As I came up to the front of the line to ask what was going on, they said they couldn’t let us in because of fire code violation stuff. I was in line with Francine Hardaway and we along with a few others made some noise about how full it had been at the Zuckerberg talk and surely they can let us in since there weren’t more than 20 to 30 of us waiting outside and we had seen some people leave. After a few minutes, they let us in. Since I haven’t been blogging for a year yet, I didn’t know the back story on Kathy’s blogging stalker weirdness almost a year ago. She indicated that she might start blogging again, which I look forward to.
The Super Collider: A Hero of the Social Network
I attended this panel briefly and it wasn’t what I thought it would be. One of the panelists discussed how she was using the various social networks and social media to promote her business. It was interesting, but nothing new so I took off to the Entrepreneur’s Lounge at Fogo de Chao Brazilian restaurant for a short after party. It was hosted by ATI and uShip. Ran into Bryan Mennell of Austin Startup blog there.
Hearing these people speak was fascinating but what was even more exciting to me was meeting face to face with many of my blogging friends and meeting new friends including Wendy Piersall of eMoms at Home, Liz Strauss of Successful Blog, Tamar Weinberg of Mashable, Gina Trapani of lifehacker, Laura Mayes of Sk*rt, Annalee Newitz of io9 (she blogs on sci-fi stuff), and Tim Walker of Hoovers Business.
Stay tuned for more of my SXSWi experiences on Monday and Tuesday.
