- Next Meeting: March 12, 2010
- November 13 ROCC: LinkedIn for Entrepreneurs
- RIT Entrepreneurship Conference showcases area startup talent
- Straight talk from Techrigy, Inc. founder Aaron Newman at Sept. meeting
- ROCC to host Aaron Newman, Founder & CEO, Techrigy, Inc. (an Alterian Ltd company) at September's meeting
- George Daddis, CEO, WorldGate Communications to talk at August 14 meeting.
- Alterion Acquires Pittsford, NY based Techrigy, Inc.
- Dennis Kessler to talk at July ROCC meeting
- New media ideas abound at May meeting
- Peter Platt, Butler/Till's VP of Online Media, to join ROCC in May.
- March recap & April meeting
- Thoughts on Angel investing
- Techrigy, Inc. gets covered by TechCrunch
- February Angel Investment discussion to follow January's VC update
- Featured Speaker coming to ROCC
Next Meeting: March 12, 2010 - Top
Just a quick note to say that our next meeting is scheduled for March 12, 2010 at 8:30 AM at the Bagel Bin in Brighton.
We broadcast notices of all meetings to our mailing list. If you're not already on the list and would like to be, drop me a line at mark dot frisk at gmail dot com.
November 13 ROCC: LinkedIn for Entrepreneurs - Top
Come and join ROCC on November 13 with Steven Tylock, solopreneur, speaker, and author of the LinkedIn Personal Trainer as we explore how the world's #1 online professional networking site can be used for entrepreneurial activity. Bring your questions and your own personal stories of LinkedIn best practices as Steven will interactively share his view of how entrepreneurs can tap into the power of being "Linked In".
RIT Entrepreneurship Conference showcases area startup talent - Top
On October 9, ROCC gathered at the annual RIT Entrepreneurship Conference. Special thanks to Richard DeMartino, Director of the Albert J. Simone Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at RIT, for letting us participate in an otherwise sold out event. I was only able to attend a portion of the conference (and couldn't get past the fire marshal to sit in on Elan Lee, co-founder of Fourth Wall Studios' keynote due to over capacity issues). However, I was delighted with the events I did attend, particularly the panel on Social Media, which showcased three local entrepreneurs, Anna Roco-Castro, Founder, FamilyEden.com; Sean Colombo, Founder, Motive Force, LLC, creator of LyricWiki (acquired by Wikia, Inc.) and Aaron Newman, Founder, Techrigy, Inc. (acquired by Alterian Ltd). Not only were the panelists current on the latest social media trends, they were also very well schooled in starting (and in some cases exiting) web based startups. It was great to see, as I often get asked by others from the larger venture capital and entrepreneurial communities how much interesting technology and talent exists in the region. Based on the companies I met at the conference, I'd say it's getting more interesting every day.
Straight talk from Techrigy, Inc. founder Aaron Newman at Sept. meeting - Top
Aaron Newman, founder of Techrigy, Inc. recently shared with ROCC members strategies that he believed were critical to his success in building Application Security, Inc., a venture backed database security company based in NYC and more recently Techrigy, Inc, a social media monitoring company sold to Alterian in July 2009.
Some of the highlights:
- Thinking about the future: Aaron likes to think about what will be exciting 3 years from now and then refine that thinking by talking with key industry influencers and potential customers (vs. conducting formal market research). To become and be seen as an "expert" himself, he wrote a book related to each of the industries he planned to penetrate, co-authoring Enterprise 2.0 Implementation prior to founding Techrigy, Inc. and the Oracle Security Handbook, when he was starting Application Security, Inc.
- Being flexible & adapting to changes in the market: Aaron said he never knows what his companies will ultimately become when he starts them. Techrigy itself changed course when it appeared that larger marketing firms were more eager and accepting of the company's product than the company's initial target customer (compliance organizations within large corporations).
- Staying focused on what's important: High on Aaron's list...identifying and pursuing a specific niche to start; treating every employee as a partner with "skin in the game" (forgoing standard salary levels in exchange for equity); and jumping through hoops to get and keep your first customer.
- Enjoying the fun of being a startup: For Aaron, part of the excitement in starting companies is being able to build something of value even with very limited resources - in essence, "making something out of nothing".
Indeed, the question was asked as to what Aaron believed would be exciting 3 years from now...much to everyone's disappointment, Aaron just smiled and declined to answer.
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On October 9, ROCC will be heading to RIT's for the annual RIT Entrepreneurship Conference. This will be in place of our normal meeting. Coffee & networking will be sponsored by RIT during registration and ROCC members will receive free admission to the initial morning session.
ROCC to host Aaron Newman, Founder & CEO, Techrigy, Inc. (an Alterian Ltd company) at September's meeting - Top
On September 11, Aaron Newman, Founder & CEO of Techrigy, Inc., will talk about his experience with building one of the leading social media monitoring products available, SM2, as recognized by TechCrunch, Mashable, Forrester Research and Aberdeen, and with starting, scaling and selling Techrigy to Alterian Ltd., all in less than three years. As noted in an earlier post, Aaron and co-founder Jay Mari started Techrigy after moving to Rochester from NYC in 2006. Aaron and Jay were both previously involved with Application Security, Inc., a venture-backed data security company in NYC, which Aaron founded. It should be another great meeting. Hope to see you there.
Last month, George Daddis, CEO of WorldGate Communications and founder/CEO of Allworx Corp. (acquired by Paetec in 2007), gave an informative talk about his success in building the local telecommunications equipment and services company. George provided a lot of great insight on his strategy for leveraging early service revenue to fund initial product development. This self-funded development and ongoing service revenue allowed the company to more easily attract its initial outside investors. Some of the thoughtful advice from George for fellow entrepreneurs:
> Build anticipation in the angel community as you put key elements of your business in place (which shows early traction & an ability to execute). Obtaining early customer endorsements can also be helpful in securing angel investment.
> Where there's smoke...act quickly particularly with hiring/firing decisions. This is particularly important with your sales team which directly impacts company performance.
> For small companies who choose to use a dealer channel, building loyalty and relationships with dealers is critical.
> Regarding venture capital investors - understand that VC's are interested in making money and do so by making the company successful. The relationship with VCs is most successful when a CEO takes responsibility for problems as they arise and (simultaneously) presents constructive solutions.
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It was great to read some positive news recently regarding an increased interest among larger venture capital firms in making seed level investments (Venture Beat: Seed is the new Series A for VCs) . Involving quality venture capital firms at a seed stage can be very positive for both the investor and the entrepreneur, although the bar is undoubtedly high to attract such investment. It is, of course, also important that the deal is structured correctly, protecting both parties, but also leaving enough equity with the founder to withstand dilution in subsequent rounds (the seed term sheets I've seen used by some of the larger firms recognize this and have been structured appropriately). Its great to that more investment is occuring at this early/seed stage, and I hope this is a trend that continues.
Also out last week, a list of recently raised funds and the most active VC firms (Don Dodge: VCs fresh with money to invest). The VC world is certainly undergoing some changes, but it's encouraging to see some of the top firms are still making new investments.
George Daddis, CEO, WorldGate Communications to talk at August 14 meeting. - Top
We received some terrific insight from local entrepreneur and angel investor Dennis Kessler during the July ROCC meeting. Many were pleased to hear that from Dennis' perspective, local angels are still actively looking at and making investments in startups. I heard of several follow on meetings that were scheduled with Dennis post our session, so I hope some good connections were made. Dennis also shared his vision for an area wide event that would showcase local technologies through a collaborative effort between the University of Rochester and Rochester Institute of Technology. Per Dennis, there are more details to come, but it sounds like a terrific plan to highlight what our entrepreneurial community has to offer.
At the August 14 ROCC meeting, George Daddis, current CEO of WorldGate Communications, Inc. (maker of the Ojo personal video phone) and Founder of Rochester-based Allworx Corp will share his experiences while building Allworx from inception to a business with over 75,000 end users and a sales channel of over 900+ dealers throughout North America. During this period, George navigated several rounds of angel and institutional funding and ultimately sold the company to Paetec in 2007.
George has a great story to tell, so I hope everyone can make it!
Alterion Acquires Pittsford, NY based Techrigy, Inc. - Top
Earlier this week, Alterion (LSE:ALN), a global integrated marketing firm, announced its acquisition of social media monitoring company Techrigy, Inc., based in Pittsford, NY. Aaron Newman, Founder and CEO of Techrigy, also helped to co-found ROCC and the Social Media Club of Rochester. Techrigy is the third company Aaron has founded, previously founding NYC-based Application Security, Inc. and DbSecure which he sold to Internet Security Systems (ISSX) in 1998.
Aaron and his team at Techrigy built an extremely robust product and an enviable customer base, less than three years from founding the company and relocating from New York City to Rochester. In May 2009, Techrigy acquired one of its competitors, Adiamo Systems, based in California, further increasing its position in the social media monitoring market. It's a pretty great story, for Aaron, his team and for our area, and it will be nice to see the company's solution expand even further, now as part of global company. Aaron has agreed to talk at a future ROCC meeting and share some his experiences with building break through technology companies.
TechCrunch had a great article on the acquisition of Techrigy and co-founders Aaron Newman and Jay Mari. Congrats again to Aaron, Jay & the rest of the Techrigy team!
Dennis Kessler to talk at July ROCC meeting - Top
From all reports, the open format at June's meeting was very well received. Special thanks to Mark Frisk for leading the discussion (he promises to post a recap of the meeting very soon).
I was sorry to have missed June's meeting, but had the opportunity to attend this year's Convergence Forum in Providence, RI. A plug for the forum's sponsors, J. Robert Scott and Foley & Larder LLP, I have to say that this was one of the best life science conferences I've attended.
A terrific panel focusing on the impact of new technologies on the cost of healthcare with Charlie Baker, President and CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Paul Levy, President and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center was covered by Mass High Tech as well as a talk by Genzyme CEO Henri Termeer. On the funding side, my sense from the panel discussions and conversations with attendees was that even though capital raising (for both entrepreneurs as well as VCs) continues to be tough, and a lot more of investors' time is being spent with existing portfolio companies, new deals are still getting done. And although concerns about the exit environment are real, several of the investors I spoke with still seem to view this period as one of opportunity, as I do (it was also nice to see some venture backed IPOs in Q2 - hopefully a sign of good things to come).
For July's ROCC meeting, we will be joined by Dennis Kessler, an active local angel investor, executive professor of business administration at the William E. Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester, and co-owner of Kessler Restaurants, LLC, the largest Friendly's franchisee in the country. Dennis earned a Law Degree from Yale University, a Master's Degree from the City University of New York and a Bachelor's from John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York.
New media ideas abound at May meeting - Top
We had a great discussion at this month's ROCC meeting with special guest Peter Platt, VP of Online Media at Butler/Till. Peter covered a number of key topics, tools and trends in online advertising including the use of traditional banner ads and Google Ads, as well as Facebook and Twitter. He shared some sobering statistics about the short life of most widgets as well as blog readership (with the number of blog "writers" today exceeding the number of blog "readers"), and after some pushback regarding the true value of Twitter, Peter offered an example of a "good" business use of Twitter: a retail client who tweets about weekly specials to its niche followers/best customers.
ROCC members Cory Armbrecht, co-founder of Float, Steve Shapiro, founder of Digsby and ROCC organizer Mark Frisk also shared ideas and tactics they've used to generate new business, including leveraging national online PR/Media resources, CPA advertising, Twitter and viral tactics: making it easy for current users (customers) to recommend your company to friends.
As always, it was great to meet several new companies this month including Tenrehte, a fabless semiconductor company offering Wi-Fi system on a chip solutions and Jorsek, a software company providing solutions that allow users to edit and restructure their websites as easily as they edit a Word document.
Peter's parting words for us:"Understand your goals and audience before trying any new advertising or digital media tool". Thanks Peter for your time and terrific insight. Special thanks to Melissa Geska, founder, Fabunation, LLC and co-founder of ROCC, for referring Peter.
For more information on "good" uses of Twitter check out Business Week's recent article "Twitter: Building Businesses Tweet by Tweet", and for some additional stats on social media use, a recent presentation by Barry Hurd of 123SocialMedia.com provides some great info. Peter also posts some great information on the Butler/Till website.
Peter Platt, Butler/Till's VP of Online Media, to join ROCC in May. - Top
Peter Platt, Vice President of Online Media with Butler/Till, a full-service media planning and buying agency, will stop in for a talk during our May meeting. Peter has seen a lot of change in his 20+ years in the marketing and media industry (the last 16 of which have focused on internet marketing). When Peter first started working on Web projects in 1993, the Lycos search engine only listed about 150,000 Web pages in its directory.
In addition to his current role with Butler/Till, Peter has held prior positions with dockside.net, ICE Communications, Saatchi & Saatchi and Rumrill-Hoyt. His experience brings together a unique combination of account management, technology and strategic planning. Peter is committed to helping businesses realize the true value that the internet can provide to a company's bottom line. He cringes at some of the business models and plans that many former dot-com companies tried to implement in the past and will talk with ROCC members about what he believes are the best methods for leveraging the internet to maximize business and marketing objectives.
March recap & April meeting - Top
A great mix of entrepreneurs came out to our March 27 ROCC meeting including several new entrepreneurs with ties to RIT -- newDigs.com, Float and Barnaby, as well as several more experienced entrepreneurs (previous 'intrapreneurs') from Kodak, Carestream and Xerox.
We heard from Jennifer Sertl of Agility 3R, who coaches both entrepreneurs and corporate executives, and shared some words of wisdom on leadership. Jennifer's advice of not overacting to things that cannot be controlled, but staying focused and open to new opportunities during turbulent times seemed particularly relevant. Thanks Jen for joining us!
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On April 10, Will Hoy, partner at Harter Secrest & Emery LLP, will join us for a Q&A roundtable discussion.
Will is head of HSE's Private Equity and Venture Capital Group and represents both private equity and venture capital funds in all aspects of portfolio financing transactions, including portfolio company acquisitions, dispositions and recapitalizations, preferred equity structures, stockholder arrangements, and management employment and equity compensation arrangements. Will also represents a broad range of private and public clients in mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures and general corporate matters. Prior to joining HSE, Will represented both private and public clients with McDermott Will & Emery LLP in Chicago.
Will is making himself available to answer any and all questions, on financing, equity compensation, general corporate matters, etc., and yes, he promised 'the clock will be off'.
Thoughts on Angel investing - Top
Our February 27th meeting featured a lively discussion on angel financing with special guests Luda Kopeikina, President and CEO of Noventra Corporation and a member of Common Angels in Boston, and Ken Rosenfeld, Co-founder and President/CTO of eHealth Global. As a founder of several companies and an angel herself, Luda has experience on both sides of the angel funding equation. Ken and his co-founder successfully brought their company to cash-flow break-even with funding from individual angels.
Luda (who phoned in to the session from Florida) opened the session by outlining four key factors that angels look at when considering whether to invest in a company:
* Does the company and its product or service meet a demonstrated need or pain in the marketplace?
* Are its products or solutions sufficiently differentiated from what's in the market already?
* Is there a solid team in place?
* Exactly how does the company plan to make money?
Luda noted that angels are most likely to invest once a concept is proven. In the absence of any sales or customers, that can be a bit of a hurdle, which you can address by gathering evidence of how your company will fare in its market. "The more validation, the better. What can you anticipate? Put together a landing page. Demonstrate acceleration. You still might not have customers, but you've validated. You're moving away from assumptions. Figure out a way to get data for each of your parameters. Say to investors: 'I know it's a risk, but I know I can get there and here's how.'"
Ken remarked that risks are a key part of a memorandum. "Listing them forces you to think about them, and you'll be ready for questions."
As you consider seeking funding from angels, risks are just one (albeit important) thing to consider. Overall, it's critical to gauge how you'll get to where you need to go. How much money will you need. When? From whom? Can you get to cash flow positive from angels alone?
"I guarantee that the amount of money you need is going to be double what you think you need," said Ken. "Also, it's not just a function of money, but more of time. It will probably take twice as long as long as you think it will."
What should those seeking funding look for in an angel, and what steps can one take to ensure a successful relationship?
The best investors are those who understand your space and can provide connections. Ken considers his investors to be part of his company. He advises thinking carefully in advance about the type of relationship you'll have with your investors and always keeping good lines of communication open. That might mean creating a private website where progress reports and feedback can be shared.
As for finding those angels willing to invest in your company?
Tough economic conditions are leading everyone, including angel investors, to be more cautious, but there's always money, even in a downturn, and truly great ideas and promising technologies will always be attractive.
Angels, and their money, are out there. Finding them, and then convincing them to invest in your company, require solid homework and persistence. And you've got to get over the hurdle of asking for money, which gets easier the more often you do it.
Thanks to Luda, Ken, and everyone around the table for an informative session.
Techrigy, Inc. gets covered by TechCrunch - Top
Check out the recent Tech Crunch article on a fellow ROCC member hitting a major milestone: Techrigy Hits 1 Billion Conversations - Think Google Alerts on Steroids
Congrats to Aaron Newman & his team -- Nicely done!
February Angel Investment discussion to follow January's VC update - Top
We received a lot of positive feedback last month on the new format and venue for ROCC - thanks to everyone for coming out. We were joined by Steve Zamierowski, from Deloitte's Tech-Venture Center in Boston, who led an active discussion on what the funding environment is like for early stage companies. The general message seemed to be that money is still available for the best start-ups (even 1st rounds), but overall, we will likely see fewer deals completed in 2009. Les Fritzemeier, a ROCC member and CEO of Wakonda Technologies (in Rochester for the MIT Ignite Clean Energy Competition kick-off) also attended and stressed the importance of having a strong syndicate of investors, particularly given the current environment. The turn-out was great (standing room only) and the discussion and networking livelier than ever. Special thanks to Zam & Les for joining us!
On Friday February 27, Ken Rosenfeld, Co-Founder and President of eHealth Global and Luda Kopeikina (via teleconference), President and CEO of Noventra Corporation and a member of Common Angels in Boston, will share their views and first hand experience with angel funding. Ken and his co-founder Mike Margiotta successfully capitalized their company by raising enough from individual angels to fund their company for its first two years of operations through to cash flow break-even. Luda has sat on both sides of the table, having founded several companies and also as a member of Common Angels in Boston. She is also a published writer and a prominent business speaker on topics of innovation, entrepreneurship, clear business decision making and leadership. If you've ever wondered how to successfully raise angel financing or the pros and cons of raising money from individuals directly or through an organized angel network, this will be a great opportunity to learn more. Of course there will be general networking, as always, before and after the discussion.
Upcoming ROCC meetings: Friday February 27, March 27, April 10, May 8 and June 12. Meetings will be held from 8:30am-10:00am at the Bagel Bin Café. Future dates to be announced.
Featured Speaker coming to ROCC - Top
This month we're kicking off a new format for our monthly ROCC meetings, inviting a guest (or ROCC member) to talk on a topic of interest at the start of our meeting, in addition to our normal networking.
On Friday, January 23, Steve Zamierowski (better known as "Zam"), a member of Deloitte's technology and life sciences practice and director of Deloitte's Tech-Venture Center in Boston, will join us from 8:30am - 10:00am at the Bagel Bin Cafe in Brighton for 30 minutes of Q&A with ROCC members, followed by general networking.
Zam will be in Rochester presenting "The State of the Venture Capital Industry" at MIT's Ignite Clean Energy kick-off event, being held from 5:30pm-7:30pm on Thursday, January 22 at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester (more info here), and has agreed to stop by and share his perspectives with ROCC entrepreneurs. Thanks Zam!
Hope to see you this Friday. If there are certain topics or speakers that are of interest for future meetings, please let us know...