A Vision for North Carolina: The Nation’s Leading State in Entrepreneurship
February 26, 2007
I will be speaking tomorrow at North Carolina’s second annual Entrepreneurship Summit at the North Raleigh Hilton as part of EntrepreneurshipWeek USA. It has been put together by NC Rural. At the dinner reception tonight they announced they expect around 600 attendees including Erskine Bowles, Congressman David Price, President of the NC Senate Marc Basnight, and Speaker of the NC House Joe Hackney.
Here is the description of the purpose of the event:
As the 21st century opened, North Carolina stood at a crossroads. Agriculture and traditional manufacturing, two major economic sectors, were experiencing serious pressures, and even the new economy
The Fischbowl: School 2.0
February 22, 2007
I ran into the source of that Did you Know video on YouTube from the last post.
It’s from a teacher in Minnesta by the name of Karl Fisch who had put together the presentation for his high school class at Arapahoe High to prepare his students for living in the future.
Check out this blog “Dangerously Irrelevent” that provides information on his presentations as well as chronicles the efforts to revolutionize the curricula in our high schools and colleges through what they’re calling School 2.0.
It’s great to see people who are passionate about education policy.
If MySpace Were a Country
February 22, 2007
I just ran across a mind-expanding short video highlighting some of the changes that are taking place in our world today. Sort of like the YouTube version of Tom Friedman…
Some facts from the video:
- If MySpace were a country it would be the 11th Largest in the World.
- The number of text messages sent in one day exceeds the world population
- China will soon become the number one English-speaking country in the world
- 1 out of 4 workers in the U.S. have been employed at their current job for less than 1 year
- The U.S. is 20th in Broadband penetration
- There are 2.7 billion searches per day performed on Google
You can Watch the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbI-363A2Q.
Radio: Marketing Your Business Through Email
February 20, 2007
The interview I did a couple weeks ago with Startup Nation on Marketing Your Business Through Email is now up on their site at http://www.startupnation.com/pages/radio/RD-February-17-2007.asp
Life These Days
February 9, 2007
Today was a day that truly captured life these days…Starting at midnight.
- 12am - Got back from UNC vs. Duke game (go Heels)
- 12am to 1am - Worked on emails from office
- 1am to 3am - Prepared for Company-wide meeting at home
- 3am to 9am - Sleep
- 9:30am to 12pm - Partner meeting with CEO and SVP of Business Development of a large email marketing firm
- 12pm to 4pm - Preparation for Company Wide Meeting, Planning for AeA Venture conference, Sending in Venture 2007 App and 40 Under 40 Nomination
- 4pm to 5pm - Company-wide meeting, presentation of new mission statement, brand transition process, strategy update to team, introduction of David Kiel, and overview of upcoming Broadwick Day
- 5pm to 6pm - Discussion with Brandon about marketing, discussion with David about sales team structure and organizational behavior, discussion with Amber about support
- 6pm to 10pm - Review of Company Survey, Compiling of Results, Editing Billing Review Sheet
- 9:30pm to 10pm - Checking of unheard voicemails, Setting up Director of HR interviews
- 10pm to 11pm - Catching up on email, only 206 unreads left.
- 11pm - Blogging and chatting with Jani-King cleaners
- 12:14am - Going home
29 emails sent, 68 emails received, 3 lunches scheduled, 3 facebook messages replied to, 9 missed calls, 8 taken calls, 6 placed calls, 44 new IntelliContact clients, 24 voicemails checked, $5526 in new sales, 4 games of Bubble Breaker played, and 8 pretzels, 4 pieces of cold pizza, 1 bag of sunchips, 1 pack of Emergen-C Vitamin C fizzing drink mix, and 2 tylenol eaten.
Gotta love the game.
VC Kickoff: Round 2
February 8, 2007
At Broadwick we announced last week at the SEVC conference that we’ll be seeking additional venture funding later on this year. We’re seriously considering raising additional funds from our current investor partner NC IDEA, who has been absolutely tremendous to us, and are also considering adding a second investor partner into the mix.
After the SEVC presentation, investors seem to be beating down our door. This week I chatted with:
- Eddie from OCA Ventures (Chicago)
- Adam from New World Ventures (Chicago)
- Gene from Valhalla (Vienna, VA)
- Mike from WWC Capital (Reston, VA)
- Michael from Frontier Capital (Charlotte)
- Dahlia from Edison Ventures (New Jersey)
- Cyrus from Kayne Anderson (Los Angeles)
- JP from Summit Parnters (Boston)
- Daniel from JMI Equity (Baltimore)
- Jon from Antares Capital (Miami)
- Phil, Jim, and Noah from Investor Growth Capital (Menlo Park)
It’s great to be able to compare and contrast the different firms and be able to start to build some investor relationships in addition to our existing relationships in North Carolina with NC IDEA, Southern Cap, Aurora, Wakefield, and Intersouth. The main differences in the firms I spoke with this week were how much firms like to invest initially (ranged from $1 million to $10 million on the above list), how much the firms like to invest over the lifetime of an investment (ranged from $2 million to $25 million on the above list), and whether they considered themselves as early stage venture investors or growth stage investors looking to provide expansion capital. The other critical aspect we are looking at in whether the firm has domain expertise in the software, SaaS, online communications, or web 2.0 spaces. At this point we’re building relationships and getting to know many different firms, and will go forward more seriously with the process starting in 4-6 weeks looking at a end of Q2 round-close timeframe. We’re currently seeking a round of $4 million, but that may change as we explore the options available to us and the quality of the firms in the mix.
Sequoia’s Web Site
February 8, 2007
I just wanted to say props to well-known VC firm Sequoia (funders of Apple, Flextronics, Yahoo, Google, YouTube) for their beautiful website. I’d like to nominate it for one of the most creative and aesthetically pleasing VC sites I’ve ever.
Entrepreneurial Spirit: Keys to Success - from Young Entrepreneur’s Perspective
February 7, 2007
An interview with me was in the newsletter of theCouncil for Entrepreneurial Developmenttoday done in conjunction with WRAL Local Tech Wire. The full interview is available at http://localtechwire.com/business/local_tech_wire/opinion/story/1182282
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