Startup Whisperer

Progress On Startup Survivor

We were following 4 companies on the Startup Whisperer^TM through their fundraising process late Q4 of last year.   While I wont reveal who these companies are since I promised that they would be anonymous, I wanted to update the readership on what their respective progress has been over these many months.

Of the companies that we followed:

• Angel-backed company  - raised enough angel dollars to launch their service into beta.
• Series A company - one company merged with another in order to combine efforts in order to make a stronger business.  There is a previous post on Seattle 2.0 about the thinking behind this strategy.
• Series A company - did not close an additional round and there status is unknown but they are still alive and fighting hard.
• Series B company - raised a small inside round that will extend their runway another year.

Hard work, passion, and determination continue to be the elements that continue fuel startups and these companies.  The sentiment right now is that the worst is over (from a fundraising perspective and economy perspective) and these business leaders are optimistic about their chances.  Entrepreneurs are always optimistic but I am personally optimistic that no one has been voted off the proverbial island as we have traversed through one of the toughest economic climates of our time

John Cook Is Seattle's Simon Cowell

I just got back from the WTIA's Fast Pitch Investment Forum.  I presented in the morning along with 20+ other Seattle companies including AdReady, LiquidPlanner, Whitepages, etc.  I took some of my own advice per this previous post from the Startup Whisperer^TM. 

I felt like I did an ok job but TechFlash's John Cook gave me a 5 out of ten.   In his post he mentioned that he was chanelling Americon Idol's Simon Cowell.  Damn, I hope it wasn't my song choice.

Early Launch Results

I just did a post on the AdXpose blog about some of the performance results on the technology.  Really interesting insights:
 
•    Between 20% to 40% of ad impressions are not “InView”, meaning although the ad network recorded an impression, the creative was below the fold and was never viewed by the site visitor
•    Between 30% to 65% of ad impressions are “passed down” to the respective ad network’s distribution partners versus direct distribution to the network’s direct publishers.
•    160x600, 300x600, and 300x250 creative sizes are yielding the highest creative engagement, in spite of lower-than-average above-the-fold placement.
•    728x90 placements with a higher than average above-the-fold placement rate have lower creative engagement that 300x250 and the 160/300x600 creative sizes

This is one of those rare products that customer really just love.  I have been talking about this launch and thus far it (AdXpose) has been one of the more exciting launches that I've done in awhile.

Coaching Tball Is Like Running A Startup

Greg Huang of Xconomy and I were talking recently about how baseball, coaching, etc.  Greg's blog post is really fun to read.

Kick Your Product In the Assumptions

One of the things that I like to see in product development process is the establishment of product principles.  If you have a formal product requirements document or whether your technical specifications include this type of information, I really find it useful to have a strong principle point of view at the start of the project.  I often find that its a fantastic way to keep both the business and technical teams honest.

I always likened it to hypothesis testing in market research.  You state an opinion that is either proved or disproved once you look at your data.  I am always surprised when you have to re-read
your principles in order to reflect on whether you are building things to the objective of the project or not. 

Having a list of 10-15 principles that are important to a product or project are extremely useful.  What typically happens is that new feedback is introduced into the process from outside forces (customer feedback, competitive insight, etc) and you are forced to address your core principles.  Or you are subject to the internal pressures where new functionality is being introduce (aka feature creep).  The principles act as a statement of truth.  They can certainly be changed but the leaders on the project should introduce a formal product review if a change is required since the business owner and technical leads should have already signed off on the project.

So, what should be in the list? 

• Accuracy - how accurate is too much or too little?  How can this be measured and what does the market need or how much will it bear?

• Performance - how fast is fast?  Do you have a speed capability that is important to exploit versus your competition?  Is there an ROI return for performance for your competitors?

• Business model - are there aspects to your business that make you have a unnatural competitive advantage versus your competition?  Are there aspects to your business that make your customers more efficient or deliver dollars?

• Breadth - are there benefits to having your product everywhere meaning supporting lots of different types of systems or do you have significant market share that you can exploit?  My favorite example is how Larry Ellison back in the golden age of the industry highlighted "open systems" as key differentiator for his Oracle software versus the proprietary (yet market leader) DB2.

• Scale - are there specific things that you need to develop that requires to process, stream. display or whatever across vast scale?  If so, be specific and be able to explain what are the specific metrics for the scale that you are trying to achieve?

• Stability - we all know about this issue from the consistent downtime with Twitter.  It is clearly not super important with that company.  But, a B2B company is a different matter - downtime means loss of revenue. 

There are a bunch of other things that could go on the list.  I loved economics in college and one of my professors use to say, "the first thing you do with an economist is to kick <him> in the assumptions."  Your principles are you statement of truth.  Be thoughtful about them and be specific.  Go ahead and kick your product in the assumptions.

Picnik is the Startup Slumdog Millionaire

Marcelo Calbucci deserves a ton of credit for the Seattle 2.0 Awards that just commenced tonight.  I must say that it was one of the best awards ceremonies that I have seen in Seattle.  The event was sold out and the entrepreneurial spirit was in the air.  I left the event with so much energy that I was ready to go on a long run with all of my excess endorphins.

Marcelo's vision has been to make Seattle a viable alternative to Silicon Valley.  Right from the start you felt the energy.  Glenn Kelman of Redfin fame absolutely killed it.  His speech on entrepreneurship was stirring and inspiring. 

Picnik was clearly the "Academy's" favorite tonight earning 4 awards for best startup, best boot strapped startup, best startup CEO, and best startup product designer.  Congrats to all of the nominees and the winners

Chasing Windmills

Check out my latest post on Seattle 2.0 titled, Is This Seattle Entrepreneur Edison or Don Quixote?