You guys have built a game engine, is that right?
Yes, we built the Bluepoint Engine which targets next generation consoles.
What is the capital for game engines on average?
Building a game engine from scratch is expensive. A high-end game engine takes tens of programmer-years to build and can cost millions of dollars to develop and test, and you won’t know how well it will work until after you’ve sunk all that time and money into it. This is why so many game developers license the technology from third parties. A lot depends on the platform; it’s easier to build an engine for a well-understood platform like a PC than for a next generation console such as the PS3.
So what market are you going after with your game engine?
Our engine is targeted towards high-end console developers. We built the Bluepoint Engine with two overriding design principles in mind. First, we designed it to produce high-performance games. This means that developers can use the Bluepoint Engine to develop games with better graphics, more features and more interesting game play.
Our second design principle was to develop a product that significantly accelerates game development. Our team has decades of combined experience developing game engines, so we have some pretty clear insight as to how to accomplish this. One way our game engine accelerates development is by allowing designers the ability to perform tasks normally only assigned to programmers. So, for example, changing game mechanics generally requires programmer time (which in some cases can mean days of extra work). But developers who use the Bluepoint Engine can tweak game mechanics with a few mouse clicks. When you consider just how much tweaking goes on when you’re building a game, you start to appreciate the benefit of our approach. Now, you’ll never eliminate the need for programmers, but there are a lot of tasks currently performed by programmers that can be done faster and cheaper by designers. Another example of how our game engine helps speed-up development is by giving artists tools they need, like an interactive shader editor. This allows artists to create assets faster and cheaper.
What tools do the artists have, is it like a Photoshop type of tool or a graphics tool…?
Most game studios use one of the Autodesk products. Our engine is tightly integrated with Autodesk Maya, which is a product familiar to most artists.
What’s the status of your engine, when do you think you might release your final version?
We have a beta version right now that is substantially complete, it’s been tested and three products have been built and shipped using this version of the engine. In fact the first downloadable game available in the U.S. for the PS3 was built entirely with the Bluepoint Engine.
We have several licensees who are building some very interesting game prototypes with our engine. To give you an idea of how flexible the Bluepoint Engine is, it’s been used to develop various game prototypes including a third person action/adventure game, a side scrolling 2½d shooter game, a racing game and a rhythm action platform game.
Right now the engine can be used to create games for the PS3 and the PC. We’re planning on having Xbox 360 and Wii versions by the end of the fourth quarter of ’08. Our first fully commercial version will be ready sometime in the first quarter of ’09.
Best regards,
Hall T.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
Welcome Back – Upcoming Events for Angel Investors for Fall 2008
Now that summer is nearing its end and people are making their way back to Austin, I would like to highlight a few upcoming events for the angel investor and entrepreneur. Listed chronologically, we have the following:
TIE Austin Funding Event – September 9th which highlights funding for startup companies in the expansion phase.
ATI Wireless Funding Forum -- October 14 which showcases wireless companies seeking funding.
Open4Business Conference – November 11th provides entrepreneur education for those starting up new businesses.
SxSW—“So You Want to be an Angel” session will run at SxSW Interactive in the spring, but please vote for this event here.
There are a number of conferences outside Austin you may want to take note of below.
Inc 5000 Conference
September 18-20, 2008
Washington, DC
Inc Magazine assembles the best of America's business leaders, experts, and entrepreneurs for three days of learning, networking, and celebrating with a community of peers. ACA members and friends may receive a $495 discount off of the non-member price (for a total fee of $1,400). Information and registration is available at www.inc500conference.com.
AdvaMed 2008
September 21-24, 2008
Washington, DC
This conference is the premier medical technology event for partnering, business development, and collaboration opportunities, with strong education programs on a variety of life science issues. Conference details and registration is at www.advamed2008.com.
9th Annual Early Stage Venture Conference
October 22, 2008
San Francisco, CA
Given current economic times, this conference is important to help early-stage investors identify strategies to support viable companies and getting companies to next funding rounds and exits. A panel on the Growing Importance of Angel Investors is on the agenda. More information is available here.
Best regards,
Hall T.
TIE Austin Funding Event – September 9th which highlights funding for startup companies in the expansion phase.
ATI Wireless Funding Forum -- October 14 which showcases wireless companies seeking funding.
Open4Business Conference – November 11th provides entrepreneur education for those starting up new businesses.
SxSW—“So You Want to be an Angel” session will run at SxSW Interactive in the spring, but please vote for this event here.
There are a number of conferences outside Austin you may want to take note of below.
Inc 5000 Conference
September 18-20, 2008
Washington, DC
Inc Magazine assembles the best of America's business leaders, experts, and entrepreneurs for three days of learning, networking, and celebrating with a community of peers. ACA members and friends may receive a $495 discount off of the non-member price (for a total fee of $1,400). Information and registration is available at www.inc500conference.com.
AdvaMed 2008
September 21-24, 2008
Washington, DC
This conference is the premier medical technology event for partnering, business development, and collaboration opportunities, with strong education programs on a variety of life science issues. Conference details and registration is at www.advamed2008.com.
9th Annual Early Stage Venture Conference
October 22, 2008
San Francisco, CA
Given current economic times, this conference is important to help early-stage investors identify strategies to support viable companies and getting companies to next funding rounds and exits. A panel on the Growing Importance of Angel Investors is on the agenda. More information is available here.
Best regards,
Hall T.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Chris McKinzie of Fluid Innovation Talks about Managing Intangibles
Chris McKinzie of Fluid Innovation Innovation talks about Managing Intangibles such as IP, the challenge universities face in promoting their IP, and the first Open Innovation Industry Forum
What does Fluid Innovation do?
It’s about open innovation. Today’s economy is driven by intangibles such as patents, brands, systems, etc. For instance, Boeing’s value is not its airplanes, but its systems to design planes and its supply chain process for bringing it all together. No longer is its value on the balance sheet. Companies want to do a better job at managing those intangibles. So how does one capture, organize, and manage the value of such technology? We have a software system that does that, the Fluid Licensing System (FLS)
Do you have an example of it in action?
We are working with a major F100 firm on what’s called the IPZone. It’s a concept for transacting and collaborating on innovation and commercialization. We need a collaborate environment for doing that. It’s based in upper Manhattan, near Colombia. It’s part of an economic revitalization effort. We’ve taken our FLS solution and applied it as the collaborative platform for this project.
It sounds like technology transfer at the university level. Is it the same?
The university market is tough. We worked with Texas A&M, Columbia, and other universities. We want to do more than just build software. We want to foster commercialization, but to do that in the University segment we would have to assume more risk and actually license the IP and then turn around and relicense it. There’s a company called UTEK that does that. They go to the government labs and universities and license the technology and then resell it.
We’re trying to create a market for these technologies which requires us to bring the buyers into the equation. It takes more than just creating a website.
How do you approach this?
First you have to identify the buyers. If you initially focus on one type of technology such as software there’s an identifiable and manageable list of target companies. We found they want us to aggregate the opportunities and present them together in one format. We also found that the universities and companies whether it be UT, Texas A&M, American Express or whoever, all describe their technologies differently and when they do it’s a very technical description, this is very confusing for potential commercialization partners.
What’s your next step?
On September 8, 2008, we’re holding an Open Innovation Industry Forum in Chicago which includes Lockheed, GE, Microsoft, and American Express. We plan to sit down and discuss how we can improve the transaction process and asset merchandising – standardization on how to describe these technologies. Technology commercialization happens all the time but it’s not efficient and there is no central aggregation of the deal news.
How do people find out about Open Innovation and the resulting commercialization deals?
Part of what we’re planning to do with the IPZone is to begin publishing aggregated deal news about transactions on one of our domains, IPWire.
What other intangible assets are there?
Of course patents but there is also Trade Secrets, Know-how, Copyrights and Trademarks, for example, brand names such as those licensed by Major League Baseball is a big business. We’re actually evaluating the possibility of expanding our Fluid Licensing System offering to include capabilities for tracking royalty obligations.
Best regards,
Hall T.
What does Fluid Innovation do?
It’s about open innovation. Today’s economy is driven by intangibles such as patents, brands, systems, etc. For instance, Boeing’s value is not its airplanes, but its systems to design planes and its supply chain process for bringing it all together. No longer is its value on the balance sheet. Companies want to do a better job at managing those intangibles. So how does one capture, organize, and manage the value of such technology? We have a software system that does that, the Fluid Licensing System (FLS)
Do you have an example of it in action?
We are working with a major F100 firm on what’s called the IPZone. It’s a concept for transacting and collaborating on innovation and commercialization. We need a collaborate environment for doing that. It’s based in upper Manhattan, near Colombia. It’s part of an economic revitalization effort. We’ve taken our FLS solution and applied it as the collaborative platform for this project.
It sounds like technology transfer at the university level. Is it the same?
The university market is tough. We worked with Texas A&M, Columbia, and other universities. We want to do more than just build software. We want to foster commercialization, but to do that in the University segment we would have to assume more risk and actually license the IP and then turn around and relicense it. There’s a company called UTEK that does that. They go to the government labs and universities and license the technology and then resell it.
We’re trying to create a market for these technologies which requires us to bring the buyers into the equation. It takes more than just creating a website.
How do you approach this?
First you have to identify the buyers. If you initially focus on one type of technology such as software there’s an identifiable and manageable list of target companies. We found they want us to aggregate the opportunities and present them together in one format. We also found that the universities and companies whether it be UT, Texas A&M, American Express or whoever, all describe their technologies differently and when they do it’s a very technical description, this is very confusing for potential commercialization partners.
What’s your next step?
On September 8, 2008, we’re holding an Open Innovation Industry Forum in Chicago which includes Lockheed, GE, Microsoft, and American Express. We plan to sit down and discuss how we can improve the transaction process and asset merchandising – standardization on how to describe these technologies. Technology commercialization happens all the time but it’s not efficient and there is no central aggregation of the deal news.
How do people find out about Open Innovation and the resulting commercialization deals?
Part of what we’re planning to do with the IPZone is to begin publishing aggregated deal news about transactions on one of our domains, IPWire.
What other intangible assets are there?
Of course patents but there is also Trade Secrets, Know-how, Copyrights and Trademarks, for example, brand names such as those licensed by Major League Baseball is a big business. We’re actually evaluating the possibility of expanding our Fluid Licensing System offering to include capabilities for tracking royalty obligations.
Best regards,
Hall T.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Jeremy Bencken of Apartment Ratings talks about Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Jeremey Bencken of ApartmentRatings.com talks about Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
What do you see as a need in the local startup business?
I think we need more focus on SEO and PR early. I often see business plans with a line item for SEO and PR, assuming these things start after the product is launched. But from experience, when you start doing it, it’s turns out to be a lot more complex than you thought. You can outsource it but it’s expensive and it takes a long time to yield results. There are things you can do as an entrepreneur to lay the groundwork for initiatives to work more effectively.
What are some examples?
The way you design your website or start participating with relevant blogs early and build a reputation. And you can start monitoring the news and build a media list well ahead of your launch. The worst way is to wait till the product is ready to launch and then start working on building blogger interest.
Obviously time devoted to SEO and PR takes time from other product features, but it’s one of only a few things you can do where the cost is low, the return is huge, and the longer you take to start, the longer it takes to start working and the more it will cost when you do.
What is an example?
When we initially launched Apartment Ratings, we had a URL structure that was very long and search-engine unfriendly (our URL’s gave the appearance that we had a 25-level deep directory structure). And fixing it required significant work. I’ve seen a lot of new web-based companies make this mistake. Developers who aren’t aware of SEO implications sidestep the extra work required to make keyword-rich URLs that are grouped into meaningful directories, maintain consistent internal links, and maintain a single URL for the same page content. It might take an extra day or two to implement early on, but once you’ve launched, you could devote several months to migrating a site to pretty URLs and you have to keep track of the mapping between the two.
What’s the key factor in online marketing?
Conversion rate is the name of the game. If you can get that number higher, your cost of acquisition goes lower….and your margins are fatter or you can outspend your competitors to win more advertising placements, affiliates, bizdev deals, etc.
What’s your next project?
My next venture, BuzzStream, will launch in Fall 08 and is designed to help companies accelerate their media and SEO relationship-building efforts. I have a blog at PR4Pirates.
Best regards,
Hall T.
What do you see as a need in the local startup business?
I think we need more focus on SEO and PR early. I often see business plans with a line item for SEO and PR, assuming these things start after the product is launched. But from experience, when you start doing it, it’s turns out to be a lot more complex than you thought. You can outsource it but it’s expensive and it takes a long time to yield results. There are things you can do as an entrepreneur to lay the groundwork for initiatives to work more effectively.
What are some examples?
The way you design your website or start participating with relevant blogs early and build a reputation. And you can start monitoring the news and build a media list well ahead of your launch. The worst way is to wait till the product is ready to launch and then start working on building blogger interest.
Obviously time devoted to SEO and PR takes time from other product features, but it’s one of only a few things you can do where the cost is low, the return is huge, and the longer you take to start, the longer it takes to start working and the more it will cost when you do.
What is an example?
When we initially launched Apartment Ratings, we had a URL structure that was very long and search-engine unfriendly (our URL’s gave the appearance that we had a 25-level deep directory structure). And fixing it required significant work. I’ve seen a lot of new web-based companies make this mistake. Developers who aren’t aware of SEO implications sidestep the extra work required to make keyword-rich URLs that are grouped into meaningful directories, maintain consistent internal links, and maintain a single URL for the same page content. It might take an extra day or two to implement early on, but once you’ve launched, you could devote several months to migrating a site to pretty URLs and you have to keep track of the mapping between the two.
What’s the key factor in online marketing?
Conversion rate is the name of the game. If you can get that number higher, your cost of acquisition goes lower….and your margins are fatter or you can outspend your competitors to win more advertising placements, affiliates, bizdev deals, etc.
What’s your next project?
My next venture, BuzzStream, will launch in Fall 08 and is designed to help companies accelerate their media and SEO relationship-building efforts. I have a blog at PR4Pirates.
Best regards,
Hall T.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
John Metcalf of Startup District talks about creating a community for entrepreneurs in Austin
John Metcalf of Startup District talks about creating a community for entrepreneurs in Austin
What is your background?
I grew up in San Antonio. I was homeschooled. I've been getting in trouble on the Internet since AOL days.
I came to UT in 2002 as an undergrad. I was excited about Austin being a startup city but when I was at UT I didn’t really feel like it was a part of a startup community. About halfway through school I started working with a Silicon Valley company called Radar.net. They were angel funded by Joi Ito and Reid Hoffman and later found funding with MDV & DFJ. When they asked me what I'd be up to after graduation, I told them and everyone else I didn't want a job. I wanted to startup in Austin. I prefer to work for myself.
What is the Startup District?
To bring startups and people with a startup-mentality in proximity -- concentrating us.
While I was in school I kept looking for the tech community I thought was here. I went to all the tech events I could and while there was a community there, it wasn’t the same kind as I found in Silicon Valley. The people I met were talking about different things. I finally found a glimpse of what I was looking for when Dusty Reagan started a Jelly in Austin.
What is a Jelly?
It’s a concept that started a year and a half ago in New York, where some independent folks used a wiki to organize their meet ups in coffee shops so they could work together as a group. It's called a Jelly because they came up with the idea while eating Jelly Beans. The idea is to co-locate entrepreneurs or freelancers so they can work, collaborate, and learn from each other. Austin was one of the first cities to have an extension of that. There’s one that meets every Friday at Café Caffeine on South Congress. At these Jellys, I found a good group of young, progressive entrepreneurs.
So how is the Startup District going?
We've place an anchor.
The group I met at Jelly, Dusty Reagan, David Walker, Cesar Torres, and I realized after a couple weeks of Jellying that this was something special, and we could benefit from this type of environment everyday.
With the community's support, the four of us opened a coworking space called Conjunctured on East 7th.
How much does a membership cost?
There are three levels. The top level is $425/month and gives the member unlimited access. Then there are lower levels at $325 and $125 per month.
The people who join are interested in working around other people.
How did you come up with the name for this?
My friend Dane Hurtubise said “Startup District” first. We were talking about Austin's Warehouse District. Dane said "what Austin needs is a district for startups, not clubs."
Why did you start it?
I felt the type of talent in Austin that would thrive in a startup was leaving town for one of the coasts or going to work for a large company. UT is breeding people to enter into the corporate work force. There needs to be an alternative place for these people to go work.
What is your goal for the Startup District?
To build a community of entrepreneurs who build startup companies and eventually, they could act as an incubator for future startups. In addition, the city could recognize it as an economic zone as an incentive for startups to stay here.
It sounds a little like a YCombinator program. How does the Startup District compare?
I had the opportunity to join Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston at YCombinator in Cambridge last week for dinner.
I think we need to build the community first and then we can start a program similar to YCombinator or TechStars.
Best regards,
Hall T.
What is your background?
I grew up in San Antonio. I was homeschooled. I've been getting in trouble on the Internet since AOL days.
I came to UT in 2002 as an undergrad. I was excited about Austin being a startup city but when I was at UT I didn’t really feel like it was a part of a startup community. About halfway through school I started working with a Silicon Valley company called Radar.net. They were angel funded by Joi Ito and Reid Hoffman and later found funding with MDV & DFJ. When they asked me what I'd be up to after graduation, I told them and everyone else I didn't want a job. I wanted to startup in Austin. I prefer to work for myself.
What is the Startup District?
To bring startups and people with a startup-mentality in proximity -- concentrating us.
While I was in school I kept looking for the tech community I thought was here. I went to all the tech events I could and while there was a community there, it wasn’t the same kind as I found in Silicon Valley. The people I met were talking about different things. I finally found a glimpse of what I was looking for when Dusty Reagan started a Jelly in Austin.
What is a Jelly?
It’s a concept that started a year and a half ago in New York, where some independent folks used a wiki to organize their meet ups in coffee shops so they could work together as a group. It's called a Jelly because they came up with the idea while eating Jelly Beans. The idea is to co-locate entrepreneurs or freelancers so they can work, collaborate, and learn from each other. Austin was one of the first cities to have an extension of that. There’s one that meets every Friday at Café Caffeine on South Congress. At these Jellys, I found a good group of young, progressive entrepreneurs.
So how is the Startup District going?
We've place an anchor.
The group I met at Jelly, Dusty Reagan, David Walker, Cesar Torres, and I realized after a couple weeks of Jellying that this was something special, and we could benefit from this type of environment everyday.
With the community's support, the four of us opened a coworking space called Conjunctured on East 7th.
How much does a membership cost?
There are three levels. The top level is $425/month and gives the member unlimited access. Then there are lower levels at $325 and $125 per month.
The people who join are interested in working around other people.
How did you come up with the name for this?
My friend Dane Hurtubise said “Startup District” first. We were talking about Austin's Warehouse District. Dane said "what Austin needs is a district for startups, not clubs."
Why did you start it?
I felt the type of talent in Austin that would thrive in a startup was leaving town for one of the coasts or going to work for a large company. UT is breeding people to enter into the corporate work force. There needs to be an alternative place for these people to go work.
What is your goal for the Startup District?
To build a community of entrepreneurs who build startup companies and eventually, they could act as an incubator for future startups. In addition, the city could recognize it as an economic zone as an incentive for startups to stay here.
It sounds a little like a YCombinator program. How does the Startup District compare?
I had the opportunity to join Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston at YCombinator in Cambridge last week for dinner.
I think we need to build the community first and then we can start a program similar to YCombinator or TechStars.
Best regards,
Hall T.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Jonas Lamis of Scivestor talks about New Application Areas of Moore’s Law.
Jonas Lamis of SciVestor talks about new application areas of Moore’s Law, the coming of the Semantic Web, and a startup workspace called Tech Ranch Austin.
What is your background?
I come from the enterprise software arena. Back when I started you could put your arms around what is software. Today it’s much more diverse. I helped launch three Austin Ventures backed software companies. The first was called Ventix that was an enterprise software knowledge management play. When Ventix was acquired by Motive, we spun out Question.com that was also acquired, and most recently I spent six years growing Troux Technologies. A year ago I left Troux and started SciVestor to create research into new technology areas that are going to change the world.
I see you have artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and robotics as target areas for your company which provides research. Why did you pick those areas?
If you look at Moore’s law with exponential growth curves, it applies to those areas just as it did software. We’re at a point now that there’s so much processing power available that the second wave of industries will start to take advantage of it. Robotics is starting to see significant returns in medical applications and more. The power that Moore’s law brought to the software industry will now amplify these other areas. While software changed the way we lived, these other areas have the potential of making an even more dramatic change to the way society operations in the decades ahead.
How did you get into these areas?
Ray Kurzweil’s writings were very influential to me. The book called The Singularity Is Near encouraged me to look at these new technologies. That led me to the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence in the Bay area which is a non-profit where I serve as the Director of Partnerships. The Semantic Web space is very interesting because it will lead to the next generation of artificial intelligence.
What is the Semantic Web space about?
It’s about understanding who I am, my context, and what I want to accomplish and using that information and the Internet to deliver results. It could use my speech, gestures, or whatever I offer to help determine what I want. The Semantic Web space is a precursor to the next generation artificial intelligence effort. As an example, Microsoft recently acquired virtually unheard of Powerset for $100 Million – an emerging semantic technology company. They developed a search engine that would parse through Wikipedia and be able to answer questions like, “Which Presidents died in office?” Semantically it would start to understand what you are talking about and give you answers.
What do you think about nanotechnology?
There are again fundamental underlying technologies that will be powerful in the decades ahead. Moore’s law, that exponential growth, sneaks up on you and you don’t know it’s coming for a while and then it pops up. Nanotechnology is coming but is still below the radar.
What about robotics?
One area I’m interested in is the autonomous vehicle space. It’s come a long way in a short amount of time. In the first DARPA Grand Challenge in 2005 – a competition for demonstrating autonomous vehicles hosted by the Department of Defense, the first competition, the lead vehicle only went 11 miles in the 100 mile race. In the 2006 event, 22 of the teams got further than the lead vehicle from the competition a year and a half before. I recently gave a presentation at the Robobusiness Conference on the topic. It’s a pretty interesting space for me because it’s been a sleepy space for so many years with manufacturing robots and now with the emergence of iRobot--the vacuum cleaner, and the use of robots in the military for autonomous vehicles, and the use of robots in the healthcare space. There’s a good chance that a decade from now most people will have some kind of robot in their house providing value for them.
My wife wants an iRobot. I didn’t think she would go for it.
Our Robot Central blog has done some research on the anthropomorphism of people taking the iRobot and dressing them, taking them with them on vacation, and more. One guy would clean the room first before turning on the iRobot because he didn’t want it to work too hard.
What other trends do you see emerging?
Locally here in Austin, I’ve noticed that there are so many groups forming around different technologies. Meetups if you will. For example, I was at a meeting of Semantic Web that came together through Twitter spontaneously. I find these groups want to socialize and share information. I now see people wanting to share workspaces to collaborate, bounce ideas off each other and have a physical business social network. I have an idea called Tech Ranch Austin that is part co-working space and part technology incubator space. I have companies that want office space but not at A-grade real estate prices. Right now, I’m identifying several anchor tenants. My ultimate goal is to have a space here in Austin for every technology group to share ideas and work together.
Best regards,
Hall T.
What is your background?
I come from the enterprise software arena. Back when I started you could put your arms around what is software. Today it’s much more diverse. I helped launch three Austin Ventures backed software companies. The first was called Ventix that was an enterprise software knowledge management play. When Ventix was acquired by Motive, we spun out Question.com that was also acquired, and most recently I spent six years growing Troux Technologies. A year ago I left Troux and started SciVestor to create research into new technology areas that are going to change the world.
I see you have artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and robotics as target areas for your company which provides research. Why did you pick those areas?
If you look at Moore’s law with exponential growth curves, it applies to those areas just as it did software. We’re at a point now that there’s so much processing power available that the second wave of industries will start to take advantage of it. Robotics is starting to see significant returns in medical applications and more. The power that Moore’s law brought to the software industry will now amplify these other areas. While software changed the way we lived, these other areas have the potential of making an even more dramatic change to the way society operations in the decades ahead.
How did you get into these areas?
Ray Kurzweil’s writings were very influential to me. The book called The Singularity Is Near encouraged me to look at these new technologies. That led me to the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence in the Bay area which is a non-profit where I serve as the Director of Partnerships. The Semantic Web space is very interesting because it will lead to the next generation of artificial intelligence.
What is the Semantic Web space about?
It’s about understanding who I am, my context, and what I want to accomplish and using that information and the Internet to deliver results. It could use my speech, gestures, or whatever I offer to help determine what I want. The Semantic Web space is a precursor to the next generation artificial intelligence effort. As an example, Microsoft recently acquired virtually unheard of Powerset for $100 Million – an emerging semantic technology company. They developed a search engine that would parse through Wikipedia and be able to answer questions like, “Which Presidents died in office?” Semantically it would start to understand what you are talking about and give you answers.
What do you think about nanotechnology?
There are again fundamental underlying technologies that will be powerful in the decades ahead. Moore’s law, that exponential growth, sneaks up on you and you don’t know it’s coming for a while and then it pops up. Nanotechnology is coming but is still below the radar.
What about robotics?
One area I’m interested in is the autonomous vehicle space. It’s come a long way in a short amount of time. In the first DARPA Grand Challenge in 2005 – a competition for demonstrating autonomous vehicles hosted by the Department of Defense, the first competition, the lead vehicle only went 11 miles in the 100 mile race. In the 2006 event, 22 of the teams got further than the lead vehicle from the competition a year and a half before. I recently gave a presentation at the Robobusiness Conference on the topic. It’s a pretty interesting space for me because it’s been a sleepy space for so many years with manufacturing robots and now with the emergence of iRobot--the vacuum cleaner, and the use of robots in the military for autonomous vehicles, and the use of robots in the healthcare space. There’s a good chance that a decade from now most people will have some kind of robot in their house providing value for them.
My wife wants an iRobot. I didn’t think she would go for it.
Our Robot Central blog has done some research on the anthropomorphism of people taking the iRobot and dressing them, taking them with them on vacation, and more. One guy would clean the room first before turning on the iRobot because he didn’t want it to work too hard.
What other trends do you see emerging?
Locally here in Austin, I’ve noticed that there are so many groups forming around different technologies. Meetups if you will. For example, I was at a meeting of Semantic Web that came together through Twitter spontaneously. I find these groups want to socialize and share information. I now see people wanting to share workspaces to collaborate, bounce ideas off each other and have a physical business social network. I have an idea called Tech Ranch Austin that is part co-working space and part technology incubator space. I have companies that want office space but not at A-grade real estate prices. Right now, I’m identifying several anchor tenants. My ultimate goal is to have a space here in Austin for every technology group to share ideas and work together.
Best regards,
Hall T.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Paul Groepler of Santo Spirits Talks about his latest venture with Tequila
Paul Groepler of Santo Spirits Talks about his latest venture with Tequila, the trend called Premiumization and Brand Ambassadorship, and the three most important things in consumer products.
In our last startup, we came out with new ‘super-premium’ vodka. On this deal, I’m working on a new tequila. I think it’s even better than the market for vodka. This is not my first startup. This is my eleventh. In my case, I have had one consumer product company prior to the Vodka. Now we have tequila. So this is number three for me. The other was a fashion accessory. Our other team members have built brands much larger than we will this time, so I am confident about that aspect. In addition, our ceo has sold liquor to Mexico, the USA and Canada, so we have the channel as well.
What about getting a restaurant investor to invest in the tequila deal?
You can’t. For example we have spoken to the owners of a local restaurant and also a bar, who both really wanted to invest but the federal liquor laws allow you to be in only one of three of three-tiered systems – manufacturer, distributor, or retailer. I’ve not given up Austin because I haven’t been able to raise money here. But it has been a little challenging.
What is special about your tequila?
Well, a couple of things. First, I always enjoy that question, because I think 2 of the most interesting questions I get are number one - ‘How are you going to beat _ Patron and number two - ‘Why another tequila?’
There are three big market spaces in the liquor industry, whisky is the biggest, tequila is the second, and vodka is the third. We just went from the third to the second. There are more competitors in the vodka space than tequila. You can prove that by going into a liquor store, and seeing how much tequila is there and how much vodka? So I’m happy to play in a space with fewer competitors and bigger margins. So that’s not answering your question, that’s just sort of sizing up why we’re doing this at all.
If you want to buy a really nice tequila as a gift for somebody, what have you got? There aren’t that many, probably about three or four, and those are mostly brand-based, e.g. they don’t taste at the level of their purchase price.
So what we’re doing is we’re taking this ‘value for price’ and packaging it and positioning it as ‘ultra premium’ selling as a ‘super premium’, because there is this trend going on called “trading up” or “premiumization”. The brand guys call it “premiumization”. We are not inventing the wheel, we are just riding it.
The three most important things in consumer products are package, package, and package! You see it before you smell it, taste it, and touch it. For our vodka, we used Icelandic glacier water. I mean that’s positioning, that’s top notch. The bottle was a stand-out and everybody loved it. In addition, we distilled it an extraordinary seven times. No on does that. Ther are no more left-over distillates, so the vodka, along with the super-pure glacier water is very clean, very smooth, very crisp.
What do you call it?
IS Vodka, but ice is spelt I-S because it’s the Icelandic word for ice. So you get some creative confusion in the minde, like ‘is’, ‘ice’, ‘ice’, ‘is’, hmm and your brain works on it and you are going to remember it.
So how do you penetrate the market with a new tequila?
The way that you do this is you don’t put a particular advertisement that says ‘We’ve got a new tequila.’ You go about a multi-pronged approach including brand-ambassadorship and ‘buzz’. You go around to the trendiest clubs, nightclubs and bars in that city where you are launching, and you have events and you do that with what I call brand ambassador.
This product (tequila Ambhar™) is more of your sipping-man’s tequila; this is your late 20’s through mid-forties crowd that wants to be just that little bit nicer a bit better. They don’t want Wal-Mart, they don’t want the Piano Bar on 6th Street, you know that sort of thing, or to do the nasty shots of 4-dollar tequila.
So you get your brand ambassadors, and these are women and men, who are tastefully dressed. They go around to these clubs and bars and take part in the events and are continually putting this in front of the bar manager, waitresses, and customers, and saying here it is. We will be launching in Austin like that, that will be in October.
What are the profit margins on this product?
We made $84.00 a case on Vodka, the case is 12 bottles, and we almost doubled that with tequila. So it’s a much bigger profit.
Why does it cost less?
It’s made in Mexico, and it is logistically centralized. Our markup on the Vodka is about 220%. Not bad, but our market on the tequila is about 312%
It’s also simpler to make from a logistics perspective. For the vodka, we had the bottle made in Spain, it was decorated in Belgium, the cap came out from Canada, the water came from Iceland, and it was distilled in a distillery outside London. It is then packaged in a box and put back on a ship to the US or wherever it is going.. But the tequila has to come from one place in Mexico. It’s got to be from a certain region. The tequila certification board is a Mexican regulatory body, which certifies all the distilleries.
Also, since the product is in Mexico, is just a ‘truck roll’ that’s hours from the border, not weeks. So it’s a lot tighter on the logistical turn time. It costs us $5.81 to make this and we add about a $4.00 marketing and sales cost to it. By the time it gets to the distributor to whom we wholesale for $32 and our mark up is $22, that’s not bad. Remember, in the US we cannot sell directly to the end-customer (e.g. restaurant, bar) due to the federally mandated ‘three-tier’ system.
We’ll break-even at 6000 cases, that’s 12 bottles a case. Our launch is around 5000 and that’s already spoken for, by a single customer.
Who’s buying that first 5000?
Sam’s Club Mexico. Our CEO has a relationship with Sam’s, Mexico. Please note also that Sam’s in Mexico is not Sam’s here. In Mexico they are the main suppliers of restaurants and bars.
So you are launching in Austin but your first customer is actually in Mexico. What’s your expansion plan? Where do you go next? The 80-20 rule applies for tequila, namely that the 80% of tequila consumption is by 20% of the United States, and these states are located in the Southwest: Texas, California, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico. These are our ‘target market’ states in the US.
There are 3 cities that comprise our initial launch, they are Austin, San Antonio, and Las Vegas. The sales team just got back from a wonderful pre-sales trip to Vegas. We are in the process of getting letters of intent from the casinos there, including: Mandalay Bay, MGM, Mirage, and more. Things are heating up quickly!
Best regards,
Hall T.
In our last startup, we came out with new ‘super-premium’ vodka. On this deal, I’m working on a new tequila. I think it’s even better than the market for vodka. This is not my first startup. This is my eleventh. In my case, I have had one consumer product company prior to the Vodka. Now we have tequila. So this is number three for me. The other was a fashion accessory. Our other team members have built brands much larger than we will this time, so I am confident about that aspect. In addition, our ceo has sold liquor to Mexico, the USA and Canada, so we have the channel as well.
What about getting a restaurant investor to invest in the tequila deal?
You can’t. For example we have spoken to the owners of a local restaurant and also a bar, who both really wanted to invest but the federal liquor laws allow you to be in only one of three of three-tiered systems – manufacturer, distributor, or retailer. I’ve not given up Austin because I haven’t been able to raise money here. But it has been a little challenging.
What is special about your tequila?
Well, a couple of things. First, I always enjoy that question, because I think 2 of the most interesting questions I get are number one - ‘How are you going to beat _ Patron and number two - ‘Why another tequila?’
There are three big market spaces in the liquor industry, whisky is the biggest, tequila is the second, and vodka is the third. We just went from the third to the second. There are more competitors in the vodka space than tequila. You can prove that by going into a liquor store, and seeing how much tequila is there and how much vodka? So I’m happy to play in a space with fewer competitors and bigger margins. So that’s not answering your question, that’s just sort of sizing up why we’re doing this at all.
If you want to buy a really nice tequila as a gift for somebody, what have you got? There aren’t that many, probably about three or four, and those are mostly brand-based, e.g. they don’t taste at the level of their purchase price.
So what we’re doing is we’re taking this ‘value for price’ and packaging it and positioning it as ‘ultra premium’ selling as a ‘super premium’, because there is this trend going on called “trading up” or “premiumization”. The brand guys call it “premiumization”. We are not inventing the wheel, we are just riding it.
The three most important things in consumer products are package, package, and package! You see it before you smell it, taste it, and touch it. For our vodka, we used Icelandic glacier water. I mean that’s positioning, that’s top notch. The bottle was a stand-out and everybody loved it. In addition, we distilled it an extraordinary seven times. No on does that. Ther are no more left-over distillates, so the vodka, along with the super-pure glacier water is very clean, very smooth, very crisp.
What do you call it?
IS Vodka, but ice is spelt I-S because it’s the Icelandic word for ice. So you get some creative confusion in the minde, like ‘is’, ‘ice’, ‘ice’, ‘is’, hmm and your brain works on it and you are going to remember it.
So how do you penetrate the market with a new tequila?
The way that you do this is you don’t put a particular advertisement that says ‘We’ve got a new tequila.’ You go about a multi-pronged approach including brand-ambassadorship and ‘buzz’. You go around to the trendiest clubs, nightclubs and bars in that city where you are launching, and you have events and you do that with what I call brand ambassador.
This product (tequila Ambhar™) is more of your sipping-man’s tequila; this is your late 20’s through mid-forties crowd that wants to be just that little bit nicer a bit better. They don’t want Wal-Mart, they don’t want the Piano Bar on 6th Street, you know that sort of thing, or to do the nasty shots of 4-dollar tequila.
So you get your brand ambassadors, and these are women and men, who are tastefully dressed. They go around to these clubs and bars and take part in the events and are continually putting this in front of the bar manager, waitresses, and customers, and saying here it is. We will be launching in Austin like that, that will be in October.
What are the profit margins on this product?
We made $84.00 a case on Vodka, the case is 12 bottles, and we almost doubled that with tequila. So it’s a much bigger profit.
Why does it cost less?
It’s made in Mexico, and it is logistically centralized. Our markup on the Vodka is about 220%. Not bad, but our market on the tequila is about 312%
It’s also simpler to make from a logistics perspective. For the vodka, we had the bottle made in Spain, it was decorated in Belgium, the cap came out from Canada, the water came from Iceland, and it was distilled in a distillery outside London. It is then packaged in a box and put back on a ship to the US or wherever it is going.. But the tequila has to come from one place in Mexico. It’s got to be from a certain region. The tequila certification board is a Mexican regulatory body, which certifies all the distilleries.
Also, since the product is in Mexico, is just a ‘truck roll’ that’s hours from the border, not weeks. So it’s a lot tighter on the logistical turn time. It costs us $5.81 to make this and we add about a $4.00 marketing and sales cost to it. By the time it gets to the distributor to whom we wholesale for $32 and our mark up is $22, that’s not bad. Remember, in the US we cannot sell directly to the end-customer (e.g. restaurant, bar) due to the federally mandated ‘three-tier’ system.
We’ll break-even at 6000 cases, that’s 12 bottles a case. Our launch is around 5000 and that’s already spoken for, by a single customer.
Who’s buying that first 5000?
Sam’s Club Mexico. Our CEO has a relationship with Sam’s, Mexico. Please note also that Sam’s in Mexico is not Sam’s here. In Mexico they are the main suppliers of restaurants and bars.
So you are launching in Austin but your first customer is actually in Mexico. What’s your expansion plan? Where do you go next? The 80-20 rule applies for tequila, namely that the 80% of tequila consumption is by 20% of the United States, and these states are located in the Southwest: Texas, California, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico. These are our ‘target market’ states in the US.
There are 3 cities that comprise our initial launch, they are Austin, San Antonio, and Las Vegas. The sales team just got back from a wonderful pre-sales trip to Vegas. We are in the process of getting letters of intent from the casinos there, including: Mandalay Bay, MGM, Mirage, and more. Things are heating up quickly!
Best regards,
Hall T.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Galen Kaufman of Fizzy Fruit talks about the business and how he discovered the idea of carbonated fruit.
Galen Kaufman of Fizzy Fruit talks about the business and how he discovered the idea of carbonated fruit.
What is your background?
I was trained as a veterinarian and did neuroscience research at UTMB in Galveston.
How did you come up with the idea?
By accident; I was on a sailing trip with some fruit stored in a cooler with dry ice and later found it had become carbonated.
What are you trying to do with it?
We started serving Fizzy Fruit in school lunch programs, which continues today. But we're moving forward in the retail market after a limited run in 2006. We delivered over 500,000 units in about a 12-16 week period. We learned some valuable lessons in the process, resulting in a new package producing a much higher quality product.
What did you learn from your early efforts?
That the product, because it is so innovative, needed to be at retailers that do heavy sampling. Additionally the packaging changes result in a much better consumer experience.
We originally hired executives that were experts in development and engineering processes. Going forward, the new team is being developed with fruit industry and consumer packaged goods veterans.
How are you going to distribute it now?
We are working with regional co-packers to get it to market quickly, and capitalize on an infrastructure that is already in place. We also have a fresh stable product that will have longer shelf life, and can be made anywhere with high quality and incorporating Fizzy Fruit's technologies.
Where is your new first roll out?
In Northern California -- that's the source of our fruit and it's the highest consumption per capita of fruit as well. We plan to grow nationwide through the use of our co-packing partners. We are also preparing to sell Fizzy Fruit via our on-line store at www.FizzyFruit.com.
What is your exit strategy?
Our current strategy is to build a solid turn key operation that is built for multiple options including an eventual IPO or acquisition.
Best regards,
Hall T.
What is your background?
I was trained as a veterinarian and did neuroscience research at UTMB in Galveston.
How did you come up with the idea?
By accident; I was on a sailing trip with some fruit stored in a cooler with dry ice and later found it had become carbonated.
What are you trying to do with it?
We started serving Fizzy Fruit in school lunch programs, which continues today. But we're moving forward in the retail market after a limited run in 2006. We delivered over 500,000 units in about a 12-16 week period. We learned some valuable lessons in the process, resulting in a new package producing a much higher quality product.
What did you learn from your early efforts?
That the product, because it is so innovative, needed to be at retailers that do heavy sampling. Additionally the packaging changes result in a much better consumer experience.
We originally hired executives that were experts in development and engineering processes. Going forward, the new team is being developed with fruit industry and consumer packaged goods veterans.
How are you going to distribute it now?
We are working with regional co-packers to get it to market quickly, and capitalize on an infrastructure that is already in place. We also have a fresh stable product that will have longer shelf life, and can be made anywhere with high quality and incorporating Fizzy Fruit's technologies.
Where is your new first roll out?
In Northern California -- that's the source of our fruit and it's the highest consumption per capita of fruit as well. We plan to grow nationwide through the use of our co-packing partners. We are also preparing to sell Fizzy Fruit via our on-line store at www.FizzyFruit.com.
What is your exit strategy?
Our current strategy is to build a solid turn key operation that is built for multiple options including an eventual IPO or acquisition.
Best regards,
Hall T.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Karen Hartline of Mashable talks about the upcoming Mashable Tour coming to Austin
What is your background?
I lived in Oklahoma for 20 years and moved to California recently. Later the opportunity with Mashable came up. It’s a startup with some great things in the works.
What is the idea behind Mashable?
It’s the number one news source for social media and networking. Three years ago, our CEO started blogging about social networks. No one else was reporting on it, and it just grew as interest grew. Since then it has grown into one of the top 10 blogs in the world.
We’re trying to bring people face to face to share ideas. We have 15 people on full-time staff in both editorial and business side. It’s a virtual company in that we all work from home. We have core teams in San Francisco and New York with writers spread across the US.
What is the Mashable Tour?
They are networking events with plenty of interaction. We’re holding an event in Austin in a few weeks. The event lasts from 7 to 10pm. Startups and entrepreneurs come to learn and share information about what’s going on.
What trends do you see out there?
Twitter is big. We use it all the time. We are working on ways to display Twitter feed at each Mashable event. The further east you go in the US, the less people know about it, but it’s big in Austin. I just wish it were up all the time. I get the ‘Fail Whale’ too often.
Another great trend is online conferencing. There’s a company calledEventVue out of Boulder. They are an online community for conferences and events. Once you register it pulls your information in and searches for your Facebook and Twitter account, and creates a “chatter” area that people at the event can use.
There are also social media camps that are becoming popular. They are similar to Bar Camp. They’re typically free and it’s a great way to connect people.
Best regards,
Hall T.
I lived in Oklahoma for 20 years and moved to California recently. Later the opportunity with Mashable came up. It’s a startup with some great things in the works.
What is the idea behind Mashable?
It’s the number one news source for social media and networking. Three years ago, our CEO started blogging about social networks. No one else was reporting on it, and it just grew as interest grew. Since then it has grown into one of the top 10 blogs in the world.
We’re trying to bring people face to face to share ideas. We have 15 people on full-time staff in both editorial and business side. It’s a virtual company in that we all work from home. We have core teams in San Francisco and New York with writers spread across the US.
What is the Mashable Tour?
They are networking events with plenty of interaction. We’re holding an event in Austin in a few weeks. The event lasts from 7 to 10pm. Startups and entrepreneurs come to learn and share information about what’s going on.
What trends do you see out there?
Twitter is big. We use it all the time. We are working on ways to display Twitter feed at each Mashable event. The further east you go in the US, the less people know about it, but it’s big in Austin. I just wish it were up all the time. I get the ‘Fail Whale’ too often.
Another great trend is online conferencing. There’s a company calledEventVue out of Boulder. They are an online community for conferences and events. Once you register it pulls your information in and searches for your Facebook and Twitter account, and creates a “chatter” area that people at the event can use.
There are also social media camps that are becoming popular. They are similar to Bar Camp. They’re typically free and it’s a great way to connect people.
Best regards,
Hall T.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Keeping Your Investors Informed – Regular Communication from the Entrepreneur
I recently received a comment on this blog from an angel network that heartily agreed that keeping investors informed is a key element in the ongoing entrepreneur/investor relationship. This post outlines the key reason an entrepreneur should send regular, informational updates to the investors. In a nutshell, it’s to maintain the relationship so the entrepreneur can ask the investor for follow-on funding later.
I remember my first angel investment back in the 1990s. This was before I knew you were supposed to setup an agreement with the entrepreneur on how, how often, and what they would communicate to the investors. After several months of hearing nothing, I finally called the President of the company and asked for a written update including financials. A week later he sent me a short two paragraph email along with a spreadsheet attached showing the financials. There are several items to point out here:
1. The two paragraphs by no means filled in the details of the business. To this date, there are holes in their explanation of what went on in the business.
2. The financials of any company should not be in an Excel spreadsheet. They should be in Quick Books. Excel has no audit trails, no security or validation. Anyone can change the formulas. In fact, several of the columns of financial data didn’t add up in the bottom row.
3. I only received this after I demanded it and I never received another one. After that experience, the entrepreneur wanted to discuss over the phone and found excuses to not send out the financials again.
These are all red flags indicating that things are not going well. Later the company went bust. Needless to say I won’t be investing in their companies in the future.
Here is a list of best practices for entrepreneurs communicating with shareholders along with why and what should go into the report.
Best regards,
Hall T.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)