#excelerate labs

Early last week our company PVPower presented in front of over 200 investors from throughout the country, along with friends and family at the House of Blues in Chicago. 'Demo Day' marked the conclusion of the Excelerate Labs 2010 summer start-up incubator program in Chicago. All of the companies knocked it out of the park with their presentations. The amount of preparation, focus and precision by the group was truly a pleasure to see unfold.  The mentorship of Sam, Troy and Brian (Excelerate leads) was crucial to the show being deemed one of the best people have seen. I don't think venue selection hurt either, you know what I mean if you've ever been to the intimate, yet slightly eerie House of Blues Chicago. I was fortunate to present the PVPower demo/pitch for 10 minutes on stage last Tuesday. A very gracious introduction by Chuck Templeton only helped me as I took the stage. In preparation for and during this great day I learned a few things about how to pitch and position a company to a wide variety of investors and mentors. Here are a few of my personal insights: 1. Be Real - When presenting something that you know intimately, in a high-pressure situation, it isn't the time to fake it. Be yourself. Use your style, your emotion and your words in describing the business, challenges and solutions. If you don't do this you're likely to fail. 2. Have Fun - We had a ton of fun putting this presentation together. Dan (my business partner) and I wore green PVPower shirts, obnoxiously orange Puma's and one of our co-workers even dressed up in a Polar Bear costume to help launch our new SolarBear web application. SolarBear (the Polar Bear) was in the first balcony and I gave him a shout-out mid-presentation. Bringing a smile to everyone's face, including mine - now that sure eases the pressure. 3. Prepare. Prepare. Prepare. - This seems obvious, but true preparation takes weeks and requires guidance from a variety of people, co-workers and mentors much smarter and experienced than yourself. You don't need to take all of their suggestions, but do look for trends and listen closely because these people know what they're doing and likely have done so in the past. 4. Pretty Pictures - Nobody has ever said that there were too few bullets on a PowerPoint slide. People hate words, they like stories, and investors love numbers (as they should). Support the numbers with awesome, striking visuals that make the numbers memorable. This is how the audience will remember key points, and at the end of the day that's what you're going for, 2-3 hooks that the audience (in this case investors) remember about you and your company. 5. Simplify - Only talk about the headlines, the key points that are crucial to drive home. Use devises such as music, video and imagery to reinforce your points. We used an awesome video (below) created by our friend Matt over at Vidiseo to explain (in a very simple manner) the problem that our customers face. (video password is "solarbearvideo")

PVPower SolarBear Intro from Nick Yecke on Vimeo.

Next week is the fourth edition of Tech In Motion** (TIM), an event at which a startup “pitches” its product, and panelists and the audience analyze the business.*  In November, I participated in TIM III as a panelist along with Troy Henikoff, CEO of Excelerate Labs, Bob Sell, a Partner for Seyfarth Shaw, and Matt Cobb, VP of Product of the Chicago startup Valkre to hear from the presenting startup, Spontaneous.

During the Q&A session, we broke down what I consider the key elements of any startup business model: (1) identify the problem; (2) learn from customers and/or partners; (3) develop a corresponding solution; (4) prioritize which network to target; (5) revenue model; and (6) implement customer acquisition strategies.  The last point is often a black box for startups.  Dashfire brainstorms with a number of startups, and before we discuss technical feasibility, we always touch on customer acquisition and ask, “how will you acquire your first 10,000 users?”

If you build it...

The most common response is “we will build an awesome site that will attract new users.”  Unfortunately, this is not the field of dreams. Just building something does not guarantee that people will come.   Our attention is divided between 500K iPhone apps, 300K Android apps, and a gazillion web applications.  Attention is a currency and startups need to focus on building up their reserves.  Having a defined customer acquisition strategy is integral for a startups; the dreaded scenario is launching a site to no audience.

A business that targets end users (B2C) is often the most challenging.  Where do you find your users? How do you convince them to not only try your application but to return? Going viral? That’s not something you can just will. It takes a perfect combination of position, product, and luck.  Facebook? Twitter? Both are options, but the user bases are so vast making it difficult to target the key demographic.  Search? The associated individual user acquisition costs with  Facebook or Google can be a gamble and expensive.

Instead, go to where your customers currently reside.  Make channel partnerships.  Find a business, a group, or a targeted network and gain access to their users. It may be a longer sale cycle, but once executed, you can grow from 0 – 10,000 more quickly and cost effectively than acquiring users one at a time.

*Our very own JC Garrett will be a panelist at TIM IV.

**Video highlights from TIM III:  http://vimeo.com/32249128

We've done a little social media on this already so it's certainly no secret. We've rebranded from MapDing to Goshi. We've got a whole new look and website that you can check out here.  We are also working on new iPhone and Android apps which should be out very soon. 

As many of you know, we are in the Exclerate Labs 2011 class and so we've had a busy June. However, we feel the work has just begun so for the next week or so we'll have our head down in code, bus dev, marketing, financial, social media, and hopefully blogging. I know we've been bad about it in the past but it's going to get a lot better. We promise. 

You can either stay in touch with us here or you can follow us on Twitter where we are much more active. 

Get ready to Goshi!

Overview:

Food Genius (http://www.getfoodgenius.com) is looking for a solid developer with mobile experience and skills to help build our Android and iPhone apps. We're an early-stage startup on a mission to stop people from eating sh*tty food.  You'll be an integral part of a small team based in Chicago's Excelerate Labs (www.exceleratelabs.com), the #3 tech incubator in the nation (http://techcocktail.com/top-15-us-startup-accelerators-ranked-2011-05).  You'll work closely with the founding team in a light-hearted-but-mash-on-the-gas sort of environment. 

Responsibilities:

Build Android, iPhone, and HTML5 mobile web apps

Work closely with the Food Genius team and users to test new features and improve the product

Rapidly fix bugs and solve problems

Take an active role in shaping the Food Genius product and company

Requirements:

Experience developing iPhone and Android apps (currently using Titanium, but we're not in love with it)

Solid background developing software applications (you'll likely pitch in on web development)

Knowledge of web service technologies and services (you'll use lots of APIs)

Passion for eating awesome food and telling other people about it (even when they don't ask)

Bonus Points:

Previous startup experience

Web API experience

Python & MongoDB experience

Experience working in an agile, fast-paced environment

A GitHub repository you'll proudly share with us

Next Steps:

Get in touch with Justin at get food genius dot com with a resume, cover letter, and links to samples of your work. With work samples, please tell me specifically about your role in the project and the size of the team / timeframe you worked with. 

We're incredibly excited to report that Food Genius was selected for Excelerate Lab's next class; the support, advice, access, and guidance we'll receive from the program is huge for us. To top it off, we'll spend this summer with 9 outstanding startups; the full press release from Excelerate is below

This is going to be fun. I hope you're hungry. 

Chicago’s Excelerate Labs Announces Companies Chosen for Summer Incubator Program Program Builds on Extraordinary Fundraising, Job Growth Success of Last Year’s Participants

CHICAGO, April 26, 2011 – Excelerate Labs, an intensive accelerator for startups, today announced the ten companies selected for 2011.  This three month long “boot camp for startups” attracts some of the best early stage technology businesses from around the country who compete for the ten coveted spots.  The participants receive seed capital, office space, legal assistance and mentoring from seasoned entrepreneurs, early stage investors and subject matter experts.

This year’s program builds on the extraordinary success last year.  In the six months since Demo Day, the Class of 2010 raised a combined $7.2 million in equity funding and added 65 new employees to their payrolls. 

“Our participation in the 2010 Summer Program was invaluable”, said Josh Hernandez, founder and CEO of TapMe, the developer of a mobile, in-game advertising platform.  “Excelerate connected TapMe to a variety of prospective investment partners, which ultimately helped us raise $1.4 million in venture funding.  We couldn’t have done that without Excelerate.” 

Excelerate Labs received hundreds of applications for the 2011 Summer Program.  After reviewing the applications and conducting in person interviews with more than 50 of the companies, Excelerate Labs is pleased to announce the ten companies that make up Excelerate Labs’ Summer Class of 2011:

·      A Space Apart - A new breed of social media. We connect people and businesses in context wherever they come together. http://www.aspaceapart.net

·      BabbaCo - A lifestyle brand creating parenting solutions via "simple. functional. super cute." products and video content. http://www.babbaco.com

·      Beyond Credentials - We give young professionals the tools to create an online presence, stand out, and connect with great companies. http://www.beyondcredentials.com

·      Buzz Referrals - With a single line of code, BuzzReferrals turns your best customers into your brand advocates.  Eliminate the hassle and track the results of your own custom referral program. http://www.buzzreferrals.com

·      CookItFor.Us - We get recipes made by connecting Cravers & Makers in a social fresh-food marketplace. Crave. Make. Share. http://www.CookItFor.Us

·      Exchangery - An exchange platform as a service that allows you to create an online marketplace to buy and sell commodity goods. http://www.theExchangery.com

·      Food Genius - Food Genius suggests dishes based on individualized taste profiles and tracks what you eat in a game to establish expertise. http://www.getfoodgenius.com

·      Joystickers - We give people a fun way to physically interact with their touch screen phones and tablets with products like removable gaming buttons and paintbrushes. http://www.joystickers.com

·      MapDing - A completely mobile, hyper-local, location-based marketplace. We make community commerce simple, safe, and fun. http://www.mapding.com

·      Power2Switch -  An electricity cost reduction and energy use monitoring/management portal for residential and small business customers. http://www.power2switch.com

  “The volume and quality of this year’s applicants were incredibly strong, which I directly attribute to the recent successes in the Chicago startup community,” said Troy Henikoff, CEO of Excelerate Labs. “With great talent coming out of Chicago’s universities, an impressive group of established venture capital firms, more and more angel investors, and an expanding community of proven entrepreneurs, Chicago offers startups an extraordinary environment within which to launch and grow their companies.”

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