Columbus is the first to experience Awesome Inc.’s MobileX Conference
March 3, 2010
One of the great things about Central Ohio is the vibrant innovative community that is a foundation for a tremendous amount of entrepreneurial activity and a corresponding high level of investment available in a variety of forms. An ingredient in our foundation is an ongoing series of events, networking & educational opportunities, and Meetups that seamlessly mix casual and professional.
The MobileX Conference is a great example of this foundation. Spearheaded by Awesome, Inc., based in my hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, MobileX is a five-city technology conference tour designed to provide networking, educational content and opportunity (via a pitch contest). Here’s the tour schedule:
- Columbus - March 4, 2010
- Chicago - March 5, 2010
- Atlanta - March 26, 2010
- Nashville - March 27, 2010
- Lexington - April 16, 2010
One of the best parts of this conference is that fact that it is organized by what some might think of as “outsiders” - i.e. people not from within our own innovation community here in Columbus. Several of us met Luke Murray last fall at a mini-mobile application conference we hosted at The Dublin Entrepreneurial Center, and at that time Luke talked about bringing his conference concept to Columbus. We welcomed him with open arms and several of us volunteered to help make it a reality. Instead of “hey, this is our turf”, we collectively said, “you are welcome here”. The payoff? Several, and among them are: We are anticipating a great conference that highlights some of our local experts and brings other experts into our community; We will likely see some real creativity and potential for new ideas to take off and become viable business opportunities; We’ll expand our horizons via an expanded network of friends and people we can call upon for their expertise later. In short, we have an opportunity to grow and to learn, to make our community even better for entrepreneurs and innovators. We also have an opportunity to help Luke and Awesome, Inc. learn what works best and what might need improvement to make this an even better event for the next four cities.
I am proud of our community, our openness, our welcoming nature, our desire to learn and grow - all of the things that contribute to our foundation that enthusiastically supports innovation and entrepreneurialism.
If you can attend, you’ve still got time to register for what promises to be a great conference. There are no outsiders here.
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How I… Dreamed Big in Ohio
March 1, 2010
Source: The Wall Street Journal - Fast Fixes
By: Michelle Wu at michelle.wu@wsj.com
Who: Wayne Poll, M.D.
What: Minimally Invasive Devices, Inc., a company that develops devices that assist doctors during laparoscopic surgery
Where: Columbus, Ohio
Web site: www.midsurgical.com
Year founded: 2006
Number of employees: 7
Annual revenue: $90,000 in 2009
Everyday, loads of people have great ideas that could potentially become a profitable business venture. The real challenge is what to do next: how do you make an idea into a marketable product? (As Thomas Edison famously said, “Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”)
When Dr. Poll of Columbus, Ohio, wanted to develop FloShield, a device that improves visibility for doctors performing laparoscopic surgery, he knew going to a major company such as Johnson & Johnson or Boston Scientific would be a dead end. Dr. Poll, a surgeon and urologist for 20 years, had gone that route in the past and was wary of the process. “It’s very frustrating when you approach big medical device companies with an idea,” he says. “I decided that the only way that I would have any control over my project was to develop it myself.”
So Dr. Poll took matters into his own hands and decided to start his own company, Minimally Invasive Devices, Inc., in 2006.
To read what happened next and to read the rest of the Wall Street Journal article, click here.
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Brand Thunder Passes 2 Million Downloads!
February 15, 2010
Brand Thunder is a Central Ohio company that is on the move - and fast.
I get to work with and around some of the coolest companies and entrepreneurs right here in Central Ohio. Case in point is the fantastic team that is BrandThunder. They have built a solid business around extending browsers to themed marketing engines helping companies grow their businesses in tangible ways. It is a real asset to have their creative force be a part of the Dublin Entrepreneurial Center, and BrandThunder is great client company for TechColumbus and the Ohio Tech Angels. In short, BrandThunder ROCKS.
I’m linking to one of the recent blog posts that relates some exciting news, and a simple metric for the speed at which their product is being adopted by sports fans (30+ themes), NASCAR fans, music fans and a host of others.
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Brand Thunder Passes 2 Million Downloads – 2 Reasons Why
By Kevin Dwinnel.
The growth chart is text book. Brand Thunder’s doubling its size in half the time. It took us 18 months to reach the 500,000 download mark. Nine months later, we reached the million download mark. Four and a half months after that, we’re over two million downloads. Nice momentum.
Distribution
It’s easy to see the caliber of brand that we’re fortunate enough to work with, our client list is full of great names from around the globe. Leveraging the power of the brand and their consumer touch points is common practice for affinity products. We try to bring a little more.
The web has splintered audiences. Think about how a sports fan may follow their favorite team. A fan may go to the team’s site, or they may go to a leading sports site, or they may participate in a blog or community focused on a team or sport. Limiting distribution through team channels limits the reach of the product. (As an aside, if you really want to learn about how teams can keep up with their fans, follow Sports Networker.)
Brand Thunder leverages distribution opportunities beyond the client site… To read the rest of this article, click here.
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Entrepreneurs tap into their collective mind
January 20, 2010
Source: Business First of Columbus (11-27-2009)
Author: Craig Lovelace
Bill Treciak owns a credit-card processing business in New Philadelphia, about 120 miles northeast of Columbus, but since May he has been making a monthly drive to the capital city to spend a few hours at TechColumbus on Kinnear Road.
He comes for the same reasons other people assembled in this nondescript classroom show up: To glean information from each other about how to stretch capital at their businesses.
The president of Electronic Data Payment Systems, Treciak and the others are part of the International Bootstrapping Association, an organization begun by Bill Troy and Kim Troy earlier this year.
Part support group, part cheerleader, the association’s primary goals are to get the entrepreneur to think about his or her business in a different light using the collective brainpower of the others. It is also an attempt to let individuals – people who often work by themselves or with few employees – use the others as a sounding board to bounce ideas off of or seek advice from.
On a mid-November night, about 10 people are split into two working groups. Veteran businesspeople and association members comprise the first group, and everyone else the second.
Just as in athletics, there is a warm-up exercise where each person relates his or her business and offers the group a tip.
To read the rest of this article, please click here.
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Good HBR bootstrapping blog post.
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Comments on the HBR blog from Kim Troy:
Reading through the post, I was reminded that the toughest economic times are when we bootstrappers really shine. We’ll be talking about that scrappy bootstrapper mentality at our Members’ meeting in February. Here are the details for your calendar…
- Wednesday, February 10th from 7pm to 9pm at TechColumbus, 1275 Kinnear Road, Columbus, Ohio
- Thursday, February 11th from 7am to 9am at the Dublin Entrepreneurial Center, 7003 Post Road, Dublin, Ohio
Non-Members of the IBA can attend their first peer meeting as our Guest, free of charge. Just register here to let us know you’re coming.
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Beautiful bookmarks! Toobla creates a visual library adding color, fun, & utility to bookmarks
November 16, 2009
Source: Columbus Dispatch
Author: Tim Feran. Photo: Jeff Hinkley
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Save a link on the Web and then, months later, try to remember where you put it.
Most likely, you can’t.
That, in a nutshell, is the problem that local Internet startup Toobla.com hopes to solve.
“People are overwhelmed with content, everyone from tech guys to my mom,” said Brian Link, CEO of the four-man operation. “Nobody knows where to put it.”
Toobla aims to be the central repository for users’ favorite online content. The site uses folders with thumbnail photos to classify anything found online: links to Web sites, videos, images, documents, games, music and any kind of embeddable application or widget.
“Most of the currently available bookmarking sites are boring,” Link said. “We are striving to create a bookmarking service that’s beautiful and fun to browse — like an iTunes for Web content.
“It’s a universal tool, for small businesses, bloggers, college kids, researchers. It’s good for anything you want to browse easily. My wife is making Christmas lists with it.”
Although Toobla is intended to “reinvent bookmarking — and sharing, for that matter,” it is not a social Web site, Link said.
“The world doesn’t need a new Facebook,” he said. But Facebook is soon to be integrated into the site, “and it will automatically connect (to) and collect from Digg, Delicious and YouTube, too.”
To read the rest of this article, please click here.
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Related Twitter comments about Toobla and this article:
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The Dublin Entrepreneurial Center Partners: TechColumbus & the City of Dublin
October 30, 2009
Source: TechColumbus Connections Member Newsletter, October 29, 2009
The Dublin Entrepreneurial Center as a geographic extension of a collaborative business community located in the heart of Innovation Park in Dublin. TechColumbus partners with the City of Dublin to provide:
- Resources targeted to meet the needs of Innovative start-up companies
- A creative atmosphere encouraging idea-sharing and collaborative problem-solving
- Access to industry-specific experts offering unique solutions
- Close proximity to a wide-ranging variety of industry clusters
Since early 2008, Rick Coplin, Venture Development Director, TechStart, has worked with the City of Dublin to start, promote and run The DEC. The first major event was an open house in March 2009 that attracted 425 people and a broad mix of small businesses has been moving into The DEC ever since.
TechColumbus provides coaching and mentoring; and various DEC collaborators provide a variety of services to the entrepreneurs. The City of Dublin has also hired two DEC small business owners to assist with promoting The DEC, planning events and managing day to day operations.
“The City of Dublin is a tremendous partner with TechColumbus,” said Rick. “I arrange for TechColumbus resources to assist the businesses in The DEC and in Dublin. I am also constantly evaluating what we should do next to keep The DEC an effective growth component in the Dublin community.”
The DEC currently has 16 small business tenants, plans for a Green initiative, and a waiting list for offices.
“The networking events sponsored by TechColumbus and other groups such as TechLife, the International Bootstrapping Association and the twice a month DEC jellies (casual coworking) have really helped to build a sense of community and generate interest in The DEC,” said Rick.
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TechColumbus Wins SSTI Award for Building Entrepreneurial Capacity
October 23, 2009
TechColumbus, the region’s catalyst for technology-based economic development, and Central Ohio were honored this week with a top award from the State Science and Technology Institute (SSTI), a national organization with broad membership and influence.
TechColumbus was named recipient of SSTI’s 2009 Excellence in TBED Awards for Building Entrepreneurial Capacity on Oct. 22 during its 13th Annual Conference in Overland Park, KS. The award celebrates the exceptional achievement of TechStart, TechColumbus’ entrepreneurial coaching and funding program, and Central Ohio in technology-based economic development (TBED).
“This recognition of the groundswell in Central Ohio around technology entrepreneurship reinforces the great outcomes occurring here and throughout Ohio,” said Ted Ford, TechColumbus’ president and CEO. “The Ohio Third Frontier program, from which our program is primarily funded, is creating jobs, new innovative companies and attracting venture capital from around the country.”
Awards were also issued to other initiatives around the country in five additional categories. The awards are the result of a yearly nationwide competition of initiatives that emphasize impact and strategic value as well as TBED transferability for others.
“TBED fosters a climate where new and existing companies that develop technology and continuously innovate will thrive,” said Dan Berglund SSTI president and CEO.
For more details, click here for the October TechColumbus newsletter published in Business First.
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Being Broke Means Being Disciplined
October 13, 2009
An excellent blog post by Wil Schroter
While everyone else is running around trying to find capital for startup companies, let me be the first to tell you the one true benefit of not having any cash – it forces you to be disciplined. Being broke means being disciplined about the investment decisions you make and forces you to be resourceful to find solutions to your problems.
Smart and resourceful startups that can find creative ways to solve their capital crises emerge stronger and faster than their capital-laden counterparts who throw money at problems instead of solving them. When you’re starting up broke, don’t think of it as a handicap – it’s an incredible opportunity to strengthen your company with the ingenuity required to succeed on a budget.
A dollar bill is a blindfold
Having money in the bank keeps you from worrying about things like making payroll, customers paying their bills on time, and covering rent. And that’s the problem. Those are things you should be constantly worried about even if you do have money in the bank. You should always be conscious of whether or not you are getting paid on time, whether the people on your payroll are carrying their weight, and whether you actually need the things you’re buying for the business. That’s healthy.
You can numb the pain of most business problems by throwing money at them, but that doesn’t necessarily constitute a solution. The problem is two-fold. First, cash has a funny way of treating the symptoms of organizational problems without actually addressing the root causes. This may work while you have cash to toss away, but as soon as your receivables are late that problem will be right back in your face. Secondly, a startup rarely has the spare resources to treat a problem with money. They need cash to grow, not to throw at problems.
To read the rest of this excellent post, click here.
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What every entrepreneur can learn from Toobla
October 6, 2009
Here’s a great article on one of Columbus’ rising startup stars.
Source: Startup Business Examiner - John Edwards
In late September in Columbus, Ohio an innovative new web application launched that promises to change the game for online bookmarking tools. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
If you follow startups then you know that the journey can be just as important as the destination. That’s because the path to most successful new businesses is through a desert that lacks transportation (ideas), cash (water), and guideposts (local resources and the press). For that reason too many never make it out alive. One company that has made it through is Toobla, and the rewards could be significant.
to read the rest of this article, click here.
Follow Toobla progress via Twitter: @blinkdaddy and @Toobla
Learn more and sign up at toobla.com
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Dublin incentives to aid push for green businesses at The Dublin Entrepreneurial Center
September 21, 2009
Source: Business First of Columbus - by Jeff Bell
Dublin’s hopes of attracting green businesses have received a double shot in the arm.
City Council on Sept. 8 signed off on an incentive to bring the Ohio Fuel Cell Coalition to the Dublin Entrepreneurial Center off Post Road. Council also voted to create a green business incubator at the center, offering rent subsidies and other financial help to fledgling companies locating there.
The moves are another indication that Dublin wants to encourage the development of research and technology companies, said Dana McDaniel, deputy city manager and economic development director.
“Our goal is to provide support to the new green industry and ideas that can be converted to green companies and green jobs,” he said. “We see it as a next-generation industry that’s fairly high-tech.”
State support
The seven-month-old Entrepreneurial Center, a partnership between Dublin, TechColumbus and other groups that support small businesses, has office spaces sized for one- and two-person startups. It also provides tenants with entrepreneurial training, help with finding venture capital and other support services. It has 14 tenants, with another 11 in the wings to sign leases, McDaniel said.
To read more of this exciting news, click here.
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