Published on March 4, 2008
in Events.
Last week I lucked out and got a ticket to go to the 2008 Georgia Technology Summit thanks to Lance Weatherby and the folks down at ATDC (I’ve been begging, to no avail, for one for a while).
I was going to write a long post about what I thought was right and wrong with the event. Fortunately both Lance Weatherby and Scott Burkett did that job for me. I will chime in on the whole video thing (Lance railed on this last year as well). I think it’s really silly to have a videotaped intro done by someone who is in the audience. Not only that, this same person will come up to the podium after the video shows. Generally, people use video for including individuals that can’t make it to the event. And if you are going to do something silly like this, the presenter should be well rehearsed and have a smooth presentation. One can forgive a presenter stumbling when they present in person but you can re-record a video as many times as is necessary to get a smooth presentation.
Speaking of in-person presentations, John Imlay was an outstanding speaker. Of course, if I were European I’m not sure I would have appreciated a number of his jokes but for us Americans the talk was great. This talk alone made the trip to the Summit worthwhile. As an added bonus I can now say that John Imlay is in fact a real person since so few people have ever seen the man. He does exist and he is absolutely hilarious.
Personally this was a great event for me because it shows what should and shouldn’t be done at a pitch event. I’m taking these lessons and will incorporate them in the event I’m working on. More details soon!
Published on January 30, 2008
in Events.
I’m heading to StartupLounge’s Angel Lounge event today. It’ll be interesting to see who shows up as well as how big of a crowd Scott and Michael are able to get together. Judging by past Capital Connections events, I won’t be surprised if it’s quite a few people. Also, just a reminder that Capital Connections is next week. I, unfortunately, won’t make that event so if anyone wants to blog about the event here, let me know and we’ll hook something up.
I had the opportunity to go by MFG.com’s offices and meet Mitch Free yesterday. I’d heard great things about Mitch from Scott Burkett and the opportunity to meet Mitch arose after the recent fund raising announcement.
MFG.com’s office are pretty swanky. Nicer than anything I ever had in my Digital Envoy days. I didn’t take any pictures of the inside of the office but when you walk in you’re greeted with hardwood floors and nice wall hangings. There was a display in the lobby with rotating quotations about entrepreneurship, leadership, and selling.
I sat with Mitch for a bit as we chatted about our backgrounds as well as his company and my old one. The immediate comparison I saw between MFG.com and Digital Envoy was the nice, hefty recurring revenue stream that has been built. MFG.com’s service helps manufacturers find buyers (and vice versa) for whatever they need built. The beauty of what MFG.com has is that it helps manage the entire requisition, manufacturing, and logistics process of getting manufactured goods. Otherwise, once buyers found manufacturers, MFG.com could get cut out of the equation. Given the pricing model (annual membership fee paid by manufacturers) and the scale (both in terms of buyers and manufacturers), MFG.com has a natural monopoly position just like eBay.
One of the most interesting topics (at least for me) was the discussion on the MFG.com domain name. MFG.com originally started as MFGQuote.com (in fact, MFG.com redirects to MFGQuote.com to this day). MFG.com was owned by Microfield Graphics but Mitch noticed that they were acquired in 2005 and offered to buy the domain name. Like I’ve mentioned before, three letter domain names are highly coveted. Mitch got a hold of the technical contact and offered… wait for it… $2,000 for the domain name. And they accepted! Mitch agrees that this was a ridiculously low sum for this domain and has even been offered $1 million for the name. Clearly, he isn’t selling.
The other amazing thing about Mitch and his business is that it was totally bootstrapped. When Jeff Bezos invested and during this most recent funding round, the company has been profitable and didn’t really need the money. But through these connections, Mitch has built a company that now spans three continents and 11 different countries.
So what does the future hold? MFG.com has engaged a recruiting firm to help them fill one open executive position. Mitch is looking for a CTO who has the chops to build a next generation platform that will integrate a lot of new ideas and services that they want to provide to their client base. This isn’t a ground floor opportunity given the two fairly sizable funding rounds but it hasn’t been acquired or gone public yet. So if you think you have the background to provide them with some great developmental vision, reach out to them and see what happens.
Sigh. I read this story and again, I got excited. Until I dug into the details. Don’t get me wrong, I think more investment is a great thing. I just wish this didn’t have and funding restrictions.
The gist of the story is that the Georgia Research Alliance is going to set up a venture fund to provide early stage financing to startups. The state will provide $10 million and be matched by $30 million by the private sector. So a total of $40 million available for investment.
The problem (for me) is this caveat:
“The intent of the fund is to grow sustainable Georgia-based companies,” said Mike Cassidy, GRA’s president. “The technology has to have been originated in one of Georgia’s research universities.”
Gah! The reasoning behind this?
“Georgia starts with a very limited amount of venture capital capacity,” Cooper said. “Our reason for doing this is to encourage research and let the universities and their researchers know that there will be financing for their innovations. That will help create jobs.”
Really? Researchers at our colleges won’t do research if they aren’t sure their ideas won’t get funded? Is that really the reason that researchers do research at colleges - to build funded companies? I mean, the title you’ve given them is “researcher”. What will they do otherwise? I just don’t get it. The first part of the quote is right on track but then everything just derails after that.
The other thing I learned was this tidbit:
This is not the first time the GRA has backed a venture capital fund. In 1994, Alliance Technology Ventures was launched to invest in new Georgia technology companies.
In case you missed it, I recently wrote a post on ATV. I had no idea the GRA was involved in ATV’s formation. What doesn’t make sense is why ATV was allowed to fold when the GRA knew that they were advancing this initiative. That is pretty puzzling. Perhaps the GRA doesn’t want a traditional VC structure around this fund. There aren’t any details in the article so it’s hard to tell.
Scott Burkett is a bit more positive than me. Maybe I’m just being grumpy and should be happy for whatever we can get. My belief is that by artificially restricting access to funding like this will inevitably lead to less than stellar returns and give folks a reason to point and say that you need harsher terms in Georgia and/or there aren’t any good deals in Georgia. Both of which we know aren’t true.