For those on the fence, make sure you stop by for “Alpharetta Open Coffee” this Fri, Oct 9th from 8am to 10am at Roam Atlanta. Gordon just took over the reins of the ATA (Atlanta Technology Angels). ATA is one of the most prominent angel investment groups in the Southeast.
Come prepared with your best one sentence descriptions. Remember, don’t over do it.
What a month! I’ve got to say life at ATDC, post the announcement of our “reboot”, has been exciting and manic. We’ve been exposed to a number of great companies, concepts, and entrepreneurs. We’ve had our fair share of duds as well, to be frank. All in all, so far so good.
One example of the “reboot” and outreach is Alpharetta office hours. We’ve met entrepreneurs we would have never met before. Meetings have been booked weeks in advance. Hopefully, all participating feel it’s been a good experience.
On to the real reason for this post, resources. The most frequent request I’ve heard is “introduce me to some developers who can build my vision”. Can’t tell you how many “bags of skittles” I’d have if I got one for every request. Inside joke.
In advance to all those who request introductions to developers who will work for free, my response is “network“. There are great events around town that attract the exact audience your looking for. One example is AWE. There are many more.
I wish I can introduce all comers to great developers but it’s statistically impossible. I just don’t know enough developer candidates and I don’t know enough about your story to sell/convince someone to join you. That said, we at ATDC empathize. We are working on a ATDC “Job Posting” board and a “Technical Co-Founder Wanted” board. More info to come.
Really, the best way to find talent is the hard way. Especially, if it’s free labor you’re looking for. If you think it’s hard for you to find it, think about how hard it will be for us. You know your story better than anyone else does and are in the best position to sell. Get out there and do it.
To ATDC member companies only:
For all aspiring technology companies, the hiring of new employees is the rewarding confirmation that your business is starting to take off. Unfortunately, this can also be an exhaustive process that quickly consumes many hours. Consider the time required to collect and review resumes, schedule and conduct early phone screens and interviews, and chase references. It’s easy to see why many businesses dread this process, especially in an economy that’s producing an overwhelming flood of applicants. How will you find your "A" players in that ominously tall stack of resumes?
I recently met with ATDC member Toomah.com whom I believe may have the answer. Toomah has released EZRecruiter, a SaaS software application that automates the numerous candidate selection steps normally followed by a recruiter (or small business owner), freeing you up to focus on your business.
The solution follows a work flow process which allows the user to aggregate applicants from all job posting sources and naturally narrows the applicant funnel, so you don’t have to become an expert in interviewing processes. You simply pre-load your company’s job information and a few questions, and the automation takes over. Their system quickly allows you to screen for qualification and motivation, and provides clear insight into candidate experience and qualifications. Perhaps the most impressive technology is the media-rich tool which allows for the voice recording of responses which is then accessible via the web. All the candidate data is collected and maintained within the system, making it easy to share this with business colleagues, regardless of their time zone, zip code or schedule demands. Customers using the Toomah solution can typically expect to save at least 50% of the time they would normally spend screening and interviewing candidates.
Toomah has generously offered to allow any fellow ATDC member the opportunity to "trial" their solution for free for up to a 60 day period (a savings of over $400 per position hired). Please visit Toomah.com or contact either Jay Forman (770-547-3081) at moc.hamootnull@namrof.yaj or Joe Gruca @ moc.hamootnull@acurg.eoj or to learn more about their solution and begin using it in your business.
These past two "ATDC Alpharetta Open Office" meetings have been so successful, we’re going to make it a standing meeting. Every Fri, starting Aug 21st, we’ll have our meeting from 8am to 10am. We’re moving the venue from Starbucks to Roam (5815 Windward Pkwy, Suite 202, Alpharetta). www.roamatlanta.com Also, from 10am to 5:30pm every Fri, we’ll have one on one office hours available in half hour increments available at Roam. This is by appointment only, the fee is $0. To book an appointment, go to http://atdc.org/about/team and scroll down to David Sung’s bio. I have a "book now" button that opens up a calendar/schedule.
At some point, we will transition this to ATDC members only. If you’re not a member yet, please apply. www.atdc.org
Last week’s ATDC "Office Hours in Alpharetta" was so sucessfull, let’s do it again. Same place and time, Fri Aug 14th Starbucks in Windward Plz from 8am to 10am. There’s a chance that we will end up moving this to Roam, just less than a mile down the street from the Starbucks, so stay tuned.
If it goes well again, we can make it a weekly thing.
Cardlytics Inc., an ATDC member company, just closed on a $5 million round lead by Canaan and Polaris Ventures. Cardlytics software allows retailers to target advertising to specific consumers, via banking websites. Retailer ads are based on transaction information collected through the consumer’s bank card usage behavior. The transaction information is cleaned of personal data, so retailers can’t identify individual consumers.
“It’s a new way for customers to save money through the online banking relationship,” Cardlytics co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Lynne Laube said.
The company has raised about $8.4 million so far, and plans to add about 50 jobs early next year — more than doubling its current workforce.
Entrepreneurs, if you sell your company tomorrow, do you know how much you would make? Do you know how much your investors make? How about your employees? Better yet, you're raising a round of funding and you just received a new term sheet. How does this change everything?
The Liquidity Event Proceeds Calculator ("LEPC") was developed as a
joint project between the Atlanta Technology Development Center (ATDC)
and Siavage Law Group, LLC with assistance from Atlanta investment
bankers Croft and Bender, LLC. The LEPC provides users with a
comprehensive understanding of the effect of their particular venture
capital deal terms. It allows the user to input valuation, option pool
size, amount of investment, and amount and timing of the liquidity
event in order to customize various scenarios to the company's unique
financing circumstances. The LEPC projects the proceeds to be derived
by common holders, preferred holders and option holders in liquidity
events at varying valuations and varying time periods. The assumptions
are listed on the first page and the tool proceeds through three
pro-forma rounds of funding, A, B and C. In order to gain a working
understanding of the tool, we recommend that users review the
spreadsheets as written first before they modify the assumptions to
suit their needs. Each of the rounds has a pro-forma liquidity event at
increasing dollar values that can be modified by the user.
Following up to my previous blog on Shotput Ventures, SPV just announced their first Demo Day. Eight early stage companies get to show off the fruits of their labor. It's an invite only event for angel investors, VCs and tech execs. Email to moc.serutnevtuptohsnull@ofni if you'd like to attend.
Look forward to seeing you there.
This is a call to all who plan on applying for CapVenture. Submit your application by this Fri 6/19. There's a $50 discount to those who are accepted to the program. Final application deadline is Weds 7/15.
As a reminder, ATDC, along with our partner TAG, are accepting applications for the 2009 CapVenture Program.
CapVenture
is a unique program that educates and equips CEOs and executives of
early-stage companies for smarter and more productive capitalization of
their businesses. Now in its 3rd year, CapVenture has been incredibly
successful; past
participants include Centrafuse, Global Crypto Systems, Purewire, and
Solo-Health.
Technology companies that are selected for this year's CapVenture will be guided
through extensive workshops on fund raising preparation, an elevator
pitch exercise and review, executive summary review, investor
communications and practice investor pitches. Participants will also
receive weekly mentoring from Atlanta investors and entrepreneurs.
CapVenture’s series of presentations and workshops prepare executives
for the opportunity to meet angel and venture investors and culminates
with an Investor Forum and Celebration. After the final event, the
top-rated CapVenture companies will also have an opportunity to present
at the 2nd annual Venture Atlanta conference in October.
Last week, I had the pleasure to be a guest speaker, along side Mr. Ben Dyer, at Shotput Ventures. For those who don't know Shotput Ventures, it's a sort of "Bootcamp" for earliest possible stage startups, concept stage companies. Shotput Ventures partners David Cummings, Sanjay Parekh, Allen Graber, Suleman Ali, Wayt King, Dave Wright, Mitch Free, Jeff Hillimire and Dave Williams decided to bring the "Y Combinator" model down to Atlanta.
After sifting through hundreds of applicants, the Shotput dudes settled on 8 worthy ideas. For these fortunate few, they get the pleasure of working night and day through a "Hot Lanta" summer trying to crank out a product and test it in the market. Teams meet every Weds from 6pm to 9pm to hear inspring testomonials from seasoned entrepreneurs, share typical startup typical fare of pizza and sodas (extra caffeine please) and update each other on progress/challenges.
Being in the same room with these young, would wood be entreprenuers, took me back. Crazy long hours, fast food every night, less than comfortable working conditions, and the constant reminder of cash position or lack there of. Both personally and professionally. All that didn't matter. All the external matters were out of focus. What was in focus was the task at hand, making a difference.
It was all there last Weds. Were they conscious that it 90 degrees in the conference room? or that the Dow was up nearly 2000 pts in the past 3 months? Probably not, and it didn't matter. All that mattered was that they were about to embark on a great adventure, togther. And they had believers and coaches.
It's no picnic but I assure you at it's conclusion, they'll fondly look back at this experience as one of the best of their lives.