Politics will certainly have a presence at the show -- U.S. Army General Wesley Clark and U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell are giving keynotes this week and the Cleantech for Obama Group is holding a fundraiser dinner for Obama-loving solar fans. But for Earth2Tech, the startups hold our first allegiance, and here are 10 solar startups that will be making a splash at the "history making" show this week:

1). Signet Solar: Menlo Park, Calif.-based thin-film solar maker Signet Solar says it has become the first licensee of Applied Material's thin-film solar equipment to get a "Final Acceptance Test (FAT)" certification. That means Signet has gotten the go-ahead to start "high volume production" of its thin-film solar material at its manufacturing facility in Mochau, Germany. Manufacturers have turned to Applied's SunFab thin-film machines to bring down the cost and time to production, and Signet says it took about 7 months to get its thin-film line up and running. Signet, founded in 2006, has 100 employees.

2). Solyndra: Yep, the totally tubular (sorry) photovoltaic solar company that has raised a massive $600 million will be showing off its solar system at the show. We'll be sure to snap some pictures! Fremont, Calif.-based Solyndra was founded in 2005 and is backed by Redpoint Ventures, RockPort Capital, Argonaut, CMEA Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners, the Walton family fund, Madrone Capital, Abu Dubai’s MASDAR and Richard Branson’s Virgin Green Fund.

3). SolarCity: The solar installer startup backed by cleantech entrepreneur and investor Elon Musk has a few product announcements to make at the show. We'll save the details of those 'til later this week, but SolarCity's Lydon Rive is one of the only startup CEOs represented on a prominent solar CEO panel Wednesday morning. The company is based in Foster City, Calif., and has developed some innovative solar financing models, like a leasing plan with no up-front payment and a 15-year contract.

4). Konarka: Last week the thin-film solar startup opened its new manufacturing plant in New Bedford, Mass., which will have a production capacity of 1 gigawatt per year. The 250,000-square-foot plant was previously an advanced printing facility for Polaroid, so Konarka has retrofitted much of the old printing equipment for solar fabrication and hired the technology and process engineering teams from Polaroid. The company plans to hire more than 100 additional employees as production increases toward capacity over the next 2-3 years. Konarka is showing off its Power Plastic at booth #922.

5). OptiSolar: OptiSolar has been oh-so quiet about its thin-film solar photovoltaic technology, but started talking when it announced it is building the largest PV solar project in the world -- a 550 MW farm dubbed "Topaz" in San Luis Obispo County. The company is still keeping a low profile, but we'll go hang out at their booth (#451) and see if we can learn anything new. The Hayward, Calif.-based company has been raising loads of cash to try and implement its aggressive plans, raising $77.8 million and $132 million in recent months.

6). PVT Solar: This two-year-old Berkeley-based company backed by Vinod Khosla is reportedly working on turning the wasted heat of standard solar systems into valuable heat for inside the home or to heat hot water. Supposedly the company is testing an electronic system to move the heat around the home where it’s needed the most, and part of the system could use stones underneath the panels to absorb the heat. Details on the company are scarce, so we'll see if we can scare something up by dropping in at booth #527.

7). Wattbot: While Wattbot doesn't make any products in the solar space, its web site could help speed up the adoption of solar roofs in the U.S. Launching at the show, the site connects clean energy providers with interested consumers and makes things just that much easier for the solar supply chain.

8). Sungevity: Sungevity, an installer startup out of Berkeley, Calif., that uses the Internet and satellite imagery to bring down the installation cost, is frustrated with the paperwork that consumers need to fill out to get a solar rooftop. We'll update this tonight with more on the startup's plans.

9). MMA Renewables: MMA provides financing for solar projects, and the company has been sending out a heap of news over the past month. The latest is that MMA has created a JV with Chinese manufacturer Suntech called Gemini Solar that will focus on utility-scale solar projects. The group plans to develop and finance photovoltaic plants 10 megawatts and larger, and the companies will co-own and operate the projects with additional financing from unnamed third-party partners.

10). SkyFuel: Last but not least is SkyFuel, which officially launched its low-cost trough-shaped solar concentrator, dubbed SkyTrough, at an event in Colorado last week. Parabolic troughs are an older solar technology, and while most are made out of glass, SkyFuel’s are made from the company’s own ReflecTech film material — sort of like mylar but sturdier — which it says can deliver the “world’s highest performance, lowest cost utility-scale solar power system.” We'll take a look-see at the show over at booth #739.

Y para ese proyecto voy a entrevistar a ipoki mañana. Estos chicos han desarrollado una red social basada en el GPS. Tengo que admitir que todavía no tengo muy claro qué quieren. Por eso me apetece tanto conocerlos.

A ver si con suerte mañana ya puedo contaros más.

Silicon Valley-based Signet Solar said Monday it has kicked off volume production of commercial grade solar cells that should generate electricity at close to the cost of fossil-fuel plants.

The Menlo Park company has its first factory in Mochau, Germany, and is using thin-film solar production equipment from Applied Materials. In thin-film production, manufacturers deposit a thin layer of light-absorbing material onto glass or ceramic backing, reducing the amount of material needed and the costs incurred.

Rajeeva Lahri, CEO of Signet, said the cost of producing electricity from his solar cells (after adjusting for the cost of installation and accounting for the 30 percent tax incentive Congress passed earlier this month) should be 12 cents a kilowatt hour

In June the average cost of electricity in the U.S. was between 10 cents and 12 cents a kilowatt hour, according to the federal Energy Information Administration. Peak prices can rise to 39 cents in California, Lahri said.

Signet expects to sell its large panels for commercial roof top installations and for ground-mounted solar farms. It will face numerous competitors.

Chinese cleantech investments accounted for just 4 percent of the total global venture capital investments in the third quarter of 2008, pulling in $111 million, according to recent data from the Cleantech Group. Solar companies in China claimed more than half of that funding. Production of photovoltaics in China has exploded in recent years, rising to 1,088 megawatts in 2007 from just 438 megawatts the year before and surpassing Japan and the U.S. to become the world's largest solar producer, according to a report from ResearchinChina.

However, the report points out that while China's solar cell and module production more than doubled in a year, its domestic polysilicon production has not kept up. The report estimates that the country can only produce about 80 megawatts worth of polysilicon, meaning the silicon needed for the other 1,000 megawatts must be imported. This is a considerable burden to China's green economy since silicon prices in China have skyrocketed as of late, jumping to $400 a kilogram at the end of 2007 from $200 a year before. This is part of why companies like JinkoSolar are raising money to fund the expansion of production.

This round of funding was led by China Israel Venture Capital, a partnership between Shenzhen Capital Group and Israeli Platinum Neurone Ventures. The partnership was formed back in 2005 with $80 million intended for Chinese later-stage and pre-IPO high-tech companies that could benefit from both capital investments and access to Israeli advanced technologies. Pitango, another Israeli venture firm, also participated in JinkoSolar's funding round.

I will be in Copenhagen, Denmark next weekend (October 17.-19.) and would love to meet some local startups over a coffee or a pint.

If you're a startup or know of the scene in Copenhagen drop me an email at ville (at) arcticstartup.com or say Hi! in the comments and I'll contact you.

Moreover, I will be in town for the Nordic Venture Forum so do let me know if you are going and like to connect before Monday. Thanks!

Cohen first told us that video startups will need to take into account more general industry trends, such as softening demand, fewer new investments by VCs and lowered valuations. He said all startups should make sure they can run for 24 months on their existing cash, and if they can't, start fund raising ASAP. Cohen also noted that run rates will be important to attracting top talent, who will be holding onto their existing jobs unless you can offer them something really stable.

What about video startups specifically? Here's Cohen's take, lightly edited:

1. Entertainment is usually less affected by recessions. People still consume TV, movies and video. Sometimes this consumption goes up as people have more time (because they lost their job) or are looking to entertainment as a way to forget about the hard times. Based on that, video distribution companies and video production companies will continue to see similar demand.

2. Video advertising will be hurt, as the whole advertising industry will slow down. The good news is that that video advertising is coming out of the “experiment” budgets, and as such, video advertising will be hurt less compared to other new advertising categories.

3. Hardware sales will slow down. People will postpone their decision to do the Blu-ray upgrade, iPod upgrade, etc.

4. Fund raising in the video sector will slow down. We will see less investment in ad-supported models and in companies with non-existing business models.

If you'd like to hear more from Danny, please come to our NewTeeVee Live conference on Nov. 13, where he'll be sitting on our venture capital panel with Dan Beldy from Steamboat Ventures, Aydin Senkut from Felicis Ventures, and James Slavet from Greylock. Tickets are on sale now.

La crisis y la 'desaparición' del dinero de muchos sitios está haciendo de catalizador y acelerando dos tendencias relacionadas con el fenómeno Web 2.0:

• La primera de ellas es que los medios 'tradicionales' se están haciendo 2.0. Esto está comentado en el artículo de más arriba. Y lo hacen utilizando sus propias plataformas, desarrolladores, y know-how. Es cierto que algunos de ellos o sus dueños han tomado participaciones en proyectos Web 2.0, pero las audiencias principales, es decir, las de El Mundo, El País, etc. acceden cada vez más a portales interactivos, con blogs, vídeos, tags, etc. Igual que ocurrió con el e-commerce ocurre ahora: 'la banca gana'. Lo siento por los sueños de muchos que querían (algunos siguen ahí) cambiar el mundo.
• La segunda tendencia se acelera cada día que pasa, y yo la llamaría 'deflación de las aplicaciones Web 2.0'. Esto quiere decir que un blog de empresa, un wiki, una red social corporativa, o un periódico online cada vez va a costar menos a los interesados. El poder ofrecer a todas las empresas este tipo de servicios gratis merece un comentario aparte para otro día.

Los medios de comunicación se desarrollan sus propias plataformas 2.0. Sólo compran para 'cubrir el expediente' y adquirir alguna audiencia de nicho. Las aplicaciones Web 2.0 cada vez son más un commodity. Cada una de estos 'misiles' debería hacer cambiar a muchos de actividad, o replantearse mucho las cosas.

Vienen tiempos interesantes, y veremos cosas realmente entretenidas. Seguiremos informando.

"Silicon Valley är en självförstärkande ekokammare om något. Bra tider är time-to-quit-your-day-job-awesome, dåliga tider är four-horsemen-foretelling-armageddon-fearsome. Tyvärr vet man inte i förväg när de har rätt." - Martin Källström

Via Jaiku

SPECIAL THANKS TO VH1 FOR SUCH AN EXCELLENT ARTICLE. PLEASE VISIT THE ORIGINAL BLOG POSTING HERE! Also, more contestant interviews, pictures and inside scoop about The PickUp Artist 2 can be found at PickUpTara.com

Last season on The Pickup Artist, International Man named Mystery turned a gaggle of lovable but lady-challenged boys into set-opening men who could bounce with the girl of their choice.  It warmed our cockles to see eight underdogs all have a chance at love, not just with the ladies, but also by learning to love themselves. And as Ms. Whitney once said, that’s the greatest love of all. The winner of last season, Kosmo, has traveled the world as one of Mystery’s wingmen, teaching other down-on-their-lady-luck men how a pluck of the eyebrows can make all the difference.
This season, Mystery is joined once again by his wingman Matador, and kissing instructor Tara takes a role as wing woman. From the get-go I decide it’s my own personal mission to figure out what all the text behind Mystery actually says in the opening credits - perhaps they are transcripts of his teachings.

I was trying to read all the scrolling words but was distracted when a cocoon of butterflies exploded from Mystery’s palm.

Next time, I won’t let myself get off target.

Unlike last year, Mystery gets tough from the start and this first episode will mean elimination for one of our contestants. First off, we’re introduced to Todd, 26, the “every gal’s best friend” guy and Rian, a 28-year-old virgin from Portland…

…before cutting back to Tara who’s sitting at the pool at the guys’ new house in Phoenix. Tara tells them to pick rooms in the house and get ready - the guys will be meeting Mystery soon.

Next up we meet Simeon, a 27-year-old poetry-slammer who lived on a boat.

In Simeon’s interview, he professes his desire to have someone to sleep next to and take away his loneliness. At the house, we cut to him jumping on the bed yelling “Bounce test!” which only reinforces that. You want to make sure you’re providing your sleeping lover the firmness she needs, he’s clearly just being sensitive.

Karl, 21 and brokenhearted, stayed with a cheating girlfriend for three months and was the only guy in the group to not have a rolling suitcase as they walked along the blazing Arizona pavement.

Judgement will be reserved once we see how he is around women. Immediately we’re loving Matt who calls himself a mix of Austin Powers and Lauren Hutton (how many 26-year-old guys make Lauren Hutton references?) and in his audition tape he pulls up his shirt to display a small throw rug of chest hair that adds to his insecurity.

Greg is the resident long-haired guy whose makeover (spoiler alert!) features the Coming to America braid-chop.

Brian wins us over by telling us that the only place he’s ever planted his lips is on his mom’s forehead.

We do wish someone would show Brian Crocodile Dundee, though, doesn’t every kid learn what a bidet is from that movie? Kevin, 21, is the VH1 online winner who is sick of being shot down by the ladies.

And rounding out the bunch is gold-chain wearing Alex, who women assume is gay.

At this point, Mystery calls the house and, bless these guys for never working in a soulless corporate office, they can’t figure out where the conference phone is when it’s ringing. Once they realize that it’s the thing that looks vaguely like a Cylon Raider sitting on the counter, they cool out and answer it.

Mystery tells them to hop the Bus of Destiny and meet him and his wings downtown where they’ll be released into the wild so Mystery can assess their skills. Brian, at a loss for well, common phrases, tells us that his first impression of Mystery is that he’s “smokin’ balls tonight”. Is Mystery even into that?

Over at the Acme Bar and Grill, the guys prove to a bundle of nerves and failure, with Kevin asking a group of girls if he can go deeper with them (ew) and Matt asking girls the price of their drinks. Hirsute Simeon gets told he looks like Osama Bin Laden.

When Alex fails to act on the attention he receives for his gold chains, Mystery throws his hands up in frustration and decides to show the boys how it’s done (without wearing his signature hat or goggles as conversation pieces). Mystery and Matador work the room while the guys watch from the Surveillance Truck of Watching and Learning. The M and M’s hug and kiss their way through the club with such smoothness that the guys nearly pee with excitement.

The next day is makeover day! Man, do we love a good makeover, and when Mystery asks “Do you look like the type of men who are sexually active?” and the resounding answer is “No”, the boys start to love a good makeover too. They learn that accessories are sexual and that all white suits make you look a touch Miami Vice.

Hair and makeup (and in Matt’s case, dental and waxing) are endured and in all honesty, these boys clean up nice.

Back at the ranch, Alex throws his gold chain into the bulk-metal recycling bin…

…and the fashion show begins for the rest.

Simeon struts his clean-shaven self and Tara calls him Osama Bin Sexy. Rian, who has a slight breakdown at the clothing store looks preppy-pimpy and totally adorable. While there was no official winner of the episode, our vote goes to Greg, whose braid was ceremonially chopped and he became unrecognizable and flat-out hot.

The guys are grilling up hot dogs to celebrate their nicely fitting pants when dun dun DUN! Mystery arrives to ruin the fun by telling the guys that one of them will be going home. Ultimately, like a parent trying to teach his children, Mystery explains that the one contestant he was most disappointed in at the bar the previous night was the one who was actually approached and hit on and couldn’t even respond - it’s game over for Alex. Like his gold chain before him, Alex is out of the house, but it’s only the beginning for the rest of our future pickup artists.

]]> http://pickuptara.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/138/ Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:54:23 +0000 pickuptara http://blog.pickuptara.com/2008/10/13/138/ Tara of PickUpTara.com Interviews Alex from VH1's The Pickup Artist 2 PART 1

Tara from PickUpTara.com and VH1's The PickUp Artist 2 interviews Alex about his experience on the show, what changes he has made in his life and how it felt being the first person kicked off of the show. Make sure to check out part 2 of the interview and visit www.pickuptara.com. Go talk with Alex now on his PickUpTara.com profile page: http://www.pickuptara.com/profile/Alex

The key takeaways are:

Marketing is not buzzmarketing. In a traditional marketing paradigm, marketing is about news releases and getting blogs to write about the latest achievement of your company. That's bland, and consumers are great at filtering the noise. The goal of buzzmarketing is compelling the consumers and the media to have a conversation about your product. Once they have the conversation, then the product sells itself. But buzzmarketing is more than a means to sell your product. It should be an end in itself.

Know the six buttons of buzz. These pressure points for buzz are: the taboo, the unusual, the outrageous, the hilarious, the remarkable, the secrets. If you take these buttons to heart, you should think in these terms to create buzz for your company.

Create a compelling story. If you leverage the six buttons of buzz and create a story, then you're more likely to grab the media attention that you so desire. Hughes offers his six templates for stories, that the media gravitates to: the David-and-Goliath story, the unusual or outrageous story, the controversy story, the celebrity story, and the "what's already hot in the media" story.

Like some have already said, the story about two college kids creating a webs site is kinda done and old. We've all heard it, and we need something new. You have to work on the story as much as you have to work on your pitch or on our tagline for your site/service/product.

Advertise in an unflitered media stream. You have to take risks, when you're a young, hungry enterpreneur. Of course, you can start a Google AdWords campaign to spread the word on your product. You can go through print and television advertising, but these are tried and true methods. And, like Hughes drums into your head throughout the book, consumers are great at filtering commercials through those media. Find other avenues to advertise, like renaming a city. Half.com renamed a city in Oregon to increase the buzz around their product, and you can't pay for that type of publicity.

Keep swingin'. Inevitably, as we plan to stay creative and market in creative ways, we're bound to fail repeatedly in attempting to generate buzz. That's unfortunate, but it's true. The only way to be successful is to keep trying... at developing the right product and creating the right buzz.

What's this blog about?

Data - www.pinchmedia.com

Data - www.pinchmedia.com

If you are in the initial steps of a startup, it may looks confusing. Some are saying don't do it, some are encouraging you. Your responsibility is to be true to yourself, consider your business potential from the new perspective of the current situation in the market and not according to month-old statistics. This may change your plans, may reinforce them or may discourage you, but it is better to do your math now than later on where money has ran out of your (or your investors) pocket. One advise you will find is repeating over and over again: be cash effective, keep your costs down, funding will not become any easier in the coming times.

Our personal belief is that in our area of business this is indeed the best of times, a one of a kind opportunity. We have been pitching about the debit opportunity and its huge potential for the last two years and, although there is no such a thing as recession-proof, this is one of the few segments in the payments industry that will continue to grow, as it did in the last years, but now with the back wind of the credit crunch it is expected to become the dominant payment instrument in the US as well as most countries in the world.

So....Banks of the World Unite! SeerGate is here to offer the best of breed in electronic debit card processing, a profit centric proposition that is all about benefits. Not all innovations in financial services these days are meant to fail, some are here at the right time with the right value proposition and SeerGate is definitely one to stay.

The black silicon technique works like this: shine a very powerful pulse of a laser on a piece of silicon in the presence of the gas sulfur hexafluoride and the result is a piece of silicon marked with tiny cones. Xconomy digs even deeper into the process and explains: "the laser pulses force unusually large numbers of dopant atoms into a thin layer of silicon on the surface of the cones," and the new structure requires less energy "to knock electrons into the conduction band." The result is the treated silicon can absorb twice as much visible light as regular silicon and unlike standard silicon is sensitive to invisible infrared light.

The bizarre (randomly found) process can lead to amazing results, and could potentially disrupt any industry that depends on the light sensitivity of silicon. That includes the solar industry, and imaging products like night vision, medical imaging and digital cameras. Solar cells could be made that are more sensitive to light and more efficient at producing electricity, though both stories clearly state that the solar application is far in the future. Much closer is an application in medical imaging, like using less powerful more efficient Xrays, and Metcalfe tells Xconomy that the startup has already negotiated a partnership with a company active in medical imaging.

Wattbot is officially launching in beta at the Solar Power International convention in San Diego this week. Here's how it works: Solar installers, home retrofitters, and other energy providers sign up to be listed on the site and can receive high-quality leads for consumers in their area who are interested in their service. Consumers enter information about the energy products they are interested in and can search through recommendations and listings of the most appropriate providers, pricing options and companies in their area (the consumer section won't be able available until January). The company says providers cannot directly influence the automated matching service.

Wattbot can cut providers' sales cycle in half and help consumers navigate the confusing, inefficient energy information out there on the web, Loviglio told us in a phone interview. "We found that solar installers were spending hours educating consumers and qualifying leads," Loviglio says. They also noted that there wasn't a good, centralized place for consumers to find intelligent energy information. "We thought there's got to be a more efficient way," she says.

Providers are able to enter their company information on the site now, but leads won't be available until February. Pricing ranges from $20 to $200 per lead, depending on how qualified the lead is and what products/services the consumers have signed up to learn about. For the launch, providers can sign up for free between now and Dec. 31, 2008. Wattbot will deposit a $500 credit in their account, so they can try out leads at no cost. Providers can also register with a Solar Power 2008 code (GFT286) to get an additional $250 credit. In March, Wattbot will also start offering market intelligence (geographic and demographic clean power data) to providers for an annual subscription.

The site is free for consumers, and starting in January it will offer detailed information about services, providers, pricing and options in their area (between now and January consumers can sign up but won't be able to sift though listings.) At that time users will be able to enter their address as well as info about their site, structure, occupancy, energy, finances and goals to discover the best options. "When they are confident in the financial analysis of each recommendation, and feel comfortable with why Wattbot recommended particular products, services, and financing plans, they can click to be connected with the best-matching providers," Loviglio wrote in an email to us.

Wattbot also has some other nifty features, like a clean energy density map, a clean energy pin map, and community features, which will be more valuable when the site starts bringing in users. Wattbot was founded in 2007 and financed by undisclosed angel investors.

The thing that impressed me the most was her business card. Job Title = Goddess of Revenue. Love it.

So it's a bit hard to read above, but being a 'Goddess of Revenue' says so much. The first thing it says is that Kim 'gets it'. It says she knows that fun is important, but revenue is vital.

Then on the flipside is more useful stuff.

The kind of stuff which just maybe gives her a permanent place in someones wallet or purse. A good chunk of simple, yet useful information.

It'll be handy next time in Sydney on business.... and her simple business card made me remember Kim, it even got her a story on this here blog.

If we are going to the trouble of printing business cards - we should make it worth remembering.

I was there to listen to and learn from the best in the industry. I'm trying to prepare a research proposal for my postgraduate dissertation (MSc International Business Management), so this was the prime opportunity to build a small rolodex of willing contacts who would be prepared to respond to some questions in a couple of months time. In short, I went to work, but I had a surprising amount of fun and gained much more than I expected.

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Here is an overview of the university sessions:

Inuda talk from Jon Markwell (Founder)

They're a 5 man team of Ruby on Rails programmers. In a long weekend off, they hacked together HowSociable – a tool to rate a brand name's presence on social networks and the blogosphere by giving the Coca Cola brand's online presence the score of 1000 and then using this as a benchmark.

It was a story of how important word of mouth is to get a product out. This wasn't marketed in any way, and wasn't even announced except in a note on a wiki. The tool is useful and stood the test of time. Users have started to email feedback and feature requests, offering to pay for the service.

Ways they plan to monetise – premium account with black box so popularity can be recorded over time, page ads perhaps.

Myspace talk from Chris Thorpe (Developer Platform Evangelist)

Sustainable communities and how they are looking to change apps on the API so that they're profitable over a longer period of time. Myspace are looking to get rid of apps that have a 2 minute shelf life and that never get used after their first use and viral marketing. To do this, they're launching an app development competition - £10k up for grabs to put their app to work.

This talk was important from a strategic HRM perspective – they're making workers and outside coders hungry to write apps for them with rivalry and competition.

Marketing was also a big issue because the current system of small, cheap and nasty virally marketed apps has been recognised as not sustainable, not profitable, and actually pushing away end users from the service. The marketing isn't appealing enough, and users have developed immunities to these style apps.

The competition, then, looks to address and manage these two business problems – spurring coders into fresh ideas on marketable apps.

Microsoft talk from Bindi Karia (VC/Emerging Business Lead)

“Start-up and stay up with Microsoft”

Microsoft take a different approach to Google and prefer to partner with startups than acquire them. Team provides contacts, technologies, licenses, business consultancy and advice, and sometimes cash.

Partnering offers more opportunities for business later on, adding more b2b as well as end users of a product. Partnering also ensures that products are made under Microsoft supervision yet with the fresh eyes staying outside of the company's influence: allows workers to do what they are best at, innovation goes further.

______________________________________________________

There was a lot to take in from the stalls being run by various SaaS and PaaS providers, startups and others. I had a great time in both the Sun and Microsoft lounges, especially the demo of the Microsoft Surface, which you can see a video or two of on my Qik account. I took the following notes from the stalls around the expo floor:

BookingBug.com is a startup looking to sell their service to small businesses such as plumbers, electricians and so forth. They aim to be a classifieds but with an inbuilt calendar system so that when the business logs in, they can see customer requests for service, and choose to accept that booking. Helps small businesses to manage their time, and customers to see when the business is available for service. Good idea, but how likely are they to get businesses signed up?

Swirrl.com is a wiki service being bootstrapped. They've been live for a couple of weeks. 2 man team, very friendly. I was unable to see the difference between this and other wiki services like WetPaint, but I know nothing about programming and real technical workings, so perhaps there's more to this than meets the eye. Very straight forward freemium business model with 3 levels of paying packages. I can see small and medium enterprises using this as a work and collaboration solution, but due to the quantity of similar wiki services mass or larger scale adoption not happening. I'm sure they've thought through the technical side of scaling it, but where's the unique selling feature that would make everyone jump and grab at it? I definitely do want to give this a try though.

Adknowledge is an ad solutions company, looking to take on Google and Yahoo! with their pay per click system for advertisers. As well as trying to appeal to advertisers, they offer ad solutions up to publishers. They have funding from Technology Crossover Ventures, and can't really go wrong with their ad business, it just seems that there's a lot of competition in this arena already. I'd like to talk to them a lot more about monetising through ads and how the model can grow.

AbilityNet provide services for disabled people to enhance their interaction with technology. They're a not-for-profit charity, backed by Microsoft and others.

Salesforce.com were demonstrating force.com platform as a service which is an incredibly powerful system. Looking around their stall, they demonstrated their services for other businesses, providing sales, crm, marketing, channel management, analytics, customisation, integration, and an app exchange market place. The marketplace was what impressed me the most, a place to trade in apps, it looked so simple and functional. The guys were extremely helpful with answering my questions and I'll definitely be getting in touch with them at a later stage.

Anish Kapoor (CEO and Founder) from yuuguu demonstrated his cross platform remote assistance technology. Has an installed client for the desktop that launches the request, and then a web portal viewing for the support. Features integration with Google Talk, so the request can take place through your buddy list. This can be sold to consumers and businesses, although I came away confused as to who was the main focus. With services out there like LogMeIn and remote assistance built into Windows Live Messenger, will this take off?

Cmypitch.com is a way for startups to record themselves pitching their company, be rated and advised by other startups on their pitch, and then viewed by potential investors. I take this to be a way of removing the nerve racking experience of pitching that would take place in an office, and maybe saving some time and money for both sides. It's more than that though: they are another social network, but with a business and video podcasting spin. I assume that businesses will have to pay to be listed in the directory, else there seems to be no way for the site to make money. Nice idea, and I hope it gets adopted by companies to make them more transparent to the community.

Veedow.com is all about "shopping without searching". I was told to think of StumbleUpon clashed with Amazon. My answer to which is why not partner with StumbleUpon? I assume this will monetise by transaction percentage, and probably ads too.

Skimbit lets you research and compile your research into one page and then share this page with others, a little like delicious bookmarking, but aimed more at collaboration. It's a nice idea, but I felt it filled a very small niche in the market, and that there are a bunch of other ways I could put together a similar result. I do think that there's a ton of directions this product offering could be taken. At the moment it reminds me of instapaper, which I used for about 5 minutes and then realised that I saved a lot of time just leaving articles sat in my Google Reader and it was one less page to visit. Skim-in-a-box is great because it lets you put their service into full swing through your own site, a white label service. This and ads on their main site would seem to be monetising sorted.

Empressr is a competitor to SlideRocket. I didn't get to chat to anyone from their team, so I was just left to guess about it from posters and leaflets.

GoodBarry is a webhost that make running your ebusiness a lot simpler. They have made the complete package of services and tools so that a business can be run through a backend web portal. The demo was impressive, and I'm sure they will attract a lot of customers who are looking to set up an online business but lack time and tech knowledge to do so. The interface was exceptionally clean and very quick to learn your way around. I really liked the live feed of usage, that's a neat feature. As standard it lets you keep on top of every element to your business and produces stats on everything from page hits to revenue.

Fav.or.it is a blog aggregator, that to me seemed like cheating: it's like turning your rss feed reader into a blog. You can import content through certain tags, feeds etc and add commentary, or just leave it to gather and publish all that info. What I like is that commenting through the interface actually posts the comment back to the original site that the article came from. Revenue comes from ads by Google, and they're proudly powered by Sun who had brought a surf machine and internet cafe to the expo for everyone to enjoy.

These are the stalls I got to see, the people I got to speak to, and the interesting leaflets I picked up. Time flew, and as everyone began to pack up, the focus turned to the live taping of Diggnation. Congratulations to Alex and Heather on getting engaged! I had such fun watching this, meeting new people and drinking Google Beers. Marketing genius - provide free beer and people will love your brand. A couple of rounds at Fox bar run by Digg and Facebook finished a thoroughly enjoyable and productive day. Many thanks again to all those that made it happen!

We have talked about Sequoia Captial a number of times. We love that they do and how they do it. 

So when they call together their CEOs for a little motivation and discussion about expectations, it interesting to listen in. Even more interesting, is if you can get the presentataion.

Its a call that any business should heed. Do more with less. Understand your strenghts and exploit your competitors weaknesses. And focus on cash flow. Its funny, but the folks from 37Signals have been Getting Real for some time and declining VC investment despite multiple offers.

Of special interest is emphasis on specific aspects of operations (slide 47):

Product - what features are absolutely essential?

Marketing - measuring & cutting whats not working?

Pipeline - real probability of closing deals?

No one moves fast enought (slide 50). Unfortunately we have seen this multiple times. We often sound harsh when we propose significant changes. Salaries always come into focus and the standard assumption is cutting headcount - it really doesnt have to be this way. Our experience is that in many cases, it can make sense to reduce salaries but keep teams together to reduce the difficulties as people leave the organization. 

We think this is just great business advice.

Strenghts

This are the things you have that make you rock. Every person in the world has at least one strength that makes them rock, every company has one and everything has one too. The first thing a business needs to do these days is ask themselves What makes us rock? What makes users come here everyday? What makes users watch every episode? What makes users post comments? or whatever your result measures are. 

Strengths are things people notice that makes them want your product instead of the one made by anybody else.  Strenghts are the resources you have inside, are the things you can work to improve. 

In this times we need to look to the strenghts and make them more powerful than ever starting with people. In the 21st century we all know brains are the most valuable asset so we need to start developing those in ways we've not done it before. That is our main strength, we could lose our computer, servers, HQ offices, or even our house, but we don't lose the brains.

Weaknesses 

This are the things we suck at. It's a very politically incorrect way of saying it, but we definitely are not doing enough to change our weaknesses into strenghts or neutral features. A weakness is a thing that will make users go away from  to other people's product or service. In the times of recession we need to value every user we have so we need to take all of our time monitoring what weaknesses we have. The best way to do this is to accept all the feedback we can, read it and act quickly to solve any problems. If you solve users problems they will most likely love you. I know i will love a company that solves my problems easily or that adapts to serve my needs. 

You are allowed to have lot's of weaknesses the only one you are not allowed to have is : lack of communication with your users.

So far all this has been written over and over again and all entrepreneurs know that they need to focus on their Strenghts and Weaknesses.

Opportunities and Threats 

Right now we have lot's of threats and many people fail to see the opportunities blinded by fear. In my last post i talked about how fear may lead people to act in ways that will cause damage to themselves and to others. On this times of economic crisis what will bring an edge to us is focusing on the Opportunities, more than on the threats. Of course we need to focus on threats, our future depends on what we do to keep them away from us. But this times bring endless opportunities. Stocks go lower and lower as people sell, advisors rate some stocks on the "SELL" list, the truth is that when you are selling somebody else is buying and it may be Warren Buffet, he understands that when the market goes down he has an opportunity to buy.

Remember a bear market brings opportunities for investors and for businesses to start focusing on markets that they didn't saw in the first place. So i suggest you do a postive check on the world outside to see who might be interested in your product or a variation of it, what companies that may add some know-how to your organization are on sale and for low prices or what skills are being needed that you had and thought will never use. 

SWOT all together

Finally if you are focusing on keeping the inside lean you will be able to react quickly to opportunities. Remember this is the theory they teach in every business school, in every first day at work or in every book about business. 

My intention here is to remember that the theory may work well this time. Stop focusing or entering in panic because markets are going down and start to focus on what  Strenghts you have that will make everyone keep coming to you, look at what people want from you that you are not offering (opportunities), on what other people are failing to achieve so you can do that (others people weaknesses are also opportunities) and finally focus on eliminating everything that makes you weak and a potential victim. 

So if you need to take a habit these days take the one of SWOTing all you see. Starting for yourself or your business to the pet shop (you can find opportunities there). It may seem like a time taking process, but in time you will do it naturally.

This is true even for the most seasoned entrepreneurs, like Scott Painter, whose pedigree boasts 29 companies, including the early web auto retailer, CarsDirect.com, software and services provider, Zag.com, and most recently, TrueCar, the Zillow for car buyers.

Last summer, as the financial markets inched toward collapse, Painter closed a $15 million Series C round for Zag.com. It was harder for him than normal. Painter has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in his career ($350 million for CarsDirect, alone). Zag has a seasoned management team, plays in a space Painter knows well, and it generates over $1 million in monthly revenues.

“All that and I still had to pitch 120 investors to get one to say yes -- 120 twenty pitches later!" Painter booms into the phone. "But look, don't despair either," he quickly adds. "Fundraising is a numbers game. The biggest thing founders need to hear right now is that it doesn’t matter if it’s a good market or a bad market, there is someone who will fund every quality company that solves a relevant problem in capital-efficient manner. You'll have to be realistic: It is most important that you get the money. Don't quibble about terms and conditions. Forget valuation. Just meet more people, meet more people, meet more people.”

If getting through 120 pitches daunts you, Painter has help. Over the past 16 years, he has streamlined his pitch method to an art –- even using web tools to automate much of the work for him. He explains how, below, in his 12 steps for short-circuiting “the funding numbers game.”

1. Skip the PowerPoint. ”It’s expected, [but] a waste of time," says Painter. "I never go into a meeting planning to present a slide deck.”

2. Build a web toolkit instead. Painter means a web-hosted version of everything you would have put in your deck, including your financial models. This screenshot shows such a slide for Tag. The value-add: “Viewers can toggle the metrics up or down if they think my assumptions are wrong, and the whole model adjusts.” Painter finds investors love playing with it.

3. Lock it. Make your tool kit a private site, accessible with a login ID and temporary password of your choosing. When you invite viewers to the site, require that they use a personal email as their login ID.

4. Build your mailing list. Painter starts with up to a thousand VCs and narrows it to “a few hundred” who have investments compatible with his startup. Use sites like The Funded to help you narrow your list.

5. Send the “sexy tease.” By now Painter’s email is written, and it's short. He introduces himself in a sentence, offers a sexy tease on the company and closes with: “Here’s a link to a site if you’d like to learn more." Do not ask for a meeting, Painter warns. Do include your site’s password.

6. Wait two weeks. Change the password.

7. Check the logins. Since you’ve required personal emails for the login ID, you’ll see each investor who looked at your plan, what they reviewed, and for how long. “And when a VC says 'We’re going to pass,’ I can tell if he hasn’t even gone to our site. Expect a 10 percent view rate from your email blast.

8. Now reach out. Your first round of calls goes only to VCs who have already reviewed your plan. The cold call is now a warm call: “We see you went on our site. You looked at X. Do you have other questions?’” Expect two-thirds of your viewers to return your call.

9. Request a meeting. By now you’ve reduced your initial task list of 200 VC-contacts to 20 calls and 12 phone conversations. Be pleased if half of these take a meeting.

10. Meeting one. Smile. Listen. Be responsive. “And get out of there as quickly as possible,” says Painter. "The only goal is to get meeting two.”

11. Meeting two. Make it long. “I always try to see how long I can keep them asking questions.” Talk about your philosophy, your industry. Spring to get employees on the phone with answers.

12. Dinner. “This is about getting personal, because you’ll need a champion, someone who’ll say ‘this is my deal’ in the final partners meeting.”

If you get this far, you’ve done your job. The rest is out of your control. Painter’s method is no guarantee of funding success, but it will cut weeks off the path to a final ‘yes’ or ‘no’, sparing you precious resources and energy.

Meanwhile, Painter offers parting encouragement: "VCs are still sitting on large funds. The biggest financing impact will be on mid- and late-stage companies that aren't yet self-sufficient. Rounds for startups are still closing. They did last week, as well. True enough, there is panic. But this does not mean entrepreneurs should pack it up and go home. Building companies during a recession is certainly more challenging, but sometimes it's a better test of what should survive in the first place."

Verlage und Co. müssen investieren

Im Idealfall schafft ein Startup nach seiner Aufbauarbeit den Exit, also einen Börsengang oder den lukrativen Verkauf des Unternehmns an strategische Investoren. Börsengänge als Exits wären momentan sicher mehr als problematisch, aber mit Ausnahme von Xing hat sich hier in Deutschland in den letzten Jahren sowieso nicht viel getan. Strategische Investoren wie Verlagshäuser und andere alteingesessene Unternehmen, die im Web mitmischen wollen, sind hier viel bedeutender. Egal, ob gerade Finanzkrise ist oder nicht: Verlage sind fast verdammt dazu, online zu investieren, wollen sie ihre Kundschaft aus Lesern und Werbewirtschaft nicht noch weiter abwandern lassen. Und deren Kriegskassen dürften gut gefüllt sein, konnten sie doch jahrzehntelang traumhafte Gewinne einfahren.

VCs etwas zurückhaltender

Um überhaupt zu wachsen, ist für Startups meist Venture Capital nötig. Hier ist es zur Zeit sicher wesentlich enger. Da sich die VCs  ihrerseits nicht mehr so leicht mit investitionsbereitem Geld eindecken können, werden sie eher ihre bestehenden Investments länger mit Treibstoff in Form von Finanzspritzen versorgen, als dass sie neue Startups finanzieren. Allerdings darf man nicht vergessen, dass im Stadium der VCs mittlerweile immer häufiger Verlagshäuser selbst tätig werden, deren Geldquellen nicht unbedingt auf den einbrechenden Finanzmärkten liegen.

Seed Capital: Kaum auf Finanzmarkt angewiesen

Zum Glück braucht man heute keine Wahnsinnsbeträge mehr, um ein Online-Unternehmen zu starten. Oft reichen ein paar 10.000 Euro, die ohnehin fast nie per klassischen Kredit einholbar sind, sondern eher durch Business Angels oder ähnliche Geldgeber. Software-Tools, Serverkapazitäten und auch die Hardware sind immer günstiger und teils kostenlos zu haben, so dass es hauptsächlich auf die guten Köpfe ankommt, die ihre Idee konsequent umsetzen und in den Markt bringen.

Hauptsache, den Nutzern geht nicht die Kohle aus

In der Konsequenz sollten also Startups, die einen überzeugenden Prototypen haben, der bestenfalls schon reale Umsätze macht, weiterhin ihre Kapitalquellen finden. Es bleibt nur zu hoffen, das die weltweite Krise nicht noch gravierender wird, so dass am Ende sogar die Basis für reale Umsätze der Startups fehlen könnte, weil einfach die Nutzer kein Geld mehr haben.

Startup blog got involved last year - which you can read here. And I'm excited to do so again - it's pretty cool that new digital media has given us a voice, best we use it.