5 Tips For Entrepreneurial MBAs From TroopID’s Blake Hall

For entrepreneurs, business school presents a unique set of choices and opportunities that can drastically alter a founder’s chance of success — for better or worse.

I founded Troop ID while I was an MBA candidate at Harvard Business School in February of 2010. And while today we employ 17 people and sign up nearly 1,000 new members daily, our path to success would have been much swifter had I leveraged the resources at my fingertips while in business school.

Here are 5 of my top lessons — many of them learned the hard way — for other MBAs considering entrepreneurship:

1. Research vesting carefully.

If you have a co-founder, then you will inevitably face a choice about how to split ownership of the company. Initially, this will seem simple: 50/50. But what happens when your co-founder – comparing his ramen noodle diet to the average starting salary of your MBA graduating class — decides to take a high-paying corporate job several months later and wants to remain an equal owner?

That happened to me, and I felt physically ill for almost two months until we sorted it out. Fortunately, smart investors won’t invest in companies until non-full time founders sell back their shares, and, ultimately, that reality allowed me to resolve the situation. But the confrontation cost me precious time and it ruined my personal relationship with a classmate I had once trusted. Looking back, I could have gone down the hall to see Noam Wasserman, a professor at Harvard who literally wrote the book on optimal ownership structures for Founding Teams. I still kick myself over that missed opportunity.

2. Find a mentor.

MBAs are uniquely positioned to find a mentor who is invested in their success. While I would steer clear of pure academic types, there are usually plenty of successful entrepreneurs on faculty. If you develop a personal relationship with a successful entrepreneur who trusts you and is passionate about your venture, then you will have gained the most valuable asset of all: someone who can open doors for you within their trusted network. Since most MBAs are first-time CEOs or founders, sophisticated angel investors will often require that a person they trust sit on the board of the company.

My mentor, Kelly Perdew, helped me navigate multiple pitfalls that could have killed our business; he kept our chins up when the breaks went the wrong way; and he kept our eye on the ball when they started to go right. Kelly provided introductions to most of our current angels and he walked me through the financing process. He’s the single best thing to happen to me and my company.

3. Understand the commitment.

An MBA provides a safety valve that many other entrepreneurs don’t enjoy — a terrible thing for entrepreneurs, because it means that you can waltz out of your company at any point in time and land in a safe, high-paying job. I had a full-time offer from a top management consulting firm that paralyzed me the first few months after I finished business school.

Until I declined that opportunity, I couldn’t make the tough decisions about the best geographic location for the company, I wasn’t fully bought into my own vision and, most importantly, I couldn’t hire talented people or ask them to leave their jobs because that would be unethical. Only when I fully committed to making my company successful did I feel free.

I waited far too long to make this decision and I allowed my Facebook feed – filled with my classmates’ vacations and ski trips – to influence my thinking. After declining the job offer, the next year was even worse. I was lonely. My credit cards maxed out. But I never quit because I was passionate about the problem that I was solving.

4. Focus on your product, relentlessly.

Before we even had a product, I had built a sharp-looking Excel business model that projected a meteoric rise to success. I cringe now when I write about it because, while I understood financial modeling, I understood virtually nothing about building a company. Because I had business training, I thought that my job was to go out and build a sales and marketing plan and to develop relationships with other businesses. I pursued these activities at the expense of the product — the core of the business.

After a few months and a harsh (but much-needed) conversation with one of our seed investors, I stopped doing everything else until we nailed our product and validated our assumptions with small cohorts of customers.

Today, focusing on product first is a personal mantra. It’s also incredibly rewarding because it allows for a level of creativity and self-actualization absent in most other functions. MBAs are well-suited to leverage their business training to provide analytical rigor to validate customer assumptions based upon customer behavior with product features.

In the meantime, I’ve learned not to waste money selling and marketing a product that doesn’t solve a real problem.

5. Pitch everyone.

The biggest advantage of being an MBA is that you have access to virtually everyone you need to poke holes in your idea: faculty, lawyers, angel investors, VCs, corporate executives, classmates, and potential customers. Pitch everyone you meet while you are in business school, and soak in the feedback. After a few weeks, you’ll notice that the critiques you receive are clustered around perceived weak points in your business model or flaws with your product idea.

If you can gather the data to answer each one of those critiques, then people will start writing checks to you — and they will leave their jobs to come work for you.

America needs more talented leaders to choose entrepreneurship. Our best and brightest have the most impact when they build new products that solve meaningful problems and give people jobs. We don’t need more bankers and consultants. If you decide to go this route, I wish you the best of luck!

Blake Hall is the Founder and CEO of Troop ID, a digital authentication engine capable of verifying military affiliation online. An Airborne-Ranger qualified officer, Blake led a battalion reconnaissance platoon in Iraq for fifteen months during 2006 – 2007. He has written for The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, The Huffington Post and Vanderbilt Magazine. Thanks to The Economist, he is also the first Google result for the phrase “muscly entrepreneur.”

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Check out more on TroopID at nibletz.com The Voice Of Startups Everywhere Else.

DC Startup SlyReply Makes Sign Up Sheets As Easy As They Should Be

Remember the good ole days? They weren’t so long ago,but you could put a sign up sheet on your dorm room door, classroom door, office refrigerator, home refrigerator etc. You’d write what the sign up sheet was for, draw a bunch of lines and voila, done and done.

Well DC entrepreneur Tom Hessen realized how complicated people were making signups, and decided to do something about it.

With his DC startup, SlyReply, the sign up sheet is again just as easy as it was when you created it on the back of a piece of scrap paper.

Set up a sign up sheet, dictate how many people can sign up, and when it’s full it’s done. Sign up for a class, sign up for tutoring, sign up for burgers and beers, whatever you need a sign up sheet for SlyReply makes it as easy as a couple clickity clicks.

We got a chance to interview Hessen. Check out the interview below.

What is your startup, what does it do?

Our startup is SlyReply.com, an online web application that allows users to create sign up sheets for any scenario or occasion and then share with a group. Sign up sheets can be shared by email, posted to Facebook, or linked to from any website, blog, or social media site. People view the sign up sheet and then sign up for one or more items such as a date, time, or an item the author created (ex. hamburgers for the upcoming tailgate). When an item reaches its maximum number of sign ups as defined by the author, the item can no longer be signed up for.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds

Tom Hessen founded SlyReply and now leads the company as CEO. Tom Hessen launched SlyReply.com while enrolled as a full time MBA student at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. Tom previously developed 2 other web applications prior to SlyReply that provided many lessons learned.

Tom has worked at 2 venture backed software companies, interned with a VC firm, and worked at Accenture doing IT implementations.

Where are you based?

Washington D.C.

What is the startup culture like where you are based?

Washington D.C. has a vibrant start up culture that has really grown in the past few years. Historically the Federal Government and government contractors have dominated this town but there is now a huge tech presence here. Large tech companies like AOL have lead the way but now there is a tremendous amount of start up activity. There are people working with tech companies and entrepreneurs at every stage and a growing number of seed and angel investors to go along with the VC firms.

What problem does your startup solve?

If you need to meet with 10 people individually, how would you get them scheduled into 10 different meeting times? A teacher needing to meet with parents for parent/teacher conferences is a perfect real world example of this scenario. Or how would you get your volunteer team to sign up for various tasks that need to be completed for an upcoming event?

Historically the paper sign up sheet has handled this job. However the paper sign up sheet rarely applies today in our digitally connected world. Instead email, spreadsheets, Google Docs, and other tools have been shoehorned into solving the problem of the digital sign up sheet. These tools are inefficient, cumbersome, and not designed for this problem. SlyReply directly tackles the problem of group sign ups in our online world.

What has been surprising is just how many situations need a sign up sheet. Here are a few of our favorite sign up sheets that have been created.

Schedule staff member interviews for President Obama’s reelection campaign

Schedule employees that want to sign up for Ann Inc.’s (parent company of Ann Taylor and The Loft) corporate training

Coordinate the volunteer shifts of riding the bicycle powered generator at the Occupy Wall Street camp in New York City

Schedule employees to receive free massages.

Schedule college students to conduct new food testing at Wendy’s restaurants

What is one challenge that you’ve overcome in the startup process?

Tom developed the initial MVP with just enough development skills to complete the project. After SlyReply started to grow despite not being easy to use or much to look at Tom realized the app needed to be designed and developed by professionals. Finding talented people that fit his bootstrapped budget was very difficult. Weeding through the countless number of designers and developers took a lot of time. Tom finally found a tremendous design talent in Jonathan Patterson and development team in Bolster Labs. This team designed and developed the current version of SlyReply.com, which is fun, inviting, and capable of scaling to address the large need.

What are some of the milestones your startup has achieved?

Some of the milestones that we have achieved include:

Successfully vetted concept and business model with MVP

Rebuilt app from the ground up with modern design and software platform

Implemented premium (paid) accounts

Had paying customers in the first month premium accounts were offered

All 5,000 users have learned about SlyReply via word of mouth

What are your next milestones?

The next milestones are all growth related. We are working to accelerate the growth of new user registrations and sign up sheets that are created. Another milestone includes being featured in 2-3 tech publications!

Who are your mentors and role models?

One role model that has had an impact on the company is Edwin Miller, CEO of 9Lenses. Tom worked for Edwin while he was the CEO of Everest Software. Edwin has been a successful CEO of both public and private tech companies and has demonstrated what it takes to build a great team that wants to excel every day.

What are some of the advantages/disadvantages growing your startup outside of Silicon Valley?

One disadvantage of growing a startup outside of Silicon Valley is that raising money is more challenging and conservative. We haven’t tried raising money yet but know the environment is more difficult. One advantage is that it is easier to stand out because there aren’t thousands of startups competing for money, talent, press, etc.

What’s next for your startup?

We are continuing to execute and improve our software to get it in the hands of more people. Each person that creates a sign up sheet shares it with a group of people, which then become aware of SlyReply. We are improving the user experience and continuing to drive awareness through various channels.

Where can people find out more, and what is your Twitter username?

People can learn more at www.slyreply.com or follow us on twitter @SlyReplyApp

Now’s your chance to get your startup on Shark Tank, click here.

Speek Now Available For Windows Phone

Speek,Windows Phone, DC Startup,startup news

Speek co-founder Danny Boice has lot’s of tattoos, his co-founder John Bracken has just one (photo: NMI 2013)

While I don’t know many Windows Phone users just yet, for those that I know, conference calling just got easier. Our good friends at Washington DC conference calling startup Speek just announced the availability of their Windows Phone 8 app, and no one had to get a tattoo on their ass in the process.

Speek was founded by John Bracken, one of the co-founders of e-vite, and Danny Boice, a startup renaissance man, who coerced Bracken into getting a Speek monkey tattooed on his butt at SXSW, during a startup pitch contest.

Aside from the fact that the founding team is based in DC and cool as shit, Speek is by far the absolute easiest way to initiate a conference call. You just go to the Speek user’s id like mine for instance, speek.com/kyle and hit the call button. Then the magic happens and it’s like a party line. As many people as you like can join the call, and the facilitator (user) can control just about everything from their iPhone, and now Windows phone app.

So what is so paramountly epic about this, well for starters you don’t need to remember some crazy dial in number and then remember some 11 digit pin. Do you know how hard it is to get back into a dropped conference call while driving 70mph down 95? Well with Speek, you just mosey on back to the interwebs, re-hit that button and your back in, or just get back in through the mobile app.

They also don’t make you wait through a bunch of operator instructions or Musak, but if you ask nicely they may put some Korn or OAR on hold for you.

Seriously, it’s that easy and everyone needs to use Speek, Windows Phone users can go here now. iPhone users look in the iTunes app store, and Android users are up next.

Don’t look now there’s a Speek Monkey on your Ass.

DC Startup Quad2Quad Goes Free Just In Time For Spring Break

Susan Jones (68) and Elizabeth Van Sant (54) co-founders of Quad2 Quad in their booth at everywhereelse.co (photo: Allie Fox for NMI)

Two amazing ladies from Washington DC are working on their startup Quad2Quad at warp speed. You would think that these were two twenty something entrepreneurs, young, hungry and ready to work 100 hours per week. Well they’re hungry and working 100 hours per week, but Susan Jones is 68 and co-founder Elizabeth Van Sant is 54.

These two mothers, business women and now startup founders in Washington DC are old enough to be Mark Zuckerberg’s moms. Their startup, Quad 2 Quad, was actually created because Van Sant and Jones have become somewhat pro’s at getting their kids off to college. They know the ins, the outs and “the ropes”.

We’ve interviewed and profiled quite a few college bound startups at nibletz.com. We interviewed Cleveland startup CollegeSkinny who’s platform helps high school students transition from high school to college. We featured CiteLighter which is a highlighting bookmarklet app that allows users to easily make citations in their research. Exceleratr, a New York startup, connects high school students to much needed extra-curricular activities outside of the high school campus. We also interviewed Swedish startup Studemia, which is a collaboration tool for students as well as CampusShift, a Youngstown startup looking to take a bite out of college debt.

Jones and Van Sant’s startup aims to help parents of perspective college students, simplify the college visit planning process. Quad2Quad essentially becomes the college visitor’s personal assistant.

Quad2Quad took part in the AppNation conference in San Francisco earlier this year and everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference. Despite having post college aged children Jones and Van Sant mix it up, network and mingle with the best of the college aged entrepreneurs.

Currently they are looking for avenues to raise money, continuing to iterate on their app and developing as much traction as they can.

Quad2Quad just announced that they are going “free” in the app store, just in time for college spring break. The app currently offers 74 colleges and 12 itineraries. They add more and more colleges all the time. They plan on adding another 35 schools in the month of April.

You can find out more about Quad2Quad here and download the iOS app here.

Check out these other Washington DC Startup stories here.

500 Startups Alum: Spinnakr On The Importance Of Laying A Foundation At Home

This week nibletz, the voice of startups everywhere else, is participating in the first annual LaunchYourCity, mission trip to Silicon Valley. The trip, sponsored by American Airlines and Uber, is a chance for startups, and ecosystem influencers from Memphis to experience the high paced startup life in the Valley.

Through Memphis native and 500 statups alum Frank Langston, and our good friend Sarah Ware at Markerly, we got to spend a good portion of the day at 500 startups.

Internally at nibletz we actually debated taking this trip up until the last minute. So while we’re the voice of startups everywhere else, there is a lot to be learned from founders out here in Silicon Valley. First things first about 90% of them aren’t actually natives, most have moved from somewhere else.

To that end, we got a chance to talk with two startups, Spinnakr and WayGo, about the role laying foundations in their hometowns played in building their startups prior to heading out west.

500 Startups has no requirement on where a startup has to reside after the completion of their 4 month program. We gathered that about half of the founders in each cohort choose to stay in Silicon Valley while the others either move back home or to cities that strategically work better for their companies.

Spinnakr is one of the startups that stayed in the valley. They actually graduated out of the 500 startups accelerator in 2012 (the 2013 class just graduated last month). Michael Mayernick, co-founder at Spinnakr, talks to us in the video below about the importance laying roots and a foundation at home played in Spinnakr’s growth and success.

Maryernick is still intune with what’s going on in Washington DC, itself a city where innovation is progressing at a very fast pace. Mayernick was named a Tech Titan by Washingtonian Magazine in 2011. He curates the DC Startup Digetst and co-organizes the DC Tech Meetup.

Check out the video below and for more info visit: Spinnakr.com

Check out more of our 500 Startups coverage at nibletz.com

This Pitch From DC Startup Speek Results In A Monkey Tattoo On John Bracken’s Ass [video][sxsw]

We’ve been following Washington DC conference calling startup Speek since they were little more than a pitch deck last year at a DC tech event.

The company was founded by John Bracken, one of the cofounders of E-Vite (the precursor to Facebook events lol) and Danny Boice, a startup renaissance man, who even spoke at our huge “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference”.

Anyone who knows the Speek team knows that John and Danny compliment each other greatly. John is the yin to Dany’s yang. Danny is a constant cutup bringing fun into every situation and John plays a playful straight man to Danny’s antics. Well if John had been at Danny’s pitch during the TechCocktail Pitch Jam on Saturday at SXSW 2013, this great stunt, that made the Wall Street Journal, may not have happened.

Danny knows they have something great going on with Speek. It’s by far the easiest way to hold a conference call and it does away with the need for long phone numbers and longer “pin” numbers. You simply go to someone’s speek page, like speek.com/kyle (my page) and click the call button. Voila. But after partaking in SXSW libations all day long and being couped up because of the rain, Danny had something cool in mind to win the Pitch Jam contest.

After going through is normal 60 second pitch, he added a twist. Call it humor, or a little jealousy, but John had to bail on the event to go have dinner with DC Mayor Vince Gray, and left Danny alone, to pitch, and to say whatever he wanted. And he did.

Danny told the audience at the end of the pitch that John would get a tattoo of Speek’s mascot monkey on his ass if they won. Since there was a lot of spill over from the DC Tech Meetup earlier in the day, there were plenty of people who knew John, and wanted to see him get a monkey tattoed on his ass.

Well low and behold, Danny won. The next day, John got this:

(photo: Wall Street Journal)

And here’s Danny Boice’s winning pitch video:

We’ve got more startup coverage from SXSW than any other site, click here and see for yourself.

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Planning On Crowdfunding Your Startup? DC Startup CrowdCheck Has You Covered [video][sxsw]

Crowdfunding is about to take the world by storm. With the passage of the JOBSact last year, companies will soon be able to crowdfund early stage investment rounds up to $1 million dollars, from anyone with a pulse and an internet connection.

This will make it really easy for early stage investors to get into some great startups, as well as the person down the street who wants to try out investing in startups.

Crowdfunding will also create a huge market for fraud . Last month we reported on Baltimore startup Asurvest, which will provide insurance to those looking to crowdfund startups.

At SXSW we discovered Washington DC startup CrowdCheck. This company plans to do the due diligence for startups that want to be transparent and offer as much information as possible to potential investors. Startups that utilize CrowdCheck’s services will look more appealing to investors because all of the leg work will have been done already.

CrowdCheck will offer a “badge” or “seal” for startups that use their service. This seal will show that the startup has been through the CrowdCheck process and then link to their CrowdCheck portfolio which will have the information that investors want to know, and that most angel investors look for in traditional angel and seed rounds.

Crowdfunding investors will have a better piece of mind about the startups that use CrowdCheck and they will know they aren’t taking part in a fraudulent transaction.

The team behind CrowdCheck has both legal, and securities backgrounds that make them well versed in all kinds of investment deals. Startups that use CrowdCheck will not only have an advantage while crowdfunding, but should they decide to go for a more traditional angel or seed round, most of the paperwork will have already been done.

Check out our interview video below and for more information visit crowdcheck.com

Looking for more on Crowdfunding click here

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DC Startup Homesnap Was Back At SXSW After Nailing Investment At SXSW 12 [video][sxsw]

Washington DC startup HomeSnap has got to be the best tool for those shopping for a new home.

The company’s proprietary technology allows anyone to snap a picture of any home and get all the pertinent information about that home. You can see the MLS data, how much the home sold for, what the neighborhood schools are, what other homes in the neighborhood sold for and more.

Their technology allows users to pre-shop for homes without the need of a realtor. However when the user is ready to actually purchase, HomeSnap can easily connect them to a realtor to finish out a deal.

Back in August the company closed a $3.5 million dollar round of funding led by Revolution Ventures. Steve Barnes, Homesnap’s President and co-founder told us that they met Steve Case, head of Revolution, at TechCocktail’s 2012 startup event at South By Southwest.

This year they were back at TechCocktail’s event to show off the newest version of HomeSnap, talk to other entrepreneurs and investors and pitch during TechCocktail’s Pitch Jam event, for which I was a judge. HomeSnap was declared the “Most Disruptive Startup” at the event.

In addition to the app that allows users to snap a photo and get home data, they also have a robust iPad app. The iPad experience allows users to browse entire neighborhoods virtually with an aerial map. Users can then drill down by looking at homes by address.

HomeSnap now also offers HomeSnap for agents. This part of the app allows agents to connect to their customers with a mini profile. Users can then flag properties for their agents to review with them, and use a one click method to ask an agent a question.

Guy Wolcott, co-founder and CEO of HomeSnap told TechCrunch that they have over 300 agents around the country registered for the app and have driven over 10,000 qualified leads.

“However, what we are launching here is a bit different,” Wolcott explains. “The idea is that agents can sign up to have their existing clients use HomeSnap. When the agent signs up, we put them (and only them) in the app for their clients – they won’t see any of our other partner agents, just their own agent,” he told TechCrunch.

We got a chance to talk with Barnes and VP of Product Development Lou Mintzer at this year’s TechCocktail event. The video interview is below:

We’ve got even more SXSW 2013 startup coverage here.

Steve Case & Ted Leonsis, Can These Two AOL Men, Save Social Local Commerce?

Steve Case,Ted Leonsis,Daily Deals, Groupon,Living Social,sxsw,sxswi

Steve Case (file photo: NMI)

Two of Washington DC’s powerhouse investors, Founder of AOL Steve Case, and owner of the Washington Capitals and Washington Wizards, Ted Leonsis, work side by side on many deals. Both are heavily involved in Case’s investment company Revolution.

Leonsis has been involved with Revolution Growth since it’s founding, however he has no financial stake in Revolution Growth I investments. Leonsis and Case have worked together since the AOL days, where Leonsis was a member of active management for 13 years, retiring in 2006.

They continue to work together today, although both are invested as individuals and separately in daily deal competitors Groupon and LivingSocial.

While many know that Groupon’s typical strategy, at least pre-ipo, was to quickly buy up competitors across the country, Living Social has always been on it’s own and will most likely stay that way.

We’ve seen the turmoil that both companies have been going through as of late. Groupon fired it’s founding CEO poster boy, Andrew Mason and quickly installed Leonsis and Groupon co-founder Eric Lefkosky as Co-CEO’s until a new CEO can be named.

Back in the DC area Living Social has been going through some problems of their own.A little over week ago, the investors in Living Social basically took back the company with an emergency $100 million dollar investment, which according to many sources, including privco.com, rendered all previous stock, even employee stock, worthless.

(PrivCo EXCLUSIVE): LIVINGSOCIAL Receives Emergency $110M Debt (“Equity” In Name Only) Infusion From Existing Investors With Oppressive Terms, JUST DAYS FROM BANKRUPTCY, Effectively Handing Over Distressed Co. to Today’s Financing Participants…Implied Valuation Incl All Req’d Payments: JUST $330M, DOWN 94% FROM $5.7 BILLION In Dec. 2011 V.C. Round…Pure Equity Was NOT Issued Today (As Has Been Widely Misreported)…Instead, A Desperate LIVINGSOCIAL Accepted A COMPLEX Series of Secured-Convertible-Debt-Like Securities With Onerous Terms (PrivCo Has Confirmed Exclusively) Including: (1) Liquidation Preferences of SEVERAL TIMES the $110M In Debt (2) Mandatory Cash Dividends Due (3) “Super-Warrants” And/Or Large Lump-Sum Cash “Elimination” Payment, (4) Secured Against Co. Assets and Stock, (5) Repayment of the $110M “Loan” in 4 Yrs w Add’l Payments, and (6) Re-Pricing of Participating Investors Earlier Rounds…Employees’ and Founders’ Common Stock Now Worthless. (industry trade publication privco said on their site)

A former LivingSocial employee, on condition of anonymity, told nibletz.com that friends of hers in the sales department hadn’t seen a paycheck in nearly two months, before the most recent cash infusion. A current LivingSocial employee, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, told us that the company was right on the cusp of some big ideas with both technology and sales and that no one wanted to see the company shut down.

Case was rater bullish on LivingSocial when speaking at the TechCocktail event at SXSW on Saturday afternoon. He said that despite what’s going on with the company, LivingSocial does have the potential to become the next AOL.

Many may recall how Case was instrumental in the biggest media merger of all time beween Time Warner and AOL. Although he is held highly responsible for the merger, he agreed to step down as CEO after that merger closed. While the outcome was far from the results they were expecting, AOL is still a big player in online media and is again seeing forward momentum.

Groupon has already pivoted since their value began declining shortly after going public. They now offer Groupon Goods, an almost Amazon competitor, that is the backbone to where the company is headed.

While LivingSocial hasn’t done anything that drastic just yet, they do have some new technologies in the works.

Case has never been one to turn down the long hall. At 54 he has plenty of time to see some of his investments pay off ten fold. ZipCar, a big investment for Revolution, was just recently sold to Hertz with a huge return to investors. The company was in a position where they didn’t necessarily need to take that deal, but it was right.

While four years may seem like an eternity to a startup, from reading all of the language in various stories about the recent LivingSocial bail out, the investors are giving the team four years to turn things around. Which, may be just enough time.

Meanwhile across the hall at Revolution, Leonsis has taken on much more responsibilities for day to day operations at Groupon. “There is a ton of negative sentiment in the press about this company, and I think people don’t separate the signal from the noise,” Leonsis told The Verge, “We have $1.2 billion in the bank. We have basically zero debt. And this last quarter, we had an operating profit. Yes, with one-time write downs, there was a loss. But the fundamentals of this business are sound.”

With Leonsis balancing Lefkosky’s Yang, and Case and company giving Living Social four years more breathing room, two men from AOL may have just saved daily deals.

Watch this video with Case’s remarks, this past Saturday at SXSW, on Living Social:

Steve Case talks about the importance of crowdfunding to early stage startups.

DC Startup Her Corner, Our First Interview With A 1776 Startup

As most of you know we are big supporters and partners with Startup America. That’s why when Startup America Managing Director Donna Harris and Startup DC Director Evan Burfield launched 1776dc, a new incubator and accelerator in our nation’s capital, we were very excited.

We’re going to be making a trip to DC to cover 1776 more in-depth. In the meantime we got a chance to interview Frederique Camapagne Irwin, founder of DC startup Her Corner.

“Her Corner is a resource for women entrepreneurs who are committed to growth in their companies. We build forum networks (or circles) of women business owners, in a hyper-local (neighborhood based) and face-to-face setting, so that women can come together to collaborate and work on building their businesses. We are a membership-based organization with requirements to join and monthly dues. We are currently DC / VA / MD based with plans to expand outside the DC region in 2013.” Irwin told nibletz.com in an interview.

Check out the rest of the interview below:

In layman’s terms, how does it work? (In other words how would you explain it to your grandmother)

If a woman business owner is at least 1 year into her business, building her own brand (sorry, no stell and dot resellers, or realtors with larger brands,) and fully committed to growth (doing this full time and not also working elsewhere,) we encourage her to apply for a seat in a group near where she lives.

Each neighborhood group meets over dinner, in member’s homes, with a professional facilitator to discuss business growth topics, remain accountable to one another and to help each other with business opportunities or challenges. Outside the group meeting, members receive an accountability partner with whom to work with on a regular basis, as well as an invitation every other month to attend a speaker series where they can meet and network with the other members of Her Corner across the region. We also have a private social network that was built specifically for Her Corner where members and build a profile, include an “offer” to other Her Corner members, see what events other members are attending, and they can also join sub-groups (e.g. women in manufacturing, women looking to raise capital, etc.)

Overall, we create the community and the resources around women to help them grow their business.

Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?

Our founder is Frederique Irwin, a former management consultant and serial entrepreneur. Frederique Irwin has more than 17 years of management consulting and entrepreneurial experience. She has served as strategic advisor to CEOs of global companies focused on strategic planning, and growth management. Frederique has also built several companies, including an international import company that is still running and several service-related companies. Today she applies her entrepreneurial experience, management consulting background and business operations expertise with a strong network of personal connections to help business owners achieve the next stage of business growth through the in-person business groups offered via Her Corner.

We also have three (3) DC-Area facilitators, women who are also running their own business, but who work for Her Corner to run and facilitate groups. Each facilitator comes from a business background, either an MBA or a strategy or business operations background. They must also be strong personal facilitators and natural connectors. All Her Corner facilitators start as members first.

What’s the startup scene/culture like where you’re based?

Intense. Very long hours, so much to do, a crazy amount of opportunity to pursue; but the most rewarding experience and most fun I have ever had. [Even my kids know and support how much I love Her Corner, and they’ve said that they hope my new baby will be a girl so that she can get involved in Her Corner too! J]

How did you come up with the idea for HerCorner?

I built Her Corner for myself. A few years ago I was building my 3rd business and while I was very involved in local area networking and in some lead-share groups, I was also looking for something where I could meet more women “like me” who understood that women build businesses for different reasons than men do, and that we build them differently too. I wanted to find something near where I lived, at hours that fit my busy life and family, in a more feminine setting – and I wanted to build real relationships. I realized that women naturally will help one another, and that there’s nothing more irritating to us than someone handing us a “deal sheet” to track what we’ve done for others – because we’re going to do it anyway! I ran my own personal Her Corner group, as well as 4 other neighborhoods, for about 2 years before I decided there might be a market for this on a much larger scale.

Why now?

It’s a perfect time for a woman-only business owner network like Her Corner: we’re seeing a rise in women-owned businesses (7.8M in 2007 vs. 8.3M in 2012), interest in starting a business is coming even earlier for women (a recent Sage study showed half of all women 18-24 want to start their own businesses,) the access to capital is beginning to thaw (there are more services to teach women how to go after capital, as well as more women-led funds like Women’s Venture Capital Fund and Illuminate Ventures.) And finally, women are more educated than ever before; they’re looking to share that education and experience with one another to help one another accelerate growth.

Why 1776?

Lots of reasons, really! The energy and exposure to other entrepreneurs is one of the most valuable things a business owner can expose him or herself to. The ideas around the office, the access to speakers, visitors and even potential investors is unique and difficult to find all under one roof. The founders of 1776, Donna Harris and Evan Burfield, are former business owners whom I have known and admired for years – they know what it takes to build a business and they are trying to create that environment for those of us in the development stage today. And finally, as a woman, it is so important to be surrounded by fellow entrepreneurs and colleagues and not to isolate oneself.

What problem does Her Corner solve?

Most women business owners are not fans of networking in the traditional sense; they often feel isolated in their business, and they miss the collaboration and team environments of previous companies. They are very smart and motivated but sometimes they get “stuck” trying to move through a decision, opportunity, or change, and they want to talk though some of the decision points they are facing. Given how busy women are, they don’t have a high tolerance for the posturing and potential bologna that you sometimes find in other peer-group forum settings.

Her Corner creates a positive environment where we encourage our members to think bigger, to collaborate to accelerate the possibilities, and to look at networking differently – rather than coming to a large event and handing out business cards, we ask you to start with your small group and start by asking, “tell me about yourself and how can I help you.” We have created an environment that is intrinsically feminine – we meet in one another’s homes, over dinner, and we build relationships first. This unique approach is driving business referrals, business leads, new business development, and new business partnerships in ways we had never imagined.

What is your competition?

There are lots of competitive networking events available to business owners (for example Chamber of Commerce events,) and also lots of forum-like groups for business owners (for example Vistage or EO.) But we have yet to find a network that is exclusively for women business owners (vs. all women in business,) and a forum-like group that is for women only and run by actual business owners with MBAs and strategy background (vs. information marketers, for example.) We don’t compete with the education seminars or the consultants; we only compete for women’s time and commitments to other groups.

And what’s your secret sauce?

We’re members too! Everything we do in Her Corner was built first for us and every decision we make is based on whether this is something that we would have wanted or needed for our own business. We’re not trying to build something new and hoping that it works, we’re building what we know works and packaging it the way women would want it – the way we would want it!

What are some milestones you’ve achieved?

Since we launched Her Corner, we had to prove that members would be willing to pay for the service, that we could teach others to facilitate and run groups beyond the founder’s ability to run them herself, and that we could recruit, launch, and run groups in neighborhoods that were outside the founder’s personal network.

We launched in August 2012, and within the first 6 months we have interviewed and accepted 125 new paying members (expected to hit 250 by August), hired 3 (soon to be 4) new facilitators to run new groups, we now have 13 groups running across the DC area (planning for 20 by August) and we’ve expanded into areas like Leesburg, VA (and soon Baltimore, MD) where the founder does not have a personal network.

We have also secured sponsorships with organizations like AU’s Kogod School of Business, local area businesses like Xenith Bank, Urban Igloo, Glen’s Garden Market, and La Ferme restaurant.

What’s your next milestone?

Critical for us in 2013 / 2014 will be our ability to implement Her Corner in new cities and to prove the model outside the DC area. This will allow us to build a more robust growth plan with hard numbers and real time frames that will allow us to talk to potential investors about our growth plans.

Who are some of your mentors and business role models?

My mentors are some of the men I worked with in management consulting, the men who taught me how to build, run and optimize a business – but who also taught me leadership skills and the importance of family and values. I also have mentors around me who are women who have built and sold companies before me and who are in my close circle of friends, keeping an eye on what I am building to help me avoid land mines. And my business role models today – Marissa Meyer and Sheryl Sandburg – two women who encourage other women to push forward and not be defined by our personal lives.

What’s next for Her Corner?

These days we’re launching new groups every month, while also filling the few open spots in existing groups. To a certain extent, I’d like to stabilize our growth in the DC area, get my founding members more involved in the improvement and representation of Her Corner, hire a few strategic position, and begin to focus my attention on the development and implementation of Her Corner in new cities.

Where can people find out more:

Online people can find us at: www.hercorner.org, On Twitter, we’re at @hercorner And on Facebookwe recently launched a new page (our presence has been private so far and for members only)

Get tickets to everywhereelse.co 2014 at 2013 prices now, here!

Kauffman Foundation Teams Up With AARP Proving You’re Never Too Old To Launch A Company

The Kauffman Foundation has teamed up with AARP to launch a new initiative that will hone the entrepreneurial skills of people over 50 years old. We’ve seen our share of these golden entrepreneurs, who have either retired or left the corporate world to start a new business venture.

Two such entrepreneurs are 54 year old Elizabeth Van Sant and 68 year old Susan Jones, launched at Washington DC startup called Quad2Quad that serves as a platform providing much needed information to parents, families and students visiting colleges.

Kauffman Foundation, AARP, Quad 2 Quad, Accelerator,startup

The two baby boomer founders of quad2quad at everywhereelse.co 2013 (photo: Allie Fox for NMI 2013)

When we interviewed Jones last September, she proudly said that she was old enough to be Mark Zuckerberg’s mom. Although some may consider them too old to roll with today’s startup hipster, they’ve been touring the conference scene across the country with appearances in San Francisco at Appnation and at everywhereelse.co in Memphis.

Now, the Kauffman Foundation has announced a new program targeted to baby boomer entrepreneurs 50 and over.

Three pilot courses of FastTrac NewVenture™ for the Boomer Entrepreneur will be offered in 2013 by Kauffman FastTrac affiliates. Up to 20 qualified applicants will be accepted per course, and AARP scholarship funds will cover $500 of each participant’s course fees.

The three Kauffman FastTrac affiliates selected to participate in the baby boomer pilot are ProperoHCA, New York City; Tech Coast Venture Network, Irvine, Calif.; and the Miami Innovation Center for Entrepreneurship, Inc., Miami.

ProperoHCA has scheduled its weekly course for April 3-June 5. Tech Coast Venture Network plans to offer its Boomer course this summer. The Miami course, which will be taught in Spanish in an outreach to the region’s large Hispanic population, is also slated for a summer start.

“We look forward to partnering with Kauffman FastTrac to better serve our members interested in expanding their entrepreneurship business skills,” said Jody Holtzman, AARP’s senior vice president of thought leadership. “Through this coursework, they will acquire new insights and tools, explore available resources, and expand their networking opportunities to start and grow successful businesses.”

Content specific to baby boomers was recently added to the Kauffman FastTrac curriculum in recognition of changing U.S. demographics and research that finds a higher rate of entrepreneurial activity among Americans aged 55 to 64 than much younger age groups in recent years.

The initial 10-week baby boomer class was held in fall 2012 in Kansas City.

“We believe there is pent-up demand for entrepreneurship education among more mature audiences,” said Kauffman FastTrac president Alana Muller. “Whether they’re pursuing a lifelong passion, shoring up their retirement accounts, or utilizing skills and experience in a new way, boomer entrepreneurs make big contributions to our economy by creating new businesses and, in turn, new jobs.”

You can find out more about this program here

DC Startup TouchdownSpace Is The ZipCar Of Workspace

Co-working space, office space, conference rooms, computer lab space, whatever your need a new startup in Washington DC called TouchdownSpace is there to help. Caleb Parker and Svet Voloshin, the founders of this new startup that’s going to disrupt the current commercial office space model dub it as “The Zipcar for professional space”.

Working isn’t like it used to be. With so many small businesses, entrepreneurs, freelancers and startups, office space needs change. One day a startup founder may need simple desk space, and later in the day they may need a meeting room for 20. On a small business and startup budget it’s impossible to try and rent something that encompasses all the flexible space options someone may need.

Freelancers on the other hand may enjoy co-working at the new co-working space or they may rather sit and sip Starbucks for five hours while working on their latest project. Again this is great until you need to meet a client with a whiteboard, or discuss confidential information.

Some startup spaces and incubators have access to a wide variety of spacing needs, but for those that don’t there’s TouchdownSpace.

“We are on a mission to help people work better,” says CEO and co-founder, Caleb Parker. “The nature of work is changing. More people are working outside of the office than ever before. The old real estate model of high rent and lengthy lease terms must change too. It just doesn’t make sense to pay high rent on a space you’re not in all the time.”

TouchdownSpace has partnered with office business center operators at the leading edge of the workspace-as-a-service (WaaS) industry, such as Carr Workplaces, AdvantEdge Business Centers, Intelligent Office, and others, to aggregate their available workspaces and offer them on-demand to TouchdownSpace members

While TouchdownSpace is starting in Washington DC they already have their eyes on five other markets.

Parker has been an active member of the DC startup scene for quite sometime. Personally he has some great role models and mentors.”

Local angel investor and turnaround CEO, Glen Hellman, who is on our Advisory Board, has been a good mentor. Brad Feld and Steve Case are great business role models, and you can’t forget Richard Branson as a role model on building a strong brand. When it comes to morality/integrity, I can always turn to my Dad for his perspective on what the right thing to do is.” he told us in an interview.

TouchdownSpace members have access to a wide variety of features:

Convenience: find the closest available space in real-time; book and manage reservations instantly from within the app.
Choice: compare availability, pricing and amenities.
Flexibility: No contracts or commitments
Productivity: touch down within our network of professional locations.
Private Spaces: No distractions

For more information, and to sign up visit touchdownspace.com

DC Startup CrowdCusp Making The Best Of Things Before SEC Regulations

Crowdfunding is a hot topic these days. Hundreds of crowdfunding startups have surfaced over the last few months, patiently waiting as the Securities and Exchange Commission takes their sweet time figuring out regulations.

While crowdfunding is nothing new, the JOBSAct passed last year which will allow people to crowdfund startups for an equity stake without the normal regulations around venture capital and angel investing. Startups will be able to use this form of crowdfunding as a vehicle for up to $1 million dollars in funding, just as soon as the SEC defines the regulations.

This waiting period has put some crowdfunding startups on ice, while others have found ways around regulations without allowing startups to actually give up equity. In some cases prize packs, swag, and other gifts are donated by the company in exchange for someone’s backing. Other times it’s just about feel good donations.

CrowdCusp is a Washington DC based crowdfunding startup that has already started crowdfunding, sans the equity stake.

We got a chance to talk to the team behind CrowdCusp. Check out the interview below.

Glimpulse To Debut Breakthrough In Human Expression And People Search At everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

Glimpulse will debut the latest breakthrough in human expression, on the main stage at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference. Glimpulse has been selected as one of only two companies out of nearly 100 startups in the Startup Village to present to the entire audience during the morning general session. Glimpulse will make its eagerly-awaited public announcement and demonstrate how this progressive product will literally change how people see each other.

Backed by research in human expression and social dynamics and using innovative technology, Glimpulse’s highly anticipated products will enhance communication and make human and social interaction richer, faster and more authentic – on and offline. Glimpulse has been developed by a core team of accomplished executives, investors and advisors. These influential leaders include the former COO of AOL, the former President of National Geographic, the current President of Rosetta Stone, the head of Harvard Business School’s Marketing department and Social Enterprise Institute, the former SVP of Ogilvy’s Social Media Practice, the best-selling author of Likeonomics, and many more. Many Glimpulse team members will be in attendance and will be available in the Start-Up Village during the conference.

Paresh Shah, the founder and CEO of Glimpulse, states “My team and I are so excited to debut our company at Everywhereelse.co. As the largest start-up conference in the nation, it is the perfect forum for us to launch our product. We have been working on the business for over a year and now are ready to make a positive impact in the worlds of business, technology and human interaction.” Rohit Bhargava, former founding member of the world’s largest team of social media strategists at Ogilvy states, “Glimpulse is one of the first in a new line of expression technology companies that we will see in the coming years. It imagines a world where your personality is as visible as the shirt you’re wearing … and has the rare potential to reinvent how each of us expresses ourselves to the world.”

One Glimpulse advisor, Kim Partoll, former COO and EVP of Marketing at AOL, follows with “Glimpulse is a new way for people to experience, expand and enrich their social networks in everyday real world interactions. Glimpulse moves self-expression from the realm of the written word and photos into one of rich imagery and real-time display of individuality.” Kyle Sander, Founder of Nibletz.com and the voice of start-ups “everywhere else,” welcomes Glimpulse to the premier line-up of companies attending the conference. He states, “We are thrilled that the Glimpulse team has accepted our invitation to debut their company at Everywhereelse.co. We believe Glimpulse is a prime example of the next generation of companies that are creating transformative experiences for consumers, brands and businesses. We know the attendees at our conference will be thrilled to be the first to hear about this new exciting company.” Paresh Shah will be presenting for Glimpulse at 8:30am on Monday, February 11^th.

For more information about Glimpulse, please contact Ross Dalton at Ross@Glimpulse.com.

Glimpulse provides a new human expression platform that can integrate with existing social networks to enable people to get to that ‘third conversation’ in a way that’s fun, rich, and faster than traditional options – both on and off-line. Combining leading-edge technology with breakthrough cognitive psychology and human behavior research, Glimpulse’s products will increase positive interactions and instantly enhance both personal and business relationships. Stay tuned.

Glimpulse is presenting at the largest startup conference in the U.S. everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference tickets can be purchased below.

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