Indiana Archives - Serious Startups

Reaching Your Zen: Relaxing Before an Investor Meeting

Startup Tips, Investor Tips, Guest Post, Tony Monteleone An investor meeting often means your livelihood. You’re about to ask a bunch of people to trust in your idea and help you fund it. You’re rightfully excited, and even a little nervous. The only issue is that when you’re nervous, you aren’t performing well, and the investors standing in front of you can see it. To really knock it out of the park in an investor meeting, you’ve got to calm down and slow down. There are a few ways to help you reach some inner peace before you dive into the shark tank.

Slow Down

There’s a theory that says wise people speak slowly. That doesn’t mean they speak in long, drawn out syllables. It means they’re thinking about everything they say before they say it. It’s not even noticeable to the people they’re speaking to.

But slowing down isn’t usually in any person’s head before an investor meeting. From the minute you hear the investor meeting is scheduled to when you jump in the car, your mind is going 150 miles per hour. You’re going over things again and again in your head, trying to make sure that you’ve got your pitch as nailed down as you can.

Here’s the thing, though: once you get into the car, there’s nothing more you can do. You’ve already prepared as much as you can. Think of it like a bride on her wedding day. It’s easy for her to get worked up on the day of the wedding, worried that something might go wrong. But on the wedding day, after she’s zipped up into her dress, there’s nothing more she can do. That’s her chance to just relax and enjoy the day. The same concept applies to you and your pitch. Once you’re on the way to the meeting, it’s time to just slow down, relax, and realize you just can’t cram another memory into your brain.

Avoiding Amygdala Hijack

On your brain stem, the second gland before the brain is called the amygdala. This little gland controls what we call the “freeze, fight, or flight” response. The amygdala produces adrenaline, and it can hijack your brain. When you’re faced with a situation that jumpstarts your amygdala, it fires in .8 milliseconds and it takes over your brain. Your brain—even brains with the highest of IQs—is unable to reason. The only thing you’re thinking about is fighting or getting out of the situation.

After your brain is hijacked, it can take up to 18 minutes for your brain to regain control again. If it happens five minutes before your investor meeting starts, you can kiss your investors goodbye. Countering an amygdala hijack isn’t easy, but it’s possible to avoid it by just staying away from drama. Don’t talk to your angry significant other, and don’t call your estranged brother who’s asking for money. Just keep your mind clear and focused on the task.

Counteracting the Amygdala Hijack and the Positive Hijack

If you do let your brain get hijacked by the amygdala, there are ways you can counteract it. If a tiger was attacking you, your amygdala would take over, and you would either fight the tiger or run away from it. If your brain gets hijacked, do something you wouldn’t do if a tiger was about to attack you. Drink water, sit down, or lean against a wall. This slows you down and calms you down, and helps to counteract the 18 minutes of hijack you’re about to face. In fact, a mark of high-level leaders is the ability to sense a hijack coming on and do something to counteract it ahead of time, like going for a walk.

Your other option is the positive hijack. In a similar way to the amygdala hijack, you can trick your brain into being completely calm. Smells often do that, or things that remind you of something happy. My positive hijack, for example, is listening to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” It reminds me of my brother and my childhood, and puts me in a happy place before an investor meeting.

Do what you have to do to calm down before a meeting. In the long term, practice slowing your thinking. In the short term, avoid drama and focus on good things. Take your mind away from the stress. If that’s eating a giant ice cream cone, do it. Find your positive hijacks and use them to dominate your investor meetings.

Tony Monteleone(@StartupTony) is a serial entrepreneur and does Business Development for PERQ, a marketing technology and promotions company that specializes in increasing online and in store traffic for businesses. He also serves as the Indianapolis Chapter Director for Startup Grind.

Jeff Hoffman: 10 Tips For Entrepreneurs I Learned Along The Way: Lessons From Everywhere Else Cincinnati

Monday afternoon Priceline and Ubid founder Jeff Hoffman took the stage. For decades Hoffman, an entrepreneur his entire life, has spoken to big corporate CEO’s, sales forces, and countless others in the business world. Over the past two years, when we hear “startup conference” and “Priceline fuonder,” it’s been Scott Case, the founding CTO of Priceline and the founding CEO of Startup America. Case drives home excellent points about startup communities.

After spending most of his career creating business plans (successful ones at that), Hoffman has now turned to building entrepreneurs. He is a founder of Venture Camp, a reality show and accelerator that had it’s inaugural session in an Indianapolis mansion. After the success of the first cohort on film and with their companies, Hoffman is looking to expand the program.

Hoffman told the story of his entrepreneurial journey to the audience at Everywhere Else Cincinnati. He started out as an entrepreneur not because he wanted to make huge amounts of money but because he wanted to at least attempt to fix broke things he came across.

“I set out… to deal with problems that no one is fixing,” Hoffman told the crowd at the Duke Energy Convention Center in Cincinnati.

Although uBid and Priceline have been wildly successful Hoffman said “big companies don’t just appear. Even Priceline was a small startup”.

Hoffman then started in on his 10 points of entrepreneurship:

1. Find Your Purpose– People who are focused on purpose far exceed the people who focus on money. Find the purpose that drives you. To illustrate this example, Hoffman told the story of an employee he had named Chris whose purpose was to get his family out of a trailer and into a real house and nothing was going to stop him.

2. Work Backwards from your goal. Set your goal and work backwards. Set your goals and then find out each step to get there, and then do them.

3. Get engaged in the world around you. Sit next to someone you don’t know. The more engaged you are, the more ideas you come across. “I’m amazed with the network I built because I was just out somewhere doing something,” Hoffman said.

4. Solve a real problem.

5. Win a gold medal at one thing– Find something, and tune out everything else. Hoffman explains that many entrepreneurs don’t like this because they worry about the next idea. He then explained that the people that get to work on their next ideas are the ones who won a gold medal on their first idea. He turned to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as an example: “Bezos always wanted to sell everything, but he became so damn good at selling books, the best damn book seller in the world and with that gold medal built out Amazon. People trusted him on their book sales experience; now they’ll buy anything from him”. Gold Medal= credibility

6.Build a great team- Hire someone smarter than you. “Don’t you want to be the manager with 7 people on the all star team, not the one who has a shitty team because you didn’t want players better than you?” Hoffman asked. Hoffman added that he told his Priceline team once that they could completely change industries on one Friday morning, and they would still win.

7. Get out of your office. The best companies build their product for customers. When Hoffman has a good idea he grabs his car keys to go out and find someone with a wallet who likes the idea.

8. Launch Something- MVP doesn’t mean put a crap product out there. If you go too lean, you’re putting your reputation on the line. “I remember you. You’re Jeff, the crap guy.” Don’t over do the lean thing just to rush something out there. Do two functions of your five function product and crush them. Lean is like throwing shit to the wall.

9. Find a mentor.

10. Work Hard.. success is no secret, work hard. – Hoffman saved his best personal story for last. He’s good personal friends with Evander Holyfield. One day he was visiting with Holyfield who was finishing a workout and Hoffman was spotting him. Holyfield was doing an extremely difficult exercise that he does 300 times a day. Hoffman was counting with Holyfield and then apparently lost count at 299 or 300. Holyfield needed his friend to be absolutely certain whether it was 299 or 300. When Hoffman wasn’t sure Holyfield went down one more time and did the exercise again.

When Hoffman asked Holyfield why he did that, the heavy weight champion told him “The difference between 299 and 300 is the difference between heavyweight champion of the world and just another boxer.”

Needless to say Hoffman does 300 every single time.

YES!!! Denver Hutt To Speak At Everywhere Else Cincinnati

Denver Hutt, Everywhere Else Cincinnati, startups, Bad Ass Startup Chicks

Denver Hutt (center) surrounded by entrepreneurs. (photo: Facebook)

We’ve got some great news to report this Friday morning! Indianapolis bad ass startup chick Denver Hutt says she’s feeling up to speaking in a couple of weeks at Everywhere Else Cincinnati.

Hutt is a true startup champion. She’s a connector, an entrepreneur, and a startup junkee. The native of Santa Monica, California moved to Indianapolis for college and by choice stayed there to start pursuing her entrepreneurial career, which includes running the Speak Easy startup and coworking space.

She’s been a hustler all of her life right up until, and now through, the point where she was diagnosed with cancer. When (with her permission) we first reported the news back in May the startup world was devastated. Hutt is a person who’s known to go to as many events as she can. She’s a networking machine, and she really gets things done. Her story also became a lesson for entrepreneurs with the go-go-go lifestyle to take a minute to take care of ourselves.

Prior to this news Hutt was one of the first women featured in our Bad Ass Startup Chicks spotlight.

While Denver is putting up a tremendous fight, the way only a die hard entrepreneur could, she’s unfortunately not out of the woods just yet. Fortunately for us though she’s well enough to make the trek from Indianapolis to Cincinnati for Everywhere Else! She is looking forward to reconnecting with many people that she met at our Memphis conference back in February.

We ran a follow up piece in August and challenged Denver to make it to the conference.We’re so glad she’s accepting the challenge!

What? You don’t have your Startup Avenue booth or Attendee ticket yet? Get them below.

Event management for Everywhere Else Cincinnati – “Start Where U Are” powered by Eventbrite

Prime Real Estate Among The Prizes For Valparaiso’s First Startup Weekend

When you hear “free office space” as a perk for something startup related, it’s typically an accelerator, and it’s also typically for the term of the accelerator. There are some accelerators, like Cincinnati’s The Brandery, that actually allow teams to take up residence for almost a year, until the next annual cohort moves in.

Well the folks putting on the first Startup Weekend in North West Indiana (Valparaiso) next month just revealed a nice catch of a prize from the Purdue Research Foundation. The Startup Weekend organizers and the foundation have partnered to offer one free year of office space at Purdue Research Park in Northwest Indiana.

That office space comes with fiber optic network connectivity, a receptionist with telephone answering services, VoIP, free parking, secure facilities, and even lab space. They also offer a convenient location just 45 minutes away from The Loop in Chicago.

The Purdue Research Foundation will offer the free office space lease to one of the winning startup teams at Valparaiso’s Startup Weekend, which starts on Friday, October 11th and runs through Sunday, October 13th. Purdue Research Park Director Kathy DeGuillio-Fox will also serve on the judging panel for this Startup Weekend event.

Official Startup Weekend events are 54 hour, build-a-startup, hackathon weekends. They begin on Friday evening with dinner and a chance to meet the other attendees. From there ideas for projects/startups are given in 60 second presentations. The ideas to build are voted on by the entire group, and by Sunday the new teams present their startups to the audience and a panel of judges.

There are still a few spots left for Valparaiso’s Startup Weekend. You can register here.

Startups In The Fastlane: Velocity Startup Pass It

Velocity Indiana, a startup accelerator just outside of Louisville, Kentucky, just graduated their first class last week. They brought startups from across the country to learn, grow, and accelerate in a beautiful area in the middle of the country. Velocity is the epitome of “everywhere else”.

Pass It, came from Seattle, Washington to work on a next generation photo sharing app. Nowadays, regular photo sharing apps are getting boring and there’s a filter for everything. Startups are looking to find ways to make photo sharing apps more engaging.

Pass It wants users to send their photos “around the world”. They’ve also added an element of competition to the mix.

Pass It is in our Fastlane, our interview feature that profile’s startups that are going through, or just completed an accelerator program.

What is the name of your startup?

Pass it

What accelerator are you in?

Velocity Accelerator. http://velocityindiana.org

Where is your startup originally from?

Seattle

Tell us about your current team?

Bryce Anderson – Moving the business forward.

Robert Eickmann – Mobile developer with superpowers.

Cameron Chinn – Marketing and user acquisition specialist.

Jon Matar – Primary Advisor

What does your startup do?

Pass it is a photo sharing app that allows users to connect, compete, and send their photos around the world.

What are your goals for the accelerator program?

To substantially improve our business model and create as many new relationships as possible.

What’s one thing you’ve learned in the accelerator?

Failure is a part of the process. Every week we tested several hypotheses and we had to constantly adapt our thinking based on our customer feedback.

What’s the hardest piece of advice you’ve had to stomach so far?

To pivot. We came in to Velocity with an EdTech company and we completely changed our business due to the Lean Startup methodology.

What is your goal for the day after demo day?

To create meetings with potential investors and business leaders in the Indiana and Kentucky entrepreneurial community.

Why did you choose this accelerator?

We chose Velocity because of its central location and outstanding business mentors. I would like to give a shout out to Tony Schy, Dave Durand, Terry Goertz, Michael Browning and Greg Langdon.

What’s one thing you learned about an accelerator that you didn’t know when you applied?

How much I would learn from the other startups participating in the program. Even though we all had substantially different businesses, we all faced the same day-to-day startup challenges and I learned valuable information from their experiences with the lean startup program.

Where can people find out more?

www.passitapp.co

What’s your twitter handle?

@PassPics

It’s Demo Day In Indiana At Velocity

Southern Indiana’s startup accelerator, Velocity, is graduating their summer session today (August 29). The accelerator, a stone’s throw from Louisville, Kentucky, has managed to attract top startups not just from the region but as far away as California.

Each of the five teams in the Velocity accelerator received $20,000 in seed money in exchange for a small amount of equity. They also received free workspace and access to mentors from across Kentucky, Indiana, and the region.

These are the five teams launching from Velocity:

Collabra- Collabra allows musicians and fans to create, collaborate, and share music in a new and innovative way. Combining a novel song arrangement platform with an easy-to-use recording suite, Collabra enables musicians around the world to connect and create music while engaging fans in the creative process for the first time ever. Due to its low-barrier-to-entry approach, for musicians and fans, as well as a robust feature set, Collabra has the potential to change the music creation process forever.

Large Insights- Large is laser-focused on generating insights from data to increase client revenues, and we do that by establishing digital and social business goals, tracking activity and measuring success.

Change My School- Change My School is a platform for students, teachers, and parents to upload and watch videos. It is available to users of all ages and provides a video contest platform. The winning videos each month receive $1,000 for items such as supplies, projects, or technology. It also provides students and teachers opportunities to incorporate creativity, video technology and project based learning into their classrooms.

Steel Fashion- Steel Fashion provides a free styling software service that allows men to style clothes they have, want, or are looking to purchase. They can discover and purchase new brands easily by identifying brands they already like. Confidence and creativity are easily harnessed when visiting Steel Fashion.

Greek Pull- Greek Pull enables a Fraternity or Sorority chapter to reach their target markets in an efficient way. Those target markets are potential new members, their alumni and the Greek Community. Because of this, GreekPull differs from other social media solutions because GreekPull is focused on bringing those target markets to chapter houses. The network is exclusive to Greek Life and helps chapters with efficient marketing. We bring Fraternity and Sorority target markets to Greek Chapters so they can be easily contacted, creating an efficient communication tool.

Startups In The Fastlane: Velocity Startup Collabra Music

A number of statups in accelerators have attacked the music collaboration space. It seems artists and musicians everywhere are looking for the best way to hop online and collaborate with each other. Back in May we saw the demo day presentation from Memphis Seed Hachery startup Musistic, promising to be the Github for musicians.

Collabra Music, a startup currently accelerating at Velocity in Indiana (outside of Louisville), is taking that idea a step further by adding friends, family, and fans into the mix. Collabra Music is about collaboration as much as it is about sharing, performing and discovery.

“We have a big vision for Collabra that connects amateur and independent musicians across the world, creating a collaborative space that inspires new innovation in musical creation and integrates listeners like never before. In developing Collabra and working with many musicians, we came across a common problem, especially for amateur musicians and music students. Many musicians felt that Collabra could help them overcome their struggles in learning, enhancing their experience, and engaging them with their musical practice in more rewarding ways,” co-founder Ryan Michaels told us in the Fastlane interview.

Check out the rest of their Startups In The Fastlane interview below.

Where is your startup originally from?

Louisville, Kentucky

Tell us about your current team?

Our CEO Ron Karroll is a self-starting non-conformist with a penchant for coding that has been the driving force behind the development of our core product. Ron left his full time job with Humana to lead the charge for Collabra Music and help launch what he hopes will be the next evolution in musical creative collaboration.

Ron determination and drive is buffered by his cautious and calculating musical co-founder Ariel Caplan. Ari is an actuary and master of data and analytics. He and Ron developed the vision together, outlining a new methodology that speaks to today’s participatory listener audience. While Ron mans the software development Ari manages the financial and organizational development for Collabra Music.

As musicians they were both passionate about creating a product that bridged the physical gap between musicians as well as fans connecting to create and collaborate on musical projects online.

Ryan Michaels loves music, he simply loves to listen and he’s always learning guitar. Ryan is well-versed in lean methodologies, grassroots organizing and fundraising. He has diverse experience in customer service, education, and community outreach. He joined Collabra to help develop and execute our marketing strategy and solidify our core team and organizational structure. His energy is pretty much limitless.

What does your startup do?

Collabra Music is an online platform that allows members to connect to create music, collaborate on musical projects, and share their projects online with friends, family, and fans.

We have a big vision for Collabra that connects amateur and independent musicians across the world, creating a collaborative space that inspires new innovation in musical creation and integrates listeners like never before. In developing Collabra and working with many musicians, we came across a common problem, especially for amateur musicians and music students. Many musicians felt that Collabra could help them overcome their struggles in learning, enhancing their experience, and engaging them with their musical practice in more rewarding ways.

Collabra is a solid platform for creative collaboration and now we are releasing the alpha phase of our educational layer for instructors and students to connect and engage through the often painful process of learning an instrument. Collabra connects musicians together to help and hold one another up through the creative and experiential challenges they may face, keeping them committed to their passion for music.

What are your goals for the accelerator program?

Our goals for the accelerator have been somewhat informal as we truly didn’t know what to expect of this experience. We have spent significant time outlining our customer segments, engaging in discovery, validating hypotheses, and formatting our business model. In addition Velocity has been helpful in outlining a number of mistakes and failures we most likely would have made without a cautionary example in education. The knowledge, training, and experience this has provided our team is invaluable and we are incredibly grateful for the relationships we have built this summer.

What’s one thing you’ve learned in the accelerator?

The one thing lesson we learned the most frequently is to appreciate the values in our failures and to embrace our failures along the way for what we could learn from them and apply to future successes. The accelerator encourages you to act on the information you have and hope to succeed but prepare to fail, from every failure a lesson can be carried forward and applied to increase the chances of your next attempt at success.

We also learned to be honest and aware of our team’s strengths as a team as well as the strengths and weaknesses of our individual members. Embracing this awareness has allowed us to act to balance one another strengths and weaknesses.

What’s the hardest piece of advice you’ve had to stomach so far?

The most difficult advice has not been a specific fact or direction, but rather the fact that nearly every piece of advice we’ve received has in some way contradicted the advice of another mentor. What started as a carefree balancing act of pursuing a few courses of action has snowballed into a high speed cross-fire environment in which you are forced to take rapidly growing banks of conflicting advice and make determinations of action with a predetermined acceptance for failure and the satisfaction in knowing that at least in failing fast you do so at the least cost of time and resources.

What is your goal for the day after demo day?

After demo day we are finalizing our runway for the final months of 2013. Our draft plan has been consistently evolving over the course of this summer as we have worked through a number of growing periods of development and discovery. We have a reasonable runway but long term survival and success in securing revenue in our market will require an infusion of cash to adequately cover our overhead costs and operating expenses for 2014. We have been developing relationships with potential Angel investors and hope to have outlined soft pledges and follow up for equity terms and financing in the months following our demo day presentation.

Why did you choose this accelerator?

We are proud to be a part of Velocity Indiana’s inaugural class, we applied to a number of tech accelerator programs across the country but had our hearts set on Velocity because it kept us close to home, to our roots. The entrepreneurial community has been a blessing in resources and we are fortunate to have been able to establish so many close-knit relationships with the local business leadership here.

If you relocated for the accelerator are you staying in your new city?

Our two founders are from Louisville; our third core partner packed his bags to join us for Velocity all the way from Southern California and will be staying on with us here in Kentucky as we move forward from Velocity.

What’s one thing you learned about an accelerator that you didn’t know when you applied?

We didn’t realize how many opportunities were present to learn from and experience. To truly make use of all the resources of an accelerator program you need a committed team, willing and able to engage and participate reliably when and where they are needed. It can be difficult and there will likely be missed opportunities, but having the resources in time to follow-up and lead the people helping you build your project is essential in appreciating the value in an accelerator program.

The physical and financial resources are a blessing, but the pool of talent, knowledge and experience that is available to offer guidance and leadership in overcoming challenges and obstacles is incredible.

Where can people find out more?

Check out our product at www.collabramusic.com and follow us at any or all of our social networks. You can also sign up for our newsletter and following our blog.

Startups In The Fastlane: Velocity Startup GreekPull

Crowdfunding is everywhere, there’s crowdfunding for your startup, crowdfunding for your movie, crowdfunding for the things you want and even crowdfunding for college money. Now, thanks to a San Diego startup that’s accelerating at Velocity in Indiana, there is crowdfunding for your fraternity or sorority.

Back in the olden days, before computers, internet, and crowdfunding, fraternities and sororities that were working on a project would have fundraisers, cash boxes, collection jars, and a treasurer to collect all the money. Then you had to trust that the treasurer didn’t spend the fraternity’s money on his own stash of brew and other college accoutrements.

GreekPull is working on a crowdfunding platform for fraternities and sororities that eliminates all these problems, makes it super easy for members to raise money for projects, and then securely collects the money so it can’t be squandered on the frivolous. Now when a sorority or a fraternity wants to hold a big clean-up project, restore a building, or buy toys for local needy kids the money is there. They can even use the funds for special events like spring formals and dances.

We got a chance to talk with AJ Agrawal about GreekPull and their team’s experience at Velocity. They’ll be graduating at the end of the month and think making the move from San Diego to Jeffersonville, Indiana was one of the best choices they’ve ever made. Check out the interview below.

What is the name of your startup?

GreekPull

What accelerator are you in?

Velocity Accelerator

When is demo day/investor day/graduation?

August 29th, 2013

Where is your startup originally from?

San Diego, CA

Tell us about your current team?

Eghosa Aihie- The Hustler: In charge of sales and marketing

AJ Agrawal- The Visionary: In charge of product development and investor relations

What does your startup do?

We’re a crowdfunding platform for Fraternities and Sororities

What are your goals for the accelerator program?

To complete our next seed round of $350,000

What’s one thing you’ve learned in the accelerator?

Never edit your product without talking to customers first, you’ll save a lot of time and money.

What’s the hardest piece of advice you’ve had to stomach so far?

Always being ready to pivot. It feels like your starting completely over when you pivot and sometimes it’s hard to stomach that it’s all part of the learning process.

What is your goal for the day after demo day?

To further conversation with potential investors and customers.

Why did you choose this accelerator?

Over half the National Fraternities and Sororities are located in Indianapolis, so we are in an ideal location to get customer feedback.

If you relocated for the accelerator are you staying in your new city?

Yes, however, we will most likely move a little closer to Indianapolis.

What’s one thing you learned about an accelerator that you didn’t know when you applied?

We’ve been amazed how nice the people in Jeffersonville have been to us. Coming from San Diego, we were unsure what to expect heading into Southern Indiana. Overall, the connections we have made has been priceless, and we look forward to staying in touch with all the people we have met.

Where can people find out more?

greekpull.com

Meet The Five Startups In Indiana’s Velocity Accelerator

We already know that Indianapolis has a strong startup scene. Fort Wayne and Valparaiso are also bursting at the seams with new entrepreneurial activity. But, right across the river from Louisville, in Jeffersonville, Indiana, Velocity is about to graduate their first class of startups.

We’ll be on hand to see these startups graduate from the program in front of a room full of investors later this summer. In the meantime here are the five teams that are accelerating at Velocity.

Change My School- Change My School is a platform for students, teachers and parents to upload and watch videos. It is available to users of all ages and provides a video contest platform. The winning videos each month receive $1,000 for items such as supplies, projects, or technology. It also provides students and teachers opportunities to incorporate creativity, video technology and project based learning into their classrooms.

Angie’s List Acquires Denver Startup BrightNest

On Friday it was announced that Indiana-based Angie’s list, the worlds largest referral startup, has acquired Denver startup BrightNest.

BrightNest was founded in 2011 in Denver’s River North Arts District. The startup is a community-based platform centered around homeowners. They offer tips, tools, and ideas that they say will “shape up your home and simplify your life.”

While Angie’s List is a great place to find a handyman to change a door, over the years their offerings have evolved to include contractors, carpenters, and other service people who can help complete long renovation projects and bigger home improvements.

With BrightNest incorporated into the Angie’s List site, home owners will be able to get suggestions for projects and then find the people they need to work on the projects.

“The only way to transform the local services industry is to solve real problems in a bigger, better, and new way,” Angie’s List Chief Executive Officer Bill Oesterle said in a statement. “With two million members and more than 18 years in this space, no one has better data on local service providers than Angie’s List. BrightNest adds a user-friendly front end and personalized member experience to our marketplace platform which is built on rules, tools and transparency.”

Angie’s List also announced the national rollout of its new communication and scheduling tools. In the second quarter, Angie’s List processed more than 116,000 transactions on its marketplace platform. This represents a tiny fraction of the total transactions that flow through Angie’s List. “We’ve been quietly transforming the way local service is transacted, and we are now in a position to scale it. We will put the platform everywhere our members want it to be, including web, mobile ,and call center,” said Oesterle.

In the new marketplace, Angie’s List can monitor and evaluate each transaction as it progresses through to completion. “If a transaction gets stuck at any point, we are going to step in and fix it,” said Oesterle. “We have the critical mass and the relationships with local service providers that allow us to change service outcomes.”

BrightNest Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Justin Anthony echoed Oesterle’s statement. “We’re excited to join a trusted brand and help facilitate the solution to make it even easier to hire local service providers. Our tools and interactive content allow us to tailor a custom experience for every member because no two homes and no two homeowners are exactly alike.”

Under the terms of the acquisition agreement, Angie’s List acquired basically all of the assets of BrightNest for $2.65 million in cash. The cash value included $2.15 million at closing and $0.5 million payable at the one-year anniversary of closing, subject to certain performance criteria. Angie’s List funded the acquisition with existing cash. In addition, Angie’s List will grant options to purchase $3.65 million of Angie’s List common stock to the members of the BrightNest team, all of whom have been retained by Angie’s List. The transaction closed on August 2, 2013.

How To Nail Your Next VC Pitch

It doesn’t matter how world changing your idea is; if you need money to make it happen, but ruin your opportunities in front of potential venture capitalists, it’s not going to make it off the ground. Venture capitalists are a unique bunch and pitching to them requires a unique strategy. There are four main categories that you need to perfect in order to really nail it, and a few things to note in each one.

The Prep Work

Before you ever step foot in the room to give your pitch, you’ve got plenty of homework to do. Knowing your audience is a key component of nailing a pitch. If you’re pitching to a VC firm, know who they are and what they’ve invested in previously. If you’re working with an angel investor, know who that person is and what he or she does.

Remember, not all money is good money. You’re interviewing the VC as much as they’re interviewing you. Come prepared with questions. A seasoned investor will be able to bring more to provide you with industry knowledge, introductions, and connections. Don’t just take money to take money.

Opening Statement

When you’re putting together your presentation, it shouldn’t be any more than eight slides. Avoid using tools like Prezi—investors are going to jump into your pitch with questions whenever they want, and you may have to skip quickly to another slide to make a point that you planned to make later. Make it easy on yourself by using a presentation tool like keynote or PowerPoint, which has more flexibility.

Your opening statement should convey your idea in two sentences or less, just like an elevator pitch. This is your first and biggest opportunity to say everything you need to without confusing anyone. Being clear, precise, and simple can’t be overstated. There’s no reason to overcomplicate the issue in your opener, or for that matter, anywhere else in your presentation.

After your opening statement, tell a story that helps your audience understand the problem you’re trying to solve. Get creative, and make them feel the pain of the problem. The rest of your pitch will show how you plan to solve it.

If you don’t have a clue where to start for your statement, there are tools out there to help. Harvard Business School created an elevator pitch builder that walks you through a simple and easy method for building a pitch. Founder Institute developed a MadLibs method for developing your pitch. These are two of the best resources available for getting a solid start.

The Team

Frequently, a VC may not be investing in your idea as much as in your team. Highlight the team in your presentation by showing the kind of things they bring to the table, and show what makes them unique. Frequently, a good team can take a mediocre idea and do incredible things with it. At the same time, a weak team can completely ruin a great idea. Show them why your team wins.

The Context

There are five primary points that need to be covered in your pitch presentation.

The idea. This is your opportunity to elaborate more on the opening statement and discuss the idea behind what you’re trying to do.
Your solutions. Why is your solution best, and why is it going to work now?
Traction and validation. If you have a product already built, talk about customers or conversations with experts. Anything that will validate the need or want for the product is key in showcasing your idea. You have to have proof that you’ve done your research and development. If you’ve made a single dollar doing this, make note of it. This is also your opportunity to be honest with them. If you have a weakness (and you do), bring it up. Whether it’s the team, industry, or lack of money, point it out before an investor does.
The future. How will your idea change the industry? Focus on the positive changes here.
What you need. You’re in front of VCs for a reason. They don’t know what’s in your mind. Come right out and ask for exactly what you need. That isn’t just how much you need, though. Talk about what the deal structure looks like. It’s always good to talk with a startup attorney before pitching. They’ll help put together a deal structure among other things.

Cover these topics, and you’ll nail the VC pitch. Make your points quickly, and don’t get frazzled. Remove any buzzwords from your presentation entirely, and don’t take yourself too seriously. And limit name-dropping. Just because you hung out with Mark Cuban at the Super Bowl doesn’t mean they’ll invest in your idea. Have fun, be passionate, and bring it home.

Tony Monteleone(@StartupTony) is a serial entrepreneur and does Business Development for PERQ, a measured marketing software and services company that specializes in increasing online and in store traffic for businesses. He also serves as the Indianapolis Chapter Director for Startup Grind.

Twelve Cities Founder And Thiel Fellowship Liason Nick Arnett On Three Themes For Building Great Cities

While Brad Feld’s book on Startup Communities has become a bible to many people trying to jumpstart startup ecosystems across the country, one entrepreneur has been looking at not just the startup community but the city as a whole, and he’s been doing it since he was 15.

At an age when many high school students are considering the football team, the wrestling team, or a homecoming date, Nick Arnett was sitting in on economic development meetings in his hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana. It was there that he started working on an idea to visit 12 great cities and see what they had in common.

The project officially began in 2011 when a team of individuals, spearheaded by Arnett, went on a series of twelve trips throughout the continental United States. Arnett pointed out to a standing room only crowd at the Fireside Talks event on Monday night that Chattanooga was the first city they visited.

The group working on twelve cities started noticing three big themes that existed across all twelve cities. Arnett said it doesn’t matter if they were talking to the Mayor of Grand Rapids, Michigan or a resident in Tucson, Arizona. these three themes always come up.

The importance of openness and embracing the weird. Arnett explains in the video that being open and embracing everyone in the city is crucial for entrepreneurship. A city needs to embrace those who are working on startups, their own ideas, or freelance. Long gone are the days of everyone going to work at the plant.
The ability to make a difference no matter who you are. A lot of cities have a gap between their older leadership and younger leadership that makes it hard for one group to make a difference. Cities that don’t have that gap are more successful.
The importance of social connectivity, connecting the connectors. Having your local city connectors connect with another city’s connectors. Cities need to leverage these kinds of people that have both strong internal and external connectors.

Arnett really goes deep into all three of these themes in the video below. If you’re working on a startup community, do you have the city component as well? I’ve seen a lot of startup communities that are struggling because the city is still stuck in old ways. Make your city great, and your startup community will be greater.

Nothing Is Stopping Bad Ass Startup Chick Denver Hutt And Now She Has A Website About It

DEnver Hutt, Indianapolis, Indy startup, SpeakEasy

Denver Hutt (center) surrounded by entrepreneurs. (photo: Facebook)

Just yesterday our managing editor Monica Selby penned this piece about taking some downtime. It’s good for you, your mental sanity, your health, and even your business. As I read her post, it made me think of the very important lesson we all learned back in May when Bad Ass Startup Chick Denver Hutt revealed she had the “c” word.

Hutt is the Executive Director at Indianapolis co-working and event space The Speak Easy. She also travels around the world learning and helping startups. She is a networking goddess, a strong advocate for startups of any kind and flavor, and a lover of Indianapolis and its startups (although not born there).

Back in May a bad cough that went untreated got worse and worse. Even after the cough was treated, it never got better. It was eventually revealed that she had cancer. Nowadays, in between treatments and doctor’s appointments, Hutt is making sure she sees the world, friends, favorite things, and startups. A true inspiration for everyone in the startup community and elsewhere.

Hut is a tell-it-like-it-is girl and has always believed in transparency, so she started a blog 418stories.com. She’s not looking for sympathy. She wants to share her lessons and keep people updated. I had to make sure we were plenty stocked up on chocolate, tape, and wine when I read this post from Tuesday where Hutt revealed she’s not responding to chemo. No worries though; she’s an entrepreneur, and this is just a minor setback

She’s going to Chicago to meet with doctors at the University of Chicago, and of course she’s making a trip to 1871 and a Cubs game while she’s in town. Then she’s going to do some more discovery (ok get a third opinion) at Sloan Kettering in New York in two weeks. Rest assured she’ll also stop in on startups there as well.

You can keep up with Denver’s journey here, and you can get a #TeamDenver shirt. You know we’re going to.

Oh, and Denver, we’ve got a little challenge for you. Make it to Everywhere Else Cincinnati, or we’ll come down to Indy and get you!

VentureCamp Gives New Meaning to “Go Big or Go Home”

VentureCamp has everything an entrepreneur needs from an accelerator:

top-notch mentorship
a smart cohort
a curriculum developed by leading investors

Oh…and a mansion.

Looks like something out of The Bachelor, right? That’s actually not too far off. Besides building companies and receiving world class mentorship, VentureCamp participants live together in the mansion. And, it’s all being captured on video.

VentureCamp obviously isn’t your typical accelerator.

First, rather than accept teams that are already building products, VentureCamp only accepted individuals. And, they focused on women and minorities, groups that are typically left out of the venture capital game. After the first week, the participants were split up into teams, they chose a company, and had 7 weeks to build it out. The whole experience can be likened to Startup Weekend, but on a bigger, grander scale.

Second, the whole thing is housed in Indianapolis’s Kessler Mansion, owned by one of the camp’s backers, Chad Folkening. The idea is to give the entrepreneurs an idea of what life could be like, in the event their companies go big.

Finally, from morning to night, the whole thing is filmed. Camera crews hang out in all the meetings, strategy sessions, and dinners, capturing the formation of three new companies. The footage will be turned into a “docu-series,” shown first online, but the team hopes to eventually put it on TV. VentureCamp backer and senior advisor Patrick Mellody told USA Today that the film will promote other VentureCamps held around the world.

Despite some of the glitz, VentureCamp entrepreneurs have been hard at work for the last 8 weeks. With mentors like Priceline’s Jeff Hoffmann,they receive outstanding feedback on their business models and pitch.

And, speaking of pitch, what’s the one thing all accelerators have in common?

Demo Day!

Today is the first VentureCamp Demo Day. They are launching (and hoping to fund) 3 companies:

TourNative is a marketplace that connects travelers with locals.
YumDom helps home cooks find just the recipe they need for their lifestyle and includes 6 iPhone apps tailored to different dietary needs.
PlanSoon connects people with someone new to go do something fun.

It should be interesting to watch what comes from VentureCamp, both the new companies and the docu-series. Whatever it is, this team definitely knows how to “go big.”