Rob Woodbridge and The May-Boss-Weil Continuum of Mobile Apps

Rob Woodbridge Everywhere else cincinnati

Rob Woodbridge gave an interesting talk during Everywhere Else Cincinnati. “The Top 4 Mobile Business Models and how to Optimize Them for Revenue” was a title that may seem bland and boring. So many times at conferences you see sessions entitled things like, “SEO for eCommerce,” or “Optimize Your Facebook page for Conversions,” or “The Perfect Investor Pitch,” or some such thing. More often that not, these are the sessions that attendees leave after 5-10 minutes out of boredom. However, this session ended up being one of the most enjoyable of the conference.

In the first, of what actually proved to be many, sessions that required audience participation, Woodbridge called four audience members to the stage – interestingly one of the participants was Jared Steffes who spoke the following day. Woodbridge lined the four up on the stage, three on one end and one on the other and Woodbridge in the middle (Not sure how I did not get a picture of the formation, but @_everywhereelse got a pretty good one here). This formation represented what Woodbridge dubbed the May-Boss-Weil continuum of mobile apps.

May-Boss-Weil Continuum

Woodbridge’s continuum is a really good way to think about the life-cycle of mobile apps. There are more than 1.7 billion applications available in the various app stores and with the average number of apps per smartphone at 41. Woodbridge argued that the great majority of these apps are crap. But, some really useful applications live on forever.

May

The May of the continuum represented the Mayfly. The Mayfly has the shortest lifespan of any animal on the planet, lasting from one to three days. This section of the continuum contains the majority of mobile applications, and was represented with the three audience members. This end is were the one-off apps live: the fart noise makers and the knock offs of Angry Birds.

Weil

The Weil in the continuum is named for Ray Kurzweil, Director of Engineering at Google who argues that in the near future, technology will enable humans to live indefinitely. This end of the continuum is where the Google Maps and Twitters and Evernotes live, possibly forever.

Boss

The Boss is named for the Boss himself, Bruce Springsteen. The Boss sits right in the middle because, as Woodbrige put it, he is not really retired and he is not really going 100% anymore; he is neither too old, or too young, just the Boss. Woodbridge argued that this is the part of the continuum that application developers should shoot for.

The continuum holds because, Woodbridge went on, application developers are chasing the almighty download. This is a losing strategy, and there are many other metrics that are a much better indicator of quality than downloads; namely average monthly/weekly/daily usage. According to Woodbridge, “Chasing downloads is chasing death.” Rather, the best approach is to build something that is great, and monetize in one of the four ways outlined in Woodbridge’s discussion:

1. Brand Reinforcement

This strategy really only applies to established companies and works best for physical products. Woodbridge brought up the examples of the Krispy Kreme and Stella Artois applications. The Krispy Kreme app lets users know when they are close to a store and will notify the user when the donuts are “Hot Now.” The Stella application allows users to find close bars that serve Stella and sort by various filters such as distance and rating. This value-add approach is a great way for established brands to engage mobile.

2. Freemium

For the freemium approach to work, you must build a really awesome product that people use. Evernote is the best example of a freemium application. The success of Evernote particularly, and the freemium model more broadly, lies in the usefulness of a product. The oft-quoted remark from Evernote’s CEO Phil Libin speaks to this: “The easiest way to get 1 million people paying is to get 1 billion people using.” Build something awesome, and people will pay for an upgrade.

3. Premium

This one is fairly simple, just charge for the app. Be it $.99 or $999.99, charging an upfront fee is a simple way to monetize an application.

4. Data

This is a unique approach. Woodbridge brought up the example of Ubiqui Health. Prior to launching any product, Ubiqui surveyed doctors and patients about health issues, particularly which issues with a real lack of information and data available. It soon became clear that there was a real lack of data around migraines. Thus, they built a migraine tracking application and sold the data to pharmacies and doctors. There are plenty of ways to employ this approach, but it takes some creative thinking.

While, certainly, there are many different avenues through which to monetize a mobile application, the four highlighted by Woodbridge offer the greatest chance at success. Woodbridge finished on a note that we can all agree to, “Banner ads fu*king suck!”

Andrew Thompson is the Managing Editor of TechFaster

Softbank’s Joe Medved: Diligence Is For Entrepreneurs Too

The national VC investors and angels who spoke at Everywhere Else Cincinnati loved the concept of talking to and educating entrepreneurs from everywhere else. In the months leading up to Everywhere Else Cincinnati, we fielded a lot of emails from investors asking about pitch contests and deal flow. Joe Medved joined Blair Garrou (Mercury Fund), Mark Hasebroock (Dundee Venture Capital), Mark Richey (West Capital Advisors/Draper), and Bob Coy (Cincy Tech) on the stage at one point or another during the conference to help educate early stage startups and entrepreneurs. The general consensus was if entrepreneurs are more in tune with the investor community, a lot of time will be saved.

Medved took that idea to the extreme by cramming down probably an entire college course worth of entrepreneurial content into a 30 minute talk and equally robust slides.

Our Managing Editor Monica Selby already covered the truth about getting VC attention, almost immediately after Medved left the stage.

Medved’s presentation was filled with important information. Equally as important as getting VC attention is the fact that due diligence is just as important for the startup as it is for the investor. Too many times startups are so excited about getting a “yes,” they are willing to take money from anyone.

Entrepreneurs need to make sure that the investor is the right fit for their startup. Does the startup see eye to eye with the investor? Does the investor bring value to the startup outside of just money? Taking on an investor is a partnership almost like a marriage. Just as a marriage, it may take a while to get into but it’s a lot harder to get out of. In that respect it’s even harder to get an investor out than it is to get divorced.

Medved offers these tips for doing due diligence on your investors:

References! Speak to entrepreneurs the investor has backed before, including those who have crushed it and been crushed.
– Is there healthy engagement with the investor? And their team?
– Where can they help & what types of board members complement them?
Leverage their network for customer references
– On top of your existing customer references, ask to pitch your business to potential customers in their network
Follow on investments
– If they’ll follow, how frequently do they?
– How much would they reserve?
If you’re working with a fund what is their capital health
– What percentage of their fund is invested and reserved
– If they’re raising soon, is your individual lead in good standing?

All of these points are very important to a startup. As painful as it may be for your pocketbook or bank account or even your startup, if the answers to these questions aren’t comfortable for your team, product and startup you may need to look for another investor.

Follow Joe Medved on Twitter @joevc

Check out more coverage from Everywhere Else Cincinnati here.

A Startup Walks Into A Bar And Orders…

Six decade old advertising agency archer>malmo gave an amazing discussion at SXSW 2013 called “When Bad Names Happen to Good Startups.” It was a candid look at naming mistakes startups make. While sometimes names are an afterthought based on a url’s availability, the folks at archer>malmo and their investment arm a>m ventures, preach the importance of a name because it’s the foundation of your brand.

Patrick Woods, a>m ventures Managing Director, says “say nodaddy to godaddy” referring to the practice of naming a startup for a URL. That was just the beginning of an amazing presentation at our Everywhere Else Cincinnati conference earlier this week. What transpired after a brief introduction had the entire audience talking for the rest of the conference. In fact, shortly after the discussion The Cincinnati Business Courier’s Andy Brownfield was so blown away he posted this story.

So the story goes like this: archer>malmo’s Senior Copy Writer Justin Dobbs is a close friend of Woods. “He’s one of the most creative guys I know,” Woods told the audience. So it was a feeling of shock, or possibly being blown off when Woods was recently looking for a gift to get a male friend for his birthday. He figured he would turn to Dobbs’ creative edge to help him come up with something truly amazing. Dobbs’ suggestion? A bar of soap. But not just any soap,

Dobbs suggested a bar of Duke Cannon. Now Duke Cannon is a man’s soap. Its brand isn’t just a brand; it has a personality. Brand is bold, and masculine and their branding is something Woods was successful in driving home.

Their website and brand image is filled with personality. “Tested by soldiers, made in the USA” is one of the rotating graphics that dons the companies web page. “Veggie Burger’s Don’t Mind If I Don’t” is another.

“Duke Cannon doesn’t dine with vegans and he could give a damn about your iPad,” it says on the company’s about page.

Duke Canon’s personality is that of a man, a man’s man. If he walked into a bar he would undoubtedly order something hard.

That’s one question Wood’s asked the audience at Everywhere Else Cincinnati. “What would your startup order at a bar?” “What would your startup order to eat?” was another.

Woods said startups that use simple descriptors may have found the perfect way to tell what their startup does, but they’re so simple that they are insulting to users.

Duke Cannon has a brand voice and startups need one too. “Startups almost feel like they need to sound like a startup. Don’t try to sound like a startup,” Woods said to the audience.

“When you develop a strong personality, you start moving your startup from a product to a brand,” Woods told Brownfield. “Personality is what your brand says when you’re no longer speaking.”

Nibletz would order a Redbull and Vodka and pizza.

Find out more about a>m ventures here.

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.

Cincinnati Startup Modulus Wins Everywhere Else Cincinnati 2013 Startup Champion

Modulus founder Charlie Key wasn’t looking to win a startup pitch contest when he signed up for this week’s Everywhere Else Cincinnati conference. Key is very active in the local Cincinnati startup community and likes attending startup events. The Modulus team ended up leaving the event with the big ass trophy.

Startups in the Startup Avenue at Everywhere Else Cincinnati participated in the CincyTech, and Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber Startup Poker Run. Over 50 investors and VIP’s at the conference were given five poker chips on Monday morning when they checked in. From 1:00pm-5:00pm that afternoon the investor group was told to check out all of the startups and hand out their chips to the startup they thought was the best. At the end of the afternoon the 5 startups with the most chips got to pitch to the crowd and to a group of judges.

West Capital’s Mark Richey, Draper Triangle’s Will Indest, a>m ventures Patrick Woods and Cincy Tech’s Avi Ram served as the contests judges.

The five finalists were:

Energy Harvesters- a Boston based startup that uses kinetic energy built up through walking and footwear to charge cell phones.

Kids360– a Memphis based startup that helps parents have a better piece of mind in emergency situations while their children are in the care of others.

Tixers- a ticketing platform aimed at season ticket holders and others that eliminates the risk of tickets not selling on Craigslist or StubHub.

Spacefinity- a Pittsburgh startup in the sharing community that allows people to rent space in their homes, sheds, garages, basements and other areas for others to store their stuff (AirBnb for storage).

Modulus– a scalable application platform for developers that offers node.js hosting, MongoDB and performance analytics in the cloud, based in Cincinnati.

All fives startups made engaging 3 minute pitches and then were put through a 3 minute Q&A session with the judges.

Modulus was the judges’ favorite with Tixer in 2nd place. Modulus was crowned the Everywhere Else Cincinnati 2013 Startup Champion. They received a huge trophy, bragging rights, and startup services including a branding consultation with archer>malmo (a>m ventures) and an investor meeting with Cincy Tech.

Key was surprised that their team had won, and they quickly took their trophy back to the office and shared it with their social networks.

Find out more about Modulus here.

8 Mandates To Finding Your Meaning From Elevate’s Jake Stutzman At Everywhere Else Cincinnati

At most startup conferences, there’s a speaker or two who makes everyone get up from the chairs and do something, get the blood flowing, meet new people–you know orchestrating meaningful collisions. That speaker at Everywhere Else Cincinnati didn’t come until Tuesday afternoon when Jake Stutzman the founder of Omaha’s Elevate took the stage.

Stutzman, whose firm spearheaded the “experience” part for Everywhere Else Cincinnati, wanted to make sure that the attendees in the room were doing what they were supposed to. After testing moving the group closer to the front and closing the gaps, he tested the audience participation and moved on with explaining 8 mandates to finding your meaning as part of his discussion, “Find The Meaning Find The Money”.

The eye opening talk led off with Stutzman throwing some basic words on the screen and asking the audience to say what brands those words represented in their minds. For instance when he put the word “coffee” on the screen the crowd quickly blurted out Starbucks. For computer, most said “Apple”, and for the word “Phone” most shouted out iPhone, although one person went retro yelling out “Motorola Razor”.

While most of the brands said here made the list of the “World’s Most Valuable Brands”, they are extremely valuable because they own the category in people’s minds. How does a product go beyond just a product and become that category owning brand? Stutzman mapped it out clearly with these 8 mandates. “Usefulness only lasts until something better comes along,” Stutzman told the crowd. Need an example of that, just look at Blackberry.

These 8 important mandates are:

1. Know Yourself

2. Know Your Audience. Who’s your audience? Is there an audience for your product? How do you engage that audience?

3. Know Your Competitor and your category. Do a competitive audit, and know what your competitor does

4. Be Different.

5. Cast a Vision

6. Make it accessible, have brand identity, create memorable experiences and make sure your brand is infused in everything

7. Be Consistent. Consistency is the key to all of this. “It’s the difference between a chaotic brand and a charismatic brand,” Stutzman said.

8. Empower brand champions, find those champions for your brand those people that are extremely loyal and give them the tools to help grow your brand. These brand champions will work for you because you want to.

Nick and I got to experience all of this first hand starting with a two day workshop at Elevate’s Omaha, Nebraska office. There the Elevate team asked us hard questions about exactly what we wanted to do, who attended our conferences, who read our website, who shares our content. Who do we want to come and what do we want them to do? This is why Elevate is so much more than a design firm.

Elevate helped our brand appeal to multiple senses. Visually how was everything going to look? How were we going to direct people and what were they going to do on site?

Moving into 2014 we will have three conferences and continue to work with Elevate, who will help us make sure we continue to drive home these mandates.

Find out more about Elevate at elevate.co

To Grow A Startup, Grow as an Individual

Of all the speakers at Everywhere Else Cincinnati, none embody the Everywhere Else mentality more than John T.Meyer, the Founder of Lemon.ly – a startup that builds awesome infographics. Meyer and Lemon.ly are based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the state’s largest city with a population just north of 159 thousand. “Everywhere Else” personified.

Meyer’s talk, entitled “Don’t be Everyone Else at Everywhere Else,” outlined a more internal, individualized approach to building a startup. Rather than focusing blindly on bettering and building the company itself, Meyer argued, an early-stage founder is better served by expending an equal amount of time and energy in bettering his or herself. Or, essentially, a founder should grow as a person to grow the company. Meyer went on to outline 7 points, in the form of quotes, that speak to this approach:

Execute on being you

-Gary Vaynerchuk

Essentially, in the context of Meyer’s discussion, this means that a founder should play to his or her strengths. If you know sales, sell. If you code, code. Conversely, if you know marketing, don’t code, and so on. Play to your strengths.

When human judgement and big data intersect there are some funny things that happen.

– Nate Silver

While tracking big data and various metrics is a familiar undertaking for founders, Meyer brought this up in the context of individual, daily life; i.e. tracking the quantified self with a Fit Bit or some such device. It goes back to knowing and executing on yourself.

It is not enough to be busy. The question is: What are we busy about?

– Henry David Thoreau

Meyer argued that everyone is busy, but a founder must prioritize, and eliminate to the extent it is possible, lesser tasks and focus on the larger goals. A sort-of task triage if you will.

The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.

– Warren Buffett

This Buffet quote speaks to the Thoreau quote above. It is not enough to simply prioritize your tasks as a founder, you must learn which of those to reject. This is a very less = more approach.

Everyone has highs and lows that they have to learn from, but every morning I start off with a good head on my shoulders, saying to myself ‘it’s going to be a good day.’

– Lindsay Lohan

Meyer used this quote, jokingly, to argue for the use of an alarm clock, as opposed to setting an alarm on a phone. More-or-less, Meyers argued, once you come in contact with your cell phone, it instantly compartmentalizes your brain into ten or more different sections, and you are completely unable to focus on the task at hand. You would be better served to go “phoneless” for the first few minutes or hour of your day.

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

– Bill Cosby

This gets back to saying ‘no’ and focusing on what you are doing. It is important to focus on what you are building and make it really good at what it does. Don’t expand the problem you are solving into sub-problems. Fix it, fix it real good.

If you really want to know where your destiny lies, look at where you apply your time

– Mark Cuban

A fitting end to the talk. Look at what you love doing, and go do it.

Essentially, Meyers talk boiled down to combining two aspects that are usually presented as dichotomy; the self and the company. Rather than treating the two as sort-or exclusive of one another, both should grow in tandem. To grow as a company, it is important to grow as an individual.

Andrew Thompson is the Managing Editor of TechFaster.

Look Who’s Coming To Everywhere Else Cincinnati, Agenda Released!

Over 40 startup and entrepreneurial influencers are set to speak at our national startup conference, which begins Sunday evening at 8pm.

Kicking off on Sunday, September 29th at 8pm with a Kick Off Party at Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill in downtown Cincinnati, hundreds of entrepreneurs, startup founders, supporters and investors from across the country and around the world are converging on Cincinnati for the two and a half day startup conference.

Jeff Hoffman, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Priceline and Ubid, John Bracken, co-founder of E-Vite and Speek, Derek Flanzriach, founder of Greatist, Wil Schroeter, founder of Fundable, Ethan Austin, founder of GiveForward, Scott Gerber, founder of the Young Entrepreneur Council, Carla Valdes, Partner at Fortify Ventures and over 30 more nationally known speakers will be featured in keynotes, panels and networking events during the event at the Duke Energy Convention Center.

Washington DC based film entrepreneur Justin Gutwein will introduce the documentary series Startupland to the audience on Monday morning.

Everywhere Else Cincinnati will also highlight women in entrepreneurship throughout the conference including a talk with Janice Fraser, CEO and Co-founder of LUXor. Fortify Ventures General Partner Carla Valdes will address the audience on getting past the gatekeeper as both a woman and a startup founder. West Capital’s Madeleine Ludlow, will participate in the high profile panel “Not all money is created equal and location matters to investors”. BrandHUB’s Nicole Ball, is moderating a panel on why branding and design are important to a startup and Nibletz Media’s Managing Editor Monica Selby will moderate a discussion on addressing media needs of startups.

Monday evening will end with the “Halftime Party” sponsored by Nashville Tennessee’s CentreSource.

The complete agenda for Everywhere Else Cincinnati is below and a final batch of attendee tickets have been released at http://eecincinnati.com

Everywhere Else Agenda

Sunday Sept 29th
- 8pm-11pm Kickoff Party Hosted by Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber & CincyTech at Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill Downtown Cincinnati

Monday Sept 30th
- 8:30am Registration Opens
- 9am-9:15am Opening Remarks from Kyle Sandler & Nick Tippmann
- 9:15am-9:35am Dave Knox – Building a Top Startup Accelerator Everywhere Else
- 9:35am-9:55am Carla Valdes – Rapid fire Q&A on getting past the gate keeper
- 9:55am-10:15am Jonathan Perrelli & Justin Gutwein – Startupland, an Honest and Authentic Portrial of What It Takes To Be an Entrepreneur
- 10:15am-10:45am Andrew Warner (KEYNOTE) – Entrepreneurs & Their Inner Insecurities
- 10:45am-11am Coffee Break Presented by Soapbox Media
- 11am-11:30am – Panel: Catching the Attention of an Accelerator Everywhere Else. Moderator: Nick Tippmann. Panelist Blake Miller, Mike Bott, Brian Raney, Jonathon Perrelli
- 11:30am-11:50am – Art McMahon – The New World of Private Placements: A Brief Legal Overview. Presented by Taft Law
- 11:45pm-12:05pm – Fred Killingsworth – Mobile Payment Solutions: Enabling Unprecedented Opportunities. Presented by Vantiv
- 12pm-1:30pm Lunch Break
- 1:30pm-1:50pm John T Meyer – Don’t Be Everyone Else at Everywhere Else
- 1:50pm-2:10pm Rob Woodbridge – Top 4 Mobile Business Models and How To Optimize Them For Revenue
- 2:10pm-2:30pm Derek Flanzriach – Getting To Over 1M Unique Visitors Per Month In Less Than a Year Using Social & Content
- 2:30pm-3pm Jeff Hoffman (KEYNOTE) – Entrepreneur’s Bootcamp: Keys to Entrepreneuring Success
- 3pm-3:15pm Afternoon Break Present by Vantiv
- 3:15pm-3:45pm Panel: The New and Ever Changing World of Content & Media. Moderator: Monica Selby. Panelist: Ryan O’Connell, Derek Flanziach, Rob Woodbridge, Scott Gerber, Andrew Warner
- 3:45pm-4:05pm John Bracken – Rising Above The Noise
- 4:05pm-4:25pm Andy Sparks – Should You Stay Put?
- 4:25pm-4:45pm – Jake Stutzman – Meaning, Not Money
- 4:45pm-5:05pm – Mark Richey – Capital Risk and Speed
- 5:05pm-5:55pm Startup Pitches
- 5:55pm-6pm Closing Remarks
- 6:15pm-8:15pm VIP Investor & Startup Only Happy Hour at the Hyatt Regency
- 8:30pm-11pm Halftime Party Hosted by Centresource at Rhinegeist Brewery

Tuesday Oct 1st
- 9am-9:10am Opening Remarks from Kyle Sandler & Nick Tippmann
- 9:10am-9:30am Mark Hasebroock – Llamas and Mocassins
- 9:30am-9:50am Denver Hutt – Life Is What Happens While We’re Busy Making Other Plans
- 9:50am-10:10am Blair Garrou – Top 10 Ways for a Startup to Thrive (and Survive) in the Midcontinent
- 10:10am-10:40am Joe Medved (KEYNOTE) – How to Source Your Investors
- 10:40am-11:15am Panel: Not All Money Is Created Equal and Location Matters to Investors. Moderator: Bob Coy. Panelist: Madeleine Ludlow, Blair Garrou, Joe Medved, Jonathon Perrelli, Mark Hasebroock
- 11:15am-11:30am Coffee Break Presented by West Capital & Draper Triangle
- 11:30am-11:50pm Patrick Woods – From pitch to personality: brand personality and why it matters
- 11:50am-12:10pm – Evan Owens – Horror Stories From Product Development
- 12:10pm-12:30pm – Janice Fraser – Lean UX + Design for Startups
- 12:30pm-2pm Lunch Break
- 2pm-2:20pm James Dickerson – What I Learned From My Startup’s Failure
- 2:20pm-2:40pm Raghu Betina – Getting Your Feet Wet in Programming
- 2:40pm-3:00pm Alan Berkson – You Got Customers, Now How Do You Keep ‘em? Presented by Freskdesk
- 3pm-3:30pm Scott Gerber (KEYNOTE) – Why Should Never Get a “Real” Job
- 3:30pm-3:45pm Afternoon Break Presented by Taft
- 3:45pm-4:15pm Panel: Why Branding and Design Are Crucial to a Startup Moderator: Nicole Ball. Panelist: Patrick Woods, Jake Stutzman, John T Meyer, Janice Fraser, Evan Owens
- 4:15pm-4:35pm Ethan Austin – Culture ≠ Ping pong: How To Build a Startup Culture That Drives Success
- 4:35pm-4:55pm Jared Steffes – Don’t Be a Liar and Your Startup Sucks.
- 4:55pm-5:25pm Wil Schroter (KEYNOTE) – How Crowdfunding is Changing Startup Fundraising Forever
- 5:25pm-5:55pm Startup Awards Presented by CincyTech & Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber
- 5:55pm-6pm Closing Remarks from Kyle Sandler and Nick
- 8:00pm-11pm Postgame Party Hosted by Nibletz Media at Rhinegeist Brewery

Don’t have your ticket? No worries. We released a few more tickets, and you can get yours at eecincinnati.com

Bonfyre Is Back As The Official App For Everywhere Else Conference, And We’ve Got Two Tickets To SXSWi To Give Away

Bonfyre, is back as the official app for the Everywhere Else Conference. Everywhere Else Cincinnati kicks off Sunday night with a welcome party open to the public.

St. Louis startup Bonfyre is a social engagement app that allows you to share thoughts, updates, information, and photos across a closed social network and then outward to your normal social channels including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

At Everywhere Else Memphis last February we used Bonfyre, and the attendees of the conference stayed in the Bonfyre and kept interacting well into the summer.

Bonfyre will allow entrepreneurs, startup founders, investors, panelists, and startup support to keep up with all the conference go-ers in the event’s own channel. In addition to Everywhere Else, Bonfyre was also been the official app for last year’s PowderKeg conference, OneSpark in Florida, and even for St. Louis Rams games.

Bonfyre keeps things going in an easy-to-understand and engaging platform. For Everywhere Else Cincinnati we’ll have two different Bonfyre’s. O will be limited to information about the conference, scheduling, maps, and important information from the conference staff. The other will be the Bonfyre the entire group will use. That’s where the fun begins.

Bonfyre and Nibletz have teamed up to give away a pair of SXSWi 2014 passes (passes only) for March 2014. The interactive passes will give you access to the entire interactive conference tract at SXSWi and many of the awesome parties. The passes have a value of over $1400! We will be looking for the most engaged and interactive Bonfyre user throughout the course of the conference.

So go download Bonfyre in the iTunes app store or the Google Play Store and then scan the QR Codes below to get into the Bonfyre’s. We’ll see you this weekend.

Use this QR code to get into the Info Bonfyre for Everywhere Else Cincinnati:

Use this QR code to get into the Engage Bonfyre for Everywhere Else Cincinnati:

2 Weeks And 2 Startup Avenue Booths Left For Everywhere Else Cincinnati

The feedback for Everywhere Else Cincinnati has been overwhelming. Many startups in the flyover states, middle America, and abroad can’t believe there is a startup conference, with a speaker lineup of this caliber, specifically geared towards them.

At Everywhere Else Cincinnati you’ll mingle, rub elbows, network, talk and hopefully garner the interest of investors who like you, work and want to continue building startup ecosystems everywhere else. We’ll hear from people like Jeff Hoffman who built up Priceline, uBid and other companies. Hoffman has decided that he’s done creating business plans and he’s turned to creating entrepreneurs and he’s going to share that with all of us.

We’ll hear form people like Andrew Warner who’s mixergy website has become a bible of sorts for entrepreneurs across the country. We’ll hear from several startup founders who’ve collectively raised hundreds of millions of dollars from anywhere USA.

Scott Gerber, the founder of YEC and distinguished startup author will talk about startups everywhere and the YEC’s new Startup Insurance.

And there are 22 more speakers with similar experience taking the stage September 29th-October 1st in downtown Cincinnati at the Duke Energy Convention Center.

The attendee ticket is $99 through this weekend and the remaining two Startup Avenue booths are just $495 through this weekend.

The Startup Avenue booth comes with three attendee tickets for the founder and the your startup team. You’ll exhibit in front of hundreds of investors, founders, entrepreneurs and resources. There will be pitch contests and two exclusive events for startups, investors and our media partners.

Tickets are available below. We’ll see you in Cincinnati.

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From Conference Volunteer To Startup Founder, Audrey Jones Is In The Zone

Last February I had no idea who Audrey Jones was. We were preparing for Everywhere Else Memphis and knee deep in getting ready. diPR consulting’s Danielle Inez was recruiting volunteers and handling many of the pre-show logistics.

When the conference time finally arrived, we met up with all of the onsite volunteers. Audrey Jones was one of them. She told us in an interview that she had heard good things about the conference and was curious about what it was all about. She received an email from one of the civic groups she works with for volunteers and decided she would sign up for one shift.

That day, she took control of registration and front end organization and then stayed on throughout the entire conference, never missing a beat. It was like we had planned and rehearsed her role for months, but for Jones, organization and execution come naturally. It’s one of the qualities her full time employer, Memphis based AutoZone loves about her.

In fact several people from AutoZone’s marketing and IT departments attended at least some part of the inaugural conference in Memphis. At some point during the conference an AutoZone employee came up to me and congratulated us on a job well done. He then said that we could have Audrey for the remaining two days of the conference, but not only that she wouldn’t have to take time off, AutoZone was paying her to work for us.

But this story isn’t about a great conference volunteer or a great company in Memphis. The story continues.

Jones was so intrigued by what she witnessed at the Startup Conference that she started spending her free time with Start Co, the Memphis organization that serves as an umbrella for many of Memphis’ startup efforts. Jones stayed in touch with many of the people she met at the conference from across the country and started to work on an idea.

What intrigued Jones most about Start Co and their various startup initiatives was Upstart Memphis, a women’s startup initiative that included a women’s only 48 Hour Launch and a women’s only startup accelerator.

Jones’ preliminary idea revolved around the way that parents, loved ones, family members, and caregivers communicate. There’s so much technology out there now that phone trees are pretty much dead wood.

“It’s a platform that allows parents to list their children’s emergency contact information electronically. It’s the alternative to the cluttered file cabinet in emergency situations. Parents can grant access to whomever needs access, like sittrs, tutors, daycare and childcare providers,” Jones told us.

Jones had no idea she was an entrepreneur or a startup founder in January of this year. By spring she was talking to people about this idea. Then Start Co put a call out to women led startups to apply for their inaugural summer cohort for their women’s accelerator. Jones admitted she felt like she didn’t think she would get in, but went forward with the application process, even citing Nibletz as a reference after her work with the conference.

Kids360 was one of the four startups selected for the women’s only cohort that puts the women founded startups through a bootcamp-style, intense business and entrepreneurial accelerator. The hope for Start Co co-presidents Andre Fowlkes and Eric Mathews is that founders will be launch ready at the end of the accelerator, which is really just the beginning.

For Jones it’s been non stop since the accelerator kicked off at the beginning of the summer. She continues to work full time for AutoZone and spends another 40-50 hours a week on Kids360.

“Audrey is a great example of the type of entrepreneur we find here in Memphis. She is constantly grinding whether it’s her own startup, helping others or on her job. She’s putting the resources of StartCo to work for her every chance she gets,” Mathews told us by email.

It helps that Audrey works for AutoZone, a company founded by serial entrepreneur Pitt Hyde. The company was very supportive during those few days of the conference and continues to support Jones with a little extra flexibility in her schedule while she is going through the accelerator program. This isn’t the first time that AutoZone has supported one of their employees going through one of Start Co’s accelerator programs. In fact it’s their third go round and they would continue to do it over and over again, Jones tells us.

Why?

“Because entrepreneurs make the best employees,” Jones told us. She is very open about her startup and what she is doing in the program. Everyone on her team all the way up to Pitt Hyde knows that she’s in the program. “Whenever I see Mr. Hyde in the halls I smile with my AutoZone uniform on and re-pitch him again,” Jones said.

“We’ve seen quite a few entrepreneurs come through the ranks at Autozone, which is very supportive of our young entrepreneurs and Start Co. Audrey markes the third time that we’ve been able to help an Autozone employee hone in their inner entrepreneur,” Mathews said.

Hyde is also very supportive of entrepreneurial efforts in Memphis. He is a major supporter and director for Memphis Bioworks and their Zeroto510 accelerator, which is run in partnership with Bioworks and Start Co.

So now with just weeks to go before demo day at the UpStart accelerator, Jones is gearing up to have a booth at Everywhere Else Cincinnati’s Startup Avenue. She’s looking forward to real life pitch practice, talking to investors, and of course helping out the Everywhere Else team.

You can find out more about Kids360 at kids360now.com

It’s not too late to get your own booth or attendee ticket for Everywhere Else Cincinnati.

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West Capital Advisor and Draper Triangle’s Mark Richey Added To Everywhere Else Cincinnati!

With less than 2 weeks to go for Everywhere Else Cincinnati, we’re still letting speakers out of the bag. Everywhere Else Cincinnati is shaping up to be the destination conference for startups everywhere else. The conference will feature 30 great startup and investor speakers from across the country. We’ve kept ticket prices low to allow even the most bootstrapped startups from everywhere else the opportunity to afford and attend a major startup conference.

We are pleased to announce that Mark Richey, Venture Partner at Draper Triangle Ventures and Managing Director/Founder at West Capital Advisors, will be one of our featured keynote speakers during the Everywhere Else Conference September, 29th through October, 1st in Cincinnati Ohio.

Mark is an experienced technologist, executive, founder, and private equity investor. Most recently, he served as a Managing Director in Draper Triangle Ventures, an early stage venture fund and affiliate of the Draper Network of funds headed by Draper Fisher Jurvetson in Menlo Park, CA. Mark maintains a relationship with Draper Triangle in the role of Venture Partner.

Mark has been involved in many entrepreneurial ventures. Mark founded Synchrony Communications in 1997 raising $38 million in funding from leading VCs and strategic investors, including Charles River Ventures, APAX Partners and GE Equity. He grew the company to a size of more than 130 employees in four cities serving over 80 customers, including Cincinnati Bell, Bank of America, and Proctor & Gamble. In prior years Mark served in management roles with a series of venture backed Silicon Valley companies, including Gain Technology (sold to Sybase), Siebel Systems (IPO), and Genesys Telecommunications (IPO). After graduate school he worked in management consulting with Theodore Barry & Associates (Los Angeles). Mark began his career as a software engineer with Cincom Systems (Cincinnati).

Mark holds an M.B.A. from The Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, and a BS Systems Analysis from Miami University. He currently serves as an observer on the boards of Thinkvine, Oversight Systems, and CardioInsight, the advisory board of Priority Consult (division of Mayfield Spine Clinic), and the TechColumbus Investment Committee. Mark is a past member of the Business Advisory Council of Miami University’s Richard T. Farmer School of Business Administration.

You can get attendee tickets or register for a Startup Avenue booth below. For more info on the conference visit eecincinnati.com

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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.

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Whoa! Jeff Hoffman The Real “Negotiator” To Keynote Everywhere Else Cincinnati

Earlier this year at Everywhere Else Memphis, Priceline founding CTO and Starutp America CEO Scott Case took to the stage to spread the important gospel of startup communities and culture. Case has spoken at events across the country and in a lot of “flyover” states, focusing especially on the earlier stage startups.

This time around we are honored to have Jeff Hoffman as one of our main keynote speakers at Everywhere Else Cincinnati. Hoffman is best known as the co-founder of the Priceline.com family of companies. He’s also been the CEO of uBid and Color Jar. He’s a regular mentor for startups and pens a great column on innovation and entrepreneurship for Inc Magazine.

While he’s a very esteemed and successful entrepreneur, back in May at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Rio de Janeiro he proudly announced “I don’t spend time launching business plans anymore, I launch entrepreneurs.” That’s why he is one of the co-founders, founding advisors, and founding mentors for Indianapolis based VentureCamp. Hoffman calls it a “fully immersive startup ecosystem.”

After launching 7 successful companies (including Priceline and another travel company that was acquired by American Express), Hoffman has decided his life’s work from here on out is launching entrepreneurs. He’s been speaking for years on entrepreneurship but really enjoys getting into the nitty gritty with the young, vibrant, and disruptive crowd.

While speaking at that conference in Rio, Hoffman passionately spoke about the entrepreneur and how if the entrepreneur has a bad experience upfront “we could lose that entrepreneur.”

When Nibletz Co-Founder Nick Tippmann attended Venture Camp’s demo day earlier this summer, he noticed that the founders were talking about how VentureCamp focused on teaching them entrepreneurial skills, critical thinking, and decision making and not just how to put your plan on a business model canvas and make a Power Point. This focus came directly from Hoffman.

If you were at Everywhere Else in Memphis and saw Scott Case speak, you know he does an amazing job talking about startup communities and the value the community brings to the table. During Hoffman’s keynote we will hear about something equally as important: the entrepreneur.

For Hoffman’s full bio click here.

Get your tickets or Startup Avenue booth below.

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Jeff Hoffman image, UnerasonableGroup Youtube.