Tennessee Is Great For Startups, Bill Hagerty Tells Us Why

Tennessee, Nashville, Southland, Startups, Haslam, Bill HagertyTennessee Economic Development Commissioner Bill Hagerty took the stage at the Southland Conference in Nashville on Wednesday morning to introduce the conference and highlight why Tennessee is great for startups.

Since the current administration took over two and a half years ago, Tennessee has become number one in the southeast and number four in the nation for manufacturing job growth. Tennessee is also number one in the southeast for personal income growth.

But one thing that we found interesting is that Tennessee has the best balance sheet in the country.

serious“I think everybody knows that the nation has experienced a serious fiscal crisis and if you start looking across the states you’ll see a very wide divergence in terms of the fiscal situation that each state faces. What that does is present a different risk profile for the companies that choose to locate in those states.  Tennessee has the lowest debt per capita in America.”

This is important because Tennessee hasn’t put itself in a position where they haven’t raised the debt ceiling to a point where it can’t be manageable.

All of this means that Tennessee is a great place to grow jobs, personal wealth and families. Hagerty went on to discuss the regions history of entrepreneurship including companies like FedEx that call Tennessee home.

Finally, Hagerty pointed out one of the biggest claims to fame for Tennessee in regards to startups.  Since the Haslam administration took over Tennessee has become home to nine startup accelerator regions all administered by Launch Tennessee. Each startup accelerator region has an incubator or accelerator program.

While many don’t think of Tennessee in terms of entrepreneurship these highlights along with the infrastructure in place already for business owners, job creators, startups and entrepreneurs, it’ s no wonder that Tennessee is first for startups in the South East.

Check out this video of Hagerty’s speech at Southland.

Check out more of our Southland coverage here.

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Memphian Sarah Lacy Gives Away Big Omaha’s Secret At Tennessee’s Southland Conference

sarahgaryA refreshing side of Sarah Lacy returned to her native Tennessee on Wednesday morning to kick off the first Southland Conference. If you’ve seen Lacy on her best you know she can be a hard edged interviewer that commands respect in the room, after all with her storied career and climbing through Business Week, TechCrunch, authoring books and two children, she’s earned it.  But Wednesday morning her southern Tennessee charm returned when she welcomed her interviewee Gary Swart, CEO of Odesk for a fireside chat.

Before the interview though, Lacy wanted to hand a secret over to the organizers and attendees of the first ever Southland conference. Lacy talked abut Big Omaha, the centerpiece of Silicon Prairie News’ “Big Series” and a must attend conference for entrepreneurs everywhere. “Do you know how they get big names at Big Omaha” Lacy asked the audience. Then she proceeded to show everyone.

First off she made it clear as southerners and entrepreneurs we were going to “steal” what Big Omaha does. After that she showed off Jeff Slobotski’s (the organizer of Big Omaha and founder of SPN) secret.

It was a huge warm welcome that made each of the speakers, big and small, feel like the biggest person on earth. “Pretend Gary is Oprah and she just gave everyone a car” Lacy told the audience as she asked everyone to practice the big welcome.

Although Southland is in Nashville it’s designed to celebrate entrepreneurship throughout the south east and with that in mind Lacy made plenty of references to her Memphis upbringing during her talk with Swart. Lacy made the trek from Silicon Valley with her 8 week old baby in tow.

Here’s some video

Check out more of our Southland coverage here.

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Memphis’ Startup WorkForPie Selected For Southland For Kufikia

WorkForPie, Kufikia, Memphis startup, Nashville, SouthlandCliff McKinney and Brad Montgomery, the Memphis based startup team behind WorkForPie have been working on a new product called Kufikia for the past few months. McKinney explained to nibletz that Kufikia loosely means “to achieve” with that they have come up with a learning platform for advanced software developers.

With a new innovative approach, combining cohort based learning, typically found in an accelerator program, with mentoring, and early stage job placement, they were able to get selected as one of the first 20 startups in the Startup Village at the Southland conference in Nashville Tennessee next month. We revealed the entire list of 20 startups earlier today.

Kufikia participants will get the “3 S’s” out of the program according to McKinney. Those three S’s are; structure (a 9 week long curriculum), study buddies (cohorts of 10 students going through the program together), and support coming from the platforms sponsors. Each cohort will have three company sponsors that will alternate in three week intervals throughout the course of the program.

McKinney and Montgomery plan on starting the first cohort in late June. For the first program they are targeting participants in Silicon Valley, the Pacific Northwest, New York and Nashville. Actually four cohorts will run simultaneously. Although this is an online program they want the students and company resources to be in close proximity to each other.

Kufikia has already attracted some heavyweight sponsors for their platform, which they aren’t identifying just yet.

The sponsors will benefit by working closely with the students in the program and hopefully converting them to new employees. McKinney says that most companies spend upwards of $15,000 providing internships to potential employees that may not work out. By working with the students over the nine week period the company sponsors will develop relationships with them and hopefully hire them on.

The sponsors participating will have jobs to fill, and hopefully with those students. McKinney and Montgomery are making a bold bet on the success of the program. Sponsors are under an agreement to provide mentoring and coaching to the cohort but don’t make a financial commitment to Kufikia until they actually hire someone.

Both Montgomery and McKinney are looking forward to showing off this new product to the attendees at Southland including over 41 venture capital and angel firms that have committed to attend.

Find out more about Kufikia here.

Check out this awesome guest post by McKinney here: Are accelerators everywhere else better at producing groundbreaking innovation?

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Here Are The First 20 Startups In Southland’s Startup Village Highlighting The South East

Southland, Startup Conference, Nashville, Launch TennesseeWe’re less than a month away from the inaugural Southland conference combining the best of southern culture and technology. The two day conference takes place June 12-13th at the Cannery Ballroom and the Mercy Lounge in downtown Nashville. It’s been strategically placed between the CMA Music Festival and Bonaroo.

Launch Tennessee, a public/private partnership with the state of Tennessee, and responsible for the state’s nine accelerator regions, is spearheading and organizing the Southland Conference along with the Music City Music Council.

The conference is highlighting startups and entrepreneurship across the 12 states in the southeast. To that end, the first twenty startups (out of 50) have been selected for the startup village. These startups will get a chance to show off in front of all of the event attendees including 41 venture capital and angel firms that have committed to attending the event. They’ll also be competing for $10,000.

The 20 startups released so far are a great representation of the entire south east region, many of which we’ve covered here at nibletz.com the voice of startups everywhere else.

Distil Networks, Washington DC area (Northern Virginia) is a technology startup that protects proprietary online content from bots and scrapers. We covered Distil back in August, here.

The Royalty Exchange: is a Raleigh based startup that provides an online marketplace platform for those who want to buy, sell, license, all types of alternative assets and royalty streams.

Variable Inc, is a Chattanooga startup that makes the NODE device for iPhones and Android phones. This bluetooth connected device has sensors built in a small body that measure a variety of things,

World Housing Solution: an Orlando based startup, wants to make a difference in the lives of others through the design, manufacture and construction of sustainable buildings. They do this through structural, insulated, composite panels.

Banyan, based in Chattanooga they were the big winner at last year’s GigTank investor day securing an additional $100,000 at the end of the investor day pitches. The startup began in Florida and relocated to Chattanooga. They provide a cloud based collaboration tool for researchers and did a great job during this pitch to show how the gigabit ethernet in Chattanooga benefit their startup.

QuickCue: is another Chattanooga startup that we actually saw pitch at an event in Nashville. They provide a table reservation and communication platform for restaurants.

Verdeeco: is a smart grid analytics startup based in Atlanta.

Do 5 Things, based in Knoxville Tennessee this startup is a marketing optimization platform for utilities looking to increase rebate redemptions and encourage behavior change.

Patient Focus, is a Nashville startup that is exclusively for patient pay collections “after insurance and before bad debt”

Kufikia, is a new off-shoot of Memphis based WorkForPie. We’ve covered WorkForPie extensively at nibletz.com. Kufikia is a hybrid between online accelerator, internship, and hiring tool connecting highly skilled developers and software engineers to companies through cohort based learning.

Splitsecnd is a Nashville based hardware technology startup focused on connecting motorists in accidents to help. Similar to Onstar but focused on splitsecnd quick response, the devices sensors can determine accidents and connects the motorist to a 24 hour emergency response center.

viaCycle is an Atlanta bike sharing startup focused on the “next generation of bike sharing” we reported on them back in April of 2012.

VIPAAR This startup based in Birmingham Alabama at the Innovation Depot is “telepresence software”. They were the first startup to receive funding from the Central Alabama Angel Network. We covered that story last September.

American Songspace: is a Nashville startup that according to our friend Milt Capps at Venture Nashville and is “relaunching this summer” and they describe the platform as “a song catalog management system,” 

Beam Technologies, is a Kentucky based startup that has literally appified the toothbrush. We interviewed their CEO Alex Frommeyer back in August.

Evermind, is a Nashville startup and Jumpstart Foundry alumni.  The founding team came out of Griffin Technologies. We saw them pitch their hardware startup that monitors a loved one by their electric current habits. Check out this innovative startups pitch here.

Ridepost was a graduate of the Iron Yard accelerator in Greenville South Carolina and is now incubating at the Fort based in the 1776 DC space. We interviewed this ride sharing startup back in August.

Gatske, it’s not a sexy startup but definitely useful. This startup based in Greenville SC helps plan and manage audits.

NextGxDx is a Nashville startup and 2010 graduate of Jumpstart Foundry. They’re an online marketplace for genetic testing.

Populr.me is a Nashville startup. We’ve covered them extensively and their co-founder Nick Holland has been an extremely useful resource, and almost mentor to the Nibletz team. We’ve covered Holland and Populr extensively here at nibletz.com

Here’s more on Southland at nibletz.com The Voice of startups everywhere else.

sneakers

Nashville: It Takes A Village, Or A Startup Community To Build An Entrepreneur Center

Entrepreneur Center,Nashville,Michael Burcham,startup,Nashville startupThe Entrepreneur Center in Nashville Tennessee is a pretty awesome space as it is right now. It sits directly across the legendary Broadway street in Nashville, from the Hard Rock Cafe. The entire second floor serves Nashville’s startups and entrepreneurs.

The current Entrepreneur Center has always been a temporary location after opening in May 2010. The center, led by Michael Burcham, immediately began a search for a permanent home and found it in Nashville’s creatively rich SoBro neighborhood in Trolley Barn #1 at Rolling Mill.

The space is adjacent to where one of Nashville’s biggest startups, Emma, operates. There is also an entire barn filled with smaller early stage startup companies, while the last barn will become a recreational restaurant space. “Entrepreneurs and founders working at the new Entrepreneur Center will be able to grab a beer or bowl, overlooking the river, and then get back to work” Burcham told us on Friday.

Friday afternoon we got an exclusive sneak peak and complete tour of the new space. Burcham had assembled a group of center supporters to tour the progress of the center that has just over 50 days until completion.

“We’ll make our deadline for a soft opening in June” Burcham told us during the walk through.

No entrepreneurial stone was left unturned in the design and build out of the new facility. Over $5 million dollars was raised from private and public donors, including Burcham himself who has had several exits in the medical realm.

Anyone who knows Burcham knows that he’s typically beaming and grinning when talking about Nashville’s entrepreneurial scene. During this walk through he was radiating.

The tour started at the center’s new side entrance. The first thing Burcham pointed out was manhole sized indentions in the floor. This is going to be a walk of fame for entrepreneurs who’ve committed $50,000 or more to the Entrepreneur Center. The 22,000 square foot space was covered with these indentions that will be filled out by opening day.

Burcham almost choked up when he told the group how the entire community had come together across Nasvhille and across Tennessee to get this beacon of entrepreneurship built. For example, Knoxville politician and entrepreneur Jim Haslam, father of Governor Bill Haslam, underwrote the first conference room we saw. Both Haslam’s are expected to attend the grand opening in June.

The “crow’s nest” will overlook the new cafe/coffeeshop which is an accelerator in itself (photo: NMI 2013)

The next thing Burcham talked about was the crow’s nest (pictured above). Entrepreneurs will be able to pitch investors, get mentoring, or coaching high atop where other entrepreneurs will be grabbing a cup of coffee or eating at the center’s cafe.

The cafe isn’t just a source of nourishment but it will be it’s own separate 3 month restaurant accelerator. “We’re going to take entrepreneurs with restaurant startups and let them try them out here for three months before they open their doors” Burcham said. He also showed us the kitchen which will include restaurant industrial refrigeration, heating and warming. Everything a restaurant startup would need to cook and prepare.

While Broadway is just two blocks away from the new location, having an on-site restaurant will help feed over 400 people that will work, take in a class, mentor, or coach at the Entrepreneur Center on any given day.  The fact that the restaurant concept will change every 90 days will make for great variety.

These bays will house startups and accelerators including Jumpstart Foundry and Vanderbilt’s Tech Transfer (photo: NMI 2013)

Toward the back of the building are several bays. One will be an area for Vanderbilt’s tech transfer program. Jump Start Foundry’s summer 2013 session will switch over to the new space when it opens as well. There are several other announcements forthcoming at the grand opening event. Burcham filled us in on all of them, and that back space will be buzzing.

The entire center will be filled with wall to wall glass. From the front of the learning space to the back of the startup space, people will be able to see all the way through.

Speaking of the learning space, at the current EC it’s called the “Fish bowl” at the new EC it may as well be called the “aquarium”. oer 200 will be able to sit comfortably and work in comfortable chairs with pop up desks fit for laptops or iPads. “We’ll have plenty of power, AV and wifi as well”. Burcham is making sure that every corner of the turn of the century building is fit for wifi.

The new space has several big LED monitors that will be mounted on the wall. They will show what’s going on in the education space, startup space, or that’s produced in their own inhouse AV studio.

The education side of the building will have mentor offices. These spaces can be completely closed off with a sliding glass door for privacy with openness. Some of the Entrepreneur Center’s corporate mentor partners will have permanent spots and others will be able to use shared spaces.

As for Burcham, despite spearheading this entire operation, he is taking another modest office off in the corner of the building.

The Entrepreneur Center opens June 19th and 20th and will feature several startup celebrities and Governor Bill Haslam. For more info click here.

No one covers startup news in the south like nibletz the voice of startups everywhere else.

Warner Music Exec Ping Ho Gives Important Tips For Music Startups

Music startups academy, Nashville, music startup,startup,startup tips,startups

Larry Miller, Medianet (L), Ping Ho, Warner Music Group (R) (photo: NMI 2013)

Warner Music Group’s Director of the Digital Strategy Team, Ping Ho, was in Nashville today for the Music Startup Academy. The event is meant to merge musicians, labels, lawyers, publishers and entrepreneurs working on startups that are touching the music business.

In my startup experience I’ve get to talk to a lot of startups. I’ve also sat on a few committees that have vetted startups for accelerator programs. So often I’ve met music based startups who have no idea how big the can of worms is when they want to do something with commercial music.

Ho, has been with Warner Music Group over the last 8 years, and always with the digital department. She’s been through just about the entire boom of the digital music age.

We’re going to continue to dive more into music focused startups in the future here at nibletz.com but in the mean time, at the event today Ho gave some very good advice to music startups.

First things first, in my experience, I’ve met quite a few founders who want to offer some kind of “radio” or “streaming” service and are adamant about doing their own thing and not using an API from someone like Spotify or Rdio. That may be the biggest mistake you’ll ever make.

Licensing music directly from a major label and can be very costly. Legitimizing your startup among independent artists can be a very long tail process. If you don’t have millions (and I’m not exaggerating) you may want to reconsider those Spotify API’s until you can build up traction.

Stubborn? Headstrong, oh ok you have the greatest idea in the world and want to go directly to the label then read on…

For starters Ho did say that it’s a lot easier to score a meeting or at least a chance to get your startup in front of her team than it would be for an artist to get in front of a traditional A&R. But pay attention here or you’ll blow it.

The Boy Scout Rule: Be Prepared.

Sure this is common knowledge but for Ho, and her counterparts at other labels this means.

– knowing your pitch
– knowing your market
– knowing your competition
– knowing what you need from the label
– having a white paper or deck, but they want to see both business plan and product, and in depth.

On this, here is the absolute biggest thing Ho said that will get your meeting shut down…

Have a ProtoType, DO NOT BE IN A CLOSED WORKING BETA.

Ho said that many times startups have pitched her. They get to a meeting and have set up a wonderful login for her to use to access their startup. They are happy, headstrong and proudly say, “We’re in a closed beta with 5000 users, and they love it”, “They’re using our service four hours a day each”. Then she, or an executive in her position, goes to the actual product and they’re using Warner’s music in the “beta”. Well guess what, your great idea and great startup are now stealing WMG’s product, and with 5,000 users using the service four hours a day, you’re stealing a lot of that.

The music business is going through it’s biggest fundamental change ever. An executive with Sony earlier in the program said “The album is dead, we need to find more high margin product businesses”, digital licensing is now the catalog vault.

“I’m going to rely on the artist to help build my customer base” makes Ho cringe the way that “we’re going to grow socially and organically over the first two years” makes me cringe.

Artists aren’t going to get involved until they see how your startup is impacting their bottom line. This can be a double edged sword as well because remember, the death of the album is affecting artists just as much as it is labels. They’re getting into more and more businesses, and a lot of them are digital.

So now that you’ve got all that, check out digitalmusic.org they’ll help you get to that next step.

Here are more great startup stories from Nashville.

 

Working On Your Pitch Deck? You Gotta See This Pop!

Populr.me is a platform that allows anyone to create all in one pages on the internet. They can be used for a wide variety of things and it’s a lot better than trying to turn to tumblr or creating a word press blog for just one page.

For instance you could use it for a media kit, to brag about your favorite team, to keep people abreast of your schedule or to make a page for a yardsale. Businesses can use pop’s to show off business tips, circulate company wide information, or create all in one self contained pages.

Nick Holland, CEO and founder of populr.me is a Nashville startup leader and also the founder of CentreSource. To demonstrate the uses of the populr.me platform he created pops that Baker Donelson used to explain the legal necessities when launching a startup for the last cohort at Jumpstart Foundry.

Holland is currently working on his Series A round for populr.me and in doing that he started researching the best pitch decks. While he was doing his research he created this amazing pop highlighting some of the best pitch decks and other resources for startups that are looking to pitch.

populr.me,nick holland, nashville,startup,bestpitchdecks.com, pitchdecksAs you can see from the screenshot above this pop is full of great information for any startup. (Just to note, Holland has a long career in web development and design and this particular pop wasn’t designed for design it was designed in less than an hour and to provide as much content as possible.).

When you hit the link below you can see Facebook’s first pitch deck, Color’s pitch deck, seedcamp’s deck and much more. We highly suggest you go over and check it out.

Click here to see the Pop: The Best Startup Pitch Decks

Nibletz Sponsor Baker Donelson Named One Of The Best Places To Work By Fortune Magazine

Baker Donelson, Memphis, Nashville, Fortune MagazineThursday was a good day for Memphis based companies to make magazine lists. everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference made Forbes list of must attend entrepreneurial events.

At the same time, Nibletz and everywhereelse.co corporate sponsor Baker Donelson, made Fortune’s 16th annual “100 Best Companies To Work For”  list. While it’s an honor in itself for any company to make this prestigious list, and it speaks to company moral and culture, Baker Donelson Caldwell & Berkowitz PC are no strangers to the list. This is the fourth year they made the list and the highest they’ve ranked so far coming in at 45.

Google topped the list at number one. Baker Donelson beat out companies like American Express, CarMax, Capital One and even customer service giant, Nordstrom.

Other Memphis based companies that made the list included FedEx (98th) and St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital which Baker Donelson edged out, with St. Jude’s coming in at 52.

“Each year, we are incredibly honored to be recognized among such a select group of companies,” says Ben Adams, the firm’s chairman and chief executive officer told the Chatanoogan. “This year, as we celebrate our best showing ever, I’m grateful to our employees because they are the reason Baker Donelson is a great place to work, and their dedication to the Firm, our clients and our communities is what sets us apart.”

Baker Donelson is very active in the entrepreneurial and startup community in all of the markets that they serve. At home in Memphis they are integral partners with Launch Your City and Launch Memphis, providing hours of mentorship, and reduced legal fees and advice. They also play a major role in the Nashville startup scene.

Vic Gatto Managing Director of Jumpstart Foundry, Nashville’s accelerator and Seed Hatchery, Memphis’ accelerator added “Baker Donelson has been a great partner in building the entrepreneurial ecosystem here in Tennessee and across the South.  The firm does an excellent job representing their clients, but I have been most impressed with all they do in addition to the typical legal services.  Baker is one of the largest financial sponsors for the  Jumpstart Foundry and Seed Hatchery.accelerators.   They also offer lots of educational content to free of charge designed to give entrepreneurs the info they need to make informed legal decisions.”

Baker Donelson is a key partner sponsor in everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference.

Nashville Startup: Taigan Lets You Shop The World From The Comfort Of Your Own Home

The days of wandering the halls of a mall in search for rare shops with cool, exquisite, beautiful things are long gone. It’s rare that you find an independent shop keeper who is willing to put in the overhead it costs to be in the nicer malls typically anchored with a Nordstrom, Neimans, Bloomingdales or Crate and Barrel. Boutique shops can be found on the strips of the more popular touristy towns but more often than not you find yourself paying 2 to 3 times more than you should because of the address.

If you’re one of those people that enjoys shopping boutiques and loves a good treasure hunt at a store off the beaten path, then you need to pay attention to Taigan and how they let you shop the world from your computer chair, or smartphone.

Taigan is like an online mall comprised of boutiques and individually owned shops. Maybe you’ve shopped at a handmade jewelry store nestled into a backstreet in Georgetown. Perhaps you found nice cashmere sweaters and artisan designer clothes at a shop on Main street in middle America. Those kinds of stores and more are curated and then added to the wide array of merchants you can find at Taigan.com

As you will find out in our interview with Taigan’s CEO Elizabeth Nichols, this unique, well curated online community of shops is the brain child of Mary Catherine McLellan and Mark McDonald. Nichols was a hired CEO who had built her own shopping center development company from start to going public. In our interview Nichols highlights how Taigan is uniquely different and an amazing experience.

The other thing that sets Taigan apart from anything even remotely similar is that they vet all of their merchants, you can’t just sign up and have a store front at Taigan.  The Taigan team travels around the country, and the world to see the merchants using their service. If they can’t get to a merchant they require a chance to review the products in hand to make sure that they are good quality and that the merchant isn’t fly by night.

One other thing we will touch on in the interview is how when we began working on this story I noticed that while the items in the merchant stores may be on the high end of the quality scale, the Taigan team isn’t snobby or snooty and just about everyone feels like they belong at Taigan and can find something they like using Taigan.

Interview after the break
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