Start Up Rockstars 6: Social Savvy

In another of the series of articles dedicated to exploring just who might be the users of the millions of square feet planned in the Dulles area, Start Up Rockstars 6 offers a clue.

Held this past week to celebrate DC's social-media entrepreneurial energy,
techies, investors, entrepreneurs and just plain rock stars gathered to nurture Web 2.0 companies with innovative businesses, establish connections and explore new ideas.

"Tech Savvy But Not Geeks"

As in previous rockstar events, several start ups-- some maturing, some fresh out-of-the-oven-- presented what they do and took questions from the attendees.

Many companies are focused on leveraging the social media space and aggregating the multiplying applications and outlets.

Raw notes from the event:

Message Pub

Dead simple messaging API to send messages over email, SMS, phone, Google Chat, AIM, Twitter for your web application

B2B software developers for developers.
Send messages from apps.
Post office of the web.
Simple API.
Messaging infrastructure in the cloud.
Libraries for programming languages.
By developers, for developers.
Pay for what you use.
Process replies and broadcast.
SMS @ .07 cents vs. .15 cents.
Pay for each message you send out.
Text platforms, not rich media.
Joins all addresses.
Interface from your code.
Messagepub.com

Earth Aid

track & improve your consumption (electric, gas,water) in one place

Now hiring UI designers.

a) Awareness, context.
b) Ideas for action.
c) Rewards for achievement.

Spotting gaps in the energy smart grid.
Retrieves consumption data with consent from your utility company.
Compatible with all local DC utilities.
Tips on ways you can save via zip code.
Intelligent system "cash for refrigerators" goes out and gets all incentive programs.
Earn points.
Cash in rewards.
Local businesses offer discount coupons for saving energy.
I phone app coming.
Free cupcake at CakeLove for example.
Changing paradigm for being green-avoiding pain of higher bills to pleasure of free cupcakes.
earthaidenterprises.com
Driving adoption of online billing for utilities gets utility company attention.
Earthaid earns a bounty.
Projecting a new environment of carbon constrained economy--new Fed rules.
New data stream.
Very secure.
Monetization of green businesses who want to market themselves--sort higher SEO.
Carbon market components.
Consumer base lines adapt with new data.
Bottoming out on efficiency?--working on it.

GEN

Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business.
"Let Georgetown MBAs help you on your product or service."

Georgtown
Entrepreneur
Network

100 members
40 signed up.

MBA candidates want to help your start up solve business issues for 6-10 weeks.
Pro bono.
Diverse backgrounds.
Very willing to help.
VC practice pitches.

Entrepreneurs interested in collaborating with GEN should submit a brief to:
http://bit.ly/15fFlz

GEN organizers will match up stated MBA candidate interests to company focus.
Matchmaking is being ironed out--process not set in stone.

David Ela
dme27@georgetown.edu

Volunteers will sign non-compete clauses.
MBA candidates will apply prior learned skills.
Entrepreneurs should be open to candidates applying what they are learning.
GEN is looking to work in start up environments, not established companies.
Not just looking for a job.
6-10 hours per week per person.
3-4 people per team
Genius Rocket attests to great program.

SEC Watch

SECwatch.com
bringing transparency to ~800,000 annual SEC Filings

15 million pages in 2008.
Harness crowd sourcing.
Leverage XBRL--SEC filing format.
Real time.
Enterprise solutions.
Qualitative enterprise.
Based in the cloud.
Collaboration tool to mine data of SEC filings.

Customers include financial research market, law firms, accountants, technical retail customer.
Info hungry, price in-sensitive customers.
Software as revenue model.
Process info with transparency--faster than Bloomberg.
Responsibility for short sellers? Looking at establishing a reputation system.
"Easy to see BS from companies when comparing statements to SEC filings and profit from it."
Insider trading--most frequent use.
Subscriptions give varying levels of info.
[Companies may use dense filings to present false positives.]

AddyMate

manage & communicate contacts in one place

"Your smart address book."

intuitive, manage contacts
Strong privacy controls.
Address aggregation.
Feedthrough to Facebook-- workaround.
Mobile access.
Messaging center.
Disruptive content management platform.

Bands In Town

Concert recommendation engine.
Finds tickets to sold-out shows.

Concert industry growing fast as recorded music sales slump.
Way many ticket sellers--highly disaggregated.
Bands in Town has largest database in world of ticket providers established over 2 years of work.
Technology crawls web worldwide.
API to 3rd parties and proprietary model.
Proven revenue model.
Commissions earned from found ticket sales.
Tour trackers.
EMI Europe.
Notifications of like-artist concerts.
Twitter activity stream--live tweets from concerts.
Concert cloud is sortable, personalize it.
I phone app scans I Tunes and uses geo-positioning to recommend nearby concerts.
500K uniques, 25K registered users.
Tech crunch.
One click ticket purchases.
Lean shop.
Value add:
Finds tickets to sold out shows.
Searchers kicked to next seller. Always finds the ticket.
Lots of twitter links and sales.
No shopping.

Many Thanks

Special thanks to Paul W. for organizing and Kady for emcee duties!

Also, special thanks to the law firm of Latham & Watkins LLP and Christopher Grogan for hosting at yet another successful Start up rockstar event.

Not only can he do an elevator speech in an elevator, Chris also works with small companies, guiding them through the legal maze towards success.

Contact him at christopher.grogan@lw.com or 202.637.3310.

"What's a win for you?"