104 West Partners

More from the Angel Capital Summit...

From the desk of Elaine Schoch...

When I read about VarVee before attending the Angel Capital Summit last week it took me back to my high school days when Friday nights revolved around Texas football (Go Dragons!). VarVee has developed a “content widget” that helps high school coaches get scores to media outlets faster. Ok, that alone doesn’t sound very cool – but there is more. While VarVee helps coaches get data to the local media outlets ASAP, local media outlets are getting new, fresh content – not just scores. VarVee  provides tools to local media outlets that enhance the high school sports experience of their readers by enabling them to view player profiles, post comments and interact with the team. Can I say creating a social network for high school sports teams and their local communities.

If you’re from the south (heck, anywhere people eat and breath high school football), you can understand when I say this – alumni will actually go back and see how their high school football team is doing, etc. Think about how a school could use this for alumni relations and fund raising efforts. Also, think about how this tool might help college recruiters get details about a certain player and be able to compare him/her to another player. There are a ton of possibilities in how people could use VarVees’ online content housed within a local newspaper.

Having worked with local media outlets for more than a decade (and having my father-in-law own a few in TX) I understand the need these publications have in regards to driving online traffic (i.e. increasing online traffic to help with online ad sales).  VarVee looks like it could help do this, and do it well. However, to be honest, I’m more excited to know if/when the Southlake Times is going to incorporate the “content widget” so I can check on the Dragons. 

Angel Capital Summit: Piano Wizard

From the desk of Elaine Schoch...

I spent last Friday at the Angel Capital Summit where I was on the official “Tweet Team”. In addition to live “tweeting” I was able to do a few live interviews with some of the companies presenting at the event. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to speak with all 40 companies but there were a few I wanted to blog about since they’re really interesting Colorado-based businesses and I had a chance to either sit in on their presentations or chat with them personally.  

Allegro Multimedia: Piano Wizard
Allegro Multimedia is a provider of music video game software – Piano Wizard and Guitar Wizard. This is one of companies I’m most excited about, mainly because they taught me how to play Billy Joel’s Up Town Girl on the piano! If you know me, I’m tone deaf and have no rhythm so this was no easy feat. Yet, Jan Altman accomplished what my piano teacher never could when I was 10 years old.

Piano Wizard teaches people how to play songs through a video game method. Its simple interface allows players to learn by doing, simply by hitting the right key at the right time. (Kids can shoot space ships while learning how to play Bach. I so would have rather played “space invaders” when I was 10 and trying to learn “Mary had a Little Lamb”.)

There are other similar products on the market but what makes Piano Wizard unique is its four-step teaching process that introduces kids to the keyboard, sheet music and popular piano songs – all while playing a video a game. I was able to sit down with Jan and have her do an online video interview/demo with me but unfortunately, the clip was lost. However, they have an online demo you can check on their site.

How Piano Wizard Works:
First, players follow vertically moving game objects as a guide for hitting the right notes. It then progresses by rotating the video screen, making game objects travel horizontally, thus mimicking the lines of the staff and providing insight into musical  theory. Next, game objects transform into colored notes on the grand staff, then finally into traditional black & white notation.  Using any digital piano as a “joystick,” Piano Wizard is fueled by MIDI song files, which are readily available for download at online sites like CYBERMIDI.com and the soon to be launched Wizardtunes.com.

(Um, I would appreciate it if someone could put in a good word with Santa for me because I would like to learn how to play “Piano Man”...

Interview with Scott Nelson, TruEffect

Chatted with Scott Nelson the co-founder of TruEffect at the Angel Capital Summit. Check out the clip. #acs08 http://www.utterli.com/all/f-trueffect

Mobile post sent by ElaineSchoch using Utterli.  Replies.

interview with steve kenny, ceo of flaik

interview with steve kenny, ceo of flaik at the angel capital summit 2008

Mobile post sent by ElaineSchoch using Utterli.  Replies.

Interview from Angel Capital Summit #acs08

Did an intrviw w/ David Feller of BOCS, cool product for home entertainment components. check out clip.

Mobile post sent by ElaineSchoch using Utterli.  Replies.

angel capital summit 2008

are you going to the angel capital summit tomorrow, #acs08. quick clip.

Mobile post sent by ElaineSchoch using Utterli.  Replies.

The future of entrepreneurism in Colorado

From the desk of Elaine Schoch...

The Colorado business community is the birth place to several well-known consumer products (Crocs) as well as a number of natural food companies (Wild Oats, Izze, Celestial Seasoning) but the area I find to be most fascinating is the tech industry – did you think I was going to say something else?

While you have your big guys like Qwest and Level 3 you have a large number of innovative tech start-ups that are redefining their industry or creating a new category. However, these groups need funding to get their bright ideas off the ground. In Q3, 21 Colorado companies raised a total $196 million in venture capital funding, roughly equal to the amount raised a year ago, according to the quarterly MoneyTree report. No doubt the economic downturn will affect VC funding and the entrepreneurial environment Colorado is known for; it is just a question of how much. And that’s what I’m hoping to find out on Friday (tomorrow) at the Angel Capital Summit in Denver.

The  Angel Capital Summit has been redesigned this year to specifically focus on the need to help entrepreneurs understand how the changing times can actually help them succeed. Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and several other thought-leaders will be there to discuss the future of entrepreneurism in Colorado. Additionally, 40 entrepreneurs will present their businesses to hundreds of investors over the course of the day (including our client, TruEffect!). These entrepreneurs are nominated and judged by a collaboration of dozens of the leading professional organizations that serve entrepreneurs and early-stage investors. Here is a quick breakdown of who will be speaking but check out the full agenda for more details.

• The keynote address will be given by Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, he will discuss “The Importance of Capital: Personal Experiences with Risk and Reward” and share his view for the future of entrepreneurism in Colorado.

• The lunch keynote address will be given by Anita Burke, one of the top thought-leaders in energy economics and markets, talking about "evolutionary risk management" - what changes are necessary in investing strategies and business models? Why does this favor early-stage entrepreneurs?

• A Town Hall Meeting, "Disrupting the Recession", with thought-leaders discussing Colorado's entrepreneurial response to the credit crisis, election, energy issues, and sustainability.

If you’re planning on being there let me know or follow me on Twitter as I’ll be there “tweeting it up”. (I'm an official Tweeter and Blogger along with a few other folks.) If you haven’t made plans you can still register it’s $159 (includes lunch) or you can hit the Town Hall Meeting, which is only $25 and sounds like a great discussion.

The companies that are presenting include:
18 Principles, Inc,  3D at Depth, Affinity Telecom, Inc, Alaskan Hardgear, Allegro Multimedia dba Music Wizard Group, ApopLogic Pharmaceuticals, Inc., AppVenture, Atrato, Inc., Aubice LLC, AWhere Inc., BOCS, Cadeka Microcircuits, Center For Innovation, Metropolitan State College of Denver, Chata Biosystems, Inc., CTM Software Corporation, Del Norte Brewing, DEMAND1, FacetoFace Health, flaik Inc, Fluonic, Inc., Frontline Aerospace, Inc., GroGreen Inc, iVation LLC, JuJu Central, LLC, Lingoport, Inc., Magic Portrait, Munch Away, LLC., NanoPrint Technologies, Progressive Health Center, PROJECT C.U.R.E., Shrewd Foods, Inc., Spatial Networking, Tissue Genetics Inc., Toghers Inc., TruEffect, Inc., Two Moms in the Raw, VanDyne SuperTurbo, Inc, VarVee, LLC, VitruMed Inc., Web2Storage, WhiteDove Herbals, Inc., Xpressplay, LLC, and Zerista.

What's behind door number one? two? three?

From the desk of Elaine Schoch...

The saying goes – one door closes and another door opens. Sometimes the door gets slammed in your face and you have to break it down to get to the next door but it’s all about opportunity and changing something that isn’t working to turn it in a different direction. I think we’re going to be seeing a lot of doors closing in the coming months given the current economic situation. Case in point, today ZiffDavis announced it will be discontinuing the print version of PCMag to focus on growing PCMag online and its network of websites now dubbed “PCMag Digital Network.” 

Honestly, it’s not a surprise that the print version of PCMag is closing. Even though ZiffDavis recently emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, it cut the magazine back from bi-weekly to monthly earlier this year.  By  shifting the focus to hone in on the online version, ZiffDavis will be driving everything/everyone to one central “network”- PCMag Digital Network - which is a compilation of all of its online brands. ZiffDavis is building an interactive network where its readers can talk to reporters, each other, etc.  They are leveraging the inherent interactivity available from a web property to build a stronger brand. The print publication simply wasn’t allowing them to do that anymore. How many times did you stop at a newsstand and have a chat with the next guy who bought the same magazine you did?  The only way they can forge a tighter brand relationship with their audience is to put everything into a “digital network.”

Given the current economic climate, I anticipate seeing even more print publications going totally digital – or at least more digital – as they work to survive in this economy. But that doesn’t guarantee the door they think they’re opening won’t be slammed in their face. Even online publications have to shift focus – they have to engage their readers and encourage them to participate in the conversation. We’re already seeing this shift – media outlets rely on its readers to not only read the news but to share it, talk about it online and be a part of the story. They help to determine what the news really is. The online publications that really build a strong “network” and/or “community” will be the ones left standing.

For me, this really is a window into the growing importance of community or networks and their influence over the future of brands.  The halcyon days of brands offering a monologue with its customers or other stakeholders are over.  The reality of a modern brand relationship is that ownership has shifted or is shifting from the vendor to customer.  The power of conversation and dialog between and among a brand’s consumers has invited broader participation in and potentially fresh definitions of the brands themselves. That has significant implications across communications, customer relationship management and even product development.

A lot of companies are experimenting with this concept and now PCMag, a trailblazer in this Information Age, seems to be staking its future on it.  Smart move…

Sharing the good, the bad and the ugly in the age of transparency

From the desk of Jen Roane...

Last week, The New York Times wrote an interesting piece regarding the transparency blogs are bringing to businesses during these turbulent times (e.g. layoffs). This really isn’t new – we’ve all known blogs are a communications tool helping to usher in a new age of clarity and so we (i.e. businesses) should expect the good, the bad and the ugly to be blogged about.

Before blogs and Web 2.0, it may have seemed easier to “talk” about bad news with key audiences. However, as The New York Times points out, this was a one-sided discussion. The company either issued a vague statement or said nothing at all.  In other words, it was a monologue that was tightly controlled and not interested in feedback.

Since the evolution of the blog and other new mediums, a dialogue has sprung up to replace the more traditional monologue. This is a key foundation of building communities – having a dialogue with audiences from employees to partners to customers. It creates more insightful and ultimately productive relationships.

Figuring out how to have this dialogue and when to have it, is of course critical – even more so with the increasing number and popularity of Web 2.0 applications such as Twitter. But the basic premise is still there; open, honest and timely communication within the community is increasingly important. I’ve heard it cleverly described as the band-aid approach – get it all out in the open, quickly without dragging out the news and any subsequent pain.

This is still something that businesses today are struggling to figure out. How and when do we react? In what form does this conversation start and stop? How do we control the conversation? These are all critical questions. Companies need to take a closer look at why building a true community that involves ALL their key stakeholders will benefit the overall business.

What is Jell-O?

From the desk of Elaine Schoch...

That was a question asked Sunday by Jeremiah Owyang, a Forrester analyst who Keynoted the Thin Air Summit, where I spent my weekend in Denver immersed in new media. Feel free to check out Jeremiah's full presentation, he made it available for all to see.

For me, Jell-O has marshmallows and fruit in it and is something my grandmother used to make for holidays. However, on Sunday, I heard an interesting use for Jell-O or rather an analogy - media is undergoing dramatic changes from shape, size and power. Like Jell-O, media is amorphous and can take many forms. So what does this mean? Something  we’ve all already seen, even our grandmothers who aren’t online but are seeing the newspapers shrink in size and wonder why? Companies no longer control the news, reporters at the New York Times or The Denver Post don’t either, average people who are reading and sharing content now have a say in what is news, what’s important, why and  who should care.

Marshall McLuhan once said: “Medium is the Message”, suggesting that the medium a person gets a particular piece of content/information from affects their understanding of it. This is more true today than ever before given the shift in how and who makes the news.

Sending a press release to a reporter is no longer enough. It has to be optimized for search so it can be found online by reporters and average people alike. However, SEO isn’t enough either – you need multiple channels to spread your news from RSS feeds to Twitter, Digg, Delicious, Facebook and Friend Feed – all of these mediums enable your original content to be repurposed, spread and invoke conversation/participation among its readers. In other words, the more fractured people are in how they get their news, the more places/channels you have to use to distribute your news.

So why should you – a business – care? Long term, word-of-mouth sells more than an advertisement or even an article on the front page of the Wall Street Journal – most business owners (be it small or large) will attest to this. Word-of-mouth in this Web 2.0 world (or Web 3.0, whichever one you’re calling it) is what is making newspapers shrink. The average person is telling their 100+ followers on Twitter about how cool their new iPhone is or complaining about the paint guy at Home Depot making what should have been lavender paint to to egg plant.

The communications mediums have changed but the general principle hasn’t – you have to make information readily available to your audience where THEY go to find it and in a FORM they’ll digest it so it’s easy for them to spread your information. If you’re customers are on Facebook – you should be too. If they’re tweating on Twitter – you should be too. If you don’t know, find out. One easy way is to simply check your incoming web traffic and see what URLs are already bringing people in to your site. This may not help much in terms of your social media footprint but it might shed some light.