There’s much being written about how to tackle SXSW if you are looking for funding, partnerships, clients, brand recognition, and fine dining. However, it’s worth a few words to talk about the other side of the equation – those with resources who are coming here looking to buy or invest.
My daughter Audrey Dyer retweeted the accompanying photo from @buzzfeed, and how true it is! Most everyone spends some time in reflection around the Holidays and resolves to do things differently in the coming year.
Your editor has been busy with field research in recent days. The week after Thanksgiving seemed to be an ideal time for every tech organization’s last big meeting of the year, and the calendar was full.
While you eagerly await 2016, here for your edification is a list of five non-partisan post-mortem takeaways for tech entrepreneurs from the election results.
Ace field reporter Jesse Dyer files this report from the Georgia Aquarium today. Not exactly the shark tank, but beluga whales for sure:
Entrepreneurship life in the post-Pardot era has begun in Atlanta. What the Pardot sale means for the city is easily an essay unto itself, but that $96M exit was definitely the buzz in the room at Venture Atlanta 2012. Will the local tech community really broaden its interests with this exit, or will it just double down on marketing automation as it previously did with Internet security in the footsteps of ISS? Time will tell.
After some kind feedback on my test for entrepreneurs in my previous post, I’m today thinking about the notion of what Bob Metcalfe calls “scaling entrepreneurs.” Those are the leaders who not only can create a startup but who can operate it to the level that it creates enterprise value. Yes there have been some Valley successes like Instagram where founders built a cool product and were swallowed by a big fish long before they had to deal with the pesky details of actually running a business. But, those are rare exceptions.
SEAL (Student Entrepreneurship Acceleration and Launch) is an annual ATI summer program in which staff and mentors help student teams drive toward Go or No Go decisions on their entrepreneurial concepts. The final presentations yesterday were the culmination of that effort. There were no judges and no prizes, just candid reports on the conclusions reached. Success is measured not by the ratio that proceed but by the validity of the conclusions reached, good or bad.
