Posts Tagged ‘Startups’

Google Fiber for Central Oregon?

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

Dan Christ and Steven Chan write in to point out the Google Fiber for Communities project, and ask that I help get Bend on the radar.  In a nutshell, Google is doing an experiment where they run a fiber network to between 50,000 and 500,000 homes, providing gigabit internet access.  That’s 17X faster than Bend Broadband’s fastest plan, and 120X faster than what most of their customers (myself included) sign up for.

Google is taking nominations for which community they should start with.  You can do that here. and I’d urge you to do so.  There’s no harm in trying, right?

But this really begs the question:

Why would (or wouldn’t) we be a good candidate for this?

I’ve jotted down my list below but I can’t say I’m confident that this equates to a compelling argument.  I’d love to hear what others think. (more…)

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OnStartups Launches “Answers” for Entrepreneurs

Saturday, October 10th, 2009

I’m still fairly new to the onstartups.com site, a website for tech entrepreneurs, but their newly launched “Answers” product seemed apropos in light of my last post.  It’s a community Q & A site for people with questions about startups.  What makes it particularly attractive is that the site is built using the same software as one of the most successful Q&A sites for techies, stackoverflow.com.  It has a powerful and proven set of features for extracting good answers from their community.

… if, that is, the community that develops around it is sufficiently large and active, which remains to be seen.  Something to keep an eye on.

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Aaron Patzer’s “Accounting For Startups”

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

Mint.com is a personal finance management website.   Last month they were acquired by Intuit for $170M.  This month their CEO, Aaron Patzer, gave a presentation called “Accounting for Startups“, in which he describes the basic blueprint for a startup, backed by hard data from the mint.com experience.  He discussses the various stages to expect, what the goals and finances should be at each stage, and what the tangible and intangible assumptions are.  This is pure gold for aspiring entrepreneurs because it provides real, concrete data against which you can compare your own efforts.

Are you paying your first engineers more or less than Aaron did?  Are your per-user revenue projections comparable? Are you pitching your company using a similar business plan?

There is something in this for everyone.  I’ve been fortunate to have been through more than one startup, and a lot of what Aaron says is right on the mark.  Not only that, it’s in depth enough to get even a reasonably seasoned entrepreneur thinking about some of the assumptions they take for granted.  For example, here are a few of the takeaways I had while watching the video … (more…)

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Bend’s French Connection

Monday, December 15th, 2008

The Le Web conference recently wrapped up their ‘08 session (in Paris, fwiw).  The news coming out of it has been interesting on a number of fronts, but one piece has attracted a lot of attention:  Le Web founder and host, Loic Le Meur, and TechCrunch founder, Michael Arrington, have been on friendly terms up until recently, but they’ve started trading blows in a bit of a kerfuffle that started during the closing “Gilmore Gang” session.  It’s an Us. (or U.S.) vs. Them debate about how the different cultures in Silicon Valley and France/Europe affect entrepreneurship.  While watching the Gilmore Gang video, I was surprised to recognize the same insecurities in European tech entrepreneurs that I share with people here in Central Oregon – an acute awareness and sensitivity to the fact that, “we’re not Silicon Valley”.

It was a surprising epiphany, that Paris and Bend have this commonality, given how profoundly different the two cities are in pretty much all other aspects.  It gave me a bit of hope that the debate might turn up a nugget or two of insight into the nature of the issues we face.  Unfortunately the panel was populated entirely by Silicon Valley personalities, so insights were in short supply.  It didn’t help that some of the overinflated egos on stage were knocking back wine at a good clip.  It was entertaining (in the train-wreck-fashion that all Ugly Americans are), but not insightful.

Let me try to nurse at least a little wisdom from the discussion and do a quick rundown of the issues as I see them.  I doubt these will come as a surprise to any of you, but maybe some speculation as to how they might apply to the European startup community will turn up something useful … (more…)

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Posted in Internet, Startups | 2 Comments »

Bend Tech Scene Blowing Up

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008

Despite the overwhelming drop-off in the economic stability of our nation, our little burg of Bend, Oregon has seen our tech industry grow exponentially this year. We’ve seen more companies appear, and many who have been here for some time explode in size. See below for a breakdown from Economic Development for Central Oregon (EDCO).

Altrec/GreatOutdoors.com, Redmond
Mike Morford, CEO
This fast growing company is a national e-tailer and distributor of recreational gear and equipment, similar to REI but with no retail component. Company just expanded its original office location into an adjacent building.
Growing from 40 to 60 employees.

Blue Reference, Bend
Paul and Josh van Eikeren (founders of IntelliChem in 1999, subsequently sold to Symyx in 2006 for $30M). Startup company is building a new software platform for Electronic Lab Notebooks which helps scientists, engineers and business professionals quickly analyze data.
7 employees, hiring for 6 additional.

Bend Research, Bend
Rod Ray
Specialize in the R&D of novel pharmaceutical delivery mechanisms.
169 employees.
Bend Research has created many other small, successful spinoffs.

G5 Search Marketing, Bend
Dan Hobin, CEO
Developer of integrated local search marketing for the internet and optimization services
Grown from 12 to 28 employees in the last year

GL Suite, Bend
Bill Moseley, CEO
Software developer for government licensing.
40 employees, recently added 1,700 square feet of office space.

Grace Bio-Labs, Bend
Full service design and manufacture of products for custom and OEM applications in cell analysis and the molecular pathology industry.
21 employees.

MEDISISS, Redmond
Third party re-processor of single-use medical devices for the health care industry, particularly the ambulatory surgery market.
47 employees.

InEnTec,LLC, Bend
Mike Rockett, CEO
Plasma-based waste processing and clean energy systems.
5 full-time employees in Bend with several more telecommuters; currently hiring project managers.

Medsoft, Bend
Dennis Kinion, CEO
Startup company develops software for hospitals and clinics to update and manage the professional certifications of their staff.

Microsemi, Bend (Power Products group located in Bend, was Advanced Power Technologies until acquired in 2006).
Semiconductor manufacturer specializing in system-engineered integrated circuits and high reliability discrete devices for aviation and military.
147 employees.

PV Powered, Bend
Greg Patterson, CEO
Manufacturer of grid-tied solar inverters
Employment at 43 (likely to increase back up to 60 with passage of solar tax credits).

Suterra, Bend
Steve Hartmeier, CEO
Diversified pest control company with an environmental focus that provides products and services to the commercial agriculture market.
58 employees – Moving to 10-acre parcel in Juniper Ridge.

Tri-Quint, Bend
Design and manufacture of high-performance modules and components for communications companies that create mobile handsets, RF network equipment, and defense & space systems.
22 employees.

Also, Silicon Forest, the tech blog arm of The Oregonian, picked up on the news. You can see it here.

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Zenbe and the Integration Revelation

Friday, September 5th, 2008

I got a chance to meet Robert Kieffer, one of the four co-founders of Zenbe.com and a local Bend tech vet. Having worked for many start-ups along with a few fairly well known Internet companies as well (a little company you might’ve heard of called Google…).

Kieffer knows his stuff. And he’s had some success in some of those previous companies. Initially working with one of the four co-founders, Alan Chung, Kieffer wanted to centralize the Internet experience. This is where the idea for Zenbe was formulated in its infancy.

Currently, the main project for Kieffer, who is, it seems, by far the biggest telecommuter within the company, is their new iPhone application. The project met a fair amount of success, with the walled garden that is Apple software providing the only roadblock to full integration. However, by being able to share lists, the Zenbe app has set itself apart from other to do list apps out there.

The initial idea behind Zenbe, though, was relatively simple: make e-mail  better.

“We wanted to take e-mail out of the hands of the big companies that hadn’t done anything and incorporate blogs, social networks, IM and what have you into one place,” Kieffer said.

And, well, they’ve been pretty successful. Seeing this kind of innovation from a Bend-based developer is, of course, very exciting.

Granted, the company isn’t based here, but nonetheless, much of the creative force is based right here in Bend. This bodes well for our continued growth as a centralized hub for technology and innovation.

A few notes on the company itself:

The company was started 2 years ago by 4 founders.

Monetization plans – many possibilities but none yet confirmed or enacted.

Officially launched service (public beta) in April.

50,000+ users and growing exponentially.

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Guy Kawasaki’s keynote presentation (part 1) at this year’s Bend Venture Conference (BVC)

Monday, October 22nd, 2007

Check out part 1 of Guy Kawasaki’s keynote presentation from this years Bend Venture Conference (BVC). Part 1 is roughly 32 minutes long. This is a great presentation for this years BVC so check this out and come back shortly for part 2 of Guy’s presentation. A big thanks to the folks at BVC for bringing Guy Kawasaki to town! Stay tuned for additional videos from this year’s BVC, including presentations by the lead companies at this year’s event.

To download a higher resolution version of this video, please select the following link: Guy Kawasaki Keynote Presentation at the 2007 Bend Venture Conference (BVC) – Part 1

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Guy Kawasaki’s keynote presentation (part 2) at this year’s Bend Venture Conference (BVC)

Monday, October 22nd, 2007

Check out part 2 of Guy Kawasaki’s keynote presentation from this years Bend Venture Conference (BVC). Part 2 is roughly 34 minutes long. This is a great presentation for this years BVC so be sure to check this out. A big thanks to the folks at BVC for bringing Guy Kawasaki to town! Stay tuned for additional videos from this year’s BVC, including presentations by the lead companies at this year’s event.

To download a higher resolution version of this video, please select the following link: Guy Kawasaki Keynote Presentation at the 2007 Bend Venture Conference (BVC) – Part 2

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