A Sack of Seattle

TechStars demoday tickets in short supply!

Only 10% of tickets remain for TechStars Investor Day on November 11th.  In 13 days the inaugural class of TechStars Seattle will unveil their companies and demo products.  If you're an interested investor and haven't registered yet, email kayla@techstars.org to rsvp before we sell out.  Hope to see you there - it's going to be a great event!

An inbound email to RevenueLoan

I thought I'd share this from an inbound email inquiring about the possibility of a RevenueLoan:

"We are not interested in dilution at this time, we have no venture and would prefer to keep it that way. Hence, flexible financing against our future subscription payments is very attractive. We have a major product launch (product is entering beta) at the end of this year and this will require additional funding upfront."

On the surface, this sounds like there may be a fit....look forward to talking to this entrepreneur!

Brad Feld's Daily Deals is worth checking out

 

I've got a favor to ask. One of our fellow Techstars teams is working on daily deal marketing, and launched a store today for one of the TechStars founders (Brad Feld). On the store you can purchase a $50 voucher for $25 that can be used at a website that has lots of great outdoor clothing, shoes and gear. It doesn't matter where you live... they can ship anywhere. 

Please support these guys on their big launch today....click here

 

Open Angel Forum and TechStars DemoDay in Seattle - be sure to register now!

As many of you know, I'm busy trying to cultivate the start up scene in Seattle!  Thus, my endeavors -- Founder's Co-op, RevenueLoan, and TechStars.  I am deeply passionate about helping entrepreneurs and early stage companies get capital to grow!  

About a year ago, I became aware of an initiative run by Jason Calacanis called Open Angel Forum (OAF).  The program tries to marry high quality angels with high quality angel investment opportunities at NO cost to the entrepreneur.  This kind of event resonated with me a lot - I attended OAF in Boulder and thought it was great! I've known Jason since the 90's and I recently agreed to host Open Angel Forum the night before TechStars DemoDay in an effort to attract more angels to the Seattle event.

So it's my pleasure to announce --  two exciting angel events for investment opportunities in Seattle – ever! Hosted back-to-back on purpose, this is going to be a two days of angel and entrepreneur events in Seattle!  These events are invite only so follow instructions below!

I) November 10^th – Open Angel Forum, 7pm.

Join Jason Calacanis, myself and many other angel investors for the first meeting of the Seattle chapter of the Open Angel Forum!   We'll have food and drinks while hearing 5 minute pitches from 6 start up companies.  We're planning for plenty of fun and time for networking - even a poker game after!   Register online here: Angels, Entrepreneurs, Service Providers. 

 

II) November 11^th – TechStars Investor Day, 9am.

Ten exciting new companies from the TechStars class of 2010 in Seattle will give short eight minute presentations highlighting the business and investment opportunity. The style is fun and entertaining, it's a different kind of pitch event that includes amazing opportunities for networking as well.  This event is invitation only and registration is required. Please email kayla@techstars.org if you’d like to attend or if you have any questions.

 

Simplicity As a Compliment to Powerful...introducing Big Door's 5 minute gamification process!

We all know that making things easier for users is the right thing to do, but here is a real-time case study of that concept.  Our portfolio company BigDoor announced their public beta in June and since then they have had over 500 publishers and developers register to use their platform. That's an impressive number, but while their stuff is flexible and powerful it has also been relatively difficult to use.  Until now.  They have been hard at work to create a simple oboarding process for new partners and also significantly simplifying the initial implementation.  Gamification isn't a one-size fits all solution, but most websites have similar needs in the beginning.  So BigDoor has taken the approach to build all of the bells and whistles for their power users, but at the same time they have now made the initial install brain dead easy.  They announced this big improvement to their platform first thing this morning, with the headline "BigDoor Launches the Five Minute Gamification Process".  So far today they've had 97 new publishers and developers signup just this morning, and it's not even 9:00 AM on the west coast yet.  

It will be interesting to watch how this day unfolds for them, but this is a real-time example of how simple can be a great compliment to powerful.  Click here and gamify your own site in 5 minutes.