Finding Funding for your startup is hard, but Greenhouse is trying to make it easier.
The company is one of several firms taking advantage of the JOBS act of 2012, which relaxes regulations for equity investing and allows individuals to own stock in new startups without being SEC accredited. This means that you, or a friend of yours, can own equity in fledgling startups – as long as you go through a web portal that handles the legal issues.
This is exactly the service that Greenhouse provides. Founders R.C. Rondero de Mosier and Nathan Roach are based in Austin and San Antonio respectively, and hope to create a crowdfunding community in the south Texas area that benefits startups and investors as well as the local economies. With equity crowdfunding, the Greenhouse users will actually own part of the local startups they invest in, creating an incentive to stick with and promote such startups in the future.
“This creates a larger community because you turn your purchasers into advocates, and people are going to be ideally more long term engaged with you,” says Rondero de Mosier.
The JOBS act rules will go into effect as soon as the SEC releases regulations for those rules. Under old rules, only SEC accredited investors could purchase equity in private startup companies – or companies that had not already made an initial public stock offering. Such investors had to be either worth around a million dollars or prove that they made more than $200K annually for several years – a rule which Rondero de Mosier says excluded around 94 percent of Americans from investing in small businesses without public stocks. Once the new rules pass, companies like Greenhouse will open the door for those people by providing a web portal for such investment.
According to Forbes.com, the new rules will allow individuals making less than $100K – most of us – to invest five percent of their annual income in equity crowdfunding. Individuals making more than $100K may invest 10 percent.
Greenhouse is currently in beta, and plans to launch once the SEC rules are fully implemented. Users can sign up for the beta at FundGreenhouse.com.
Tag: Geekdom (Page 6 of 10)
BY ANDREW MOORE
Reporter with Silicon Hills News
This week, we talked with Circle Media founder and CEO Mark Piening about his new startup. Incorporated just last January, Circle Media officially launched at SXSW and was one of the five finalists in the Startup Austin Fast Pitch Competition. The Austin based company does data analysis for both event promoters and sponsors to help them better understand, and interact with, customers at their events.
“How do you help these sponsors and these producers of live events make the best live event experiences possible? The only way to do that is to know the audience.” says Piening.
Piening says that the value in knowing the audience comes from sponsors being able to specially target certain demographics. In some cases, sponsors could even connect with and interact with event attendees — offering them coupons or spontaneous opportunities which make the event a more personal and memorable experience.
To do this, the company collects data from event ticket sales, registration, drinks sales, tweets that reference the event, Facebook posts, Foursquare check-ins, consumer data sources and more. They then analyze the data and present it to clients to help them make informed marketing decisions.
The company presents the information through an online dashboard that gives clients everything from who came to their event to what those people said about the event afterwards — helping the clients make better decisions about programming, merchandise, concessions and anything else that was part of the experience. Piening believes this approach can create a fundamental shift in how marketing works.
“We think that the 21st century is the era of authenticity,” says Piening. “It’s an opportunity [for marketing] to really connect with people like friends, be treated like friends, and be respectful like friends in how they communicate with people.
Circe Media has already secured a fortune 50 software company and is in the process of process of implementing a solution for that client. They are currently recruiting marketing agencies and seeking other fortune 500 clients.
Circle media is now hiring developers with experience in Node.js, REAK, Redis, and user experience.
This week Slice of Silicon Hills News Host Andrew Moore interviews StoryPress founder Michael Davis about his new iPad app for creating and saving family history through audio stories.
“StoryPress is trying to change the way that family history is preserved and passed down from generation to generation by making it fun and easy to record stories with you own voice,” Davis said.
Davis got the idea from his grandmother. A year and a half ago she had just received an iPad, and was looking for a recording application to record personal stories. None of the available applications were satisfactory – simply providing her with a big MP3 file which she had no idea how incorporate into something bigger. Davis created StoryPress to fill this need.
“Not only do we have the right interface to make it fun and easy, but we came up with the prompts so it’s not intimidating,” Davis said.
The StoryPress app can essentially interview its users by giving them a series of prompts grouped together in topic modules. After choosing one of the modules, users simply respond to each prompt given. When they are done, StoryPress automatically ties all the narration segments together into one audio book. If users feel the prompts are too constricting, they may also do a simple self recorded narration.
The current version app – launched last December — allows users to create audio books with custom book covers images, but future versions will allow users to add pictures and other media.
“The goal is to make it a real multimedia experience where the user can add pictures, background music, videos, and have the story live on one permanent URL,” Davis said.
Future versions of the app will also provide stock photos of iconic American imagines through several eras, as well as musical accompaniments, which users can purchase and add to their audio books.
Users will be able to create their first five stories for free, but will have to pay a yearly cloud storage cost of $49 of they want to create more. If users want a more tangible copy of their audio books, they can also order CD versions from StoryPress for a fee.
StoryPress has seen 4000 downloads so far, and they will be kickstarter April 1 to access more funding. StoryPress will be releasing an Android tablet in mid April.
This week, Slice of Silicon Hills News Host Andrew Moore interviews Grapevine’s Co-Founder Erik Larson about the company’s latest version of its software.
Grapevine, based at Geekdom, makes a reputation management software program aimed at businesses in the hospitality industry like restaurants and hotels.
Kirpeep’s Leticia Barrientos, vice president of outreach, talks with Slice of Silicon Hills Host Andrew Moore about the startup’s plans for South by Southwest this weekend.
The company, based at Geekdom, is having a swag challenge at SXSW. More than 5,000 people signed up for the challenge, which quickly sold out, Barrientos said. They have established a waitlist. To find out more, the startup will based at Free Lunch Friday’s Rig at SXSW at 604 East 7th Street in Austin.
Kirpeep is an online marketplace that allows people to exchange, buy or sell goods and services. For more on the company, please read this profile on the company.
Disclosure: Kirpeep is an advertiser with Silicon Hills News. And Geekdom is a sponsor.
Matt Peterson, founder and CEO of Dejaset, a music technology company in Austin, dropped into the Silver Fox Studios today to chat with Slice of Silicon Hills News Host Andrew Moore.
Dejaset allows bands to capture recordings of live performances and sell them immediately to fans. Peterson has created an application for the bands to record their content and another one for consumers to buy the songs.
The company, based at the Austin Technology Incubator, raised $750,000 in seed stage capital last year. They’re preparing for a big rollout of its service at South by Southwest next week.
This week on Slice of Silicon Hills News, host Andrew Moore interviews Vid Luther, founder of ZippyKid, a WordPress hosting site.
The startup, founded in 2010, is based at Geekdom, a sponsor of Silicon Hills News.
Moore interviews Luther at the Silver Fox Studios, which is also a sponsor of Silicon Hills News, on the 10th floor of Geekdom in downtown San Antonio.
Nick Longo, director of Geekdom, provides this insight into Geekdom, a year-old collaborative coworking space in downtown San Antonio. It is Texas’ largest co-working site. Geekdom, which is a sponsor of Silicon Hills News, has expanded from the 11th floor to the 10th floor. It’s home to the TechStars Cloud.
Geekdom 2.2 video from The IMG Studio on Vimeo.
Jon Dobbertin. co-founder of Call Grader
By L.A. LOREK, Founder of Silicon Hills News
At InnoTech San Antonio’s beta summit earlier this year, CallGrader won the competition.
The group of four close-knit friends created a software as a service customer application program for companies in the heating and cooling industry. They worked out of Geekdom on their venture.
A few months later, CallGrader applied and got selected to participate in the incubator program DreamIt Ventures, based in Philadelphia.
In September, Jon Dobbertin, Dan Garcia, Ben Niemietz and Chip Mobley all packed up and flew to Philadelphia. They rented two one-bedroom apartments close by the accelerator. Their wives, all four are expecting babies within four months of each other with the first due date set for Dec. 1, stayed in San Antonio.
“It’s been a little crazy,” Dobbertin said. He was in town last weekend and stopped by Geekdom for the 3 Day Startup San Antonio pitches on Sunday night. “We’ve been flying back and forth. But it’s been a phenomenal experience.”
The program has allowed Call Grader to expend its network, Dobbertin said. Every week, they meet with business people and listen to seminars from entrepreneurs who have been there and done that.
Dobbertin especially liked talks with Duck, Duck Go Founder Gabriel Weinberg and David Rose, founder of Gust.
CallGrader had a beta product in the marketplace when it entered the program, but now the company has launched and its revenues are projected to exceed what the team originally forecast by the end of the year, Dobbertin said. He declined to provide specifics.
“We’ve had a really successful launch out of Beta,” he said.
CallGrader has also pivoted into a cloud-based platform for providing businesses a way to efficiently communicate with customers. It has also built a rich database that allows companies to get all kinds of information on their customers including social media profiles to better tailor their service, Dobbertin said. And next year, it’s rolling out a chat platform, he said.
The DreamIt program has been hectic but it has pushed the team members to do more work in a short period of time than they would have gotten done on their own, Dobbertin said.
“We’re working around the clock, seven days a week and putting in 14 hour days,” he said. “In that three months we were able to do 12 months worth of work.”
CallGrader receied $25,000 in cash and $75,000 worth of credits for free hosting from Rackspace, Amazon and Azure. It has also received another $20,000 worth of legal and accounting services, Dobbertin said. But the most valuable part of the experience has been the mentorship and network the team received, he said.
To get to the next level, CallGrader plans to raise a seed round of investment, Dobbertin said. The company would like to raise its money in San Antonio so they can stay here. But they have already applied to the Benjamin Franklin Technology Fund, which would require Call Grader to be based in Philadelphia, Dobbertin said.
“We hope to find our funding here so we don’t have to move everyone to the East Coast,” he said.
Call Grader shows what’s possible for startup companies in San Antonio, said Alan Weinkrantz, a public relations expert who knows the team.
“It’s nice to see a company start and incubate here and go on to get accepted to a top tier incubator and relocate to Philadelphia.”
DreamIt Ventures recently expanded its program to Austin. It is based at Capital Factory. DreamIt Ventures just selected its first class of companies. They will have their demo day at SXSW 2013.
Jason Seats, managing director of TechStars Cloud, leads the TechStars for a Day program at Geekdom.
“We help awesome founders build great companies,” said Jason Seats, managing director of the TechStars Cloud.
The program has become a launching pad for technology startups with five TechStars programs around the country in Boulder, Boston, Seattle, New York and San Antonio. TechStars Cloud focuses on companies that build infrastructure products for the Internet as well as consumer applications accessible on the Web.
“Deep down there is some altruism,” Seats said. “We like to build stuff that matters. It’s not about making the most money.”
But the TechStars companies collectively have raised $265 million and 185 companies with 1,200 employees.
Last year’s TechStars Cloud class raised $15 million including $2.5 million from local investors in a fund headed up by John Mosher.
The TechStars Cloud is a three-month technology incubator that takes place every January at Geekdom, a co-working and collaborative space at the Weston Centre in downtown San Antonio. The first TechStars Cloud took place last January and featured 11 teams that came from all over the country. This year’s program kicks off on Jan. 14 and will be housed on the newly renovated 10th floor of the Weston Centre. The deadline to apply is Sunday at midnight.
The application process is highly competitive, Seats said.
Each team receives $18,000 in cash and $100,000 in debt financing. In exchange, TechStars takes a 6 percent stake in the company.
For that investment, the companies get mentorship from successful entrepreneurs, investment, access to a vast network of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and other resources, and perks valued at $200,000, Seats said.
During the three-month program, the teams overhaul business models and craft products while they fine-tune their company story and pitch.
Ryan Shank and Vincent Wong, co-founders of
Ryan Shank and Vincent Wong, co-founders of MHelpDesk
“We’re interested in the mentorship and network aspects of the program,” Wong said.
“We’re looking for mentors to take the company to the next level – to take the company to the masses,” Shank said.
Dustin Larimer, co-founder of a team chat application, applied for the program. He volunteered as a TechStars HackStar for the last class and he’s seen the benefit the teams receive from the program firsthand.
“I got to see the transformation in them,” Larimer said. “The quality that comes out of that crystalizes a line of clarity that you couldn’t find on your own.”
Throughout the day, the applicants listened to a series of speakers that talked about their mistakes, how to raise money and how to run their businesses effectively.
Dirk Elmendorf, co-founder of Rackspace and Trucking Office
“We all think we’re great at marketing,” Elmendorf said. “We’re all wrong.”
Finding, hiring and retaining the best employees is one of the most important parts of running a startup company, he said. Sales and marketing people are essential, he said. But he didn’t always think that way.
“Original model was no salespeople,” Elmendorf said. “Ok, that model doesn’t work.”
His latest startup, Trucking Office, has since hired a few sales people.
Startups should also focus on having cash in the bank, Elmendorf said.
“Depending on the business model you pick, you might always be fundraising.”
Startups need to also focus on customer acquisition costs.
“These are essential things to do the business,” he said.
When someone asked Elmendorf how he focused on the trucking industry, he said his team originally wanted to supply accounting software to all small businesses. But they found the trucking niche and that’s where they are focused because it’s a large and important market.
“I never thought I would be excited about doing accounting software for truckers,” he said.
But he is. The software helps independent truckers do their jobs better and fight big conglomerates, he said.