ClevelandStartup.com

joshwalsh: An interview of some of Silicon Valley’s most...

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 20:52:45 -0400

An interview of some of Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture capitalists by TechCrunch’s founder Michael Arrington.

Not surprisingly, there was little mention of the work “revenue” or even “profit.” Yet, they kept dropping the big “V” word… Valuation.

Valuation without accounting for profit is rather silly, if you ask me.

"Entrepreneurs Do Stuff"

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 23:29:00 -0400

"Entrepreneurs Do Stuff":

One of the best Mixergy episodes I’ve watched so far…Loved it! David Cohen sits down with Andrew Warner to talk about his experience finding, funding & mentoring the best startup talent as Co-Founder and Executive Director of TechStars.

“So you have lots of people who, you know, have great ideas, who talk about the model and…business plans, but I think real entrepreneurs do stuff. They get it out there, they can’t wait to get it out of the brain and onto the web. And that’s really evident in successful entrepreneurs. I think it’s something we look for very directly.” - David Cohen

Formspring.me Leaves the Midwest for Silicon Valley

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:32:36 -0400

Formspring.me Leaves the Midwest for Silicon Valley:

This latest startup departure does nothing but continue to validate the need for a greater focus on technology innovation and funding across the entire Midwest. Until this happens, more companies like Formspring.me will continue fleeing our cities for “more thriving” startup regions. A quick byte from the post:

“…opportunities in the Midwest do not yet compare to those available in other booming startup cities.

Had Formspring.me been founded in a city like Austin, Boulder, New York or Boston, they would have likely remained there upon receiving funding…While the Midwest is growing its startup culture, there are far fewer VC firms, and far smaller talent pools when compared to other locations…”

Some CorkShare Love from Jake Lodwick, Co-Founder of Vimeo

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:31:00 -0400

Some CorkShare Love from Jake Lodwick, Co-Founder of Vimeo:

Thanks to my cousin Brendan for the heads up on this blog post.

“It seems to be a labor of love of three young entrepreneurs and for some reason I have a good feeling about it.” - Jake Lodwick, Co-Founder of Vimeo

Cleveland’s own CorkShare has been feeling a lot of love lately, as well they should. Here’s a recent story about them with more background info about CorkShare, their founders, and their recent launch.

Spent a few hours yesterday afternoon with members of...

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 14:06:00 -0400

Spent a few hours yesterday afternoon with members of Cleveland’s own Makers Alliance down at Goldstein Caldwell & Associates. GCA is the temporary home to the Alliance’s Hackerspace, where they spent a majority of the day yesterday building a Makerbot. What is the Makers Alliance? What is a Hackerspace? What is a Makerbot? You’ll find answers to all these questions and more throughout the video. You can follow the interviewees on Twitter @gsvitak, @rickpollack & @makersalliance.

I enhanced the video a bit with some minor iMovie “tweaks” and I’m still working on my “OK”s. But overall I’m really happy with the direction these videos are headed. What do you think?

CorkShare the Love: CWRU Students Create New Content-Sharing Web Site

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:49:07 -0500

CorkShare the Love: CWRU Students Create New Content-Sharing Web Site

Coming Soon: Introducing SprkFnd

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:32:00 -0500

Sometimes all it takes is a small spark to ignite something big. The concept of microfunding has its share of supporters and opponents. At the end of the day, I strongly believe the people at ScaleWell, etc are on to something. And there’s no reason why we can’t replicate a similar concept in Northeast Ohio. As a matter of fact, we’re well on our way towards completing our first round of fundraising for the initial $1,000 spark.

Coming soon SprkFnd will begin its search for its first startup recipient. We’re working on the criteria but it will go something like this:

Are you solving a problem?
Is your idea innovative and original?
Do you have a prototype?
What will $1,000 mean/do for your business?

If you are interested in being a part of SprkFnd, please contact us today. We are eager to have smart, passionate, dedicated & energetic people on our team.

More to follow…

Where’s Your Google? Your Amgen? [Jumpstart Blog]

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:56:46 -0500

Where’s Your Google? Your Amgen? [Jumpstart Blog]:

An interesting blog post by Jumpstart’s Becca Braun highlighting Ohio’s ascent into the nation’s top states for venture capital deals.

“Ohio is Top 10 nationwide in investment activity and…is among the leaders on consistently starting strong, high growth businesses that pragmatically solve a certain problem in the world, grow quickly, and generate solid returns…The entrepreneurs who led these businesses are adept at growing more of these types of businesses as CEOs, serial entrepreneurs, angel investors, and board members.” - Becca Braun

Cleveland.com: Can Drew Carey Save Cleveland?

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:39:00 -0500

Cleveland.com: Can Drew Carey Save Cleveland?:

I’m looking forward to watching this web series and give Drew a lot of credit for taking action…while keeping his sense of humor intact.

ChicagoBusiness.com: Startup Support on the Rise? ”[ScaleWell...

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:04:00 -0500

ChicagoBusiness.com: Startup Support on the Rise? ”[ScaleWell has] recruited 42 trustees, entrepreneurs and business people, who pledge $100 a piece toward $1,000 grants that ScaleWell will award to the winners of quarterly business plan competitions. The winners also get free office space in the Loop.” BRILLIANT! Thanks @jimengland for the heads up on this story.

My interview with CorkShare I sat down this evening with Jim...

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:02:00 -0500

My interview with CorkShare

I sat down this evening with Jim England (L) and Tim Gasper (R), co-founders of CorkShare, at the offices of Goldstein Caldwell & Associates on Carnegie Avenue. They are just one week away from their public launch and were kind enough to spend some time talking about their experience launching a startup in Cleveland.

Jim is currently a student at CWRU and Tim works as Product Evangelist at Hyland Software, one of Cleveland’s most beloved technology companies. Both great guys, we had our share of laughs throughout the interview.

We talked about their experience at Startup Weekend Columbus, how they came up with the idea for CorkShare, their recent trip to Silicon Valley, how they were able to stay motivated to continue improving and changing their product by listening to their users.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the end result of the first “go at it” with the Flip video interview format. Thanks Jim and Tim for being such gracious guinea pigs & to Dar and Todd for allowing me to set up shop.

I hope to see you all at the launch on March 4th!

Let's put the "fun" in funding

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:17:50 -0500

One of my recent tweets accidentally sparked an interesting conversation about whether or not an exchange fund like the one described in this TechCrunch article would work in Cleveland. The general consensus? Maybe. But more importantly, we all agreed that there needs to be a bigger emphasis on increasing awareness of new and innovative ways to help develop and grow more tech startups in Cleveland.

Microfunding is one of those “new” and innovative ways. Coupled with an idea like MoonDog (full disclosure: this was my Startup Weekend Cleveland team - darn good & talented people), microfunding has the potential to provide founders with unprecedented access to the seed capital and resources necessary to get up and running. Sometimes all it takes is, in addition to some great talent, a relatively small amount of money to take an idea from wireframe to working prototype. From there, the next logical step might be to engage an organization like Goldstein Caldwell & Associates (GCA), JumpStart, Civic Innovation Lab, etc to help take the idea forward.

So how do we work together and leverage the recent momentum folks like GCA and the SWCLE team have generated to connect a live pipeline of ideas with those with the means to invest as angels in a microfunding capacity on a more regular basis? Have “pitch nights” worked? What about investment clubs? Any organizations already doing something like this? I’d like to hear your ideas.

What do you think?

JumpStart: 2009 VC Capital Report [PDF]

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:05:36 -0500

JumpStart: 2009 VC Capital Report [PDF]:

JumpStart reports “Over $1B of Venture Capital Invested in the Last Five Years [in the Cleveland Plus Region] has Created Thousands of Jobs, with Thousands More Projected.” Read the full report here.

Thinking about launching a startup?

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:57:10 -0500

Thinking about launching a startup?:

Spend some time checking out this “course”. I thought the content was informative and eye opening. Knowledge is power.

"This is what being an entrepreneur is about. Find a pain point and try to make a visionary solution..."

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:11:00 -0500

““This is what being an entrepreneur is about. Find a pain point and try to make a visionary solution to solve it that you would use yourself.””

- @jason, TWiST #37 regarding ZocDoc’s answer to instantly finding an available health care provider online.

Let's get it started

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 22:17:00 -0500

I don’t claim to be a Startup expert by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, @swcle was my first experience rubbing elbows, meeting and sharing ideas with Cleveland’s best and brightest Startup enthusiasts and entrepreneurs. It was the Startup Weekend Cleveland experience that inspired me to reconnect with my passion for people that identify a need & build a business around a solution. It was that experience that inspired me to start this project. And that experience wouldn’t have been possible without the blood, sweat and tears of #swcle organizers @broadcrawford, @joefiorini, @gsvitak, @andrewkavanaugh, @stumpjumper, @jonrstahl & @dougcraver.

That all being said, I’m armed and ready to go. And by armed I mean Flip Video Camera in hand, ready to sit down and talk with the Cleveland Startup Community’s most inspirational and influential citizens. Why? Because I believe that by ~~hearing~~ seeing their stories, others will be motivated, inspired and empowered to take that giant leap and make their dream a reality.

Let me cut to the chase. I need your input. What Startups born & raised in Northeast Ohio do you admire the most? Who do you feel is making the biggest positive impact in Cleveland’s Startup Community? Who’s on your “Who’s Who” of Cleveland Startup icons? Leave a comment below or click the link to your left and send us an email with your suggestions. From there, the plan is to narrow it down to the Top 10 and start knocking on doors with the questions YOU want to ask them. A bit too ambitious? Maybe. But who really cares…

Coming Soon

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 11:47:00 -0500

Interested in helping create the resource for startup & early stage advocacy in Northeast Ohio? Have an idea for the blog? Please send an email to info@clevelandstartup.com and tell us a bit about yourself.

Tremendous video recap of Startup Weekend Cleveland by...

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 10:47:18 -0500

Tremendous video recap of Startup Weekend Cleveland by @sutyakonline.