‘Venture Capital 2.0’
This is a good read about VCs and other investors that are looking for innovation outside of Silicon Valley and the traditional tech hot spots: (from USA Today) Venture capitalists today look far and wide for start-ups
StartUp Beat
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August 29, 2008
Are American Tech Investors Not Taking Enough Risk?
Interesting take on the issue of balancing innovation, risk, and the irrational exuberance demonstrated during the tech bubble in a new book by the former CTO of Cisco, Judy Estrin. She seems to make some good points, but seems to have that all-too-common narrow focus on Silicon Valley. What about entrepreneurs and investors who are not necessarily a part of the “Valley” culture?: (from the NY Times) Does Silicon Valley Face an Innovation Crisis?
Is there Such a Thing As Too Much Internet?
Comcast, the big cable company and broadband Internet provider, has announced that it will begin capping usage of its broadband service, starting October 1 (story via VentureBeat). The service will be capped at 250 gigabytes per month. This is more than the vast majority of Internet users will ever use in a month, but it is still troubling that Internet providers are now seeking to limit how much people use high speed broadband Internet.
August 27, 2008
Featured Pitch: SocialVibe
Web Site: www.socialvibe.com
Headquarters: Los Angeles
Year Founded: 2007
Founders: Joe Marchese, Brandon Mills, David Levy
Investors: Redpoint Ventures
Employees: 24
By Joe Marchese, President and Co-Founder
SocialVibe.com is a new social media platform that facilitates interaction between people, the brands they love and the causes they care about. SocialVibe is truly reinventing advertising by recognizing the power of the people within social media and converting media dollars into charitable donations. We recognize that individuals hold the key to generating attention and wielding influence in social media. It’s a powerful new way for brands to interact with people and it’s changing the way brands participate in social media.
Some time ago we realized that to crack the social media code, more power needed to be in the hands of the people who were creating the content; to be able to choose the advertising they are aligned with, and to allow people and the causes they cared about to benefit in meaningful ways from sharing their influence.
SocialVibe allows people to choose a brand to support, earning chances to get brand perks and points within SocialVibe. The points that members earn are then turned into funds for the charitable cause of their choice. SocialVibe is aligned with such brands as Coca-Cola, Adobe, NBA, Sprint and Nestle. Most importantly, SocialVibe.com has partnered with the most requested non-profits in the space including Komen for the Cure, WWF, Partnership for a Drug-Free America, Invisible Children, One Laptop per Child, PETA and Donors Choose.
I don’t know that there is anyone right now doing what we are doing, but then again if I thought there was we wouldn’t have started this business. The idea that people can band together online to make a big difference in the real world is what social media is all about. In social media, people are media and only with peoples’ explicit permission can brands find their way into their online profiles. SocialVibe tries to recognize all of this. It was SocialVibe’s members that led the site to where it is today: people caring about social issues but not having the monetary means to make a difference. When we founded SocialVibe, the idea was simply that people controlled all the valuable attention and influence that brands wanted and that the people should get to decide how that value gets shared. We weren’t “charity” themed, we were actually “member choice” themed.
SocialVibe members just kept telling us that charity was the most important thing and SocialVibe evolved to best serve what our members asked for. That’s the way we will always be. It’s the only way social media survives. There was a recent article in the Wall Street Journal that reported that in 2007, charitable giving by Americans was up by almost 4 percent than the previous year despite the downturn in the economy. There is that desire in people to help their communities and support causes they’re passionate about. SocialVibe is helping people, especially young people, by granting them a way to give back just by using the social networks they use everyday and donating to causes they might not ever have the money to give to on their own.
In just six months since its launch, SocialVibe has helped its members raise over $100,000 in charitable donations, all by simply lending their influence to the brands they choose. As SocialVibe continues to grow and new members sign up, the amount of money that can be raised is limitless. I hope that over the next five years SocialVibe will set the standard for how people interact with brands and support their charities, as well as drive major brand dollars towards the social networks.
August 26, 2008
GMeals and Google's Company Culture; Test Your Startup Valuation Skills
Google’s Legendary Perks Slowly Disappearing? – Google is famous for its 
“startup” culture featuring big-time perks for employees. Some have attributed these benefits, including free meals and allowing employees to spend a percentage of their work time on pet projects, to being a big part of Google’s ability to keep employees happy, attract top talent and stay on top of the Internet world. But can a big company like Google ever keep that nimble, “startup” culture intact? The experiences of other companies suggest that it can’t, and it seems that this culture is slowly slipping away at Google, particularly in light of a decrease in its stock price and ongoing questions about its ability to expand beyond desktop search. Valleywag, the Silicon Valley gossip site, is reporting on a dustup over changes in Google's free meals for employees program. The site is actually spot on with its take on the controversy—it’s not just about perks or company politics…rather free meals have always been touted as a centerpiece of Google’s “startup” culture, and for that reason these latest GMeal developments could represent a real change in culture at the company...or at least a change in perception of the company's culture.
…And an update: Dinner saved for Google’s geeks
TradeVibes: A Fun Way to Track Startups – This is reminiscent of the recent-launched YouNoodle (which lets you “predict” the value of your startup on its site): Startup wiki TradeVibes rings the bell on its fantasy stock exchange
August 22, 2008
Q&A with Mike Sweeney, Founder & President, LionSaves.com
LionSaves.com seeks to help homeowners more accurately and effectively navigate the debt refinancing waters. Founded by loan-industry veteran Mike Sweeney, the web site made its public debut late last year.
SUB: When was the company founded, and how did the idea come about?
Sweeney: I’ve been a loan officer for 15 years now and I first had the idea in the spring of 2006. I realized there are so many homeowners who have no idea how much they can save by refinancing their debt into a mortgage. I also kept hearing people say they were fed up with well known mortgage sites taking their contact info and then being hounded by calls. One morning I woke up and the idea just kind of hit me. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it could be huge. After programming and reprogramming for over a year, we finally beta launched in the fall of 2007.
SUB: What is the site’s primary value proposition?
Sweeney: It's a tool, a mortgage calculator for refinancing debt. It runs thousands of calculations based on live interest rates to give accurate and personal answers. Yet, it's very easy to use. And, it lets the user remain anonymous. We don't ask for any contact info. It empowers the user with answers instead of hassling them with calls.
SUB: Who do you see as your competition?
Sweeney: No one. There’s no other site attempting this. There are plenty of sites with mickey mouse calculators and there are plenty of sites who will take your name and number to sell you off as a lead. But no site gives complete and personal answers while letting you remain anonymous. It’s web 2.0 at its finest.
The well known mortgage sites have run their course. Zillow has taken a step in the right direction with its mortgage marketplace but is still lagging. This is three steps ahead of anything out there.
Trust is probably the main hurdle in the mortgage industry right now—especially online. The brand that builds trust with the consumer will beat all competitors. You build trust by giving accurate information while treating the user with respect.
SUB: Can you describe the underlying technology behind the site, and how the site works for users?
Sweeney: I sure can. We took a somewhat novel approach to the technical architecture. The site balances the need to execute so many complex formulas and the need to be immediate. The key was to rethink how to use the database. Instead of only storing traditional data such as user information and loan scenarios, it also stores programming commands, which can then be pulled and run “on the fly.”
This greatly improves the user experience. The end result is an application that allows users to get answers in seconds by having the pages draw commands from the database and execute them as needed in the browser. Essentially the pages can program themselves, which is pretty cool. We’ve blurred the line between server-side and client-side programming. Otherwise, you’d have to constantly wait for pages to reload which would drive the user bonkers.
One of the interesting challenges we faced were the circular references. That was tricky. As one example, in order to calculate the new loan amount it needs to determine the interest rate, but in order to determine the interest rate it needs to know the loan amount. We were finally able to come up with a creative targeting approach that essentially makes it think, so to speak.
It takes into account everything from determining if a borrower can drop PMI, to pulling live interest rates, to calculating the escrow account and to the FHA loan limits in the borrower’s county. When somebody wants to see what happens when they take out more or less cash, they can see the payment and interest rate update instantly. Since this is first and foremost an educational tool, I wanted to let the customer ‘play’ as much as they wanted. In order to do that, it had to be extremely liquid.
A side benefit of this approach is that none of this type of ‘playing around’ within a scenario places any demand on the server, it's all client side. This makes the site very scalable.
SUB: Have you raised any outside funding to this point?
Sweeney: No, 100 percent bootstrapped. Sold my Harley, my ‘66 GTO and my rental properties to make it happen. We’re in seven states right now and have a patent pending. To really ignite this, I want to take it nationwide and that will require funding.
SUB: Are you actively looking for financing? Do you have a timeline for raising outside funding?
Sweeney: I don’t have a timeline, per se, I’m more concerned about having the right fit that’ll be a good long term solution rather than rushing into it.
LionSaves - www.lionsaves.com
August 19, 2008
The Battle of the Publicity-Hungry Trade Shows; Book an Appointment with Your Doctor Online…Can it Work?
DEMO vs. TechCrunch: The Saga Continues – The debate about the war of words between the established, venerable show and the upstart competitor, TechCrunch50, keeps growing. The heart of the argument is whether or not the DEMO model of charging presenting startups a (hefty) fee presents a barrier too high for many innovative startups. I think most would agree it does. However, TechCrunch has its own barriers. In any case, the dust up got both shows coverage in the NY Times: Amid Conference Halls and Keynote Speakers, a Rivalry Forms
Can ZocDoc Overcome Local Search’s Problems? – ZocDoc offers an interesting service, compiling a directory of doctors and letting searchers schedule appointments online. The company just raised $3 million from Khosla Ventures (story with screenshots from VentureBeat). The question, though, is whether or not the service can overcome the bad data that has tripped up local service provider search to this point. Anyone who has ever searched for a local service provider knows the frustration of running into incomplete, outdated, or unreliable data, a problem that has kept the print yellow pages relevant.
August 15, 2008
Q&A with John Gentry, President, Spot Runner
Spot Runner, founded in 2004, is on a mission to make advertising across various media easier and more accessible. The company makes the entire process of buying and executing advertising on television, the web, radio or out-of-home, available through its service—everything from buying ad time or space, to production of advertisements and creative.
SUB: What need does Spot Runner address?
Gentry: Spot Runner is developing new technology solutions to fulfill and address the needs of both advertisers and media companies as the landscape continues to evolve. Our mission is to make advertisers successful by revolutionizing the entire advertising process—including the way ads are created, targeted, planned, bought and sold. The company levels the playing field by giving advertisers of all sizes access to products and services that were previously unavailable or out of reach.
The ad industry is undergoing a sea change thanks to an increasingly fragmented media environment. Consumers are now getting information and entertainment from many different sources and advertisers can now utilize multiple channels to reach audiences with highly targeted messages. In order to advertise efficiently, new technology solutions are required to automate aspects of the creative production, information sharing, and the media buying and selling process. At the same time, businesses of all sizes need a more seamless, easy and more affordable solution to access and employ effective advertising. Spot Runner is developing those solutions.
SUB: How did the idea for the company come about?
Gentry: Spot Runner was founded in 2004 by co-founders and tech industry veterans Nick Grouf and David Waxman. Grouf and Waxman have launched several successful startups, first joining forces in 1995 to create Firefly Network, which was acquired by Microsoft in 1998. Its core product, the Firefly Passport, became the foundation for Microsoft’s Passport and .NET initiatives. Next, they launched PeoplePC, which went public in 2000 and was acquired by EarthLink in 2002.
After PeoplePC, they took a break to work on the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign. During the course of the campaign, they saw firsthand the power of TV to get a candidate’s message out and influence voters. But they also saw how complex and expensive it was to produce an ad and get it on air. They believed that technology could help make TV advertising more affordable and accessible for local businesses and put them on a level playing field with larger competitors.
Since its launch, Spot Runner has expanded its capabilities to include not only TV, but radio, online, print and out-of-home. Spot Runner has a successful track record of working with businesses of all sizes and using proprietary technologies to optimize their campaigns.
SUB: How do customers use the service?
Gentry: Spot Runner’s customers can access our services in several ways, including through our web site, phone and email.
SUB: Who do you consider your competitor(s)?
Gentry: We feel there are no other companies that address the unique needs of each advertiser, media company or advertising agency the way Spot Runner does.
SUB: How many customers do you have, and what markets do you target?
Gentry: Spot Runner has thousands of customers spanning many different industries. We’ve seen particularly strong traction with online businesses, luxury goods makers, real estate brokers and agents, legal professionals and law firms, professional and financial services providers, franchises and restaurants.
SUB: Can you briefly outline the process for the customer—how do they purchase airtime, how do they use the service to create ads, etc.?
Gentry: When a potential client calls or emails Spot Runner, a media consultant conducts a thorough evaluation of the business’ past marketing efforts and budgets to determine the optimal advertising campaign to drive results, whether it’s through TV, online, radio, print, out-of-home, or an integrated combination of media. Spot Runner is unique in that it employs proprietary technology and analytics to inform every media plan, target advertisers’ best prospects and optimize each campaign.
When clients choose a pre-produced radio or television ad from Spot Runner’s library, Spot Runner customizes and sends the spot to the client for approval in a couple of days and they can be on air in two weeks. Custom spots take more time, depending on the ad, and print and out-of-home typically have longer lead times and vary depending on the publisher. For clients running search campaigns, Spot Runner uses industry data and information from the client to build out the ad copy and keywords, and its technology constantly optimizes the campaign based on which keywords are working best. It typically takes two weeks for search campaigns to go live.
Clients who want to run a television campaign also have the ability to go through the Spot Runner web site and build a campaign in a self-serve way.
SUB: A few months ago, you closed a $51 million funding round—including investors based in the UK, France and Mexico. Is international expansion a significant part of your plans, moving forward?
Gentry: We’re currently exploring opportunities outside of the U.S. and our strategic investors play a major part in that.
Spot Runner: www.spotrunner.com
August 13, 2008
Q&A with Kishore Seendripu, CEO, MaxLinear
The team at MaxLinear, based in Carlsbad, in Southern California, has developed integrated circuit (IC) semiconductor technology that has applications for various consumer electronics devices. The company has focused on television in particular, and claims to be the first to deliver on the promise of an easy-to-use silicon solution to enable TV on any device. MaxLinear was founded in 2003 and is led by a management team with deep experience in semiconductors.
SUB: What primary need does MaxLinear address?
Kishore Seendripu: We started MaxLinear at the end of 2003 to build small, low-power radio frequency (RF) ICs. We saw that there was a dramatic change going on in the way television would be delivered to consumers, ranging from mobile television to digital television, to so-called “triple-play” services, that is phone, Internet and television service all from one provider. All of these markets need to deliver high-quality television that uses smaller components and consume less power. We focused our early efforts on developing TV tuner ICs that would do that dramatically better than others in the industry thanks to a proprietary CMOS based radio architecture and technology that we pioneered.
SUB: How do you make money? What is your revenue model?Kishore Seendripu: MaxLinear sells ICs to consumer electronics manufacturers and module makers in several markets, including mobile/portable TV, STB, PCTV, and automotive TV.
SUB: How did the idea for the company come about?Kishore Seendripu: My co-founders and I have many years of experience developing radio frequency IC (RF IC) technology. We had our eye on the revolutionary changes in the television market–specifically the transition from analog TV to digital TV. At the time we started the company, RF IC designers were not building broadband RF chips using digital CMOS process technology, even though CMOS process is the most used, most cost effective and most proven silicon technology in the world. The industry had decided that the RF performance required for broadband TV applications was not achievable using low cost CMOS process technology. We thought that if this could be done, not only could you make key television components less expensive, but also reduce their power consumption and size significantly. Low cost, low power, and high performance are essential elements for most TV products, especially mobile TV components. These attributes have become salient to all of MaxLinear’s products.
SUB: What is the impact of your technology on consumers?
Kishore Seendripu: We are really enabling consumers to have TV on any device, any where they want it, be it at home, in cars, on PCs, cell phones, etc. Japan is the first market to really embrace mobile TV–there are millions of cell phones sold every year there with our chips in them showing live digital TV. The innovation around our chip has been amazing, with devices that are very small, yet delivering great TV viewing experience; some of them rival the iPhone in terms of abilities and design. The mobile TV market has been slower to take off in the U.S. and Europe, but we think mobile TV is turning a corner even in these regions. Outside of mobile TV, the main benefit of our product is “greener” television viewing through lower power consumption in the set top boxes and in the TV set.
SUB: Who do you consider your competitor(s)?
Kishore Seendripu: Our primary direct RFIC competitors include Microtune, NXP, Xcieve, and others depending on the application.
SUB: How has the company been financed to this point? Who are your investors?
Kishore Seendripu: We started out bootstrapping the company: putting in our own money, working without pay, and doing contract design work. After we had designed a prototype tuner IC, we sought traditional venture capital funding. After two rounds of venture capital financing from Battery Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners, Mission Ventures, and other strategic investors, we have attained profitability. Currently, we are 120 employees and are still growing.
SUB: How many customers do you have, and what are their general demographics?
Kishore Seendripu: We have over 50 customers including mobile phone manufacturers, module makers, set top box companies, television manufacturers, PC TV system manufacturers and others spread all over the world. As a company, we are able to support our customers at their sites through a very strong applications engineering team located at multiple sites in the US and Asia.MaxLinear: www.maxlinear.com
August 12, 2008
Predicting the Value of a Startup with a Click-of-the-Mouse; Tech Startup Shows Duke it Out
How Viable is Your Startup? YouNoodle Claims it Can Tell You – A new online tool purports to have a formula that predicts the valuation of startups. YouNoodle has released its Startup Predictor, which has received quite a bit of media attention on its launch. All that’s required is to enter some somewhat detailed information about the company (including founders’ backgrounds, etc.), and the Startup Predictor will spit out a scale-based score that the company says is meant to rate the company's promise. Here’s some more from YouNoodle: YouNoodle Predicts the Future of Early-Stage Startups With New Valuation and Ratings Technology
DEMO v. TechCrunch – Apparently, a rivalry is brewing between the DEMO conference, the well-known show where several legendary tech companies have made some of the first demonstrations of their products, and TechCrunch50, a similar venture produced by Michael Arrington and his wildly popular blog. Check out the post on TechCrunch (don’t forget the comments) to find out what it’s all about—it really comes down to TechCrunch positioning its show as a version of DEMO where companies don’t have to pay a hefty fee to participate. But with plenty of startups to cover and lots of innovation happening in the world, can’t we all just get along?
August 08, 2008
Featured Pitch: SodaHead
Web Site: www.sodahead.com
Headquarters: Los Angeles
Year Founded: 2007
Founders: Jason Feffer, CEO, and Michael Glazer, President
Investors: Mohr Davidow Ventures, Tech Coast Angels, Ron Conway, Mission Ventures
Employees: 22
By Jason Feffer
SodaHead.com is the premiere opinion-based social community for user-generated questions and answers focused on discussing today’s hottest topics. Members can join for free and participate by asking and answering questions on a variety of subjects including politics, entertainment, pop culture, music, sports and relationships. Answering questions easily allows members to join discussions, which leads to meeting other people who share similar passions.SodaHead sets itself apart from other social networks because our members stimulate discussions by asking opinionated questions about controversies in the news or everyday lifestyle choices. SodaHead also offers traditional social network features such as customizable profiles, public and private groups, private messaging, blogs, and personal media. When you combine the passionate discussions and social platform in one web site, something amazing happens; members discover and connect with other members on a much deeper level than anywhere else on the Internet.I started SodaHead with my childhood best friend, Michael Glazer. While I served as vice president of operations at MySpace, I’d often call Michael to pitch him various startup ideas. No idea convinced him to leave his senior vice president position at Jefferies & Co., an investment bank. Then one morning, I called him and told him my idea about creating a prediction marketplace based on social wisdom. I envisioned a community site where visitors would answer questions about predictions people made in the news. Michael said, “let’s do it!” but said the site needed to be more social. He laughed at the irony that the investment banker had to tell the guy from MySpace to make it less analytical and more social. He convinced me that to make a site attractive for the masses, we needed to move away from predictions and more toward opinions. This evolved into SodaHead.com.
I resigned from MySpace in 2006 to work full time on developing SodaHead. Michael and I fleshed out ideas for creating a social-network that leveraged questions about hot discussion topics. Shortly after, with Michael’s investment guidance, we received $4.3 million in Series A funding led by Mohr Davidow Ventures, Tech Coast Angels and Ron Conway. In September 2007, we finished beta and launched SodaHead.com.We had an amazing experience watching the site grow so quickly. In less than a year, SodaHead.com registered over 700,000 members who generated more than 3 million answers and more than 4 million comments. When the site first launched, topics focused mostly on music and politics. The members continue to diversify the topics so we now have discussions for everyone ranging from fun subjects such as sports and entertainment to heated debates on hot topics including the 2008 election and cheating in relationships.
The SodaHead community has developed into something far beyond what I could have imagined. We have members so passionate about the community that they have organized local meet-ups, so they get a chance to see their fellow SodaHeads face-to-face. SodaHead will foster this by sponsoring events around the nation and perhaps internationally. SodaHead recently received $8.4 million in Series B funding, led by Mission Ventures. This funding will allow us to accelerate our growth. In September, we’ll reveal the next evolution of the site including an aggregation of the most discussed news articles from across the Internet so everyone can discuss them in one centralized community. This evolution includes a redesign to enhance navigation, discovery of content and optimize viral marketing. These and other new features will create a more engaging experience around fresh, quality content.We also have some exciting partnerships with media and brand companies that will expose SodaHead to their loyal audience and allow them to engage in discussions on their brands. We believe this will establish SodaHead as the best, most popular web site for people to join a community and discuss today’s hottest topics.
August 06, 2008
Q&A with E.Factor
SUB: What primary need does E.Factor address?
Adrie Reinders: Actually, it’s four needs that all entrepreneurs have in their lives—build your business; find funding; save costs; and expert advice and information.
SUB: What exactly can entrepreneurs do on the site?
Adrie Reinders: Entrepreneurs can find funding, get expert advice, network, live chat, post classified ads, post multimedia ads, sell goods and services, attend events, and have access to resources and tools that one needs to help grow their business.
SUB: How do you make money?
Adrie Reinders: From premium memberships, sponsorships and our own Satellites that allow us to bring groups to the platform based on a white-label basis.
SUB: Please explain what the Satellites are, and how they work.
Adrie Reinders: The Satellites are white label community networks that allow the content and information to be controlled by the network owner. For example Cambridge University’s Judge Business School has a satellite (http://cambridge.efactor.com) which it uses to communicate with students and alumni and allow them to connect in a community sense.
SUB: How did the idea for the company come about?
Adrie Reinders: The E.Factor is a unique global community for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs. Roeland Reinders, Marion Freijsen and myself, all serial entrepreneurs, founded the company after the success of our jointly-authored book on networking, “The N Factor.” We began writing a second entitled “E.Factor”—the topic being entrepreneurship, and as a way of gathering insight and feedback and sharing information, we set up a web site. The concept of sharing information amongst entrepreneurs proved to be so interesting that we decided to broaden the scope and use of the site to entrepreneurs globally. It proved to be the beginning of something wonderful—the E.Factor.
The E.Factor is a virtual economy and a network comprised of one factor—growing businesses. By giving entrepreneurs and investors tools both online and offline, our members can connect, promote and find funding all in one location.
In addition to being an online platform, the E.Factor holds 100 events per annum, in keeping with its founders’ belief that business relationships are built on face-to-face contact and trust. The E.Factor team believes in sharing knowledge and helping others, and recognizes that as a group you are stronger than on your own. We believe all entrepreneurs have some unique piece of knowledge or an extraordinary skill with which they can help other entrepreneurs. Bringing that together is what we call the E.Factor—that extra something, which is almost indefinable but which can make all the difference.
SUB: How do customers use the service?
Adrie Reinders: Both online and, of course, by attending events and coming to the E.Factor lounges where they can meet other E.Factor members.
SUB: Who do you consider your competitor(s)?
Adrie Reinders: No one out there that is covering all aspects of what we do, from online to offline, with the different services. There are no real competitors that encompass all of the services that the E.Factor provides to its members.
SUB: How has the company been financed to this point? Who are your investors?
Adrie Reinders: 25 percent of equity sold to friends and family, other then that self-funded.
SUB: How many customers do you have, and what markets do you target?
Adrie Reinders: 50 thousand members in 3 months, considered the fastest growing social network out there. Our targets are entrepreneurs, small businesses and investors.
SUB: How much do you charge for E.Factor memberships?
Adrie Reinders: We offer “Business Class” memberships for $15 per month, and a premium “First Class” membership for $50 per month.
August 04, 2008
Who Wants a Flexible Display? I Do!
This is cool stuff. VentureBeat today featured a company called Plastic Logic—which is developing a flexible, paper-like low power display. The company just raised $50 million. Here’s the article: Plastic Logic sees flexible, low-power displays coming with $50M funding
China and Tech Startup $$
With the Olympics starting in just a few days, we’re seeing more stories than ever about China, from various different angles and perspectives. Here’s an interesting one in the San Francisco Chronicle about American investment in Chinese tech startups: Why Chinese startups draw big U.S. bucks
Google as VC
The search giant is getting into the startup financing business, launching a venture capital fund to be led by the company’s top attorney and senior vice president for corporate development. Here’s more from The Motley Fool: How to Get Google's Billions
More Big Moving Pictures
BMP has an interesting concept for “on-site” advertising at events--we featured a pitch from the company’s founder and CEO, David Knight, on Friday. Now we have some pictures of its Rolling Television Network in action. Check it out:
August 01, 2008
Featured Company: Big Moving Pictures
Web Site: www.bigmovingpictures.com
Headquarters: Las Vegas
Year Founded: 2006
Founders: David Knight, CEO; Wayne Hammack, Advisory Board Member; & Bruce Macurda, CFO
Angel Investors: Brian McClendon (Google Earth), Mark Gibbs (Nielsen Netratings), Dave Weinstein (PayPal), Robert Lawton (NeXT Computer)
Employees: 23
By David Knight, CEO
Big Moving Pictures, or BMP, is the first digital out-of-home media company to bring a home-like television experience to outdoor audiences. BMP’s initial offering, the Rolling Television Network (RTN) has all of the elements that a home TV network does (cameras, directors, production team), but on wheels. The company has “prototyped” its production, operating and business models through its seed phase, including “performing” at twenty events nationwide, and is now moving into a full-scale rollout. We are now pursuing a $15 million institutional funding round to support rapid growth and achieve a “land grab” of the largest events in the U.S. and abroad.
BMP’s RTN solves a major problem for big-name advertisers: how do they know if the public is actually watching their commercials? There are three, somewhat insidious, and impossible to control technologically-based competitors for consumers’ attention: (1) TiVo and other DVR-devices, in many cases embedded within cable and satellite boxes; (2) hundreds of channels available at the flick of the thumb; and (3) perhaps the most disruptive of all, wi-fi—which means that even the lauded Nielsen householders do not have to change the channel during commercial breaks (thus the Nielsen tracking box thinks that the people there are actually watching Desperate Housewives on ABC), they just shift their attention to their laptop, which is now conveniently mobile throughout the home. RTN comes as a timely solution by literally bringing the television experience, and its revenue source—commercials—to where the audiences are gathered and most receptive. Above all, the integration of RTN with very well-attended, popular events virtually guarantees that the audience is watching the content, and paying attention.
During its prototyping period, BMP has developed, tuned and empirically proven its ability to grab and hold the attention of millions of consumers, at gigantic events across the United States. To date, the events have been mostly aviation-oriented, including air shows featuring the United States Navy Blue Angels, and United States Air Force Thunderbirds. The reception by both the performers and crowds has been tremendous, and we have “broken the code” on how to inject TV commercials into what were previously non-media-oriented events. As RTN is expanded to appear at open-wheel motor races, major music festivals and other large-crowd, multi-day events, and internationally, BMP’s revenues are projected to grow exponentially.
Founder’s Story
I am a serial entrepreneur with a passion, and business sense for, the media and communications marketplaces. From a very early age (I was the youngest disk jockey in America at the age of 12), I was captivated by the power of media to engage and motivate the public on a large scale. I worked in a range of industries, from the music recording arena to high-tech defense, and throughout was always pursuing opportunities that placed me at the leading edge of technology and technology adoption. Notably, I participated in the production of the first music CDs ever created, worked on microprocessor-controlled industrial and military systems in that concept’s infancy and eventually developed what became the highest-volume file transfer network on the web (click2send.com, eventually dissolved in the dot-com meltdown). Post-bubble, I took senior positions with a variety of companies in order to perform the triage needed to save them from the meltdown. Of the seven companies I worked with, only one was lost—the remainder were reconstituted, refinanced or sold.
It was during the post-bubble reconstruction period that I came upon the XPRIZE—a $10 million prize being offered to any private group who could successfully create and operate a suborbital spacecraft. I joined in the non-profit effort as vice president and suddenly found myself immersed fully in the world of next-generation aerospace. This was a thrill and a constant challenge, and a real departure from the cubicle world of software and Internet startups. At the final launch of the winning SpaceShip One, developed by legendary aircraft designer Burt Rutan, a camera was mounted onboard that would allow viewers worldwide to witness this history-making spaceflight. I was convinced that there must be a video display technology that would allow watchers on the ground to see the video stream against the blinding Mojave Desert sunlight—I found that Moore’s Law, which was formulated to describe the progression of microprocessor technology, in some form fit with display handling as well—thus over a period of years, big-format, outdoor-capable video systems had been quietly chugging along, morphing into ever-more-powerful displays. I got my hands on a prototype of a very, very bright outdoor television unit to bring the live event to the thousands of people assembled in Mojave to watch it.
Having determined that display technology had indeed advanced to the point where it could be used not only as a credible event-magnification format, but potentially as a next-generation television advertising medium, I began to pursue research into where the advertising industry was going, where it would go if something along the lines of RTN came into being. I gathered a stellar board of advisors, angel investors and others to move Big Moving Pictures from concept to a full-fledged reality—where it is today.
Business Model
Big Moving Pictures’ revenue comes from the running of television commercials, typically in the gaps that naturally occur in major events. The most difficult achievement has not been the overall production, technology or presentation (all had their own difficulties but are solved), it’s the expansion of the “gaps” into actual fixed times wherein RTN content and advertisements can be run. This requires the cooperation of many constituencies including the performers, promoters, schedulers, even safety officials. All have to allow RTN to, in essence, open a gap in the day (say, an air show) where RTN-produced content (say, a 90-second clip introducing one of the Blue Angel pilots) can be run, accompanied by commercials from national advertisers. The audience finds this very comfortable since it approximates their experience in television-watching at home, and the event promoter gets a piece of the revenue in exchange for this “virtual real estate”—so everyone is happy. Commercial time is sold in 30-second increments, just like broadcast TV, and per-viewer rates are approximately the same as prime-time, high-end cable like Discovery Channel.
Current Needs
BMP is now deploying over twenty salespeople nationwide to introduce RTN to big-name advertisers (these are national brands), to entice some of their TV advertising money over to this modern, closed-loop medium. As the company expands into many events and event-types around the world, revenues are expected to place it into the big leagues within a short few years. For this “land grab” to continue, the company is assembling an institutional-class funding round during the latter part of this year.
Long considered a “serial entrepreneur,” David Knight has founded or participated in the buildup of numerous startup companies in the high-tech and consumer media industries. From his first paying job as the youngest disk jockey in America, through to his current development of the world’s first rolling television network (Big Moving Pictures), he has always operated at the leading edge of the customer experience and technology.
