10/18/11

10/18/11

Good morning, All,

Yes, EW+SOS+ER Rock Out is tonight and we will have investors and potential cofounders there for you to meet. This time, it’ll be taking place at the Empire State Building, and the view is – again – spectacular so don’t miss it! http://bit.ly/mY5QED

Special help for you and a word from our sponsor: Corporate Tax Network is a national accounting and consulting firm catering exclusively to the entrepreneurial, start-up, and SMB business communities.  Since our founding nearly ten years ago, we have supported thousands of clients both nationally and internationally from a wide range of industries with their tax planning and preparation needs.  Due to our niche in the start-up community, we understand the issues that new organizations face, and we consult with these firms in order to facilitate growth.  In addition to our tax services, CTN also provides incorporation assistance, bookkeeping, payroll, business planning services, and wealth management services. They’re also hosting our EW+SOS+ER event at the Empire State Building – and offering SOS members an opportunity to sign up for a free “intro to business taxes” webinar. If you’d like to pass ‘Go’ and contact Ryan directly, email him at rcain@corporatetaxnetwork.com, and make sure to mention SOS.

Technology and the herd and we refer to the proliferation of accelerators and semi-incubators (by which we mean the General Assemblies and New Work Cities of the world: spaces where entrepreneurs gather to work, and hang and exchange ideas with other entrepreneurs). As for accelerators, Y Combinator might have been first (but don’t quote us) and TechStars might call themselves #1, but neither is the only game in any town, and the list is growing. Globally (Help for Startups! – A semi-complete list of – global – startup accelerator programs  http://bit.ly/aSjtsh while closer to home, Mark Birch offers his (growing) list of NYC tech incubators and workspaces http://bit.ly/ntoNzb). Being a mentor in one (ERA) and after having attended demo days for several more, while the equity you surrender upfront might seem steep to some, there is strength in those numbers: the help that is offered, be it mentoring, legal, office space; they attract a fair amount of next-stage investors come demo day; and the energy of having that many startups in a fairly confined space for an intense three-month period – well, whether you sink or swim, you are prepared come demo day. There are a number of accelerator deadlines coming up – and more to come, we’re sure, and if you’re considering one, here are 7 Common Mistakes Startups Make on Accelerator Program Applications. To help you get an edge, here are the most common pitfalls and what you can do to hack those startup accelerator applications. http://on.mash.to/er9xJQ. Now – and once you’ve gone through a program, it’s up to you to fly on your own petard, but always good to at least take that first step.

Speaking of which, we heard that Last the NYC Mayor Bloomberg showed up at the New York Tech Meetup and announced a new council on technology and innovation, and the 3rd Big Apps Awards. The council, to be chaired by the deputy mayor, is made up of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs to explore ways Bloomberg’s administration can foster growth in the local technology community. “We can’t sit here and let Silicon Valley be bigger than us in anything,” Bloomberg said, perhaps reacting to Paul Graham’s declaration that he was not bringing a Y Combinator to NYC, and what are the startup costs for that? Is another committee really going to help foster technology and innovation? Is throwing $100 million in tax payer dollars (for a new tech college campus) of an already strapped city really going to make a huge difference to the entrepreneurial landscape? Bloomberg did recall his early days as an entrepreneur in the city – and we do wish he’d recalled things like tax burdens; the endless paperwork of incorporating/regulations involved in setting up a business in New York as opposed to Delaware or Nevada or any number of other East Coast states that our budding entrepreneurs tend to gravitate to. And of course there are more regulations now than when he first started his business. If politicians can’t remember everything about their roots, we wish that they’d consider their grassroots – at least occasionally.Onward and forward.

Deadlines:

NEW Silicon Alley Gets Its Own TEDx Conference, betabeat reported (http://bit.ly/reF16b) and tickets are going fast. Mark Thursday, October 27th on your calendar, because GREY Advertising will be open up its Fifth Avenue space to a host of speakers from the city’s booming tech scene. Buy your ticket here. Now: http://tedxsiliconalley.eventbrite.com/ And kudos to SOS members Chris Grayson and Kelly Haldous for putting it together!

NEW Anna Curran is the New York Co-Founder of The Startup Foundation (a Kauffman Foundation project). It takes a lot for a startup to get noticed in this town. Lack of visibility is one of the many a major challenges facing an entrepreneur who is on the path to growing and scaling their businesses. To answer the call, the Startup Foundation  NYC will be hosting press events where journalists will have the opportunity connect with several startups curated by theme. The goal is to reveal early stage startups to journalists and help them gain traction. If you’d like a shot at some great press for your startup, here’s a start: http://bit.ly/qsyWz4 Winners will be notified November 2nd.

ER Accelerator is now accepting applications for its winter session. You don’t have to be NYC based, but you will have to move here during the program – and it is worth your while: each company gets $25,000 in seed funding and three months of:
Free collaborative office space in the heart of New York City
Best-of-class one-on-one mentoring from 140+ of industry’s best experts (both during and after the three month session)
Access to experienced technologists, UI gurus and other product experts
Free legal and other services
Hands-on help from inSITE business interns and engineering interns
Exposure to dozens of leading seed investors and VCs during the Accelerator
At the end of the session, startups will pitch to hundreds of angel investors and venture capitalists and continue to utilize the ER Accelerator network indefinitely! So get those applications in. Deadline: November 19th: http://eranyc.com/apply/

NEW 100th Roundtable Recap, and we thank Mark Peter Davis for sharing: The 1M/1M program aims to help a million entrepreneurs globally reach $1 million in revenue (and beyond), thereby building the foundation of a robust, distributed and sustainable economic value creation that would add up to $1 trillion dollars in global GDP. It would also result in creating at least 10 million jobs around the world. And today, we have a group of early adopter premium members who are making good use of the program. In over 100 roundtables, the founder has personally coached more than 400 early-stage entrepreneurs. And between the free and premium programs, as well as the blog, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, we have a community of more than 200,000 people engaged in the initiative at various levels. Deadlines coming up: Thursday, October 20, Register Here; Thursday, October 27, Register Here.

We mentioned Hubitat last week, and do check it out: it features excellent amenities, associated corporate services – and its backed by a team of mentors, including serial entrepreneurs and angel investors to help members where and when they need it. We’re excited about the model and will keep you posted on the series of launch events, and you can also track them on facebook & twitter @hubitat. They will be opening anon, and it seems to us a cross between an accelerator and an incubator/shared office space, with mentors in residence. The best of both worlds, so stay tuned.

6th Annual New England Venture Summit  – Call for Top Innovators and an SOS discount! The early deadline for presenting company applications is October 26thIf you are a Startup seeking capital and/or partnerships, submit your plan for the opportunity to present at the premier venue connecting emerging growth companies with active Venture Capitalists, Angel Investors, Corporate VCs and Investment Firms. A select group of 50 Top Innovators from the technology, life sciences and Clean-tech sectors will be chosen to present their breakthrough investment opportunities to an exclusive audience of investors.. E-mail iwant2present@youngstartup.com for more details and an application. To nominate a company please forward: company name, main contact at firm, contact details and why you think they should present to nominations@youngstartup.com. The event happens December 14th; 50% off if you register by November 9th: http://bit.ly/nCkYN6For a further discount, the code is: sos.

NEW Women 2.0 Startup Weekend in SF, November 18th– 20th. We provide the co-working space and brain fuel, and you bring the energy and innovation to build something big over the weekend. Both men and women are invited to get your ticket for Women 2.0 Startup Weekend now! To register: http://w2.startupweekend.org/tickets/

Samsung’s $100k Challenge to Developers, deadline November 29th. Samsung is offering $225,000 in cash and prizes for the most innovative converged apps that enable an interactive home entertainment experience between Samsung TVs and other devices. The 2011 Samsung Free the TV Challenge invites software developers to create compelling converged apps that offer seamless user interaction between a Samsung Smart TV and at least one other screen, such as a phone, tablet or computer. Last year, we released the first-ever Samsung TV App SDK and launched the 2010 Free the TV Challenge to develop native apps on our line of Smart TVs and Blu-ray devices. This year we take another leap forward to free the TV with “converged apps” — multi-screen apps that offer immersive, interactive home entertainment experiences. For more information and to apply: http://www.freethetvchallenge.com/

The 5th Annual PITCH: Women 2.0 Startup Competition, deadline November 30th. For more information and to apply: http://bit.ly/pVlwCg The competition is open to early-stage ventures around the world, from high growth business ventures in web to mobile, from cleantech to gaming. Applying companies must have a female in the founding team, be in beta stage, and have received less than 3 million in funding.

NEW NYC Big App Awards – New York City is challenging software developers to create apps that use city data to make NYC better. $50k in cash and prizes! You have from now until January 25th to enter. For more information and to apply: http://2011.nycbigapps.com/

The Appy Awards – enter once and you could win twice. Deadline March 21, 2012 but any entry you submit today may also be selected as our “Featured App of the Week“, scoring you some seriously instant gratification. And we doesn’t love that? For more information and to enter – any time – http://appyawards.net/

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For you edification this week

Understanding How Dilution Affects You at a Startup. Always a thorny issue, So here is Mark Suster’s crack at explaining the world of dilution to you. Let us know what you think. And if you want more goodness like this don’t forget to sign up to my newsletter and follow Jess on Twitter.  We’ll bring you some more goodness again. Let us know what topics you want us to break down for ya. Complete with infographics – and a haircut: http://bit.ly/oXyQcf

Steve Jobs and the Seven Rules of Success. Over the years, I’ve become a student of sorts of Jobs’ career and life, the writer offers. Here’s my take on the rules and values underpinning his success. Any of us can adopt them to unleash our “inner Steve Jobs.” From Entrepreneur: http://bit.ly/oh6c6m

Founders And VCs Reveal 21 Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read. There are some surprises – and some you should have already read in high school. http://read.bi/oyhCrr

Fletcher’s angry list of startup rules. Mark Fletcher was the creator of Bloglines and Onelist (which, after merging with eGroups, sold to Yahoo and became Yahoo Groups).His advice is spot-on for a lot of the web 2.0 companies being launched now and his list is a little edgier than a lot of the smile-faced spin you see on VC blogs. Note that Mark himself seems to start companies during down-cycles, and sell them when the market gets hot. Then he goes on vacation for a year or two and waits for the next down-cycle. Listen and learn: http://bit.ly/ExlcZ

Internal Google Memo on Platfroms. This was never supposed to go live, but oops, there you have it. Or, here you have it and great stuff, in case you missed it: http://bit.ly/oUIwSN

Occupying My Mind. Fred Wilson, who wrote this #OWS post, is very much part of the 1% and not the 99. He makes good points, and certainly touched off a fire storm in the comments section. http://bit.ly/mX8V7T

For your amusement this week, Siri says some weird things, but you’ve got to admit: Siri has personality. And maybe a few things you’d have never thought of. It’s a definite chuckls: http://bit.ly/ns294v

That’s it from us and as some of you know, it’s been a rough week for me, personally, so we do hope you come out to the Empire State Building tonight and whether you make it on not, no worries. As always, help is on the way…

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