Good morning, All,

First, yes, it’s finally happened: we’ve built out the StartupOneStop website, and all of the past newsletters are there – sans posts, as we respect your privacy and wouldn’t want to be responsible for you being spammed by the world at large. Happy to hear your feedback/suggestions and our thanks to our developer – an SOS member who built it in a day. Seriously! If you’d like to get in touch with him, let us know (hello@startuponestop.com) and happy to make the introduction. Also, our thanks to those of you who utilized our new ‘donate’ button and showed your appreciation. Thank you so much and donations – and sponsorships, now that the website’s more robust – are always appreciated!

Our first SOS bbq of the season will be on May 3rd on it will be in NYC, not Chicago (eventbrite glitch and sorry about that). rain date: May 10th), sponsored once again by our friends at 1099partners.com (http://www.1099partners.com/). Come and have some BBQ, talk to the 1099 people and enjoy the great outdoors in a lovely garden! $15 in advance; $20 at the door. To RSVP: http://sosbbq20121.eventbrite.com/

Our next SOS 1-on-1 with an investor will be in a couple of weeks and we have a direct pipeline to a group of serious angels whose representative will be at the event. Caveat: you must send us your deck in advance, and you can submit from anywhere in the world. The focus is on startups who have developed product and are looking to get to the next level, which means, you need the money to get there, and they’re not focusing on any particular vertical.  To clarify: You do not have to be at the event, but if you are in the NYC area, it’s recommended that you come and have face time, if they’ve asked to meet with you after having seen your deck. For every one else, well, there’s VOIP, so do feel free to send your deck to hello@startuponestop.com and we will pass it to investors’ rep. Good luck, And looking forward to seeing them!

Next, an exclusive SOS Member Offer: Complimentary Admission to NY XPO for Business. Because of our long standing support of the NY XPO for Business we are thrilled to offer YOU COMPLIMENTARY ADMISSION ($15 Value). This offer is not available anywhere else. FREE 1-DAY XPO PASS INCLUDES UNLIMITED NETWORKING & 2 SEMINARS
Date: May 2 – 3 2012
Location: Javits Center Hall 1A – 655 West, 34th Street, New York, NY 10001
For more information and to register: http://bit.ly/PQPDb
Discount code: COMP1

It’s not easy landing a domain name these days and as a result, startups come up with some – let’s be kind and say – ‘inventive’ names. Remember: your name is your brand. Instagram. Great name. Tells you what it is and they did rather well with the name and the company they built with it. How important is a name? 12 Apps That Will Help You Quit Instagram Forever Hipstamatic? Seriously? Does it tell you what they’re doing, and in what space? http://read.bi/HYGWLM From former entrepreneur/current VC Mark Suster (and his aptly named Both Sides of the Table), “when you think about a brand you need to create a name that will represent the kind of organization or community you want to build. You can either have a functional name (i.e. Instagram) or a nonsense name that doesn’t paint you into any particular corner (Twitter). (Some Thoughts on Branding Startups and Communities: http://bit.ly/I3CRVE). Speaking of names, why should any place outside of Silicon Valley be ‘silicon’ anything? Once you’re derivative, you set ourself up for comparison and have only yourself to blame. Come up with a name that differentiates you. It can be simple: Apple. Orange. But careful about phrases associated with it. You notice there’s no Banana. Who’d want to be referred to by some press wag as a ‘second banana.’ Stay away from bananas. As many of you know, we’re a recruiter by trade and years ago, after one of my associates placed their VP of Engineering, a SV-based startup called asking for their next hire – their head of business development. So, we called a BD/Marketing candidate we knew. “They’re going after a space that their lead competitor totally owns, and the first thing I intend to tell them is that they need to change the company name. We decided against submitting him, and here’s a lesson in keeping your own council and not to necessarily listen to the marketing guy. And Google it is, to this day. Onward and forward.

Deadlines:

ERA Summer 2012 Application deadline: April 29th Yes, it’s here in NYC, with access to world-class mentors, office space, and more. Each company receives $25,000/8% equity. And we’re one of the mentors! For more information and to apply: http://eranyc.com/apply/

NEW TechCrunch Disrupt Early Bird ticket extended to April 30^th. Yes, it’s pricey, so if anyone has a ticket for me, do let me know! http://tcrn.ch/I3XzEX

The Second Annual User Experience Awards are here! Submission deadline May 1^st. The User Experience Awards aim to honor and celebrate outstanding UX projects and practitioners. The UX Awards are produced in partnership with IXDA NY, NYC Chapter of the UPA and NYC-CHI and culminate with an Awards Ceremony on June 12 in NYC. We’re actively seeking submissions from UX professionals for this year’s Awards! If you think you’ve worked on a project in the last two years that shows great user experience in terms of the final product or the process you followed, please submit your project, app, software, website, or even strategy to UserExperienceAwards.com by May 1 2012! Enter to win cash prizes, press, PR and community recognition! Full details of the submission process can be found on http://userexperienceawards.com/

NEW   IBM SmartCamp Kick Start New York, deadline May 4^th. SmartCamp is an exclusive global program bringing together entrepreneurs, investors and experienced mentors who want to build a Smarter Planet. SmartCamp provides access to world-class advisors plus a direct route to seed and venture capital. Selected companies work with our global mentor network consisting of world-class entrepreneurs, investors and industry experts. 0 equity taken. For more information and to apply: http://bit.ly/IbI6n9

Hacker School: Summer 2012 Applications Open, deadline May 7^th: http://bit.ly/Inm9fo. It will run from June 4 to August 25. The batch will be hosted at Etsy, which is also sponsoring $50,000 worth of scholarships for female programmers (Hacker School remains free for all students; the scholarship money is for living expenses). We’re trying to make this batch at least 50% women. For more information: http://bit.ly/Ilm8fm

NEW   Seedcamp Berlin, deadline May 15^th. Seedcamp is an early stage mentoring and investment program that engages startups through our monthly Seedcamp Events, where entrepreneurs present their companies, network, receive mentoring, and compete for investment by Seedcamp. Yearly, we invest in about 20 companies. For more information and to apply: http://www.seedcamp.com/ Seedcamp NYC is coming up in June. Watch for it.

Blueprint Health: Transform health & wellnesswith your startup, deadline June 8^th. Blueprint Health is a startup accelerator based in New York City that helps entrepreneurs improve the health and wellness industry. We offer an intensive three-month program and provide $20,000 of seed capital, extensive mentorship and a shared work environment to help entrepreneurs go from idea to prototype and provide access to angel and venture capital investors. For more information and to apply: http://www.blueprinthealth.org/

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For you edification this week:

Speaking of Goog, If only they’d use their powers for good… Sergey Brin’s dilemma. There’s lots Google could do that would protect all Internet users from being harmed by dangerous elements within any government, or any other organized group: http://zd.net/JgSFqh

Speaking of marketers…Are we entering another bubble? A lot of activity going on in the market with +$1bil. valuations for companies with relatively low revenues or in Instagram’s case, none whatsoever.  According to the author, the cloud is a game changer, like the Internet was in the 90’s and its going to completely disrupt the way consumer services are launched (if it hasn’t already). Yes, we do remember when it was called ‘networked computing’ and in this case, hats off to the marketer who changed the name to deceive the clueless: http://bit.ly/HS7ppz

Having a cofounder is a blessing and a curse at the same time. You will always have someone to rely on and get advice from. Things will get done faster. There will be arguments. Some you win, some you lose. Everything is manageable with a cofounder if you both have the same vision. If that changes it’s better to move on. http://bit.ly/IZmSTX

In its 3^rd year, Kickstarter successfully raises over $119 million, taking home $6 million in commissions. Interesting statistics here, including the most popular categories for investment, and yes, $1 is tech: http://tnw.co/JiHDMr

The ugly side of Kickstarter. Not all Kickstarter projects will succeed. It’s inevitable that some will fail. Some lessons – and caveats – on how to pitch on kickstarter : http://bit.ly/Ih43PP

And the winners are…Demo took place this past week, and good stuff always comes out of it. Here are this year’s Demo gods: http://bit.ly/Ji2RfQ

It can be done – How Niche Content Sites Can Build And Keep Audiences. http://tcrn.ch/JjmZ3o

NY Tech Meetup’s rising voice. We were personally an early member of the NYTech meetup, back in 2004 and there certainly weren’t 800 people in the room. Not even close. Now its becoming a force to be reckoned with. Which doesn’t make it any easier to get a ticket, but still: http://bit.ly/JikYSY

That’s it from us this week, and hope you have an opportunity to check out the new and improved SOS website (https://startuponestop.com/). We also welcome your feedback, and if there’s anything we’ve missed, do let us know! Also, lots of member news today, and please do keep us in the loop on good news that you’d like to share!  And now, as always, help is on the way…