1/4/11

1/4/11

Good morning, All, and hope you had a fabulous start to the new year. And we’re referring to the weather here in NYC, nothing more (that we’re aware of) – freezing and 19” of snow to end the year; 50 degrees and balmy on New Year’s Day, which we will take as a good portent.

Congratulations (again) to Emily Lutzker (openinvo.com), who ended the year with a write-up in Techcrunch (this time) and started the new year with paying customers! The piece is here: http://tcrn.ch/hCS6oc and just for the record, we love sharing good news about members, so if you have news, do tell!

January deadline reminders:

Deadline today! The Women in Wireless are putting together a panel for CTIA in Orlando (3/22-3/24). It’s on hot mobile startups with female founders and will be featured in the venture track. So if you’re a female founder of a hot mobile startup – or know of one – and want to participate, contact veronika@doubledutchstudios.com. Now. And thank you!

TechStars #Boston now accepting applications for class of Spring 2011 http://www.TechStars.org/schedule. You have until January 13 for the early application deadline. Deadline for all applications is January 31.

Adweb 3.0 San Francisco takes place on April 11, 2011 at 600 Townsend Ave., but early registration discount ($100 off the $299 rate) ends January 15. This includes all sessions, meals, the Awards and reception. (http://adweb30.com/register.html). Maxim Group Publisher Ben Madden (http://maxim.com) will keynote, as will Scott Kurnit, About.com founder and Chairman, CEO and founder of AdKeeper (http://adkeeper.com). For more information: http://adweb30.com

The Adobe/Motorola Video Contest. Motorola and Adobe are seeking original, inventive ideas to convey the exciting possibilities made possible with full web browsing on new mobile devices like the DROID smartphones by Motorola with Adobe® Flash® Player. There are two contests available with different briefs – one for an ad and another for a short film. So get your creative juices working and get filming. You can enter both contests with as many different videos as you like. Grand Prize: A trip to Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress. There will also be four runners-up prizes, and the deadline for entry is January 31. For more information: http://bit.ly/dLJQbO.

Next, InSITE is currently accepting applications for its Spring 2011 cycle at http://insiteny.org. Application deadline is January 21. InSITE provides early stage companies with pro bono consulting services to help raise Seed or Series A financing. InSITE companies have raised over $215 million in venture funding since 2000. Beyond mentoring services, the program also provides networking opportunities, speaker events, and a final pitch event featuring our affiliated VC and Angel partners. More information can be found on the website.

For our North Carolina-based members: 1/11/11 is LaunchBox Digital Demo Day and you gotta love those digits. Join local, regional and national investors at the inaugural Demo Day for LaunchBox Digital. It is the “1” event you won’t want to miss this year. Seven companies will present their products and vision in some of the most interesting and expansive markets today, including: a) group buying, b) social media, c) wireless healthcare, d) cloud computing and e) social gaming. It’s in Durham, by the way, and register here: http://launchboxdemoday.eventbrite.com/

For your edification, the pieces we like this week:
Interesting piece on the life/work balance: The Myth of the Work-Life Balance Crisis http://bit.ly/h9kMuKand hey, startups:The NFI survey found 78 percent of people in big companies felt most business people were unbalanced, compared to just 63 percent of people in small companies.

The VC Meeting: How to Ask for Money — and Get It (http://www.bnet.com/blog/smb/the-vc-meeting-how-to-ask-for-money-and-get-it/2010). Yes, I know it’s last year’s news, but she gives a few pointers up front that are good to keep in mind.

20 Business Truisms That Can Change Your Life. http://bit.ly/eJeK7A The writer admits that this is part Freud, part Tao and part Ayn Rand. Still, they’re all practical lessons that can help your career … or even change your life and it’s a new year, so thought we’d throw it in.

http://www.12monthstolaunch.com/ is a blog written by SOS member Veronika Sonsev. She’s doing a startup of her own, and so doesn’t have a lot of time to blog, no doubt. Still, her information – and experiences which she shares – are always worth a read. Her latest post is about Developing a Network of Advisors. Building your advisory board should be an ongoing part of your business planning, she suggests, and ain’t it the truth.

Finally, What Start-ups Can Learn from the Big Brands, coincidentally, also written by an SOS member – Howard Greenstein. There, lest we forget the importance of the customer, as they do, seemingly as a rule, at Bloomingdale’s: http://bit.ly/gp9oVk

Oh, and just for fun: 2011: The Year You Weren’t Expecting. Did you know that on July 12, the planet Neptune completes its first full orbit since its discovery on Sept. 23, 1846. Ok, not earth-shattering, but we do have a love for facts and science. For more interesting little tidbits on the year – not tech related – http://bit.ly/eR97AT

So, 2011 is the Year of the Hare (or Rabbit), according to the Chinese calendar, and a placid year, very much welcomed and needed after the ferocious year of the Tiger, according to what we found out about it on line. More good news: Money can be made without too much labor. Or so they say.

Now that we’re all back at work, it’s that time again: the moment you’ve been waiting for and yes, once again, help is on the way…

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