STARTUPS: INVESTMENT POTENTIAL & READINESS

Last Friday I was invited to speak along with the Hatchery at the Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Adams Center for Entrepreneurship. FAU’s previously held business plan competition was such a success that they wanted to capitalize on the momentum that was generated and provide additional value to the talent that had emerged. As a result, the one-day workshop was created targeting Startups to help them “Increase Business Readiness for Investment and Growth.”

Topics included: Market Need, Revenue/Business Models, Investment Potential and Readiness, Proof of Concept, Hurdles – Ideas & Strategies, Digital Marketing, Crowd Funding, and Legal considerations. My presentation was about Investment Potential and Readiness.

The allotted time was 45 minutes, however my speech ran over by 55% --- no one left and no one stopped me. I guess that was good, either that or the door was looked. Anyway, my friend Marc Kaplan was good enough to video the presentation – although he missed the first 5 minutes and it took him another couple of minutes to stop shaking the camera! Here’s the full presentation minus the first few minutes: (Watch the large-screen version directly on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lca6GvPDZwY)

Miami Startupbus Rolls in to Baton Rouge!

[This is a copy of a comment I posted to a great article regarding the Baton Rouge team on the Miami startupbus - photo credit John Berjarano]


As a tech executive, technology investor, and the person who ran the Miami Startupbus, I was blown away by the talent of the team from Baton Rouge. Great things will come from these individuals and I am both proud to have met them and look forward to doing business with each of them in the future. More so, it felt like the entire city of Baton Rouge turned out to welcome us and embrace this crazy startup phenomenon --- this microcosm of real-life condensed to the confines of a bus and executed in less than “internet time”.

This was a challenge, a competition, a search for talent and spirit and passion. What we found in Baton Rouge was all of this and more and cannot be explained simply in words. It truly is an experience, an entrepreneurial culture thriving and expanding beyond the limits of the city. I am honored to have been part of all of this and humbled at the opportunity to meet and share and enjoy the experience with the businesses, educational institutes, and governmental communities of Baton Rouge.

It is true that this year we had six buses from all over the country filled with entrepreneurs – a group representing the future of startups in this country. It is not by accident that the only place in the country that two of the buses came together during this journey was Baton Rouge.

Having recently invested in a startup from the LSU incubator, I know about the entrepreneurial spirit in Baton Rouge – and now the whole world does too! Thank you to all that helped make this happen, thank you to my friend Terry Jones, and thank you to everyone lucky enough to call Baton Rouge their home!

Warmest regards,

Steve Repetti
Miami Startupbus “Conductor”
CEO/www.radwebtech.com

Here's the original article thaat inspired my post: http://digbatonrouge.com/article/birthing-a-business-on-a-bus-483/

Data Portability 2011 - Call to Action++

If you’ve read my blog before, you know that I have been advocating the principals behind data portability for some time. More so, I am quite active in the organized effort surrounding data portability – first as a general participant in the International non-profit, then as a board member, officer, and most recently vice-chair.


Now, I am honored and humbled to have been elected as the 2011 Chairman of the Silicon Valley-based non-profit DataPortability organization (http://www.dataportability.org). I have big shoes to fill as the result of all of the good that has come from the efforts of my predecessors, but I am excited, energized, and surrounded by terrific folks who share the passion and vision of data portability.

2011 is poised to be a banner year in the world of data portability. Increasingly the subject commands leading headlines as the Facebooks and Googles of the world run head-on into the will of their users. And, prior DP efforts, including the DPP-initiative “Portability Policy”, are on the verge of hitting mainstream. Exciting times. Truly. And I for one consider myself fortunate to be on the front line of all of this. But so too can you. Join us in this effort. Effect a change. Influence a direction. Solidify a policy. Join the data portability movement today!

Regards,

Steve Repetti
DataPortability Chairman

RockMelt Builds on Facebook’s Data Portability

An innovative new product has entered the scene that will likely test the resolve of Facebook and others as it relates to data portability. RockMelt (www.rockmelt.com) is a customized implementation of the open source (Google) Chrome browser that tightly integrates social media while maintaining the comfort (and speed) of the Chrome browsing environment. It is so tight in fact that Facebook is likely trying to figure out what to do with this revolutionary – and potentially dangerous (to them) – new thing. You see, RockMelt gives you much of the experience of being inside of Facebook without actually being there – including no Facebook ads — all thanks to Facebook’s data portability capabilities. In many cases the RockMelt browser does Facebook BETTER than Facebook.



Of course if Facebook looks at all of this with an open mind, they will realize that RockMelt has “officially” made Facebook the center of the social communications universe – and FB’s data portability initiatives are powering an increasingly expanding wave (sorry Google, no pun intended) that solidifies that position. The question remains whether Facebook will embrace this direction and take it even further or feel threatened and seek to crush that which it does not control. I for one wouldn’t be surprised if the RockMelt browser became the Facebook browser…

Regardless of the result, it is the innovative use of data portability that sparked this particular seed of innovation.

Facebook Data Portability Takes First Step into the Light

Today’s announcement from Facebook represents the most important statement from them to-date regarding Data Portability. But to be clear, it is by no means the ultimate solution we all seek. Still, it represents major movement in the right direction.

First, you literally can draw a line on the calendar and say “prior to this date it was virtually impossible to get meaningful information out of Facebook without being a programmer” – that has now changed. Is it everything we could want? No, but it’s a pretty good start. It’s not so much what you can do with the information today, rather that it is available and will absolutely fuel innovation tomorrow. Sure, other services will use this information, but Facebook is showing leadership as well as responding to the will of its user base – to the benefit of us all.

Secondly, and more importantly in my mind, this announcement shows the elevation in importance of openness and standardization. More than a few of us scratched our heads when open-source guru David Recordon joined the walled-garden giant not so long ago. So it is with great excitement we learned today that David’s efforts (along with all of his cohorts and team members) have succeeded from the inside where so many others have failed from the outside.

From a pure data portability perspective, there is still much more that Facebook can do, but I applaud their direction and effort. This is way more than PR, this is policy that has grown from within and is now escaping into the light. Today’s announcement is the beginning; the Sleeper is waking; and openness lives on with more on the way.

Kudos.

–Steve Repetti
Vice-chair, DataPortability.org

How I Came to Uninstall IE9 BETA in 5 Minutes

First, let me say that I am a long-time Microsoft fan. I’ve met Bill Gates a few times and have had dinner with Steve Balmar (back in the original “Year of the LAN” days). That’s not to say that they don’t frustrate or disappoint me from time to time – they do, like everyone else (myself included now and then). Which leads me to the recent BETA release of IE9. I am excited to see HTML 5 support finally make it to the IE platform and was looking forward to testing it on my computer. I am a frequent tester of early release software, so I have no problem with Alpha or Beta releases – however, when the BETA stamp is on it I do have a reasonable expectation that general functionality will work.


My experience with IE9 BETA started well enough --- the system downloaded and installed easily and had no problem that I had other browsers open at the time (IE8, Chrome, and Firefox – yes, I use ALL of them for testing). Once installed I was politely asked to reboot the system, which I did, and (eventually) up came my computer. Everything appeared normal and in its place. There was no obvious magical IE9 button and all of my IE icons on my desktop were intact. So, I clicked on the first one and PRESTO, up popped IE9.

I’ve already been following the progress of IE9 so I wasn’t surprised at the new toolbar design and top screen real-estate efficiencies. It is certainly different and will take some time to get used to it, but my initial reaction was positive. The new IE9 opening page is very nice and really shows off some of the cool things we can all expect to see as HTML 5 starts making its way across the web. The first “normal” page I navigated to was a simple static HTML page and everything looked great; after that, not so much.

After all the hubabaloo regarding flash, I was really surprised that the first page I went to with a simple embedded flash object did not work; that’s not to say it didn’t display --- it did – sort of. IE9 made Flash flash – literally. As I scrolled down the page, the flash object alternatingly was there, then disappeared, then flashed in a strange strobe-like manner! Ok, I thought, not ready for prime time, but I’ll just resume my development projects back on IE8 and “play” with IE9 when I get a chance. Not so fast – ALL of my IE icons now link to IE9! So, IE9 has got to go.

Trying to uninstall IE9 was itself an adventure. It does not show up on the installed programs list and took some time to figure out how to get it off without causing damage. But for now, it is gone. In hind sight, it would have been much better if it had left all of my existing links and applications alone, and simply installed a new icon to use for testing. In any case, I’ll try again at some point and hope that they continue to evolve the product. IE9 is REALLY important to Microsoft --- its success means the difference of carrying on a dynasty, or handing the reigns over to Google Chrome; IMHO.

Facebook Embraces Data Portability – Again

Today, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, made his strongest endorsements of Data Portability to date. Speaking from the company’s Palo Alto offices earlier today he stated:

“There is this concept of data portability that we’re trying to enable. We believe that people own their information and not only should they have control over it, but they should be able to take it to other services.”

This is a bold pronouncement from a company that has all too often been perceived as being more closed than open when it comes to data policies.

Of course the devil is in the details, particularly in understanding better what he means when he says “this concept of data portability that we’re trying to enable” – hopefully the “concept” is the same one most other folks understand to be regarding data portability.

As for the rest of his statement, it is a significant milestone for him to say “people own their information” and that they “should be able to take it to other services. If this holds true, then Facebook may be on the verge of becoming the largest and most influential supporter of data portability – to the significant benefit of all.

Still, Facebook has been here before – having initially joined the non-profit Data Portability organization and then largely remaining on the sidelines.

Hopefully, this all comes to pass and Facebook becomes the shining example of how a large company can balance direction and profitability with open data policies. If not, Mark’s words will likely become a rallying point that will surely stick in his side.

But, for now we’ll take him at his word, literally, and hope that the corner has turned. If this is in fact the case, then one of the best things that Mark and Facebook could do is to enact an official Portability Policy – just like those suggested by the recently released PortabilityPolicy.org from the Data Portability organization.

Read more: http://social.venturebeat.com/2010/05/26/zuckerberg-motivations/