A little breaking news here, folks. Through a strategic partnership between a number of groups, including the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG), the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA), the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, ATDC, Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDEcD), AEA, and others, a new $30M early stage technology venture fund is in the formative stages. Still early in the process, but this is certainly good news for Georgia entrepreneurs.

Tino Mantella, the President of TAG joined us for a great podcast over at StartupLounge.com. In addition to giving us a nice update on this initiative, Tino also shared with us some other goodies, such as a new partnership with the ATDC. Take a listen for more details!

Cheers.

While speaking recently at the monthly meeting of Team Ivy here in Atlanta, I witnessed a rather unique way of introducing yourself to others. As part of the opening of the meeting, all of the attendees took turns giving their 2 minute personal pitch. As part of that pitch, they included a statement about their personal “unfair competitive advantage.”

I began thinking about how this ties into entrepreneurship at the early stage. Establishing and understanding your unfair competitive advantage early on gives you, well, an advantage!

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Jack Humphrey had a great post this morning summing up why he thinks the Web 2.0 free-for-all is over, yet the Web 2.0 movement is just beginning. A great read, especially if you are an entrepreneur feverishly building an online community, social network, video-sharing site, etc. that you think you are going to sell for millions in the next 30 days. This is a logical and timely extension to my post on the real value of a social network.

The real winners are going to be those who can innovate and build businesses around them – not just be the first guy to clear a path into the woods.

Cheers.

I have come to the conclusion that there are fundamentally two types of entrepreneurs: opportunists and innovators. Those that exploit and those who dream big.

I have also come to the realization that being an opportunist can bolster your efforts to bootstrap your real dream as an innovator.

Is it possible to fund your big idea through the monetization of smaller ones?

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A game of “tag” has been going on within the Blogosphere where the tagged person lists five things about themselves that are not generally known and then tags five more people to do the same. I have been “tagged” by fellow tech blogger Mike Shaffner, who runs the “Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms” blog (great name, Mike!).

I don’t normally post these sorts of things, as I make a serious effort to keep my writings of a purely professional nature (per my very first blog post). Nevertheless, I thought this might be a fun departure. I guess I’m in a weird anti-me mood today.

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I have been advising a local entrepreneur who is building a really interesting new web play. A great guy, but doesn’t have a deep background in technology. He is starting to see some traction with his service, and is beginning to run into those early scalability hurdles that so many young startups eventually run into.

Our informal discussions around scalability inspired me to jot down some of my thoughts on this issue, and how early-stage entrepreneurs can scale their technology platform from 5 users to millions.

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We published an impromptu edition of the StartupLounge.com podcast. Check it out – it features Anne Simons; Mike and I had a great chat with Anne about how early stage entrepreneurs can best leverage consultants to achieve their goals.

We also rolled out our Startup Lounge forums – if you are an early stage entrepreneur, we invite you to pop in and post your questions (and help others). That’s what it’s all about!

Cheers.