“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
~ Dr. Seuss

Time is a funny thing.  When you are young, you have seemingly boundless amounts of it. You wake up very day, full of zeal, and passionately chase your whim du jour.    Then, one day you wake up, and you realize that time has become a commodity, with a value all its own, and the opportunities to continuously expand your horizons have narrowed considerably.  The energy once dedicated to challenging the status quo and pushing boundaries ultimately succumbs to other forces … gives way to other things.   Eventually, every pursuit gives way to something else.

I guess this is as formal an “announcement” as I’m going to give on this, but after a lengthy period of soul searching, I have made the very difficult decision to largely step away from StartupLounge.com.

Five years ago or so, when Mike Blake and I came up with the concept of StartupLounge, neither one of us had any idea of what we were getting ourselves into.  Truth be told, I think if we had known how much work we’d need to put into something like this, we may very well not have started it at all.  Some folks have called StartupLounge “influential” or “important”, and I suppose to some extent it is.  But really, at the core, it is/was really about helping people help themselves, then to help others – and about 2 guys having fun yapping on a mic every now and then. And I will tell you – I most certainly learned more about our collective craft than others probably learned from me.

My reasons for stepping back from heavy involvement in StartupLounge is complex, and somewhat difficult to explain.  A big part of it is the time commitment required to record and produce podcasts (40 hours a pop), organizing events, PitchCamp, evangelizing, etc.   I simply do not have the time anymore to contribute at a high level in order to continue making a difference.  And when you’ve poured your heart and soul into something for as long as we have with StartupLounge, it makes the decision a very emotional one, to say the least.

Another huge factor in my decision is simply the level of energy required to perform my duties at my day job (StarPound).  Although we have a great deal of work ahead of us, the team is really doing some great things there. We’ve recently raised another round of capital, and are heads down on a ton of different things right now.

Finally, and perhaps the most important reason, is my family.  As it stands now, I am rarely home in time for dinner (thanks in part to Atlanta traffic).  I have a wife and two young daughters at home that I hardly ever see these days.  And this needs to change.  So, something has to give.

I should also add that there has been some speculation that my health is suspect, and that this somehow is contributing to my decision.  This is patently not true.  Sure, I’m battling a kidney stone right now (ouch!), but this too shall pass (literally and figuratively). Trust me. I’m as fit as a horse.  Then again, they shoot horses when they actually do get ill, so maybe that’s a bad analogy to go with.

Through StartupLounge, I have met some incredibly wonderful people over the past several years.  Entrepreneurs, most of which want to do something great.  Investors who actually want to engage with them.  And a wealth of community leaders and stakeholders who want to make a difference. I place an extremely high value on these relationships, and hope to continue nurturing them for years to come.

One person in particular, though, has meant the world to me throughout this journey.  Mike Blake.  I have come to rely on his wisdom and sensibilities for so, so many things.  Not just professionally, but personally as well.  I can only hope to one day even begin to repay him for the friendship, comaraderie, and contributions he has made to my life. Mike and I remain the best of friends, and I appreciate his understanding and patience throughout my rather circuitous decision making process.

With all of that being said, I should add that StartupLounge will continue on.  The inimitable  Josh Watts has agreed to replace me as the co-host of our podcast.  If you don’t know Josh, you should.  I can’t think of a better person to step into that role.  He has a solid understanding of early-stage entrepreneurship, technology, and carries with him a wicked sense of humor that will help keep the StartupLounge podcast as entertaining as ever.  So for you die-hard listeners of our podcasts, rest assured, it will continue to be worth tuning into. Who knows?  I might even make a cameo appearance every now and then

All of the free StartupLounge events will continue, including PitchCamp, Startup Seminars, and of course, the thrice yearly StartupLounge gathering in Atlanta.  Expansions are already underway to carry the philosophy and beliefs behind StartupLounge to other areas, including Savannah and Raleigh/Durham.  Mike is 100% committed to doing this, and his continued leadership will turn this into a reality.

As for me, well, it isn’t like I’m completely falling off the face of the earth.  I’ll still be around, helping as many people as I can, where I can.  I just may not be as visible. I will continue to attend StartupLounge events when I can, as well as others.  I continue to take enormous satisfaction in helping others achieve success, be it through mentoring, speaking, coaching, etc.  Oh, and continuing to learn new things myself.  I can’t imagine my life without those things, quite frankly.

Enough rambling from me.  I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.  Peace out.

Cheers.

Tree Pub and Grill
5071 Peachtree Industrial Blvd (recently renamed Peachtree Blvd)
Chamblee, GA 30341

http://www.thetreepubandgrill.com/

Band goes on around 9:30 on Saturday, August 14.

Hope to see everyone there!

What is StyroFone?

StyroFone (henceforth referred to as simply “SF”) is a mashable, SIP compatible soft phone distributed as a browser plugin.  It isn’t a Flash phone, or anything like that.  We decided to distribute it as a browser plugin to provide persistence of voice connectivity from page to page, as well as to provide a better platform for mashups.

@zlu had a pretty good summary: @zlu #styrofone, takes the guts out of skype and puts in the browser!

At StarPound, we love our beer, and why not?  Let’s face it – when most people think about IP telephony and converged applications, they immediately think of beer.  We are no different.  So, one afternoon, Wei Wang (CTO) and I were at our local watering hole near the office discussing this and that.  Short version – a few beers later, we had conceived the idea behind SF, and started working on the prototype.

The phone app itself is fully SIP compliant, with full codec support (G.711, G.729, et al), echo cancellation,  and can be used with any SIP service provider or switch.

We have a few major goals in the design of the phone.

First and foremost, we wanted it to be seamlessly integrated into the browser.  By this, I mean that it should not disrupt or deter from the surfing experience.  It should augment it.   The phone should not be “intrusive”, but “supportive”.  Don’t want to see the phone?  It minimizes and resizes like Firebug.  We’ve also implemented things like customizable click-to-call capabilities (phone links on web pages are turned into links which popup the phone and start dialing the number for you).

Right now, we’re targeting Firefox/PC for the initial launch, but we’re going to expand that as quickly as possible to IE, and for Macs. And yes, we’re looking at the iPad as well.

The second goal was to ensure that the phone was “mashable”.  See the screenshot below for an idea of what we’re talking about:

So, a call comes in, and all of a sudden, you get to see cool things about that person, like CRM data, Twitter feeds, blog feeds, their Flickr feed, remote weather, etc.  You get the idea.

There is a full API as well, for controlling the phone (making calls, call control for conferencing, etc.).  This is extended into the widget area as well.  The widgets are all driven by what we call an “event bus”, so they can send and receive standard SF events, as well as their own custom events.  Widgets can communicate not only with the phone itself, but also other widgets.

The widget API can also be used to fully integrate into your PBX for voicemail management, user directories, etc:

We’re also incorporating browser sharing, so while you’re talking with someone, you can collaborate over the web together. If you want to bring another colleague into the collaboration conference (or even just a voice conference), you can just drag them into the phone.

StyroFone also has a TON of applicability within vertical markets.  Consider customer service and call centers.  How about your customers conversing with a customer service agent over voice/video/collab at the same time?  Yeah, it looks cool – can’t do a screenshot of that just yet, but trust me … it’s cool as hell.

We use SF for calls all the time internally at StarPound.  I even had a conference call at a local cafe over SF and local WiFi.  It pairs nicely with USB Bluetooth headsets as well.

We think this is all pretty cool stuff. However, what is probably even cooler than the phone, is the business model we are refining for it.  The phone itself will be freely available, so you’ll be able to download it and use it for personal use.  But our business model, we think, will allow us to offer a completely free phone service for subscribers.  When we say free, we don’t just mean SF-to-SF.  I’m talking about SF to PSTN, cell, etc.  A free global communications network.  This is our goal, although this will not be a day-one service.

There’s a LOT more to StyroFone than I have time (or authority) to discuss right now.  However, I will no doubt write more about SF as we move closer to the next beta cycle.  If you are interested, you can head to styrofone.com and apply for it.

Cheers.

… a most unfortunate story this week: the foreclosure and eviction of a Lithonia family whose son was the first Georgia casualty during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Spc. Jamaal Addison was killed during an ambush on March 2003, and the Lithonia branch of the United States Post Office has been renamed in his honor. And in a miserable twist of fate, the family is set to be evicted on the very day set aside to honor Spc. Addison, Monday August 2nd.

Above: Patricia Roberts (R), mother of US Army Specialist Jamaal Addison, mourns along with other family members during his funeral at White’s Chapel United Methodist Church in Georgia on Monday. Addison was killed when his unit was ambushed by Iraqi forces on March 23. Source: Atlanta Journal Constitution

There has been some stuff written about what we’re trying to do to help the family.  While I appreciate the effort to spread the word, it isn’t about me, or some kind of magical thing I’ve done.  There were/are a lot more people involved in this.  I just made some phone calls, really.  Here is the story.

After reading Bo Emerson’s AJC article which shed light on his family’s difficult situation, I decided to see what we could do to help – being a vet myself, and having kids of my own, it just hit me hard.  After some super-sleuthing by Robert Shoe, my fellow ex-Army bizdev guy at StarPound, we were able to track Ms. Roberts down and talk with her about her situation. I had several different (very emotional) conversations with her, and I will tell you, Patricia Roberts is one of the most wonderful, salt-of-the-earth people you will ever meet.

My immediate concern was three-fold: 1) secure adequate housing for the family, so they wouldn’t have to worry about that, 2) keep the family together in the process (they already had to split up among relatives and friends, including Ms. Robert’s own mother, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s), and 3) ensure that Little Jamaal (his young son, who was only 2 when his father died) would be settled in time to start school. After this, we could knuckle down and help Ms. Roberts secure new employment (and we’re already making progress on that front).

I had been in contact with my wife, who had shared some of this with our own four year old daughter, Katie.  When I got home that night, Katie was full of questions.

• “Daddy, why does Little Jamaal need a new home?”
• “Where is his mommy?”
• “Mommy said something happened to Little Jamaal’s daddy. What happened, Daddy?”
• “So Little Jamaal’s daddy was trying to stop the bad guys?”
• “What kind of bad guys?”
• “Are the bad guys going to come to our house?”
• “Daddy, I’m scared of bad guys.”
• “Ok, Daddy, I won’t be scared any more.”
• “Daddy, I made a picture for Little Jamaal, can you give it to him?”
• “It’s a picture of their new house and he is looking out of the window at the sunflower. I even signed it with my name!”

I tried to navigate the endless barrage of 1-800 numbers, customer service agents, and loss mitigation “experts” from Suntrust (the foreclosing bank), but basically ended up wasting 3 or 4 hours on the phone.   I “get” that they are a business, and at the end of the day, they have policies which need to be upheld.  But when someone calls offering a financial solution in a situation like this, I would have expected to be received a bit more warmly, and that’s all I’ll say about it.  We could have gotten her current with her mortgage payments, bought it out of foreclosure for her, etc. But, no dice. Suffice it to say, I knew we had to take a different path.

To their credit, Suntrust at least eventually gave her family an extension on when they had to be out of their current home.  Of course, this was after they got hammered by Senators, the folks at Ft. McPherson, and other folks in the community.  But still … it does help.

In the meantime, Mike Blake and the great folks at HA&W stepped up to offer tax/accounting advice on how to treat the property if we were able to work a deal with Suntrust. Even though we chose a different path, they were absolutely awesome.

I immediately called my good friend and VetLoop co-founder Jason Jones of Cresa Partners here in Atlanta.  For those that know Jason, well, I don’t need to say anything else.  Jason is a former naval aviator who ran missions off the carrier U.S.S. Enterprise. He is also one of the most charitable and good-natured guys I’ve ever had the privilege of calling a friend.  Jason stepped up and got involved with us, as I knew he would.

One of our customers, Doug Ingram (DHL), was in our office working with our team on a project.  After mentioning the story to him, Doug stepped up and got involved as well.  On the side, Doug dabbles in rental properties.  He had an idle house that happened to be sitting on 6 acres of land he bought down in Fairburn, just south of Atlanta.  He graciously offered to let the Roberts’ family use the house until they could get back on their feet.  Several of us offered to pay her rent there, should she decide to stay longer (a point that Doug readily dismissed as unnecessary).  One evening, we went down to the house to check it out.  After spending a few hours on site, it was evident that we were going to need a veritable army of people to help get the house to a livable state.  We lined up a bunch of really great friends (aka the StarPound Flag Football team, Nest Construction, and some other folks) to come down on the weekend and do an overhaul.

I was thrilled that we had pulled together a solution for the family.

However, the next morning, after further reflection, we just didn’t feel good about putting her in the house – it just needed too much work.  The house was built in 1958 and had seen better days.  So, another path would have to be found. I was reminded of one of the many bits of wisdom my late father shared with me growing up. He used to tell me that “the worst feeling in the world is wanting so desperately to help someone, and feeling powerless to do so.”  I was starting to feel that way a bit.

Sometimes, the easiest solution is right in front of you.  Thanks to my good friend Mike Blake for slapping me silly and telling me what should have been obvious.  We’d raise enough money to cover the family’s rent in a decent rental home here in Atlanta say, for a year – plenty of time for her to get back on her feet, and take care of her family.  We’ve already identified several properties that might be a good match for the family. We all started throwing money into the hat, and very quickly found ourselves with $4,000. And this is what I need help with from the community out there.

Please.  If you can contribute to the effort here, please donate to the fund below, which will help provide a longer-term solution for the family:

Chase Bank
JAMAAL ADDISON II MEMORIAL FUND
Routing #: 061092387
Account #: 490132066
1-800-788-7000

What is $5, or $500, or $1000?  Put off buying that new car (that’s what my wife and I did).  Trim your Starbuck’s habit back for a while. At the end of the day, it is a small price to pay for doing the right thing to help give this kid some stability in his life.  He will never know his dad, and I’m not really certain as to the status of his biological mother. His life has already been changed in a way that will affect him profoundly as he gets older. Let’s not let it get any worse. Let’s get his family into a stable position, get him into school, and well, let him be a kid.

I never knew SPC Jamaal Addison, although I suppose one day I will get to meet him.  He paid the ultimate price to give us the freedom to talk about startups, technology, and other things that don’t really matter at the end of the day.  And his family needs our help.  Please help us.

–

UPDATE: Benefit concert

–

So why I have been incommunicado lately, or as @Unblakeable puts it, apparently in the witness protection program?  We’ve been heads down working on the next release of our platform, and launching several new customers (including a Global Fortune 100 customer – whee!).  Oh, and talking with investors, growing our base of channel partners, and pulling more than a few all-nighters. Suffice it to say that “free time” is somewhat of a myth around our office these days.

At any rate, I thought I would take a few minutes to share some of the new stuff that is in StarPound v1.3.  This release represents a tremendous step forward in the evolution of our platform, and ushers in a promising new phase for our company. After months of intense development, we firmly believe that this release represents the most advanced open-source Customer Interaction Management platform in the world. It is one that remains unique in it’s blend of business process management with advanced call center functionality.

Think Avaya – but think free. Yup.  Skills-based routing, cost-based routing, work queues, multi-channel communications, etc. That’s where we’re going, and to a very large extent, we are there with the 1.5 million lines of code in this release. Right now, it looks like we should be finished up and ready to release this version in the next week or so.

Some of the key features, changes, and other highlights of the v1.3 release are described below:

Greatly Enhanced Stability and Scalability

One of the areas we’ve really been focused on over the past 12 months is the “enterprise readiness” of our platform. We have spent quite a bit of time, energy, and money dedicated to the stress testing of the platform. Since v1.2 we’ve addressed over 200 defects, and have performed hundreds of hours of stress testing under a variety of different configurations and conditions. Particular emphasis was also placed upon the horizontal scalability of the StarPound platform.  Throughout this entire process, we’ve been iterating the platform, getting feedback, and testing it, in a live production environment with hundreds of agents servicing several very large Fortune customers.  The net result is the most stable and scalable release of the StarPound platform to-date.

Full Support for FreeSwitch

When we released StarPound CORE v1.2 last year, one of the key new features was our initial support for FreeSWITCH. If you aren’t familiar with FreeSWITCH, it is a pretty advanced open-source telephony platform for call switching, PBX, and media serving functionality, which competes directly with Asterisk. Well, in StarPound v1.3, we’ve expanded our support for FreeSWITCH.

In this release, we’ve replaced the original SIP-based call-control with native socket-based call-control using FreeSWITCH’s native command set. The result is vastly improved performance, and reduced consumption of system resources.

Telephony/Switching Abstraction Layer

Dovetailing on what was described above for FreeSWITCH, we’ve rearchitected the way that StarPound CORE communicates with backend telecom switches. As our desire is to be as agnostic as possible, we’ve implemented a Telephony Abstraction Layer that provides the interface model for call-control, media serving, etc. This version of StarPound will be distributed with three built-in connectors: generic SIP, Asterisk, and FreeSWITCH. Given the new architecture, it should make it easier to add connectors for other platforms down the road (we’re already in talks with certain commercial vendors about creating connectors for their switches as well).

Interval Metric Reporting

One of the cool new features of StarPound|Call Center v1.3 is an interval reporting capability. On a per-organization basis, the system collects and stores various data points, such as call detail activity, agent work activity, and agent status. This data now rolls up into our real-time dashboard view, where StarPound can calculate and report on things such as agent efficiency and average call hold time over each interval.

New StarPound API

As part of v1.3 of StarPound, we have introduced the first phase of our new API. Currently, the API supports about 60 web service calls (SOAP or REST) into StarPound PBX, and provides full access into everything from voicemails and extension management to custom ring plans (ring multiple devices, find me/follow me, a la Google-Voice, etc) for users. We will be further extending the API down the road to provide additional functionality for the API, including hooks into the call center platform.

Revised Documentation

As with most open source projects, our documentation always seems to lag behind the development of the codebase itself. We’ve spent quite a bit of effort in trying to bring our documentation up to snuff with the latest features and functionality of the platform. We’ve also moved our documentation from Word/PDF format into the web, which should make searching much easier.

And speaking of new web site – our new one, which will launch at the same time, provides a lot more in the way of fostering the growing community around our platform.  Forums, trouble tickets, FAQs, searchable documentation, how-to guides, tutorials, videos, etc.  Good stuff.

StyroFone

One of the coolest new things we’ve been working on is codenamed “StyroFone”.  There have only been a lucky few who have seen this thing in action. Unfortunately, we’re not quite at the point where I’m ready to show it off, but trust me when I say that it is very cool.  I will tell you this, though: I think it has the potential to significantly depreciate a lot of the value from certain PBX and telco providers. Stay tuned to styrofone.com for details as they become available.

Examples:

• Lack of local funding sources for early-stage companies
• Lack of management talent to take a company from startup to growth stage
• Georgia’s legal inability to invest state pension funds into alternative class investments such as venture capital funds
• Too many smart people are leaving the state
• Lack of this
• Lack of that
• Blah.

Undoubtedly, we all want the Atlanta startup ecosystem to improve (or continue to improve, as I believe is the case).   But for the past few years,  there have been two distinct threads running in parallel.

The first thread is what I described above:  the onslaught of panels, round-table discussions, and speaker events where we continue to beat dead horses. Everyone is searching for the answer – the silver bullet.  And as should be evident by now to all of us – that doesn’t exist.  There is no panacea.  There is no succinct list of things that “if we only did this or that”, we’d be in business.  Lists don’t move the needle.

The second thread, is a veritable tidal wave of radical ideas and new ways of thinking.  And just as history repeatedly tells us, those things move the needle. And that is what I want to talk about in this post.

What I am about to say is going to run counter to many of the things I’ve said or published in the past.  I don’t have a problem with this – I think it  is very healthy, in fact.  As with many startups, here at StarPound, we challenge the ideas of our colleagues each and every day – none of us is the smartest person in the room.  I’d like to think that is a valuable trait of any initiative (startup or otherwise).

When I sold my last business a few years ago (2005) and came up for air, I fell into the trap of saying “hey, there isn’t enough venture capital money in Atlanta.”  That progressed to the position that for some reason or another, it was the fault of the venture capital firms here.   Thankfully, I’ve evolved beyond that narrow thinking.

About 7 or 8 months ago, Mike Blake and I presented our concept of the Atlanta Startup Cloud during a special session of the Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs meetup.  In that presentation, we put forth several ideas.  Chief among them was that we went from a deafening silence to a cacophony of shouts here in the startup community.  In our view, there was too much noise in the community, and we proposed some ways to provide an umbrella for all of it.  I shelved that idea a few weeks later – not because I thought it was a bad idea at the time, but because it seemed to me, at least, that the rebirth of the ATDC was attempting to do a similar thing, so why duplicate effort?

But my thinking has evolved again.  A single umbrella organization or launchpad isn’t the right answer either.  So what is?

How many years can a mountain exist
Before it’s washed to the sea?
Yes, ‘n’ how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
Yes, ‘n’ how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn’t see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

The answer …. is right in front of us.  And if you don’t see it, you are quite possibly part of the problem, and not the solution.

What follows in this post is a fairly unfiltered series of thoughts that I’ve had for the past few weeks.

A Marketplace of Ideas – the Social Media Revolution

Silver bullets do not exist for many challenges in life.  The evolution of any community, startup or otherwise,  requires a marketplace of ideas.  No single idea, group, or cause can move the needle alone. But things have changed – and continue to evolve.  Why?

I’ve said this a hundred times before, and I’ll say it again.  Without the advent and adoption of social media, we likely wouldn’t have any sort of tangible startup ecosystem here at all.  The social media revolution empowered the Atlanta startup community and gave us a much-needed “collective voice.”  In the immortal words of Margaret Mead:

A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

Blogs gave us the ability to not only play the role of citizen journalists, but also the ability to facilitate an ongoing dialog.  Twitter, a tool that I once shat all over, gave us the power to communicate in real-time, overcoming geography and time.    We could now participate in our own marketplace of ideas, unimpeded by legacy stakeholders, traditional media, and bits of stale culture that kept us back.

Social media gave us something that we desperately needed – a vehicle for the conveyance of new ideas, and a way to challenge those ideas.  The end result is a powerful example of group think.  Things like Startuplounge, Startup Riot, Startup Chicks, Shotput Ventures, Startup Gauntlet, Techdrawl, Startup Drinks, and the newly reborn ATDC, would simply not exist had it not been for the mass adoption of social media by the startup community here.  We wouldn’t have cool startup co-working facilities like Ignition Alley, 151 Locust, and others popping up all over town.  We wouldn’t have much of anything.

Remember WifiCat from Startup Riot 2009?  Remember what I said at the end of that presentation?  It was the prolific use of social media that enabled us to pull off that joke.  The fact that we were able to do so told me, at least, that we actually had a startup community in Atlanta now. We couldn’t have done it otherwise.

Even Urvaksh, the technology & startup beat writer for the Atlanta Business Chronicle, is engaged through social media.  And whether you like his ideas or approach, or loathe them, it is a cool thing.  Everyone has, and should have, a voice.  And we do. And voices move the needle.

In fact, there is a great story that you may recall about fifty six men that sat around and bantered about what freedom meant, and what it would take to attain it.  Radical ideas combined with passion gets the needle moving.

“Washing the Mountain into the Sea …”

The flow of water in a stream can be a powerful force.  Simple physics, really, but powerful nonetheless.  If a rock lies in the stream, water will simply flow around it.  Eventually, the rock will erode until it no longer impedes the flow of water at all.

There were certain individuals and groups in Atlanta that missed the boat when it came to becoming engaged within the social media discussion.  By not engaging (for the right reasons, or not at all), they made themselves largely irrelevant.

Case in point, and I’ll go ahead and say it here, because no one else will, despite everyone of you agreeing with me in private.  Look at the Atlanta Technology Angels.  The prior administration did not seemingly truly engage in this new movement, or the social dialog.  Sorry, but sitting on panels, while no doubt informative, doesn’t constitute engagement within the community.  It got to the point where many entrepreneurs simply did not view them as a relevant stakeholder within the community (hindering deal flow).  In many cases, the ATA became the “funder of last resort” in the eyes of many entrepreneurs here.  And no, this does not come just from companies that got rejected by the ATA.  The end result, was that the water learned to flow around the rock.

But that has changed – there is redemption.  Gordon Rogers, the new incoming ATA President, has done an amazing job in a very short period of time in engaging the community – listening, and reacting.  And contributing unique ideas himself.  And giving his time to those that can benefit from it.  The ATA is relevant again, and that’s a very good thing. The ATA has helped moved the needle.

And speaking of giving time …

One of the issues that we have historically lamented here in Atlanta is the fact that many successful entrepreneurs don’t “give back” to the community by serving as mentors and advisors to the next generation of entrepreneurs.  In my view, while this hasn’t completely been turned around, I think we are well on our way.

Case in point.  A few months back, Chris Hanks and I were fiddling around with the idea of having a “pitch-off” competition between UGA and Georgia Tech.  The first event was held a week before the UGA/Georgia Tech football game – fitting!  We were very diligent in trying to identify judges that would not be biased either way – which proved to be a very difficult challenge.

I reached out to two guys in particular that I thought fit the bill – Warren Bare (Headhunter/Careerbuilder) and Mitch Free (MFG.com).  Within minutes of sending the email, both of them not only agreed to do it, but also let me know why they were doing it.   These two (and they aren’t the only ones) embodied the sense of community spirit that we need.  In fact, just before the first pitch started, I leaned over to Mitch and said “hey, thanks for coming and helping out with this, I really appreciate it.”  His response?  “Hey man, the community calls and I come!”  What’s not to love?

Gangs of Five are cropping up all over town.  Investors are becoming more engaged (@Unblakeable is working on a companion post that will go into this in more detail).  More and more successful entrepreneurs are getting back in (e.g. Shotput Ventures).  There is a veritable army of people within the Atlanta startup community that are ready to advise, mentor, coach,  and help an entrepreneur make critical connections.  Bingo.

Yes, we need more folks like Mitch and Warren, but this problem has been diminished greatly over the past couple of years.  Why?  Social media.  They are engaged within the larger dialog – they are plugged in – and they want to help make a difference.  The needle moves again.

Event overload?  I don’t think so.

There was a lot of hubbub recently (here and here) about so-called “event overload” in Atlanta.  Yes, there are now cool meetups, events, and groups popping up all over town. And yes, at times, it can seem to be a bit much.  But guess what, folks?   That’s a good thing.  You don’t go from dying of thirst to drinking from a firehose without saying “WTF?”  But I would call that progress.

Why is it a good thing? These meetups, groups, and events spawn new ideas and new ways of thinking.  And those ideas will eventually get challenged.  And the needle will move again. Rinse and repeat – the needle will keep moving.

Can I go to every event that I am either invited to attend, or want to attend?  Absolutely not.  I have a day job, several non-profit efforts that I’m involved in, oh, and my wife and two kids.  But … cluebell here.  I don’t have to go to every event.  But I like having options. It wasn’t so awful long ago that the only events in town for entrepreneurs were held by service providers and the establishment.   Some of these were (and still are) good intentioned – but again, there was no moving of the needle.

We wanted a vibrant ecosystem here in Atlanta, and guess what, folks?  It’s here now.

There has been a seismic shift in the nature of these social opportunities in Atlanta.

Most of the new organizations that have sprung up are non-profit, all-volunteer, grass-roots organizations where the organizers not only do not get paid, they do well not to lose money.  Most of the new opportunities do not have speakers (remember how much we hated speaker-driven events?)

Most of the new social opportunities vigilantly exclude or limit service provider involvement so that meaningful conversations can take place.  There are real competitors to the service-provider-dry-hump-fests of old (nod to @Unblakeable for that one).

As a result, real entrepreneurs and real investors are attending and that flow has increased steadily over time.  Institutional investors, notably the ATA and Noro-Moseley, are actively reaching out.  You may argue with the methods by which they do so at this point, but the fact they give a damn is incredibly encouraging.  And we need that.

All these things indicate that the new ecosystem is here.  It’s not fully baked yet – that’s years away.  But it’s in the oven and cooking along quite nicely, thank you.

A year from now, many of the things we see now will have fallen by the wayside.  And new ones will have taken their place.  That’s a good thing.  But ideas need to have an opportunity to flourish.  That’s called innovating.  Iteration is important. The only thing that moves the needle is the community – and in this case, the community is the market - not a group, person, or single idea.  Listen to the market – it will tell you everything you want to know.

Improvise, adapt, & overcome

We had a saying in the military – one that predated my service, and one that still exists today.  Improvise, adapt, overcome. In the face of a dynamically changing battle space, military leaders on the ground have no choice but to evaluate their assets constantly, and make critical decisions not necessarily knowing what the next milestone or outcome will be.  Smart entrepreneurs do the same thing.  It’s called bootstrapping.  It’s called being nimble.  It’s called … well, being entrepreneurial!

So, you think there isn’t enough true early-stage venture capital money in Atlanta?  So what? Who gives a shit?  Stop whining and start executing for the love of Pete (whoever that is). Good deals, should they require it, can get funded. We all know this – this isn’t profound news.

Let me lead you through a concise version of the evolution of our StartupLounge philosophy over the past nearly four years:

• 2006: Not enough money in Atlanta, not enough transparency in the capital raising process, some bits of stale culture.
• 2007: People are getting connected, a real dialog is forming, but the problems still exist.
• 2008-2009: Investors are engaged, but entrepreneurs can’t pitch their deals to save their life.  Let’s do this thing called PitchCamp! (200+ CEOS have gone through PitchCamp to date)
• 2010: It’s not about the money – let’s change the format of our CapitalLounge event.  Entrepreneurs need more free education and training, on pitching, financial modeling, sales, etc. More blocking and tackling.  Kids in high school need to view entrepreneurship as a career path. Let’s tackle these problems now.

Again, it’s not about the money.  As an illustration, consider our upcoming StartupLounge event on March 4th.  We are making a ton of changes.  “CapitalLounge” is being renamed to simply “StartupLounge Atlanta”. There will be fewer attendees, but higher quality deals – ones that show traction, passion, and commitment on the part of the founders.  No more colored name badges – who cares who you are talking to at the event?  You aren’t there to get funding – you are there to hang out with like-minded people who care about early-stage companies (for a variety of reasons).  To make connections.  To help each other. To have fun with startups.  To consume copious amounts of adult beverages. And so on.  That’s what it is all about.

All of us, whether in our entrepreneurial endeavors or non-profit/community activities, have to be open to change, and open to being challenged (one of the many reasons I love things like PitchCamp and Startup Gauntlet).  And if you become irrelevant in the process, so what?  Evolve.  Re-invent yourself.  Find another way to contribute, or try and solve a different problem. Do your part to keep the needle moving.

Sig is retiring!! OMFG! What are we going to do?!?!?!?

Nothing.  Sig Mosley’s financial presence will no doubt be missed by us all.  Besides being a great guy, Sig is a legend, as is John Imlay.  But guess what?  The market will fill the void, just as it always has.  It isn’t the end of the world, because as I’ve said already here, it isn’t about one guy, one idea, etc.  Think Shotput Ventures & Tech Operators.  Ashish Mistry announced last night to a roomful of people that he was involved in a new fund.  There will be others.

Build successful companies and have some exits, and everything else will  just happen.  Trust me.

The needle is moving.

But all of our smart people are leaving!!!! OMFG!!

Whatever.

Sorry, but at this point, I have to question the alleged brilliance of “smart” people that leave Atlanta because they couldn’t get their idea off the ground here.

If you are a guy like Jeff Haynie (Appcelerator), and you raise a round of capital outside the state, and move the company thereafter – great!  I’m not talking about situations like that. Appcelerator had close to (if not more than) $1M in revenues before they raised their round and relocated.  That’s called execution.  That example is a perfect template of how to execute.  Traction. Traction. Traction.  And whatever happens, happens.

And I’m not talking about folks like Russell Jurney, who moved to Silicon Valley to expand his views on startups.  Again, different story – Russel took a great opportunity with Ning – he didn’t go there because he “couldn’t raise money here and everything in Atlanta sucks, and I’m sure they will love my idea in California.”

But, if your business plan is basically “I need to raise money for my idea”, you are most likely going to fail anyway, and spending the money to relocate is simply going to get you to your point of failure faster.  Frankly, if that is your path, and your advisors can’t convince you otherwise – I’d actually prefer that you move away from Atlanta.  That way, you can be a burden to some other city’s ecosystem.

If you execute, and do whatever it takes to get your company off the ground (drive value – financial or otherwise), you don’t have to leave Atlanta.  It’s as simple as that.  Atlanta is full of successful companies that didn’t have to leave to get off the ground – the founders just dug in and kept chopping wood (e.g. MFG.com).  Was it hard?  Sure.  But it’s hard everywhere – trust me.

So ….

This is more of a personal statement than anything else, but I am done sitting on panels to talk about what is wrong with Atlanta.  No more task forces, panels, and round-tables for me.  I fundamentally don’t believe anything is wrong at this point – we have gotten what we asked for. I am out of the “lists of things we can do better” and “10 step plans” business.  No more talking about how we get more investors to open up offices here, how we close the funding gap, and how do we get successful entrepreneurs re-engaged.  Those things will either happen on their own, as a by product of the movement, or they won’t.

Instead, I want to talk about innovation, startup strategies, business models, bootstrapping tactics, and ways to help others succeed.  And you should, too.

After all, that’s how we’ve already moved the needle. And that’s how we’ll continue to do so – together as a community.  Anything beyond that is gravy.

Cheers.

Faded Glory is a true story of a group of aging athletes, good friends for over 18 years, who never gave up the dream of playing baseball at a competitive level. Through the eyes of their manager Rick Cohen, Faded Glory follows the National Network team, 18 men over the age of thirty-five who have overcome life’s adversities, including injury, divorce, bankruptcy, infidelity, drug addiction, incarceration, and one life-threatening disease. It all takes place as National tries to win a National Amateur Baseball World Series title. Faded Glory is a captivating document of friendship, courage, humor, and the indomitability of the human spirit.

Through his hard work and passionate evangelism of his film project, Rick raised some angel capital for this film (partially through connections he made at one of our StartupLounge events).  I haven’t sought permission to mention the name of the investor in question, but he is one of the most successful technology entrepreneurs in the past decade here – and a good guy to boot.  Just goes to show you, no matter what industry sector your venture is in, you never know where a possible angel investor is lurking, and what motivates them to make an investment.

And interestingly enough, this investor shared this with me:

“I did invest some money in his movie as a result of meeting him at your StartupLounge event.  Not so much because I think movies are a good investment, but because I admire his passion and the way he has bootstrapped it thus far.”

There ya go.

The film has gone on to win a lot of critical acclaim:

• Delray Beach Film Festival Audience Award
• LA United Film Festival Audience Award
• ALL SPORTS LA Film Festival Audience Award
• Atlanta Film Festival Runner-Up Audience Award
• Real to Reel International Film Festival Runner-up Audience Award
• Newport Beach Film Festival – Leigh Steinberg Sports & Entertainment names the film – audience favorite.

And hey, you can’t get better endorsements than these:

ANGELO PIZZO -
Writer of both “Hoosiers” and “Rudy.”

“A compelling documentary with authentic, well-earned emotions.”

ROGER TOWNE -
Writer of “The Natural.”

“Roy Hobbs and the New York Knights live in Rick Cohen. I’ve not seen so much blood and guts, self-less honesty, despair, pathos, passion, honor, and above all, — so much bravery in filmmaking.  Rick’s poignantly invested and dramatized love for his friends and the game of baseball shows clearly in this documentary.”

LEIGH STEINBERG -
Legendary Sports Agent who inspired the character of “Jerry McGuire.”

“This is THE documentary that resonates and connects with the deepest hopes and fears of males throughout the country and is a landmark event–Rick is a truly gifted talent! Faded Glory offers an unique opportunity for women to experience the locker room environment and psyche of men in an alternative habitat. It should not to be missed!”

In fact, Angelo Pizzo and David Anspaugh (writer and director of Rudy!, respectively), are now on board to turn this amazing story into a feature film.

Hey Rick, can I get a cameo role for promoting this?

Sooooo ….. support a local Atlanta entrepreneur and pre-order this awesome film on DVD.  Get the original indie film before Hollywood turns it into a blockbuster that may or may not capture the true spirit of Rick’s original vision. You can visit the online store here.

Rick will be attending our upcoming StartupLounge event on March 6th, and we’ll be giving away some signed copies of the DVD there as well …

Cheers.

I’ll be blogging more about this soon, but we’ve been pretty busy at StarPound lately.  We ended Q4/2009 strong, including the deployment of our platform to solve some major problems for a Fortune 50 customer (largest global player in their industry).  But amid all of the frenetic activity in Q4, something else emerged.  A really, really cool thing that I’ve decided needs to be it’s own thing.

So, to cut to the chase – here is what I am looking for.  Hopefully, some of you may have someone in mind for this:

I’m looking for an energetic, startup-minded developer (C++, Javascript, AJAX, XHTML, CSS, widgets, maybe some PHP, MySQL, etc).  Some Java would be nice, but not required.  The technology is a very unique IP voice application.  I am willing to give this person:

• Fully paid 3-4 bedroom apartment, including utilities – we’ll eventually give you some roommates to work with
• Salary, albeit small, but there nonetheless
• Equity in the newco

This person needs to be here in Atlanta, and is ideally a junior level person and is looking for a cool startup opportunity.  This is an awesome chance to get in on the ground floor of something very cool and exciting.

If you have anyone in mind, you can reach me at sburkett AT star-pound-tech dot com (no dashes).

Cheers.

Dear Mike,

I still remember giving you shit about your middle name.  Austin.  “The 6 Million Dollar Man”.  I’ve no idea why I still remember that, but I do.  I suppose some things are just indelibly etched into one’s mind.  That’s the funny thing about being in the military – you tend to forget the big shit, and remember silly little things like that.

Writing this is hard.  Really, really, really hard.

I remember your deceptive baby face.  Behind those blue eyes, blonde hair, and youthful good looks, you were built like a brick shit house.  You were quick to laugh at even the silliest of my jokes, and just as quick to punch someone’s fucking lights out if they were getting stupid. Even so, you know, I don’t think I ever saw you in a sour mood?  Not once.  Even when the shit was really bad, you just smiled, made a joke, and kept on trucking.  You have no idea how many days and nights that kept me going.

Twenty years ago, you and I were on a shared journey.  When  that journey was over, we both got swept up in life, and went our separate ways.

You died 7 years ago.  St. Patrick’s Day, in 2002.  And I just found out about it.  I am angry at myself for not picking up the phone, and calling you more often – keeping in touch – being a friend.

It’s a sad fact of life that  guys don’t write Christmas cards.  We never call home.  We do a pretty crappy job of keeping in touch with the people we care about.  I wish it weren’t that way – because now, it’s too late for me.  I can’t grab you, shake you, and look you in the eyes and tell you all of the things that I should have been saying to you for the past twenty years.  I can’t save you from yourself.  But I can’t dwell on it, can I?  Such is the nature of a soldier’s training:  Put it where it needs to be.  Toughen up.  Move on.  Deal with it later. I can’t help it, though.  It hurts.  I’m crying right now just writing this.

In 1990, we were ramping up for the Persian Gulf War.  I still remember the day that I got my little love note from Uncle Sam in the mailbox, gently letting me know that I still belonged to them, even though I had been out for 6 months or so.  You drew morgue duty back in the States.

The last time I spoke with you was in 1991, just after the war.  I was back home in Georgia, and you had made your way back to Connecticut.  We talked about things a bit, and I could tell you were dealing with it as best as you could, but you were different.  We were trained for button-pushing tank combat, where you rarely, if ever, were in close proximity to enemy combatants.  You, however, had to endure seeing the effects of war up close and personal – dead G.I.s – 379 of them all told.

My wife asked me how close we were as friends … back in the day.  “Pretty damn close,” I said.  Then, I thought about it.  Did you know that we had nearly 2,200 meals together?  Even though most of them were terrible, we made the best of it.  We also drank an estimated 2,086 beers and almost 600 shots of whiskey together.  There is the healthy side, too.  Conversely, we also ran almost 2,500 miles together, and did a whopping 36,000+ pushups together.  We spent a ridiculous amount of time in the “great outdoors” together, too:  Hohenfels, Grafenwoehr, Area Mud, Winter Warrior, REFORGER, FTX, rollouts, alerts, lariat advances, you name it. Nothing says “good times” like toting an M16 and freezing your ass off in a few feet of German snow. That’s the kind of shit that makes you a brother for life.

I remember sneaking your girlfriend into the barracks, because women weren’t allowed in the barracks back in those days.  We’d dress her up in some Army sweats, pull the hoodie over her head, and distract the CQ while we ran her up the stairwell.  You still owe me for that, by the way.

I remember pouring back what seemed like a truckful of Hefe Weissens and going out to get tattoos.  You decided to get a big red rose that stretched across your bicep.  You wanted a banner underneath it.  And while the rest of us were happy getting some gal’s name permanently inked onto our bodies, you simply put “Langster”.  I remember saying to you – “Really?  You are putting your fucking nickname on your arm?”  And of course, there was your reply.  “You idiots are going to break up with those chicks at some point, and you’re gonna be stuck looking at her name for the rest of your life.  Me?  My name ain’t ever gonna change.”

Guess what, bro?  You were right.

I remember looking at you one morning in the field.  You were brushing your teeth for what seemed like the 12th time that morning.   I asked you why in the hell you were brushing your teeth so much out here in the middle of nowhere, since there were no women out here to impress.  I remember you smirking and whispering in your best “tough-guy-who-is-respecting-light-and-noise-discipline” voice:  “Hey!  Hygiene is fucking important, douchebag!”. That still cracks me up to this day.

I remember pulling guard duty together in the cold air of Grafenwoehr one night.  After our watch, you pulled your Sony Walkman out of your field jacket and plopped in a cassette tape that your sister Heidi sent you.  She would always send you tapes of new music that was hitting the charts back in the States.  I still remember you handing it to me saying “Damn, bro, you gotta hear this band.  They call themselves Guns ‘n Roses.  This song Sweet Child O’ Mine is pretty awesome. These guys are gonna be big.”  Personally, I thought they were overrated.  Again, you were right.

There were countless times where I was tasked with doing something, and you were never far behind me, ready to help your squadmate out.  You were always ready to pitch in and help out your brothers.  We always knew where to find you – at the center of the fight.  Which is why it is so hard for me to understand what happened.   I just got off the phone with our old friend Dreier – the old man of the bunch – then 27, now 47. I told him the news, and like me, he is struggling for answers.

In talking with your friends and family, I am learning more about your journey in life after our time together overseas. Some things are better to be kept in the heart, rather than in print or on the Internet, and I am sensitive to that.  I do not profess to fully understand what happened, Mikie.  But I’m trying. I swear to god I am trying.

In some cosmic way, I feel like I let you down when you needed me the most in your life.  I could have, should have, would have … been there to help you. Had I just known.  Damnit, had I just known!  I would have dropped everything going on in my life if it meant making even the slightest difference for you in your own life. My wife keeps telling me that there was nothing I could do.  And deep down inside, I know she’s right.  But it doesn’t matter. You are gone, and you aren’t coming back.

This is a burden that I will carry in my heart until the day I die.

From me, Dreier, Harmon, Sinke, Gerdes, Woodberry, Hyatt, Cortez, Shepherd, Gonzalez, Cervantes, Bolden, Rivers, and the rest of 3/64 Armor, 3d Infantry Division:  Rock of the Marne, bro.  Eight times, Keeyah.

Rest in peace, man.

Michael Austin Lang
U.S. Army, 3d Infantry Division
1969-2002

You were a damn fine soldier, a good man, and a best friend. Save a spot at the bar for me.  The next round is on me.

Your eternal friend and fellow Marne dog,

Scott Burkett
U.S. Army, 3d Infantry Division

Update: Scoble, Fred, and Lance have since commented on it as well.

My views on the pay-to-pitch thing are pretty well known, as I’ve written about it a ton in the past, and we’ve torn the topic to shreds several times on the podcast.  And I think we (the larger community, of which I am but a small part) have done a pretty good job here in Atlanta, at least, of (A) educating the entrepreneurs, and (B) tearing down the walls that allowed that sort of thing to come about in the first place.  Many of the pay-to-pitch groups don’t even bother with Atlanta any more (because they know they’ll get a boot in the face from the community). But I will add a few additional thoughts here …

I think the fact that someone with Jason’s “web-clout” is a bit late in jumping on this bandwagon is illustrative (to me, at least), of how “disconnected” the valley-minded crowd can be from the rest of the country.  Don’t get me wrong – I want Jason to fight the good fight   But StartupLounge (and others) have been screaming about this, and fighting against it, for several years.

There is a difference between someone in a place like the Valley paying to pitch, and someone in Des Moines, or Tampa, or Atlanta, et al.

If you are paying to pitch in the Valley, you and/or your idea, must really blow. It’s like the handful of applications for CapitalLounge that we get from startups in California that want to come to Atlanta to find money.  Wow – really? WTF?

If you are paying to pitch in some other part of the country (i.e. an under-served capital region, like Atlanta), you may very well be sitting on the next Google, but you likely don’t have the infrastructure and support system around you to tell you that you are wasting your capital paying to pitch – you may think that you don’t have an alternative. And that is where education comes in play.

Uneducated entrepreneur + desperation = “Gee, I bet I can charge this clown $5K to come ‘pitch’ at my service-provider dry hump fest.”

To me, it is all about supply and demand.  How do you kill the demand, since killing the pay-to-pitch organizers is, well, illegal? We’ve found that making more well-rounded, educated, and agile entrepreneurs is the best antidote for the pay-to-pitch problem.  If I had a nickel for every entrepreneur that we’ve collectively “converted” from the dark side through stuff like StartupLounge/CapitalLounge, PitchCamp, Startup Riot, ATDC, Startup Gauntlet, mentoring, et al, I could fund half the deals in the Southeast at least through Series-D

At any rate – good read – Jason’s a firebrand – gotta love it.  Kick ass – take names – peace out.

Cheers.