The following is my account of the Wifi Cat ruse we pulled off last week at Startup Riot 2009 in Atlanta.  This is from memory, so the timeline may be a bit off here or there – but it will give you the gist.

Birth of a Kitten

Several weeks ago, I was down at the ATDC doing something or another – can’t remember exactly what.  Whenever I’m down there, I try and stop by and say hi to some of my fellow entrepreneurs located in Tech Square who are working hard getting their ventures off the ground.  Of course, I usually end up making the trip down the hall to visit with the rowdy crew over at Georgia Tech’s VentureLab (Stephen Fleming, Paul Freet, and Keith Mcgreggor).  On my drive down I had exchanged some text messages with Paul and we committed to hooking up for a quick lunch to get caught up, as I hadn’t seen him in a while.

At any rate, I walked in and Paul was giggling like a two year old in his office. He said something to the effect of “man, you’ve gotta see this.”  The rest is history.  I think.

Read more »

I dropped a tweet on this earlier today, but thought I’d drop a quick note here on the blog as well – especially since I’ve been incredibly lazy about blogging lately.  Well, incredibly too busy to blog, actually, but …

A while back, I was approached by a team of entrepreneurs here in Atlanta who were in the planning phases of a new wireless startup called WiFi Cat.  Strange name, I know, but they had a pretty novel idea.  As I tend to do with so many startups these days, I offered my advice on how they could get the venture off the ground from a bootstrapping standpoint.  My advice, of course, is/was worth what they paid for it – zero lol.

At any rate, fast forward.  The team has really made a lot of progress with their model and service, and are finally ready to stand in front of investors and share their story.  I encouraged them to apply to StartupRiot (and CapitalLounge) to start getting their message out there.  They were accepted into both, and will be having their big coming out party at StartupRiot on February 18th here in Atlanta.

I am also thrilled, and flattered, that they asked me to serve on their board of directors, a responsibility that I do not often accept, and one that I take very seriously.  In the case of WiFi Cat, it was really a no-brainer, though.  This technology is going to fundamentally change the WiFi scene, with far reaching implications that will absolutely DWARF the WiMax initiative.

The team also asked if I could present the idea at StartupRiot personally.  While I don’t think I am necessarily the best candidate to pitch the idea (I’d prefer the founders), I think my passion around their idea will serve me well during the presentation.

So, I will see everyone on the 18th at StartupRiot!  Can’t wait until I can finally talk about this deal – and no, i can’t talk about it right now, so please don’t ask!

Cheers.

I foresaw it a year ago. Stephen Fleming eloquently described it today. Lance Weatherby posted a nice rundown, too. Ashish Mistry piled on as well. Former Earthlink PR exec now turned media blogger, Dan Greenfield, wrote a nice bit as well.

I was unable to attend Startup Riot as I came down with a nasty cold over the weekend, but from all I’ve heard, the event was another stepping stone for the Southeast. Kudos to Sanjay for stepping up and putting a lot of his time into the event. (StartupRiot Flickr stream here). Lance Weatherby posted a nice rundown of the companies that presented at StartupRiot as well – check ‘em out.

I think the smart kids leaving Atlanta to go ply their trades in Silicon Valley are going to eventually regret their move. Atlanta is back – and what we’re seeing now is merely the tip of the iceberg. As I was quoted saying in Dan Greenfield’s excellent piece – I think a year or two from now and Atlanta’s tech and startup scenes will be unrecognizable.

Now we have to sustain this momentum as a community. History is full of flashes in the proverbial pan. I, for one, don’t want to see it go down like that. And it won’t.
Our StartupLounge event tomorrow night will hopefully put a nice bow on what has been an incredible month for startups in Georgia. The event is full – unless you are a last minute investor who wants to attend – but you can read the details here. We’ve also posted new dates for CapitalLounge, AngelLounge, and PitchCamp …

BTW, congrats to SoloHealth – who just scored a new round of funding. They’ll be hanging out at our CapitalLounge event again tomorrow – so if you’re coming, be sure to congratulate Bart Foster and his team.

Yes, the storm is here. No, I mean really. As fitting as this sounds – as I write this draft, we are under a tornado warning. One just touched down a few miles from here.

See you on the bitstream …

Cheers.

Man what a busy week! I think this month (May) will go down as one of the busiest in Atlanta startup history.

Hosting the Cleantech Georgia 2008 event was a ton of fun (my corny jokes aside). We had a great docket of speakers and panelists, and each delivered some incredibly valuable content.

Mike McQuary’s low-speed electric vehicle (RETV) got a nice workout after the event. Attendees could stand in line and take it for a spin around the block. Good stuff!

Read more »