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.

Please join us for TAG/ATDC Entrepreneurs “The South Shall Raise Again: Raising Early Stage Capital in Georgia and the Southeast” with Michael Blake, CFA and managing director of Adams Capital, Inc. This session will focus on the challenges early stage companies in the SE are facing in respect to raising capital. Mr. Blake will also convey success stories and address his thoughts on best practices. Finally, he will forecast the fund availability outlook going forward, and discuss what GA needs to do to be competitive with the SE and the most successful parts of the USA.

The event details are as follows:

• Organization: Technology Association of Georgia
• Event Name: TAG/ATDC Entrepreneurs “South Shall Raise Again: Raising Early Stage Capital in Georgia and the Southeast”
• Date: March 6, 2008, 7:30am to 9:00am
• Entrepreneurs Only Roundtable:* 9:15am to 10:00am
• You MUST attend the presentation in order to attend the Roundtable*
• Location: Centergy One Building
• 75 5th Street NW Atlanta, GA 30308
• http://www.tagonline.org

The bug is fixed, so the data is now accurate. The other good news, is that there was more of a focus in early-stage and expansion-stage deals over Q2/2007, and a decrease in later-stage activity. Now that we are approaching the end of Q4, I’ll be curious to see those #s when they get published in Jan or Feb.

Cheers.

To our knowledge there have been at least 10 deals that have gotten investor traction from our first two events, including a possible $3M series-A and many, many angel deals. Of course, the relationships and connections that have been formed through the event are worth far more than the capital. However, nothing serves our cause better than to hear the successful networking stories from entrepreneurs and investors – so if you have feedback, or a story to tell, let us know!

The quarterly StartupLounge.com Capital Connections event now routinely draws a solid base of investors. Past attendees have included UPS, Imlay Investments, Croft-Bender, Southern Capitol Ventures, Chrysalis Ventures, Noro-Moseley, Atlanta Technology Angels, Smith-Hoffman Capital, Kinetic Ventures, Grotech, Leader Ventures, EGL Ventures, Monolith Capital Partners, and many others.

If you are a fast-growth entrepreneur in the Southeast U.S., or an investor who’d like to network among such innovators to scout for new deals, you won’t want to miss it.

For this next event, there will be some changes to the format:

1. Based upon feedback from both entrepreneurs and investors, we are introducing something new to the event. Investors will be let in an hour or so before entrepreneurs. This will afford investors with an opportunity to network among themselves prior to the event. Additionally, the StartupLounge.com team will hand-select a group of deals that will participate in a 2-minute “fast-pitch” on the microphone. No slides, no frills. Just two minutes presenting your deal to a room full of investors. After an hour of private networking and fast-pitching with the selected deals, we’ll open the venue to all attendees. Our goal here is threefold. First, we want to provide investors an opportunity to connect with each other, in a “less frenetic” environment. Second, we want to provide our investor attendees with a quick look at a handful of fresh (qualified) deals. Finally, the benefit to the entrepreneurial community is obvious.
2. Due to the logistics involved in throwing a party for 200-300 people every quarter, we are now going to close off registrations for the event a week or two before the actual event date. This will give us ample time to get name badges ready, and will allow the venue staff to prepare accordingly.
3. We are capping attendance from here on out. Fortunately (and I suppose unfortunately), the CapConn events have taken on a life of their own. And this means the venue is on the brink of getting filled to capacity. This has the side-effect of making it fairly difficult to navigate the room and find deals or investors. Therefore, we’ll be capping the attendance at around 225 people. What does this mean for everyone? It means you need to sign up sooner rather than later, in order to hold your spot!

The cost is still free, of course, and the room will be free of job-seekers and service-providers. However, we are seeking a few more sponsors to augment the sponsors we currently have. If your firm (or someone you know) is interested in helping us sponsor this event each quarter, please have them get in contact with us. Service-providers are welcome sponsors – in fact, it is the only way they can get in the room.

To apply to attend as an investor or entrepreneur/company, click here.

Cheers.

Here it is, midnight, and I just got home from our quarterly Capital Connections event. Wow, what a night. I am completely spent, so I’ll make this post brief!
We’ll have a full wrap-up posted in the next few days (along with tons of photos), but here are a few short observations:

• Despite the really terrible weather and apparently horrible accidents that backed up traffic on most of the major highways, we still managed to get over 200 people in the door – not bad. We had over 300 on the RSVP list, but I got calls from several investors and entrepreneurs shortly before the event telling me that they had diverted planes from Hartsfield Airport, and that the roads were seriously backed up. Several out of state VCs had their flights to Atlanta sufficiently delayed or cancelled. Yay. :( Nevertheless, 200+ entrepreneurs and investors in a room filled with gourmet crab cakes is never a bad recipe. It is probably a good thing – had the weather and traffic permitted, we would have quite likely been elbow-to-elbow. I think we may need to cap attendance at 250 or so for future events. 300 would have been brutal.
• It was good to see new deals and new investors in the room. Keeping the event “fresh” is something that is always at the top of our mind.
• It was also very encouraging to see established Atlanta entrepreneurs such as Chris Klaus coming to participate. We need more of this. Guys with ideas rarely become emerging growth companies without the mentorship, guidance, and wisdom that can be provided by those that have tread before them. Those of you who have experienced a great deal of success, and who are not sufficiently engaged, know who you are.
• The happy moment for me came when I looked across the demo area and saw literally dozens of entrepreneurs hunched over their laptops showing investors and other entrepreneurs what they were up to. This sort of transparency is very healthy.
• I saw some folks who participated in our recent PitchCamp showing off their new pitches and one pagers. Very cool!
• Despite repeated invitations, the Atlanta Journal Constitution still refuses to attend (or even write me back for that matter). Too bad. You would think that something as revolutionary, grassroots and impactful as these events would be newsworthy. Oh well. Thankfully, there is the Atlanta Business Chronicle, who realizes that this event represents a unique nexus between ideas and capital.

Thanks to everyone who came out and participated! A thanks to our sponsors as well! Your collective support allows us to continue providing a remarkable quarterly opportunity to drive change. The event continues to evolve, and we are grateful for your patience!
We’ll soon begin planning our Q4 event, which will be in early December. Should be a great time to gather around the holidays ….

Cheers.

I have been contemplating writing this post for about 2 years, and have been jotting down various notes for it for at least a year.

There are lots of ways to unethically nudge your fledgling company along. For example, you can artificially inflate your numbers. “You’ll love our site! Millions of other people are already using it!” Faux-Guerilla marketing, is another example (e.g. posting a message on a forum somewhere pretending to be a user in love with your product or service). “Procuring” copies of your competitor’s proposals by pretending to be a customer is also something I’ve seen before. The sky is truly the limit when you operate with little or no regard to ethics.

However, the widespread use of pirated software among startups is probably the most prevalent problem that I’ve seen.

I routinely deal with various early-stage entrepreneurs (increasingly not just here in the Southeast, but all around the world.) Based upon my very non-academic study, I would venture to say that somewhere around 40-60% of the companies I’ve met with over the past few years have used, or are using, pirated software in some part of their organization. That’s a pretty big number, and I’m convinced that number probably goes higher.

How bad is the problem? Well, in many of the cases I see, usually it’s just 1 or 2 people within the organization that are the primary offenders. However, there are companies that are quite literally “powered by pirates”, from the dozens of illegal copies of Windows XP and Microsoft Office to the software running the CRM database, the accounting platform, the software development tools for the engineers, the email servers, and even the phone system.

It’s a big problem, and has been for a while.

I have made a few observations:

1. It comes down to money, at the end of the day. The unethical bootstrapper’s mindset is squarely around this premise: If I have a choice between paying the rent or plopping down $1,000 for desktop publishing software, I’m paying the rent. Bootstrappers are always seeking new ways to save money and hit milestones – while illegal and unethical – using pirated software certainly accomplishes both.
2. Convenience is also a matter, although on a smaller scale. It is much more convenient to download pirated software than it is to buy it and wait a week, or get in the car and visit the computer/office store.
3. Despite the increases in computer security and rights management techniques, stealing software is easier than ever. A cursory search on common file sharing networks revealed current versions of Microsoft Vista (and XP), Oracle Enterprise, Quickbooks Pro, etc.
4. Usually, the piracy stems from the IT shop, not the management team (unless the founder is a particular technology-savvy individual).

I was thinking about the potential impact of this on the due diligence process for a venture raise. I’ve never seen a VC do an audit of software licenses as part of the due diligence process. I have, of course, seen software licenses roll up as “assets” when a company is being dissolved or sold-off. This is the sort of detail that a VC isn’t typically going to explore during due diligence (an exception might be with certain levels of enterprise software) – but they should, as there are tremendous potential liabilities.

According to the SIIA (Software & Information Industry Association):

If unauthorized software is found, the company must license enough copies of the software, pay a fine equal to three times the cost (MSRP) of the software and adopt and implement company-wide software compliance policies.

…

If the company refuses to conduct an audit, SIIA may sue the company for copyright infringement on behalf of its members.

Here is a great resource for companies looking to become compliant.

My advice to you entrepreneurs … continue to budget wisely, but be sure to leverage open source solutions. With open source solutions now available for most any problem, there is really no need to have to pirate a commercial product just to accomplish a task.

My advice to investors – hire someone to do an audit of the venture’s base of software licenses. Make sure they are legitimate, and that there is an audit trail confirming their purchase.

Cheers.

A great deal of discussion focused around Y-Combinator, Techstars and other similar models. While the group served up varied opinions on the details, we all agreed to the need, and our collective desire to make this a reality here in the Southeast.

It will be interesting to see how this continues to evolve. Whatever form this thing takes, it will serve to fill a big gaping void in the regional venture market.

Kudos to Stephen for taking the lead and organizing this thing … someone had to do it!

More soon …

Cheers.

I’d like to take a moment to thank the folks who’ve stepped up to sponsor our non-profit efforts:

• Chrysalis Ventures
• Southern Capitol Ventures
• Web.com
• Adams Capital
• Clements-Walker
• Slingshot
• Angus McRae
• ATDC
• Technology Association of Georgia (TAG)

Without their substantial sponsor dollars and influence behind what we do, we’d have to pay for all of this ourselves (again), and let’s face it, that would suck. Each of these sponsors is behind our efforts because they truly believe in what we are doing – and that makes our relationship with them even sweeter.

Cheers.

If you are a Georgia-based entrepreneur seeking to raise capital for your venture, check out the new program put together by TAG and the ATDC. Called “CapVenture”, it offers a 5 week training program to help prepare you for a capital raise.

Click here for more info …

And speaking of the ATDC, I’d like to state publicly that I think the state of Georgia should overfund the ATDC’s seed fund, and give them a very strong mandate to drive regional investment. I think it is time for the State’s economists and business development leaders to put their (our) money where their mouth is.

Cheers.

The next quarterly StartupLounge.com Capital Connections event will be held on August 29th here in Atlanta.

If you are a fast-growth entrepreneur in the Southeast U.S., or an investor who’d like to network among such innovators to scout for new deals, head on over to StartupLounge.com and sign up. If you missed the last event, you can read the wrap up and check out the photo gallery over here. We had about 180 folks last time – we’re estimating 250-300 this go around.

For this next event, there will be some changes to the format:

1. First and foremost, we are opening it up to entrepreneurs across the Southeast United States (not just those located in Georgia). We are doing this because Atlanta really, truly should be the hub of entrepreneurship in the region. Several investors that attended the first event also made this suggestion, and we think this move will benefit investors (more deal flow) and entrepreneurs (more regional connections).
2. We are going to cap attendance at some point, so if you have an interest in attending, it would probably be wise to sign up sooner rather than later.
3. As before, companies will be limited to sending no more than two (2) representatives (investors may send as many representatives as they’d like, though).
4. We’re encouraging more entrepreneurs to bring demos, laptops, etc. (especially on the technology side)
5. We’ll be providing some free coaching for entrepreneurs prior to the event (See “PitchCamp“)
6. We’ve expanded our RSVP form to capture additional information that will help us better serve attendees.
7. If you attended the first event, don’t apply again – you’ll receive the event code in your email very soon.

The cost is still free, of course, and the room will be free of job-seekers and service-providers. However, we are seeking a few more sponsors to augment the sponsors we currently have. If your firm (or someone you know) is interested in helping us sponsor this event each quarter, please have them get in contact with us. Service-providers are welcome sponsors – in fact, it is the only way they can get in the room.

Cheers.