Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time Bound

 1.     Start or accelerate 20 companies – More on this goal in a future blog post.  The basics – Awesome Inc will help start or accelerate 20 companies in 2012.
Deadline: Dec 31^st

 2.      APAX Software continues to be profitable – APAX is the engine that drives a lot of my other activities. I’ve been very proud of this company and my team’s ability to run it efficiently and profitably over the past two years. Succeeding at this goal is critical to my ability to continue many of the other entrepreneurial activities I’m involved in.
Deadline: Dec 31^st

3.       Win State Cup – The team I coach, Lexington FC Premier 99 Boys, has a team goal of winning state cup this year.  In my mind we are the frontrunner, but have some obstacles to overcome – including: discipline issues, the loss of one of our top players to a recent family relocation, and a very difficult schedule leading up to state cup that could be demoralizing if not managed properly.
Deadline: June 3^rd

4.       One trip per month – My girlfriend loves to travel.  I don’t hate it, but traveled a ton in 2011 and don’t believe that waiting in airports, missing layovers, and not having access to my home refrigerator is all that it’s cracked up to be.  This goal could be interpreted as an upper limit as much as a lower.  That said, I am looking forward to taking some exciting trips this year including my first trip to Winter Park Ski Resort in CO.
Deadline: Dec 31^st

2011 travel map

5.       Read Proverbs – My minister challenged me with this tonight.  He said that he sets a New Year’s Resolution every year to become wiser.  And since Proverbs was written by King Solomon, arguably the wisest man to ever live, my minister rereads Proverbs several times over each year.  I’d also like to be wiser, so I’ll take him up on the challenge.
Deadline: April 1^st

6.      BuildingLayer Funded – My latest startup is using indoor maps to improve customer experience and operational efficiency.  We made great progress in 2011, and in order to keep the needle moving we need to raise a 500K round of financing.  We have almost half of this round committed, so fingers crossed we’ll knock this out by the midway point this year.
Deadline: June 1^st
Disclaimer on this goal: This goal could be removed from the list if we decide we don’t need to be a funded venture…which is a possibility.

I plan to write separate posts on each of the topics above, but this post is about how Techstars is building a dynasty among startup accelerators while simultaneously lifting up accelerators nationwide.

In early 2011 Techstars decided to launch theTechstars Network - a group of independently owned and operated accelerator programs from around the globe.  The network currently has about 35 programs participating. Not only is this network great for all of the participating programs, it has placed Techstars at the center of the accelerator space.

David Cohen, founder of Techstars says this about the network, “Over the next 3 years, the TechStars Network will ensure that 5,000 successful and experienced entrepreneurs and investors will mentor and support 6,000 promising young entrepreneurs, increasing their success rate tenfold and creating 25,000 new jobs by 2015 and a sustained engine for growing these figures over time.”

I believe that the Techstars Network will accomplish all of that, as well as the following:

• Increase deal flow for all programs in the network - this helps all programs.
• Bring the overall quality of participating programs up significantly - this helps entrepreneurs.
• Secure Techstars place as the “Stanford” of accelerators for startup entrepreneurs - this helps Techstars.

So, that makes it a win, win, win, right?  Ok, so maybe it’s more like win, win more, and win the most, respectively for programs, entrepreneurs, and Techstars.  But, how can you argue with a program that is benefiting all parties.  It’s brilliant.  And to be honest, Techstars is doing plenty of other things right to be the number one accelerator.

As a participant of an accelerator (Betaspring, Providence, RI) this past summer, I’ve already witnessed some of the benefits of the network first hand.  When my team started the application process, we went straight to the list of Techstars Network programs to decide where we wanted to apply. This essentially gave programs that weren’t on this list a huge disadvantage. And, with the exception of Y Combinator, we didn’t even consider applying to any accelerators that weren’t in the Techstars Network.

One benefit to the network that was not in place at the time we applied was the Universal Application Process.  Teams can now apply at accelerato.rs and fill out one application for all the accelerators to which they wish to apply.  The application process allows for accelerators (even ones that aren’t a part of the Techstars Network) to accept a standard set of accelerator application questions and even add custom questions if desired.  The Universal Application is an initiative supported by the Kaufman Foundation, which will use aggregate data from applications for statistical purposes.  Individual application information is private to the accelerator that owns the application.  I would encourage all accelerators to use this application process as it saves entrepreneurs tons of time (our most valuable resource) and includes some great tools for acceptance selection.

I’m excited about all of the good that the Techstars Network will do for startups.  I clearly remember one quote that David Cohen made at the event, “If it’s good for the entrepreneur, then we support it”.  I genuinely believe that about David and Techstars.  I’d like to thank them and every other initiative that is helping startup entrepreneurs across the globe.

That quote influenced me to make a series of decisions that led to where I am today.  I basically interpreted that as “Go big today…play it safe tomorrow”.  I decided that day to run my business full time.  I recruited two of my engineering friends (one being my brother) to run my software company, APAX Software.  Within two years we were doing over a million in revenue and had 20+ employees.  Through the success of APAX, I was given another opportunity and therefore another decision to make about how to reinvest my share of our profits.  I reflected on his advice again and thought, “I can play it safe and enjoy this situation of moderate success…or I can go big again and try to leverage this success and start something even riskier.”  My conclusion - I can always play it safe in a year or two.

The outcome of that conclusion is Awesome Inc.  I reinvested all of my money into building Awesome Inc.  It’s been a roller coaster of an experience, including several instances of not only almost closing the doors of Awesome Inc, but I also nearly lost my original software company from lack of focus on it.  I’ve spent countless nights working until 2, 3, or 4:00 am down at Awesome Inc putting sweat and tears into our passion and mission that is - to help other entrepreneurs do what they are passionate about and support themselves and the people around them.  I wouldn’t trade it for anything.  A few of the highlights have been - launching the KY Entrepreneur HOF  (hearing stories from John Y. Brown, Pearse Lyons, Dr. Todd, & Davis Marksbury), building a high tech startup culture of communities and events that include Startup Weekend, a series of mobile technology conferences that have featured speakers from Facebook, Yahoo!, PayPal, and AT&T (brands that would normally have no reason to step foot in KY), and a monthly pitch contest that gives away $500 to the winner of each event.  Most importantly, we’ve assisted in the launch of dozens of companies including our most successful and highest potential startup, AwesomeTouch.

This leads to another crossroads that I faced as recently as a few months ago.  I had finally built Awesome Inc to a sustainable break even state (we weren’t paying ourselves anything, but we could at least cover the rent and the staff it took to run it).  My software company was back on track and has been profitable for 15 of the last 17 months.  About this time, Nick Such and the AwesomeTouch team were starting to gain significant traction.  We had three paying customers on reasonable sized contracts and a couple of very large opportunities in the healthcare space that were interested in purchasing our solution.  We knew we needed some investment to take it to the next level.  So we started applying to the top seed stage accelerators around the world.  If you aren’t familiar with a seed stage accelerator, it is kind of like grad school for entrepreneurs.  It’s generally a 3 month boot camp that is intended to accelerate your startup to the next inflection point, often leading to investment.  Not long after applying we were accepted into a program in Providence, RI called Betaspring (read the story here).

Another decision had to be made - continue making a moderate to strong impact on Lexington with the initiatives at Awesome Inc or go all out again and potentially risk losing the foundation I’d built for the past four years.  This time, the decision wasn’t as difficult…I can play it safe in a couple years, right?  Nick and I decided pretty quickly that we had to do this.  We had to do it to excel AwesomeTouch to the level it needed to be at.  We had to do it to put Awesome Inc on the national map, and we had to take the chance of winning really big for Lexington and UK to be able to point to our company as a success story that would encourage others to follow in our footsteps.

…And now we’re back in Lexington.  AwesomeTouch launched another company, Buildinglayer (an even more ambitious endeavor).  Nick, founder of AwesomeTouch & Buildinglayer, had to decide between creating ‘google maps for indoors’ (the basic premise of Buildinglayer) or going to Standford to get his MBA…guess what he chose?  Having the confidence, the nerve, or the naivety to think that you can create a better opportunity than the one you currently have is a huge part of being an entrepreneur.  In fact, it’s necessary.  The question is, how often will make that decision in your life, in your company…or when the opportunity to solve a problem in the world by creating a company, comes along?  My answer, I hope, is ‘every time’.

Sweet! He told me no!  This is great news.  Now I can move onto to trying to find another speaker.  He didn’t tell me, maybe.  He didn’t tell me he’d think about it.  He didn’t tell me to go jump through some unnecessary hoops and then he’d get back with me.  He knew the answer and very politely told me he couldn’t do it. If only this happened more often. Let’s take another every day example from my life.  I play indoor soccer and usually the poor soul that is left organizing the team.  This means ensuring that we have enough players show up to each game.  Every week I send out texts to the entire team asking if they can make it or not. Getting a quick response is as likely as getting my girlfriend to “quickly” leave the mall. I could swear that sometimes you’d think people are so hesitant to tell me they can’t make it that it’s like they are delivering the news that my grandmother has passed away.  Just tell me no, people!  Tell me no right away and I can find a sub.  But most of the times I find out at game time they can’t make it so we’re stuck shorthanded.  This behavior is common with friends, business partners, employees, mentors and customers.

I remember trying to raise a round of investment a year-and-a-half ago. Every investor we would pitch to would tell us they loved our idea and were “probably” in. At the end of each meeting they would ask us to draw up financial projections, learn how to use business planning software tools, or hold numerous additional meetings. We had one investor spend an entire meeting teaching us about all the different types of term sheets! Seriously! My company was a mobile tech startup. You want me to become an expert on term sheets and then you’ll invest? Of course, he didn’t invest and by the next meeting he didn’t even bring up the importance of term sheets, even though we had researched them extensively. We had other investors tell us they would “definitely” do something with us. A week later, they wouldn’t return our phone calls. The point is – I don’t mind learning business planning software or learning about term sheets, but let’s be honest, these are hoops that you are having me jump through to see that I can execute. And I only want to prove to you that I can execute if you are sincerely interested. If you don’t plan to invest in the first place, please don’t waste my time and just tell me no right away…or at least as soon as you know the answer is no. ]]> http://takeitupalevel.com/2011/01/31/please-tell-me-no/feed/ http://takeitupalevel.com/2010/09/09/forget-emdo-your-thing/ http://takeitupalevel.com/2010/09/09/forget-emdo-your-thing/#comments Thu, 09 Sep 2010 19:27:53 +0000 Brian http://takeitupalevel.com/2010/09/09/forget-emdo-your-thing/

We have a lot of codes, rules, and culture stories at Awesome Inc. We have the public favorite, rule #4: “always do something awesome over something not awesome”. We have our soundtrack that includes the song, the other song, the thing and number 3. We have some secret hand shakes and some silly dances.Another one of our core values at Awesome Inc is “Forget ‘em…do your thing” (rule #2, credit Luke Murray, 2009). No matter what your mission, there are going to be people that agree with you and there are going to be people that disagree with you. Your critics get even louder as you become more influential. It is so tempting to try to respond to all of these people that take a position against your initiative. Honestly, it makes you feel better in the short run to defend yourself to your critics. It’s nice to blow off some steam and try to convince everyone why your position is right in hopes to win over your naysayers. But to be blunt, it’s pointless. Most of the time you aren’t going to win anyone over and every second you spent defending yourself should have been spent pursuing your mission. It is simply a distraction that you have to disregard. As long as you’re secure with your principles, and believe whole heartedly in your mission, there is no reason to be distracted from either of them. Focus on “your thing” and ignore your critics. This doesn’t mean don’t listen to your customers or the people around you. This doesn’t mean don’t accept feedback or advice. This doesn’t mean you’re always right and everyone else is wrong. It means don’t listen to your doubters, believe in yourself and trust that game recognize game. I recently read an article about Bill Gates teaming up with Warren Buffet to raise $600 Billion for charity (yes, that is a six with eleven zeros). They are calling the initiative Great Givers. Their plan idea, ask the 400 wealthiest people in the country to pledge 50% of their wealth to philanthropy. Warren Buffet is leading the way by donating 99% of his wealth. After reading the article I parsed through the comments section. To my surprise, a significant portion of the comments were negative and bashing of Gates and Buffet. I found quotes saying “They’re just doing this for their egos” or “after doing their part to destroy the U.S. economy, they now get to make it right by giving the money they obtained by destroying other peoples lives away” or “This is feel good altruism and more harmful than helpful.” I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I wanted to personally defend them from all their critics. And then I realized, “wow…think about the amount of time that Gates and Buffet could spend responding to their critics. They could literally spend every waking moment of every single day defending themselves. Thankfully, they don’t care what their doubters think and instead spend all that time doing their thing”. Which currently appears to be changing the world through the Great Givers initiative. My conclusions, Bill Gates has a lot of critics, a lot of haters, and a lot of people that disagree with what he is doing. But he has one ally who happens to be the richest man in the world. Game recognize game. He is also in the process of acquiring more allies that will really make a difference. He is confident and secure enough in his initiative that he ignores his critics. The lesson: you’re always going to have people that disagree with you and doubt your ideas, your abilities, and even your motives…Forget ‘em - do your thing!

I started my day bright and early (around 11 am).  Went to lunch at Joe Bologna’s with my friend Ben where we discussed several entrepreneurial and high tech initiatives going on throughout Lexington.

Next, I got to mentor a soccer coach who is starting a business that focuses on training student athletes and helping them with the recruiting process.  That meeting was briefly interrupted to do #3 (shown left) w/ my APAX team, the UK CTO and a UK professor (also a client of APAX).  If you aren’t familiar with #3, just ask anyone at Awesome Inc about it and get ready to feel so cool.

I had a quick rainmaker meeting with a team alpha member who just finished this video .Then I spent the next 3 hours working on a business plan for a touch screen company we are launching called AwesomeTouch.  I, of course, got to do this with my friends Nick, Ryan, and John which made it way more fun than you would expect.  We finished up the business meeting w/ dinner at Hugh Jass Burgers, a new burger joint in Lexington.  While we were there we even secured a meeting w/ the owner next week to talk to him about installing touch screens in his restaurant.

By now it’s 7:00.  I have tickets to a 7:30 play that features homeless (or formerly homeless) people called “Please don’t call us homeless…we don’t call you homed”.  I’m mostly interested in this play because it features Pete the Painter, a formerly homeless man who Awesome Inc has been helping out for the past year.  My friends Luke, Katharine (aka: party), Michelle and I walk down main street to watch the play.  I was super proud of him for playing his part and remembering all 5 of his lines. He did awesome…and even wore an Awesome Inc decal sticker the entire play across his chest :).

Next up, my friend Zabu was throwing a party for his company, Model Sensation.  He hooked us up with VIP passes and threw a legit party at The Loft, a local club in town.  After leaving that party I met some other friends at Saddle Ridge.

I finished off the day cranking through some email and writing this blog post.  Now I’m going to bed because I get to coach my 11 year old soccer team tomorrow…If you know me, I’ve probably said this before, but “I love my life”.

Startup Weekend is coming to Lexington for the 2nd year in a row on Nov 20-22, 2009. Startup Weekend is a 54 hour startup event that provides networking, resources, and incentives for individuals and teams to go from idea to launch. It is all about building community, starting companies and ultimately following rule #22 – “go big or don’t be my friend”. Everyone who attends Startup Weekend goes big in the sense that they commit to making strides towards turning their idea into a company in less than three days. The event is intentionally limited in structure to allow for participants to spend most of their time “doing work”. The primary purpose of Startup Weekend is to DO SOMETHING. Spend very little time talking about your idea and most of the time doing something toward launching your idea.

There are two major benefits to attending Startup Weekend. First, is the networking opportunity - You will meet local developers, innovators, business leaders, and entrepreneurs. Over the course of the three day event, meaningful relationships are built and valuable connections are made. The second benefit is to harness the power of community. We expect about 75 participants to attend Startup Weekend this year. So instead of working on your latest ground-breaking idea in the basement of your house, join a bunch of other like-minded individuals at Startup Weekend. For the same reason that people are more motivated while working out at a gym, participants at Startup Weekend reap the benefits of working among a group of other motivated individuals.

Startup Weekend was started in 2007 by Andrew Hyde. The program has traveled to over 52 cities and 12 countries. The program is now run by Marc Nager and Clint Nelson out of Seattle, WA. This year’s event in Lexington is part of Global Entrepreneurship week. Lexington is one of seven cities hosting a Startup Weekend during the weekend of Nov 20th.

Last year’s event had about 65 attendees and 8 companies were formed. One of those companies is called Uvestor. Led by John Williamson, Uvestor is a real estate communication platform where investors, real estate agents, brokers, and landlords can be connected instantly. Uvestor turned out to be such a success that John now runs the company full time.

Get more info at http://lexington.startupweekend.org

Event Details
Date/Time: Friday, Nov 20 6pm – Sunday, Nov 22 7pm
Location: Awesome Inc – 348 East Main Street, Lexington, KY 40507
Cost: $40, includes 7 meals and a t-shirt. Send me an email and I’ll get you a 50% off discount – brian at awesomeinc.org
Register: http://lexington.startupweekend.org/tickets

1. Plan further ahead and on the proper date – Everyone says this all the time, I know.  But we decided to throw this conference just 2 months before the event went off. Certain things such as sponsorship, panels of speakers, and press releases need more time than this to make happen.  For example, we wanted one of our sessions to be a panel of carriers (ATT, Verizon, Sprint, etc).  Every carrier would send us through a maze of contacts to get to someone who could actually help us.  Trying to throw this panel together in the 11^th hour failed miserably.

We also learned that a Saturday in the middle of the summer isn’t the best date for a full day conference.  School is out of session and people are on vacation.  Weekdays are preferred.

2. Necessity of marketing outlets - We relied heavily on viral marketing for our mobile conference.  We used several outlets including regional high tech organizations/communities such as social media club, young entrepreneurs of Lexington, university list serves, etc.  However, having access to a full list of marketing/media outlets would have made our lives tremendously easier considering the ridiculous number of personal invites that are my ‘sent mail’ folder.

3. Make money – This is a novel idea that we aren’t quite sold on yet at Awesome Inc.  Just kidding…but seriously though.  Our keynote speaker, Noah Kagan, made 40K on his first conference.  We barely broke even.  His advice, get to break even by selling tickets at a reduced price far in advance, then jack the price up.  Of course this is only possible if you follow lesson learned number 1 – plan further ahead.

4. Volunteers are nice, paid staff is better – Perhaps our biggest accomplishment and biggest source of sleep deprivation was that we threw the entire conference with a volunteer staff (thanks to everyone who helped by the way, you were amazing).  The volunteers did great, however when a ball gets dropped by a volunteer, you can’t really blame them for dropping the ball or even always ask them to pick it up.  Instead you have to pick up that ball and run with it.  If you have a paid staff, you can expect a lot more of meeting deadlines and consistent communication. 

I’m extremely lucky to have such amazing friends that were willing to help me with this initiative and others. The thank you list is below.

5. People register late – We had over 50% of our registrations come in the last 5 days. This obviously had us worrying about a low turnout, but I guess is to be expected since people don’t want to commit and/or just don’t get around to registering until close to the date of the event.

Thank you list:
Matt Smith – text messaging system / space setup
Ryan Copple – technical stuff
Ryan Bright – web site/technical stuff
Rebecca Fields – food / working the door
Alyssa Thornton – space setup / working the door
Rachel Cunningham – coordinating logistics of event
Chad Engle – pitch contest judge, blog article
Adam Martin – pitch contest judge
Keith Kurzendoerfer – space setup
Nathan Fort –
Scott Johnson – equipment, space setup
Larry Grover – pitch contest judge
Anthony Jones – brochure design
Cliff Ravenscraft – Northern Kentucky recruitment
John Williamson – Louisville recruitment
Jason Falls – Louisville recruitment
Todd Earwood – Louisville recruitment
Andy Cox – space setup, transportation
Josh Fenner – Commerce Lex, space setup, marketing
Gina Greathouse – Commerce Lex, marketing
Kimberly Solsbury – Commerce Lex, marketing
Justin Raney – space setup, iPhone workshop
Tim Savage - recruitment
Jerry Houck – recruitment
Chuck Bryant – Nashville recruitment
Mr. Cunningham – lodging for speakers
Kyle Lake – video
Jaron Jones – photography

Speakers:
Noah Kagan
Brendan Lim
Markus Spiering
Ziv Tarsi
John Soward
Sam Soffes
Nick Holland
Brian Slick
Jake Behrens
Justin Raney

Here is what some of the attendees had to say on twitter:

• heathercw: @awesome_inc, great job with #mobilelex! Thanks!
• luckydog5656: I just had an awesome time at #mobilelex and am pumped to start developing some mobile apps and sites! @APOonline watch out for an upgrade..
• ChadEngle: So far my entire @awesome_inc experience has been amazing. So awesome to be surrounded by so many like minds. #mobileLEX
  

Here are some articles/content published about the conference:

http://www.aceweekly.com/pdfs/uploads/coverstory_090723.pdf
http://fuelyourapps.com/9-reasons-to-attend-an-app-conference-straight-from-the-attendees-mouths/
http://www.youtube.com/AmazingAaronTV#play/uploads/1/X4AuMHN2qUw
http://www.bizlex.com/Articles-c-2009-07-14-88307.113117_Mobile_media_conference_to_help_Web_developers