From their email:

The overall startup climate is improving, but it’s still too hard for young companies to get exposure. Finding the right investors and getting access to the media is as challenging as it every was. It’s time to democratize access and address this problem head on. We can change this together.

Today, we’re launching the Founder Showcase, where any Member can showcase their business on TheFunded.com. Once a quarter, TheFunded.com will invite ten early-stage companies with the most Member votes to an event where they can pitch in front of an audience of leading entrepreneurs, media, and investors for free. Best of all, the inaugural Showcase event is just days away in January.

- http://www.thefunded.com/showcase

• easier scanning (with aiming bars)
• scanning hints (progress and tips)
• support for Europe (international bug removed)
• support for Touch (we heard you loud and clear)
• all user reported bugs (price alerts and others)

Here is the deal.  With each release you can get new ratings from users.  Our ratings sucked on 1.0.  Take a minute to download and rate us again – this time try giving us five stars.  It helps us keep ShopSavvy free.  Here is a video:

The TED2010 Fellows reflect both geographic and discipline diversity. From Israel to Brazil to Malaysia, these innovators excel in the technology, entertainment, design, science, film, art, music, entrepreneurship and nonprofit worlds. The group also includes filmmakers, engineers, artists, scientists and musicians. “They represent a
spectacular concentration of cross-disciplinary talent in the arts and sciences, entrepreneurship and engineering, education and new journalism. We look forward to their contributions to the TED community and the amazing collaborations that are sure to occur among them,” said Tom Rielly, TED Fellows director.

In addition to participating as full members of the TED2010 conference audience, each TED Fellow will participate in a two-day pre-conference, where they will receive world-class communication training, deliver a short TEDTalk, and collaborate with their peers, among other benefits. The Fellows will also participate in the TED community throughout the next year, by telling their ongoing stories on the TED Fellows blog, being featured in the online Fellows directory and participating in a private social network.

Follow TED on Twitter, http://twitter.com/tedtalks, or on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/TED

TED2010, “What the World Needs Now,” will be held Feb. 9-13, 2010, in Long Beach, California, along with TEDActive, a simulcast conference of TED2010, in Palm Springs, California.

Summit Biosciences, a specialty pharmaceuticals business will expand its operation  investing over $5 million in new people & facilities.  The company received 250K from the state’s high-tech investment pool.

Summit develops and manufactures generic prescription and new over-the-counter (OTC) pharmaceutical products administered to patients by means of a nasal spray. The company is also developing new OTC nasal spray products for which it will apply for patents and plans to begin manufacturing in the first quarter of 2010. To date, Summit has secured a partnership with a publicly traded generic-drug manufacturing company to jointly develop generic versions of five FDA-approved nasal spray products, including one to treat osteoporosis and others used to treat migraine headaches. The company has also secured a contract manufacturing agreement with a company to develop and make a new nasal spray product to treat pain. 

America’s Small Business of the Year Award

America’s Small Business of the Year Award is open to both members and nonmembers of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Virginia’s Fantastic 50

The Virginia Fantastic 50 recognizes the companies with the highest growth rates in five categories. To be eligible, companies were required to be privately held, with headquarters in Virginia, and to show sales between $200,000 and $100 million. They were judged on a four-year sales revenue history.

NCTC TechNite Awards

Recognizing the success of technology entrepreneurs and companies from the NewVa region. Award Categories include Rising Star, Entrepreneur, NewVA Leadership, Educator, and Innovation.

The American Business Awards

The “Stevie Awards” were created to honor and generate public recognition of the achievements and positive contributions of organizations and business people worldwide.

Roanoke Chamber of Commerce Small Business of the Year Award

The annual awards program showcases the accomplishments of the small business sector which is composed of 99 percent of the area’s business community.

Virginia Technology Fast 500 and Fast 50

The Virginia Technology Fast 50 annually recognizes the fastest-growing companies within the geographic boundaries of Virginia. The Technology Fast 500 recognizes the 500 fastest-growing technology, media and entertainment, telecommunications and life sciences companies in the United States, and Canada.

Fast Company Magazine’s Technology Fast 50

For Fast Company’s Fast 50 and Fast 50 Reader Favorites identifies the most innovative companies in the world.

The Inc. 500

These awards recognize the fastest-growing, privately held companies in America—the celebrated Inc. 500 and Inc. 5000. The Inc. 5,000 also recognizes the top 100 companies in every major metro area, the top 100 companies in several industry categories, and several other top 100 lists.

R & D 100

The top 100 innovations of the year, as selected by R&D Magazine’s panel of judges.

Technology Fast 500
A list of the 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences, and clean technology companies in the nation based on percentage revenue growth over five years.

Governor’s Technology Awards for Virginia

This awards program honors outstanding achievements and recognizes innovative technology initiatives in the public sector throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Virginia Business Magazine’s Small Business Success Awards

Recognizes the overall contributions that small business makes to Virginia’s economy by honoring four examples of small businesses that embody the success and vitality of business in the commonwealth.

Federal Laboratory Consortium Awards

The FLC MAR Awards Program annually recognizes federal laboratories and their industry partners for outstanding technology transfer efforts.

TR35 Young Innovators Under 35

Since 1999, the editors of Technology Review have honored the young innovators whose inventions and research we find most exciting; today that collection is the TR35, a list of technologists and scientists, all under the age of 35.

Blue Ridge Business Journal’s Best Company to Work For

The Best Place to Work award is given to a business with a minimum of three employees located in the Blue Ridge Region and evaulated based on the following six criteria: job satisfaction, ethical standards, community contribution, employee development and support, product/service leadership, and quality of life/environment.

U.S. Small Business Administration Awards

Every year, the US Small Business Administration recognizes the contributions small businesses and entrepreneurs to America’s economic well-being. Local, state, and national award winners are selected in more than 20 categories.

San Antonio’s Azaya Therapeutics, Inc. announced today that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved its Investigational New Drug (IND) application for its lead product “ATI-1123,” a novel and improved formulation of Taxotere^® (docetaxel), a leading chemotherapy drug with worldwide annual sales of over $2.8 billion.

The company is doing some pretty cool things with what it claims to be its Protein Stabilized Nanoparticle (PSN™) platform that disrupts the traditional thinking in how you overcome the delivery of water insoluble drugs.   The company’s brain trust has figured out a way to bring this platform to market and get on the radar of the global oncology market.

As with any company - and more so one that’s in the bio-sciences space, the management team matters.  They not only have smart people, but they understand the business realities of how get FDA approvals and build a real company.

Azaya’s Phase I clinical study will now open for enrollment at two premier cancer research centers in Texas: South Texas Accelerated Research Therapeutics at the START Center for Cancer Care in San Antonio and The Mary Crowley Cancer Research Center in Dallas.

My take is that they could have done this anywhere in the U.S. (or the world) but they chose world class - yet local facilities so they could be on site and manage the relationship more closely.

Kudos to  Michael T. Dwyer, president and CEO of Azaya and his team.

‘Serial Entrepreneur’ Terry Matthews to Speak at RIT Dec. 11

Terry Matthews, the founder of more than 60 telecommunications, information technology and software companies, will discuss how to create successful new ventures during a 3 p.m. talk on Friday December 11th at Rochester Institute of Technology’s B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences Auditorium.

The event is free and open to the public.

Matthews is the chairman of Wesley Clover, a private equity firm that describes itself as being in the business of building businesses. Matthews and his team at Wesley Clover utilize their extensive experiences in the technology realm to identify gaps in the marketplace and launch new enterprises to fill them. Wesley Clover reaches out to either recent college graduates or those at the tail end of their academic career to lead the charge, offering training and mentoring along the way.

In the past two years, seven recent RIT graduates have formed companies for Wesley Clover.

“Terry Matthews is what I call a serial entrepreneur,” says Richard DeMartino, director of RIT’s Albert J. Simone Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. “His passion is empowering and coaching young entrepreneurs in building businesses. The insight he will offer in his presentation will be invaluable for anyone looking to launch their own business.”

By Guest Poster: Sanjay Sathe, Founder and CEO, RiseSmart

When I was looking for a change as a senior executive at Dallas-based Sabre in 2006, I got firsthand experience with outplacement services and with searching the Web for jobs. I was surprised by how frustrating and time-consuming it was to use the major job boards (even the ones supposedly geared to executives).

So I stopped looking for jobs and decided to start my own company. It’s called RiseSmart.

RiseSmart applies fresh thinking, powered by technology, to update outplacement and job search services for the needs of today’s employees. We meet jobseekers where they are today – online – delivering personalized job leads and helping them to make the most of social networks, among our other services.

Starting with just two employees, RiseSmart has grown since February 2007 to more than 50 employees. We have earned the outplacement accounts of Fortune 500 companies, and we are generating millions of dollars in revenues. While we still have much to accomplish, our vision is coming together.

But one choice I made in order to pursue this vision was particularly difficult. I left my longtime home in Dallas to move RiseSmart to San Jose.

I am a native of India, and Dallas is the only place in the United States I’ve ever lived. I had children in Dallas schools and a wife who had built a strong circle of close friends.

So, why did I move my startup to Silicon Valley? And should you do the same?

Benefits of Starting Outside the Valley

The answer, as with many difficult decisions, is “It depends.”

Early-stage startups can be very successful outside of the Valley. RiseSmart was headquartered in Dallas for our first 18 months before moving in July 2008, and I think being in the city played to our advantage in important ways.

First and foremost, it enabled me to tap my local business connections, earned over many years, to attract both seed money and initial customers. We were able to raise $1.25 million in angel funding in our first year, something that would have been far more difficult for me to achieve outside of Dallas.

Dallas is also a major corporate hub – a great place for selling our outplacement offering. The first Fortune 500 clients we landed were Dallas companies, and this local success is ultimately what laid the groundwork for RiseSmart winning institutional funding.

Finally, I think because the Dallas startup community is much smaller than that of Silicon Valley, it is very close-knit. When there are potential synergies between two companies, you try to make them work – as opposed to saying, “Let’s do lunch” and moving on to something else.

Different Stages, Different Needs

But when it was time to raise our first round of institutional funding, it became clear pretty quickly that we might need to move our headquarters to get it.

For the most part, it’s simply a numbers game. VCs generally like to be in close physical proximity to the companies they fund – and there just aren’t as many VCs in Dallas (or even all of Texas) as there are in startup hubs like the Valley and Boston.

This difference in sheer numbers has secondary consequences, too. For example, in RiseSmart’s experience, we found that many Texas VCs were focused on the enterprise software and telecom sectors. Silicon Valley VCs entertain ideas from a broader set of industries.

I also think it’s safe to say that, with fewer dollars to go around, VCs outside the Valley are more likely to wait for the “sure thing.” Unfortunately, this can lead to missing out on the next big thing.

This problem is not unique to Dallas. Boston, for example, is the second biggest startup hub after Silicon Valley – but Facebook had to move from Boston to the Valley to get funding, a story that is not at all uncommon.

Ultimately, we determined that RiseSmart needed institutional money to scale our operations, and we got this financing from Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), based in Palo Alto. Upon receiving an initial $3 million investment from NVP, we moved our headquarters to Sunnyvale in July 2008, and later to San Jose.

NVP joined Menlo Park-based Storm Ventures to provide RiseSmart with an additional $4.6 million in funding in October of this year.

What’s Best for You?

So, that’s my story. But what’s the best decision for you?

Here are my top four reasons for moving to Silicon Valley. If none of these apply to you, you should consider staying put.

1. You can’t find the necessary talent where you are now. Unquestionably, there are more geeks per square foot in the Valley than anywhere else. But plenty of major cities – particularly those with good universities – boast more than their share of talent. The talent in the Valley has more experience working in startups, which is a major plus. But it’s also a double-edged sword, as you’ll encounter more individuals who have become cynical as a result of their experiences.

2. You can’t get the necessary financing where you are now. If you’re a good salesperson with a good idea, you should be able to get angel funding wherever you live – because there are rich people everywhere. But when it comes to institutional funding, there are only a handful of startup hubs, of which Silicon Valley is by far the largest. If you want to live in Austin or Boston or Raleigh-Durham, by all means, go after money from those VCs first. But your best bet for landing meaningful dollars is the Valley.

3. You can afford it. It’s no secret that the Valley is prohibitively expensive. This is a really good reason to not move to the Valley unless you are independently wealthy, or until you score VC funding to at least sustain yourself. If you move to the Valley on a wing and a prayer, it can really hamper your efforts to start a company – because what are you going to live on until it takes off?

4. There’s no compelling reason to be somewhere else. All things being equal, Silicon Valley is the place to be for technology-oriented startups. But all things aren’t equal, are they? Perhaps your family would be miserable if you moved. Perhaps your startup is focused on a specific industry, like entertainment, and you’d be better off in an industry town like New York or Los Angeles. Every situation is different.

Wherever you end up, I wish you the best of luck in making your startup dreams come true. The relentless pursuit should continue.

I haven’t had a chance to download Gowalla, but I will be grabbing it from the app store later today.  Have you downloaded it yet?  Here is the iPhone download link.

So… here’s the info from Tom Dolan for tomorrow night’s ReInvent Abilene:

Larry Williamson of EarthCo Building Systems will tell his story of inventing the Megablock extruded earth block machine which is now complete and building structures including a couple in Amarillo. Larry hopes to soon build earth block homes with a developer in Abilene. Many of you will remember Larry as a regular ReInvent attendee in the early days. I believe you’ll want to hear Larry’s story of research, invention, development and company formation.

A couple of you had questions about the engineering of the EarthCo MegaBlock - especially integrity when flooded with water. What we haven’t said is that several entities considered these and other issues including the Texas Tech University Whitacre College of Engineering departments of Mechanical and Civil Engineering as well as the TTU Small Busienss Development Center.

Come find out if the MegaBlock melts away or stays together in a flood! Earthco founder Larry Williamson will fill you in on engineering integrity and business development details at the ReInvent Abilene gathering 5pm tomorrow. Free food and beverages!

“Inventing Megablock”
Thu Dec 10, 2009
5:00pm to 7:00pm
Texas Tech University at Abilene
302 Pine Street - Across from the Downtown Abilene Post Office

Timing of the conference has been intentionally scheduled just prior to two major Cleantech conferences to accommodate prospective attendees from Israel and elsewhere.  The first being the global Cleantech conference “Renewable Energy World” scheduled for February 23-25 at the Austin Convention Center, and the second, Cleantech Forum® XXVI scheduled for February 24-26, 2010 in San Francisco, CA.

Keynote speakers will include Israel’s Chief Scientist, and University of Texas graduate, Dr. Eli Opper, as well as Mark Armentrout, former board chairman of ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) and current President of the Texas Institute and Governor Rick Perry or a senior official from the Governor’s office

“Israel is producing  many of the most important innovations in the world in a variety of industries including Cleantech and Renewable Energy,” says Greg Yavner, President of the Texas-Israel Chamber of Commerce.  “This conference will provide an important opportunity for US companies to meet the senior management teams from the most exciting Israeli companies in the field and they will be amazed at the ingenuity and depth of the solutions offered by these companies,” Yavner continues.

Supported by both Israeli venture capitalists and government agencies such as the Ministry of Industry Trade & Labor and BIRD Foundation, a joint U.S. and Israeli government fund targeted to fund R&D partnerships between Israeli and U.S. companies, this conference represents $1B in investment potential, and a special opportunity to meet the most exciting Israeli companies and innovators in a variety of areas including; water technologies, wind power, electricity management, solar power, smart-grid, and geothermal technologies.

Flagship sponsors include IDE Technologies, the largest and most advanced desalination company in Israel, as well as Greenberg Traurig law firm, with several other organizations finalizing negotiations.  Early registrants include Shell, Waste Management, Austin Energy, Sevin Rosen Funds, Silicon Valley Bank, Nanoholdings LLC,  BIRD Foundation, Ercot,  TexasEmerging Technology Fund, Leviathan Energy, WindSL, Israel Cleantech Ventures, IDE, Haynes & Boone, GreenbergTraurig, Israel Cleantech Ventures, Aqua-Agro Fund, Miya and more.

Early response to this unique event has been very strong, so early registration is highly encouraged.  Visit www.texasisrael-Cleantech.org/cleanovation for more information and register today.

It is important for a creative community to have spaces and associations that not only allow free expression, but encourage new modes of collaboration and community building. When people are in a comfortable environment with comforting people, they dare to find new modes of expression and prototype new ideas. When failure is tolerated and experimentation is encouraged, people will try bold, new things and people will have fun.

Buildycrunken is an event that hosts creative participants in a comfortable atmosphere. Buildycrunken #1: Hocus Focus was the inaugural event of a new outlet for creativity. Hosted at Third Street Stuff in Lexington, the event encouraged people to get the ideas they have floating around in their mind out into the world. Running from Friday evening into Saturday morning people were able to reclaim the time they usually spend in sleep or toiling in isolation to be part of making wonderful new things or completing pet projects they may have let fall through the cracks.

There was a diverse showing of people. The concept originated from Collexion, Lexington’s hackerspace, and was built from the ground up to accommodate as may people as possible. Other groups that made it an official gathering include ReBelle Stitch ‘n Bitch, National Novel Writers’ Month, and the Kentucky Ruby Users Group. There was a solid showing of people coming on their own, as well. The turnout was amazing, the coffee shop was at or above capacity until well past midnight.

By any measure it was a success. The sheer number of people turning out, the amount of work that got done, and the new connections and friendships that were built all point to the effectiveness and need for this type of event. Software, music, mittens, game scenarios, jewelery, books, and art were all created overnight, and the next morning new friends went to get breakfast together. Whenever the worst that can be said about an event is that it was hard to find a place to sit, it indicates that something good is happening.

There will be other Buildycrunken events in the future, because it seems people will always take advantage of an opportunity to be more creative. There are plans in the works now to start an event that will be interleaved with Buildycrunken events, a forum for people to demonstrate the skills they ply during their creative times, and teach those that are interested. With the cross-pollination and encouraging spirit of these events, grassroots growth and a legitimate creative culture are going to continue to grow in Lexington.

Well the CueCat has been reborn (once again here in North Texas) and is now called Qyoo (pronounced “Q” or “cue”).  I rarely spend ANY time being negative on this blog, but I after watching a long form news piece on Qyoo I can’t help but comment.  The Qyoo folks have created a ‘new’ 2D barcode.  Of course 2D barcodes have been around since 1994 and are standard on almost ALL shipping packages throughout the world.  Companies like NeoMedia and Scanbuy have attempted to convince marketers to locate 2D barcodes on print, television and outdoor advertising.  These efforts have been successful in Japan, Korea and France.  In other places, namely the U.S., their efforts have been less successful.  I have written about 2D codes or QR codes in context to our own barcode efforts here.

Qyoo claims that QR codes (the industry standard 2D barcode) are difficult for cell phones to read.  This patently false.  2D codes are VERY easy for cell phone cameras to read.  You don’t need a fancy auto-focus camera, instead almost all cell phone cameras produced since 1994 have the capability to read a QR code.  So why would Qyoo try to solve a problem that doesn’t exist?  Well, they are actually trying to solve a different problem: CONTROL.

You see, anyone can create a 2D QR code that links an image on a package back to rich media (a website, a video, an audio track, whatever) for FREE using a QR code.  Why?  The company that created them, Denso-Wave, decided to release the standard to the world for FREE.  The format’s specification is available royalty-free from Denso-Wate.  As a result, International standards organizations have adopted the open QR code standard including AIM International (Oct 1997), JIS X 0510 (Jan 2999), ISO/IEC 18004:2000 (Jun 2000) and ISO/IEC 18004:2006 (Sep 2006).  QR codes have de facto standards to allow for encoding of URLs, contact information and other data types.  You don’t need to pay Qyoo to create these 2D codes.  You will see more and more 2D codes on packages, but they will be the free variety.  1D codes UPC/EAN codes took off because they were standard and FREE.  If someone had tried to charge manufacturers for a 1D code there wouldn’t be 1D barcodes on 100% of the stuff you buy today.

If marketers REALLY wanted to link their packages, billboards and print ads to websites they could simply use a QR code generator, embed the links and include them - for free, today.  The problem is that most US and EU marketers decided it was easier to simply write the URL in their ads.  In Japan it is easier to print a 2D code than try to use Japanese letters (Kana/Kanji) in a URL.  Are you getting the picture?  2D is big in Japan because there are more than 1,945 Japanese characters.  Imagine trying to remember the characters in a Japanese URL?  If you can scan the 2D code to the left you will find Qyoo’s website.  Qyoo will control their 2D codes - you will have to pay for the privilege of using them.  The one to the left is FREE.

Of course the real problem with Qyoo is that another little company has already entered the 2D ‘tag’ space.  You might have heard of them - they are called MICROSOFT.  Microsoft calls their 2D code a ‘tag’.  Microsoft, like Denso-Wave, has released the reader and the creator for commercial and non-commercial use for FREE.  Microsoft launched tag back in 2007 and began included them on DVDs.  I wish the Qyoo people all the best, but I really believe that we don’t need another proprietary barcode standard - instead I think we need more stewards of the existing open standards.  Build really great tools for marketers around the existing standards.  Use QR codes or Microsoft’s Tag and build something great.

Abby’s (aka Jeanne Phillips) sage recommendation (which she obviously didn’t ask any REAL entrepreneur’s about) is to write up a business plan (ok so far) and present it to a bank and ask for a loan.  Supposedly if the bank says “yes” to the loan then the idea is a sound one.  Does anyone else see the silly irrationality of this “test” to see if the business idea is valid?  No?  Well let me spell it out.  The bank will either say yes or no - based on it’s own interests - not the validity of the business plan:

• YES - ok, rule number one - bank’s will only loan you money when you don’t need it.  So if they say “YES” to loaning money on this plan it will be for one reason only - that this young lady already has enough money and assets to act as collateral against the loan they are giving.  They know that any bet on an entrepreneurial venture is a long shot - so they won’t loan her any money she can’t already cover.  They’ll ask her to put her home equity, personal assets and everything else up against the loan and then will only loan her a portion of that total.  As a test for whether this is a “good idea” this fails miserably.
• NO - this is the most likely answer.  Banks don’t take “angel capital” style risks.  You could walk in with the full business plan for Facebook(before Facebook was created) and they would say “that’s a nice idea.  Where’s your income stream or other collateral that we can hold in case your silly idea fails?  Your booked A/R?   Your history of past performance? Oh you don’t have any? Sorry no luck.”  This poor woman would walk away thinking she can’t be an entrepreneur because the most fiscally conservative organization you can find won’t invest in her.

So if Abby’s foolish advice is NOT the route to take - what should this woman do?  Well the first thing she needs to do is that business plan - she needs to fully flesh out her business idea and examine it critically.  She needs to bounce it off  other entrepreneurs, and preferably get an experienced entrepreneur mentor (Try SCORE, or social media to connect to one) or gather a board of directors made up of other business owners she knows together to review the plan before she spends her effort and cash on it.  Just because she has a dream does not mean she has a marketable idea.  If there are startup resources (say a Springstage Blog) in her area she should go to them to help connect her with others who have been down the road she wants to take.

In addition she needs to approach this venture with some reality checks in mind:

•  The likelihood of successfully starting a business and maintaining your marriage without your spouse’s full buy-in is vanishingly small.  Starting a business will affect everyone in her immediate family.  She needs to have their support, help and understanding to succeed.  It may actually come down to “which is more important - your dream or your marriage”.  Better to decide that before she starts the business.
• Does she want to build a business as a consultant, a lifestyle business, or an asset that she will eventually resell, or retire from and will provide her with long term wealth. Those are different routes, with different risks and rewards.  She should choose which she’s going for on purpose.
• She should read a couple of excellent books*.  I’ll make some specific suggestions here, but I’m sure my readers can recommend others. 
  • She should start with E-Myth Revisted (Michael Gerber) to wrap her brain around the concept of exactly what kind of business she wants to start, and what the differences are between business types.
  • Purple Cow (Seth Godin) - What about her business idea makes it unique and special.  Why would people buy from her?  How will she convince her potential customers of the uniqueness of her idea or proposed service?
  • How to win friends and influence people (Dale Carnegie) - this book, written over 60 years ago - still applies today.  She must live this concept to succeed in business.  Does she already? or is there still work to do?
  • Think and grow rich(Napolean Hill) - does she already adopt the positive mental attitude she will need to succeed?  Building a business is very hard work, and you must be willing to commit to it inside your head before you even start working on it.  She need self confidence that borders on egomania or the world will beat her down.
  • Rich Dad Poor Dad (Robert Kiyosaki) - does she understand the difference between a “good” and “bad” investment?
  • Executive EQ(Robert Cooper/Ayman Sawaf) and Now Discover your Strengths  (Marcus Buckingham/Donald Clifton)- she should take a personality profile check and fully understand her strengths and weaknesses as a person.  No two people are the same, and there is no “magic formula” for being a good entrepreneur - but if you understand where your weaknesses are you can hire to compensate, and if you know where your strengths are you can create a business role for yourself that takes advantage of those strengths.
• She should examine her own motivations for starting a business and do a reality check with real business owners about whether they are realistic.  Think you’re going to do it so you can “set your own hours”?  Think again - most small business owners work more hours than their employees during the startup phase.  There are many other myths about entrepreneurship that she should examine and debunk before proceeding on.
• She should be prepared to fail.  Boundaries need to be set for how much to invest, what the final endplan might look like if the business does not succeed, and how she will protect her personal assets as much as possible.  The reality is that most successful entrepreneurs have a few failed business ventures under their belt before they hit one out of the ballpark.  If you fail - fail in a recoverable way.

Finally though - she should not be dissuaded by nay-sayers.  Whether it’s friends and relatives or the bank - if entrepreneurship is in her blood, she’ll never be satisfied until she tries it to see if it’s really for her.  Success will depend on preparation, having the right business advisors around you, having a great idea, hiring the right people to implement it for you, and supporting those people with the proper investment in marketing and sales.

* Full disclosure - if you purchase books through these links Amazon pays me some miniscule commission on them.  Don’t feel obligated - it’s just easier for me to organize them all in one place this way.

Garrett Winder and I spoke about Marketing in the new Economy. It’s all about caring: listening, engaging and being personable. I’ve posted the slides here. Sorry if the slides are a bit out of context without any commentary.

As mentioned before ACU’s Springboard Accelerator hosted the event in their new location. The Accelerator is doing very well, already having several co-working and incubator clients. If you are a free-lancer, business owner, or early-stage startup, the Springboard Accelerator is for you. It provides a place to work, meet with clients, coffee, internet, etc. at a low fee for students and those in the community. For more information, contact Kevin Christian via email kevin.christian@acu.edu or phone 325-674-2786. You can also learn more about them by following their facebook group.

The next event should be sometime early next year.

The Partnership offers site location assistance and other services to domestic and foreign companies planning new or expanded facilities. It is a single point of contact to the network of private sector and state and local government professionals that supports a company’s facility location decision. The Partnership has four main work activities:

•    Marketing and New Business Attraction
•    Business Retention and Expansion
•    Workforce Development Services
•    New Small Business Formation

The Partnership is organized as a public-private, not-for-profit corporation funded jointly by the four local governments and approximately 200 area businesses. The partnership staff has a total of more than 150 years of economic and community development experience, which ensures that inquiries are handled in a professional and timely manner.

Services are provided at no cost to the company and with complete confidentiality.

Mission Statement
To help grow the Greater Richmond economy through the attraction of high quality jobs and new capital investment, the retention of existing businesses, and the continued improvement of the region’s business climate.

The state’s best ranking:  3rd for electric utility costs

The state’s worst ranking: 36th for Workers’ Compensation Benefits Per $100 of Covered Wages

Other notable areas: 7th for property taxes, 32nd for number of state and local government employees.

Here are the details from the Facebook Event:

On Thursday Dec. 3rd, ACU’s College of Business Administration is hosting an Open Coffee (i.e. bring your laptops and work, hangout, study, network, etc.) from 9am-4pm in the SpringBoard Accelerator (corner of Washington & 16th).

Lunch provided and guest speakers Chad Hutchins & Garrett Winder will speak @ noon on using the social web in business.

The free shred day is being held in conjunction with the quarterly San Antonio Tech Mixer, the original technology networking event that has been hosted by the SATC since 2000.

Businesses of all sizes are invited to bring paper items to be shredded and recycled.  Up to five boxes per business will be shredded onsite, and Certificates of Destruction will be provided for additional boxes.  “Our shredding process is unique because, unlike some shredding companies, 100% of our shredded paper is recycled,” said Jeramy Mc, owner and Vice President of US Shredding.  The free shedding service will be available from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. on December 3rd.

The San Antonio Technology Mixer will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m on the same day.  The theme for this Quarter’s Tech Mixer is “Green, Mean and Clean”, and will focus on green technology in San Antonio.  The keynote speaker will be Mike Burke, Founder of the San Antonio Clean Technology Forum.  The Mixer will also include green technology demonstrations and displays, including Smart Cars, as well as a Foosball tournament with prizes.  Food and beverages will be available.

The San Antonio Technology Center is a facility that offers a collaborative ecosystem for technology companies.  The SATC offers tenants superior bandwidth capabilities via it’s connectivity to Time Warner’s OC-48 Sonet Ring.  This, along with its proximity to the Medical Center area makes it a prime location for technology and bio-tech companies.