Founded in 2006, Vitrue has undergone a number of pivots over the years to become the social media marketing management giant that it is today. For a time, it competed directly with the now defunct VideoEgg (merged with Six Apart in 2010). The company had raised $33 million in funding before the Oracle acquisition.

The acquisition announcement this morning was widely shared on the social networks and according to the story filed by TechCrunch, Bradford will be staying with the company. Here’s the update on his Facebook timeline this morning:

While Bradford was a little understated in his update, Rob Theis of Scale Venture Partners, a Vitrue investor, was a little more effusive on Bradford’s Facebook timeline.

While the chatter was mainly positive, it remains to be seen what the future holds for members of Vitrue’s development and business teams.

What impact do you think the Oracle acquisition will have on Atlanta’s startup community?

The key attribute to develop is trust. And to achieve that, there needs to be transparency.

Don’t Pitch Your BoD

Since your board directors have already made their investment, use the board meetings to update them and seek their counsel instead of pitching them on how well the company is doing.  As with most things, working with your BoD begins with a plan. A business plan that is brief, simple to read and easily shareable with your team and BoD is necessary as it serves as a company road map.  Your BoD understands that the plan and strategy can and will change but this should not stop you from developing one.

Agree on Strategy and Plan

You should come to an agreement with your BoD on major plan components such as your target customer, your product and the competition. These data points have a ripple effect on the running of your business as they inform the product road map which in turn influences hiring requirements for development, marketing and sales.

A marketing and sales plan along with a pricing model is also part of the business plan but falls more in the purview of your executive team. It isn’t necessary for your BoD to know the details of these but you ought update them on progress metrics.

How well all these components work together and how well you manage your team and your BoD’s reactions to changes in any or all of these components will affect your company’s revenue, expense, net income and ultimately, long term viability.

Tell Them the Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Most startups conduct in person board meetings quarterly and supplement with phone meetings in between. Some provide monthly updates via email and yet others provide weekly email updates on progress metrics. To build trust, it’s important that you communicate good and bad news to your BoD  in a timely fashion.

Many prefer hearing about bad news such as a delay in product development or a loss of a key engineer in near real time rather than to learn about it later in the context of lost revenues. They would also want to hear about major bad news such as a legislative change that obviates the customers’ need for your current product.

Involve a Director in the Executive Hiring Process

Incorporate one or two members of your board as part of the interview team for executive hires. While you are responsible for the company culture and hiring decisions, your BoD will have the benefit of experience and perspective that only a third-party can possess and can give you invaluable feedback on the candidate.

Set Expectations Upfront

You should also set expectations of your BoD. They are there to provide strategic counsel when necessary. They can also provide strategic assistance. If they’ve agreed to do so in a specific project, be sure to establish timelines and hold them to those timelines.

It is also important to establish rules of engagement at the beginning with your BoD. For example, most entrepreneurs require attendance at quarterly in-person meetings if the meeting date doesn’t coincide with vacation plans. It is also good to establish access and availability guidelines. A few entrepreneurs we’re familiar with have adopted a 72 hour rule in which a director is expected to be accessible via phone within 72 hours of the entrepreneur sending a request for a consultation.

Real and Scheduled Board Meetings

There are two board meetings. The scheduled meeting and the real one. This is especially important if you have something big that you want to pose to the group for a vote. Major decisions such as a pivot from an enterprise software business model and go-to-market strategy to a freemium model with different price points and a different target audience requires a little more communications.

In the case of a business model pivot, board members ought to be briefed individually and allowed to field questions privately before the meeting. This allows all members to have the facts, and the time to process the situation prior to the scheduled meeting. Taking this extra step usually results in more productive and educated discussion during the scheduled board meeting and presumably a better decision.

BoD want to Help But They Aren’t Friends

Finally, members of your BoD are not your friends. They have a fiduciary responsibility to the company and will cast their votes accordingly.

Do you have tips on managing the BoD that you want to share? Add them in comments below.

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Applications are being accepted for Venture Atlanta 2012. It’s always free to apply and free to present if your company is selected.

The annual event serves as a graduation ceremony for ATDC companies and this year most of the graduating class healthcare-related companies – from 3D scanning technology for the hearing aid sector to mobile technology for the doctor’s wait room to a company developing therapeutics for inflammations. The 2012 graduating class include:

Preparis

SimpleC

Digital Assent

Celtaxsys

BioAutomaton Systems Inc.

Asankya (acquired by EMC Corporation)

Axion Biosystems

3DM Systems

Honors for Venture Atlanta Companies

In other updates, congratulations to Andrew Ibbotson, CEO of Digital Assent for being named the “Entrepreneur of the Year” at the recent TiECON Southeast conference held in Atlanta. Congratulations also go out to Rob Frohwein, CEO of Kabbage who was named a Top 10 Innovator by Bank Technology News.

Finally, a big kudos to Wahoo Fitness for beating out 2,500 other applicants and winning an international award for its BlueHR heart rate belt which turns an iPhone into a training computer. The “Best of 2012 – Innovationspreis IT” Award presented by Initiative Mittelstand, under the auspices of the Federal Commissioner for IT in Germany and IBM Germany GmbH.

A fantastic way to go into summer and also time to get your executive summaries ready if you want to apply to present at Venture Atlanta 2012.

Greg Peters, Founder and CEO of News Distribution Network

Venture Atlanta 2010 presenting company News Distribution Network is an online video news distribution network serving content owners, news sites and brands that buy pre-roll, post-roll or in-stream advertising. According to a Form D filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in mid-March, the company  successfully closed on a $2.5 million round.

Led by Greg Peters, former CEO and president of Internap, the company lists media companies The Associated Press, Reuters, CBS, ABC, BBC, Comcast (E Entertainment), TV Guide, TMZ, Hearst, Cox, Gatehouse Media, Raycom and Meredith among its partners.

L-R: David Hartnett, Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and David Moeller, CodeGuard

Less than a year after bursting into the Atlanta startup scene by not only winning a place on the prestigious TechCrunch Disrupt stage, closing a $500,000 seed round led by Imlay Investments and winning the popular vote at CapVenture and Venture Atlanta, CodeGuard closed on a $1.3 million round in March.

Led by newcomer David Moeller, the company provides website monitoring, backup and remediation to small businesses.

Telemedicine technology provider REACH Health, Inc., secured a $4 million Series B funding round in April. The company will use funds raised to grow the number of hospitals in its customer base and extend the footprint of its  multidisciplinary telemedicine platform, REACH Access™ to provide patients with the best access to specialized care.

Council Capital, BIP Opportunities Fund LP, and C&B Capital led the round. All three also participated in the company’s series A financing.

Innovolt, provider of patented power protection technology closed on a $3.9 million round of funding in April. The company licenses its technology to companies in sectors such a consumer electronics, medical technology, cable and satellite. Its technology protects electronic products from power surges and other harmful disruptions, thereby increasing product lifespan and reliability.

The company is led by former investment banker James Mitropoulus who was a founding investor. Mitropoulus joined the company as CFO in 2008 and was named the CEO in 2010.

The company got its start in the Georgia Tech VentureLab program which provides assistance to the university’s faculty, research staff and students who want to launch startups based on their academic research. In the words of Roberto Casas, associate director of the Georgia Tech VentureLab program, “Innovolt is another success story of this one-stop technology commercialization program at Georgia Tech.”

Know a company that ought to be a part of this round up? Send us a tip at editor@ventureatlanta.org

While most of Atlanta will be at the Dogwood, the Norcross or some other spring festival, approximately 150 developers, marketers and designers will spend 54 hours building what they hope will be the next Instagram or Tumblr. Yes, the frenetic chaos that is Startup Weekend Atlanta is back. While the event, which begins April 20 at 6PM, is sold out, event organizers are still seeking volunteers. Click here for more details.

Entrepreneur magazine columnist, startup strategist and author of Power of Unpopular will be in Atlanta on Wednesday, April 25 for a book signing and happy hour at the BarrelHouse in Midtown.

Erika is no stranger to the Atlanta startup scene and has written about our community and TripLingo in her monthly Entrepreneur column.

It is free to attend but registration is required. Click here to register.

The Technology Association of Georgia’s Entrepreneur Society is hosting Venture Atlanta at its next monthly meeting. Members of the Venture Atlanta selection committee will discuss selection criteria and the benefits of presenting at Venture Atlanta. Coaches and previous presenting companies will also be on hand to share their experiences and answer questions.

Capacity is limited so if you’re interested, register here now.

STARTUP SPRING FLING And it appears that the startup community will be experiencing its first block party. StartupSpringFling is the brainchild of veteran entrepreneur, investor and owner of 151 Locust Ed Rieker. The block party is scheduled for Friday, May 4, 2012 at Avondale Estates in Decatur. According to the website, attendees are encouraged to beat the Friday Rush Hour by showing up at 4:30 PM when the beer garden opens.

The highlight of the event is a dunking tank and organizers are seeking suggestions on who you would like to dunk. Submit your suggestions here. Rumor has it the Father of Atlanta Angel Investing is a dunkee. Curious? Purchase tickets here.  Proceeds will be donated to charity.

Do you have a startup event? Send details to editor@ventureatlanta.org

But this is a common misconception. Members of the BoD are elected by the company’s shareholders and since the entrepreneur usually owns majority of the company’s shares, especially in the case of early stage startups, the fear of losing control of the board is moot.

Why Have a BoD?

1. Members of your BoD ideally should bridge gaps in business or category expertise that exist in your executive team.  For instance, if you are boot-strapping, having local serial entrepreneur and veteran boot-strapper David Cummings on your board is a big plus. If marketing and strategic alliances are big components of your execution strategy, it would behoove you to seek someone who has domain expertise in both of these disciplines in your industry.

2. Having a board member with a strong network that you can tap into can be vital to gaining traction and growing your startup. Adding someone with a Tom Noonan-like profile  to your board if you have an information security startup will not only give you access to a large but close-knit network, it will also give your company instant credibility.

3. It is helpful to have a member of the board who is experienced in the financial and/or legal events faced by startups including fundraising, and mergers and acquisitions. This individual can help navigate the intricacies of these events and provide insights during the fundraising process.

4. Finally, entrepreneurs should build boards that not only provide value as outlined in points 1 through 3, they should also consider directors who can offer a different perspective. If diversity of race and gender is important to the audience that the startup is focused on, entrepreneurs should definitely take those into consideration when selecting their BoD.

Board Composition

Experts recommend that there be an odd number of directors to avoid ties when issues have to be put to a vote. Entrepreneurs can start out with just three members: an internal team member, an external member and themselves. But it is common to have boards that are comprised of five directors.

For startups that have raised venture capital, it is customary for the investors to require a board seat or two. Specifics are negotiated during the fundraising process. A venture-backed startup usually has five directors and the following composition is typical:

• The entrepreneur/CEO (usually the only employee/director)

• One or more directors selected from among the investors

• One or more outside directors with suitable experience as outlined above

The chairman of the board is not always the entrepreneur, especially if he/she is a rookie CEO or entrepreneur. Instead, this role is usually held by the director with the most experience in serving as a startup director.

Chairmanship is not usually a position of power. Rather he/she has the responsibility of coordinating the resources that will move the the company forward, meeting shareholders’ communications expectations and ensuring directors and the company meet their fiduciary responsibilities. The chair and the CEO work closely with the directors to establish meeting agendas.

We will discuss BoD management techniques in a future post.

But in the meantime, how do you select your BoD? Do you have  tips that you would like to share? Drop us a line in the comments section below.

The following is Atlanta angel investor and Georgia Tech Vice President Stephen Fleming’s personal take on the soon to be legislation.The post originally ran in AcademicVC, Fleming’s personal blog. As always, please add your views to the comments section.

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Stephen Fleming, Vice President, Economic Development and Technology Ventures, and Executive Director of the Enterprise Innovation Institute.

In today’s political climate, it’s hard to believe that a major bipartisan reform has passed both houses of Congress and — as I type this on Wednesday night — is scheduled to be signed by the President tomorrow. The JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act is one of the first victories of a new class of politically-active entrepreneurs, angel investors, and venture capitalists. And, although no bill is perfect, the JOBS Act should lead to expansion opportunities for many small businesses… and, yes, to more jobs.

U.S. securities regulations are written for big companies. For successful ones, like GE and Apple. And for failed ones, like Enron and Worldcom. But little companies have to play by the same rules. That makes it incredibly difficult for small companies to raise capital, to reward their employees with equity instead of salary, and to build their businesses in the early years. The Kauffman Foundation has shown that all net new job growth since 1980 has come from companies less than five years old. The JOBS Act is aimed at helping precisely these companies. Part of the act loosens some of the complex disclosure requirements which can be difficult for a fast-growing company to maintain when it exceeds 500 employees. It makes it legal for an entrepreneur to stand on stage and say “I’m trying to raise money” without violating SEC rules. These are good changes. It’s not appropriate to regulate a tiny company the same way we regulate GE.

Most controversially, the JOBS Act enables “crowdfunding.” Today, unless you meet the SEC’s “millionaire threshold,” you are forbidden to invest in private companies — that is, those companies who do not have their shares listed on a stock exchange like Nasdaq. Tomorrow, that will change. You will be able to invest up to $10,000 or 10% of your annual income (whichever is lower) into a small private company. And that doesn’t necessarily have to be a Georgia Tech startup creating a hot Internet security technology. It can be in your cousin’s landscaping business, or in the struggling Cuban restaurant down the street.

The laws prohibiting these investments date back to 1933. It’s time to adapt them to current reality. Will some people lose their investments? Absolutely. Will there be fraud? As surely as the sun rises in the east. But markets always involve risk (and, sadly, markets have always attracted a small number of fraudsters). I have a lot more faith in free markets than I do in SEC regulators trying to apply thousands of pages of regulations to small businesses that can’t afford platoons of lawyers on retainer.

Silicon Valley investors have played a big part in lobbying for the JOBS Act… but I think it will eventually have more of an impact on those of us who are happy to live in the rest of America. A startup in Silicon Valley can, eventually, always find money. That’s not true for a startup in Atlanta… or Albuquerque, or Alaska. Loosening the constraints and letting more Americans get involved in investment decisions will be a good step towards making more growth capital — and more growth — available to everyone.

Have a story tip? Contact us at editor@ventureatlanta.org.

Here’s a quick table delineating the differences between the two.

Did we forget anything? Please share in the comments section.

SXSW badge pick-up line. Average wait time: 1.75 hours

The relentless smorgasbord of official festival programming featured more than 5,000 sessions across six conference centers in a five-mile radius! Sessions discussed the latest in application development and user experience as well as mobile, social media and marketing.

Here are a couple of technology themes worth mentioning:

1. Proximity social networks like Banjo, Glancee, Highlight, Sonar and Uberlife prove that we are still interested in forming intimate relationships and the founders of these apps clearly believe that technology can play a role. Each of these apps leverages the user’s physical location and their social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare, etc., to identify friends of friends who may have similar interests who are close by.
2. As social media gains broader adoption and increased usage, data proliferation and making sense of this is an issue. Data visualization companies Visual.ly, Splunk and Show offer neat ways to visually represent all this data and put them into context.
3. Technologies for the news and publishing industry also had a strong showing. Among those, Storify, The Atavist, Rhizome and Wowio received the most buzz.

Corporate presence at SxSW has been on the upswing in the four years that I’ve attended SxSW. 2012 didn’t disappoint.  Technology and service providers in the social media management category were out in force. Vitrue, SapientNitro, CrowdTap, Syncapse, Expion, Spredfast, HootSuite and Buddy Media were just some of the companies that sponsored parties, and chartered buses.

But in the end it was American Express that held the trump card. It sponsored the hottest ticket at SxSW Interactive.

Jay Z at SxSW sponsored by American Express

SxSWi 2012 moments:

Brands at SXSW: Hoot Bus from Hootsuite

Brands at SXSW: FEDEX human charging station

SXSW panel: Dave McClure of 500 Startups and author Eric Ries

Atlantans at Vitrue party(from l): Jacqui Chew, Josh Martin, Sanjay Parekh, Rob Kischuk