HOW TO BUILD A REMARKABLE COMPANY (aka: How Not to Be Boring)
Wednesday, March 3, 2010 | 6:00PM – 9:00PM APPLY TO ATTEND (seats are limited, so startups get priority access)
Join us and the founders of ICON Aircraft for an inspiring conversation that will challenge you to go from ‘Good’ to Great and give you to tools and motivation to rise above the rest.
At this evening event, we’re thinking out of the box, so you can too.
* Startup DNA: How do you build a truly remarkable company?
* Where does inspiration for “new” ideas come from?
* How do you promote a new idea to a market that might not yet be defined?
* Spreading the gospel: turning doubters into believers.
* How to surround yourself with a winning team
Speakers:
How did two guys from Stanford come up with an idea for a personal airplane that can be hauled behind a car like a SeaDoo? And… how’d they get design icons like IDEO to support them in their quest for disruption? Join us to find out!
A few years ago, Josh Nesbit went to Malawi and saw a massive opportunity. Malawi has one of the World’s worst doctor to patient ratios: 2 doctors to every 250,000 people.
Josh’s “aha!” moment came after meeting a volunteer community health worker who would walk miles upon miles everyday to check up on patients, then trek even more miles back to the hospital to report back to nurses; toting with him a very special notebook, filled with meticulously updated patient data.
Josh is the Executive Director of FrontlineSMS:Medic and driving force behind HopePhones.org
Below is his afternoon keynote presentation from yesterday’s Under the Radar conference. See how your old mobile phone can impact lives in developing communities: (Thanks Josh!!)
“If you’re one of those marketers who think this iPhone Apps trend is all very well, but in your heart of hearts a little well…. overhyped, you’re not going to like this story very much as you’re going to have to rethink your world view. Because Pizza Hut’s recent iPhone App has already generated more than $1 million worth of food sales, as well as winning hundreds of thousands of branding points in the form of downloads and free TV exposure.”
At Under the Radar on November 19 in Silicon Valley, big brands and the mobile ad/creative firms behind them will be in the hot seat to answer your questions about what’s working / what’s not working in mobile advertising, branded apps and more.
REGISTER to be part of the conversation (and see mobile startups present before everyone else hears about them.)
Tired of hearing the same old predictions about in-app advertising and how it’ll be ‘huge’ next year?
So are we. That’s why the Dealmaker team brought together an all star group of marketing powerhouses behind some of the world’s biggest brands to talk candidly about what they’re looking for in 2010… Hear from them on November 19 (register).
We *could* gaze into our crystal ball and try to predict where big spending and brand/mobile/entertainment is headed, but figured we’d get a more realistic picture by asking execs from Nike, Coca-Cola, VW, Gap, McDonalds and more about their mobile innovation wishlists…
MEET THEM AND ASK YOUR QUESTIONS AT UNDER THE RADAR: MOBILITY ON NOVEMBER 19:
Under the Radar: Mobility 2009 will close the day with a candid, up-close-and personal panel including off-the-cuff commentary from these big brands and agencies behind some of the most innovative mobile campaigns of 2009 (including the Gap App, and the recent Volkswagon GTI launch – which was done solely thru a mobile app). We’ll be taking questions live via Twitter (hashtag #utr).
It’s my great pleasure to announce an entirely new inspirational opening at Under the Radar:Mobility this year…
Mobile phones provide us with gaming and entertainment platforms, ways to improve our productivity on the go, and strengthen personal and professional connections.
But mobile devices can also save lives.
November 19th meet a guy who’s evangelizing for mobile health (mHealth) in developing countries. Josh Nesbit is doing more than just talking about the need for mobile devices to advance rural public health – he’s making it rain.
Josh has been an inspiration to those of us in the mobile health field for several years, since the launch of his Mobiles in Malawi program as an undergrad at Stanford. Check out Josh’s blog at Jopsa.org.
While most of us were watching bootlegged copies of the Matrix and drinking too much Red Bull, Josh was busy figuring out how to save the world using a donated laptop, 100 old cell phones and 1500 bucks.
Josh is now Executive Director and Cofounder of FrontlineSMS:Medic, a non-profit based on the idea that text messages can, literally, save lives in developing countries where rural health workers need additional resources to deliver care.
While implementing the FrontlineSMS:Medic program, Josh and his cofounding team discovered an additional problem – they’d need plenty of phones to expand services to additional rural medical clinics and hospitals.
Rather than going after funding to purchase new phones, they created HopePhones, a campaign that asks you to donate your old cell phone rather than tossing or recycling it.
HopePhones sends you everything you need to get a collection started, including prepaid shipping materials. They can even track exactly which medical clinics benefit from your old phones. How’s that for a little feel-good mobile karma?
I donated my old Blackberry last spring, and can tell you it was easier than setting up a new Google account.
Just pop your old phone in the prepaid shipping envelope and voila!
For more on HopePhones, Josh, and the rest of the team, check out the Facebook page here.
Click here to register for Under the Radar, and don’t forget to bring your old mobile phones!
This is the easiest philanthropy you’ll do all year. Your old phone reshaped your view of what was possible. Give it new life – donate to a cause that will help it renew a sense of hope for clinics in the developing world.
Note to self…don’t mess with apps built on the premise “sex sells.”
Pepsi learned this lesson the hard way recently after launching a controversial iPhone/iPod application called “AMP UP Before You Score.” Here’s some Wall Street Journal coverage.
The goal was to get guys to buy PepsiCo’s Amp Energy drink rather than industry leader Red Bull, but the language left a bit to be desired. The free app was advertised as a “road map to success with yours favorite kinds of women,” and delivered pick up line advice for various stereotypical archetypes, including “nerd.”
Unfortunately for Pepsi, users spoke back, reviewing the app as “sexist and stupid.” Even joining related conversation on Twitter to apologize didn’t help users amp-down, since Pepsi kept the app active while it evaluated options.
What’s systemically interesting about this app release isn’t the app itself, but rather the fact that PepsiCo responded by listening to vocal users and pulling something about which people were displeased.
The mobile market + realtime social network responses = new era of consumer response? Probably so. No one wants to make headlines for ignoring customers, especially not those on Twitter or Facebook.
This isn’t the first time users have vocalized displeasure over advertising they perceive as insulting using social networks – remember the hullabaloo over Motrin Moms?
Sometimes, however, we just want something slightly naughty – in other words, we should be able to choose our own mobile content without censorship. Exhibit A = the iPhone app and website combo Texts From Last Night (TFLN).
Where will the mobile apps market go from here with respect to advertising, taste, censorship, and ratings for unsuspecting users who like Pepsi and get more than they bargained for?
Mobile app developers – begin planning now for whatever audience you want – be it ‘R’ or ‘G.’ And beware an inappropriate rating: although the industry as a whole is slow to take a stance, apparently users will not let you get away with misdirection in advertising.
LOLZ!
Sure, they’re poking fun at Apple, but I have to say, this satirical video from Microsoft about rejected Windows Marketplace Apps is pure awesomeness.
Fun Fact: Todd Brix, Senior Director, Mobile Services and Platform Product Management will be on stage at Under the Radar: Mobility coming up on November 19 in Mountain View, CA. Register now to shake hands with him and hit him up for info on Microsoft’s App Marketplace.
Under the Radar Grad Circle company Tungle is a web application that tackles a core problem – finding a time to meet despite the multiplicity of calendars holding your availability hostage.
After kicking the tires on Tungle’s iphone app, here are a few things I like:
1. I can suggest multiple meeting times (brilliant!)
2. I can let colleagues see ‘free/busy’ blocks, which means I don’t have to justify 2 hours going for a run along the Embarcadero – I can just block off the time as ‘busy.’
3. Tungle works to untangle the mess of calendars where I store info – including MS Exchange, 2 Google/gmail accounts with separate calendars, and my laptop Apple iCal.
Get ready to see the company onstage November 19th – click here to take a quick video tour of how Tungle lets you sync your schedule across online calendars.
Today let’s geek out a bit and combine old-school web history with current mobile tech trends.
Since Tim Berners-Lee’s first stab at mapping out the ’semantic’ web (circa 1998), entrepreneurs and engineers have been trying to harness the power of connecting social networks, disparate info sources, and applications built on a Tower of Babel-esque compendium of programming languages.
Aloqa, one of the startups presenting at Under the Radar next month, is solving this problem two ways.
Second, Aloqa opened up an API for developers to build in a ‘device agnostic’ fashion on the Aloqa platform that doesn’t require them to learn Objective C, C++, and Java to deploy across multiple handsets. You just create a ‘channel’ and publish it to the Aloqa ‘Channel Store’ (think a personalized developer-driven FourSquare or Hot Potato on uppers).
To test the platform concept, Aloqa’s done what a bunch of other mobile startups are doing – they built their own app as a demo, which launched for the iPhone this week. The Aloqa app grabs my preferences and combines them with my ’social graph’ aka friends, tweets, etc, then it mixes in a little geolocation (my current whereabouts) for good measure.
Let’s jump back out of the shop-talk for a minute and take a 50,000 look at the mobile location-aware market, which is getting crowded.
Aloqa’s got, at minimum, the semantics right…they’re calling their new application ‘context-aware,’ and it’s a good term I think we’ll hear more of in the next year or two.
Mobile startups need to find ways to reflect individual relevance that I can proactively program as a user or go the way of the woolly mammoth. At the most basic level that means ’smart apps’ should capture where I am, who I talk to (online and offline) and what I generally want when I’m in that place at that time.
Also, I think we’ll see ‘task’ or ‘activity’ context awareness being developed for mobile apps – i.e. am I in ’shopping’ mode? On my way to work?
Next generation ‘context-aware’ mobile applications will monitor, measure, and manage data flow by asking questions about my behavioral patterns: Do I buy goods and services differently on a Sunday morning in Blacksburg, VA with @kbluey than I do when I’m walking home from work @dealmakermedia in SoMa?
Unfortunately, Aloqa doesn’t help me answer any of these questions (or use that data to drive recommendations) nor do any of the other location-aware startup apps I use, including FourSquare (although I can leave a status update of sorts in the ‘tips’ section when I check in), and this is a marked weakness.
It’ll also be interesting to see if the early lead Aloqa is taking here in personalizing ‘context programming’ will attract developers who help build on top of the company’s API.
Here’s where I think Aloqa may have a niche market on lock IF we see them at every Super Happy Dev House and tech user group over the next quarter…
My engineer friends love to recommend events, geek tee-shirts, and smart friends’ blog posts/code to each other, so being able to build a mobile application that highlights what we like to do and buy may be an attractive hackathon project, but it remains to be seen if the platform code will be attractive enough for indie developers to build anything bigger than personal ‘me-tric’ channels.
Letting me define location relevance by building a personal ‘channel’ on the Aloqa platform may indeed be enough of a carrot, but many of the startup teams I know are having problems with geolocation (lack of GPS specificity in pinpointing where I am at any given moment within ‘arms length’ radius, especially when I’m in motion). It’ll be interesting to hear how Aloqa stacks up here.
In passionate pursuit of what’s happening in mobile tech, Twitter helps many of us act as ‘first responders.’
Over the last 3 months, the Dealmaker Media team has hacked through hundreds of mobile companies preparing for Under the Radar.
140 characters may not seem like a lot to work with, but tweets are an effective way to connect innovators with companies solving big problems on small screens.
Getting ready for #utr, we figured it’s time to share the goods. Here’s a short list of the people on Dealmaker’s Twitter radar…
Some are companies, some are individuals, some are developer programs, some are folks employed by organizations, some are analysts, some are bloggers, some are enthusiasts, some are Twitter arms of new media outlets, but all use their Twitter power for providing content value.
Here’s the list, with corresponding follower headcounts (current as of 3pm PDT today – follower counts may have changed since publication).
A quick disclaimer: Review the numbers with a grain of salt – I don’t consider follower numbers the primary indicator of a valuable Tweet. It’s more about what you tweet than how many people follow you…
Plusmo (Santa Clara, CA) an Under the Radar grad that built an easy to use multi-device mobile widgets development platform, has had a busy year. The company won top honors at multiple dev challenges, including the Nokia Developer Summit and the Nokia Hackathon.
Multi-platform Widgets Pay Off Big Time for Plusmo
Seems like the M&A situation may be heating up…AT&T snapped up Plusmo for an undisclosed amount, and will fold the tech into its Interactive division (which includes wireless dev efforts and will allow the firm to roll out apps like YPmobile – a mobile version of YELLOWPAGES.COM – across multiple handsets).
Looks like AT&T wanted an in house dev shop to reduce development time/$, and allow quick updates when new features are ready to roll. Perhaps most interesting is AT&Ts drive to be first with app and widget integration across mobile, TV, and web.
Check out the press release here. More at TechMeme here. Congrats to Aydin Senkut, the rest of Plusmo’s angel board, and the entire Plusmo team.
Hang with AT&T at Under the Radar this year – seems like carriers may be on the prowl for additional tech and talent acquisitions. It’s a good time to go mobile…
How else could they know how often I forget my Safeway, CVS, and Borders rewards cards?
Cardstar is a mobile app that generates a nifty image of your club or supersaver-type cards, with bar code images that neatly skirt the QR code integration challenge. Cardstar is scannable by ‘most merchants,’ including Petsmart, Blockbuster, and CVS.
In addition to big name corporate partners, users seem to like Cardstar too – the app has a 4+ rating in the iTunes store, with lots of comments about how great it works in the wild.
Cardstar is a free app (for now). Checking out all these free applications I’m beginning to wonder overall how mobile app builders will solve the monetization problem, and I certainly don’t want all my mobile apps to become Big-Brother esque data hunter/gatherers caching all my behavioral data and demographics to fuel a later rush to profitablity.
No offense to Cardstar, but I’ll be checking their terms of service (TOS) pretty carefully before using the app.
Back to why I really like the Cardstar app – you can carry it across the border.
The app works with loyalty card programs for over 190 companies in 3 countries (US, Canada, and the UK). Android and Blackberry fans, you’ll unfortunately have to carry your plastic a bit longer…versions for these two smartphones are in the works.
Other features ‘coming soon’ to Cardstar include merchant-driven special offers and coupons.
Ironically, this line of biz-dev puts Cardstar in a prime partnership/acquisition sweet spot for integration with other mobile companies like Tapjoy, but also with bigger web service providers like Yahoo!.
Whatever happens to Cardstar as the company grows out and grows up, I’m looking forward to leaving both paper coupons and plastic loyalty cards behind.
Too many things in this device-driven modern life weigh you down – tools to save money shouldn’t be one of them.
If I had a dollar for every time I heard a developer ponder how to make money from apps at a hackathon, I’d be a VC able to fund a Series A all by my lonesome right about now.
At SVCodeCamp, however, I’ll just tell everyone within earshot about Tapjoy, which makes it ridiculously easy to place ads in mobile apps and sell virtual goods to all those suckers obsessed with leveling up in WoW.
One thing Tapjoy really gets right is the signup process for developers who want to swipe their SDK.
I signed up for an account in 3 steps – the whole process took less than 90 seconds, and the confirmation email was near-instantaneous.
Good developer relations really make me all shiny and happy inside. This is a firm that knows its market space well, and caters to our sense of self-important impatience.
If you’re a developer with no idea what the hell an ‘eCPM’ or ‘virtual good’ is or how you would want to pick from the 7 ad networks Tapjoy plugs you into automagically – never fear.
The FAQs are worded in language even my baby niece could understand.
If you’re a mobile services provider or developer-oriented platform, take a page from Tapjoy’s business case study presentations here – the firm helpfully provides best practice approaches to make your mobile apps more valuable.
Another potentially nifty feature of Tapjoy may be controversial. The platform allows app makers to pay their way to the top by ‘incentivizing’ users.
As an app designer/developer, you can choose how much to pay people to download and install your app (startups – here’s a new way to up your burn rate that might pay more dividends than buying that snazzy new Herman Miller Aeron chair).
Wow. Now I can’t wait to see Tapjoy in action.
I have a feeling the firm won’t stay under the radar for long…
If Twitter and Facebook app builders were last season’s must have startups, mobile coupon shops are this fall’s Little Black Dress.
Although there are several coupon gurus in the field (cough cough MobiQpons cough cough), I’m a new fan of Yowza(!!).
Seriously, how can you not love a mobile startup with a Heroes star on the founding team? A Mission Impossible and Star Trek alum, Greg Grundberg is no Ashton Kutcher wannabe…
But I digress – back to Yowza. Don’t let yourself be distracted by the cutesy icons and UI – Yowza means business. I’m in big-time-like with any app maker who wants to help me pocket personal ROI using my smartphone.
I downloaded Yowza on my iPhone 3G to kick the tires. Thanks Yowza, at 100% free you’re right in my price range, although I’d probably pay for this app.
For now, Yowza, like many apps, is Appletastic. It can only be installed on iPhones and iPod Touch devices in the U.S. of A.
Although Yowza’s design smells a bit like brand imaging made popular by the laundry detergent crowd (reminded of a Tide box anyone?), I was happy to discover Yowza’s got some bite behind the bark. The app asks my permission for geolocation via a customized message that lets me know exactly what sort of information the company is gathering on me as a user.
I also like the targeting Yowza is doing for my gender and age; I’d rather not get a coupon for a snazzy mens’ store in the Financial District, for example.
After you launch the app, Yowza brings up a nifty map screen with icons from what must be partner companies, including Pier 1 Imports (bleck – did I get this one because I registered as a ‘female?’) and various Rubio’s locations in the San Francisco area and, uh oh, REI stores.
Since I’m hanging at Dealmaker Media in SOMA today, I take note of the fact that Yowza is showing me there’s an REI store less than 5 blocks away at 840 Brannan Street.
After I bring up the map, I tap the ’star’ icon in the upper right corner of the page and save my 20% off coupon for a discount on “performance food.” With the fall health/tech conference season in full swing, a few dozen Powerbars couldn’t hurt. I can use the Yowza coupon even when I’m not connected to the web, which is extremely nifty.
As I browse other Yowza coupons, I’m starting to regret this download – somehow I have a feeling Yowza will convert me from a casual window shopper to a determined buyer.
What I’d like to see the Yowza team add next: extra featured coupons integrated with email subscription lists to loyalty programs like Sephora.
“Real time” window shopping tours would be particularly useful. I’d like to be able to set the app to ‘browse’ mode when I’m walking home from the CalTrain station after a hard day of meetings on Sand Hill Road and have Yowza lead me to sales I’m wandering past.
Integration with a geolocation update provider like BrightKite or Foursquare would also really get me going.
I’d love to share custom coupons with friends, especially at places where I’ve earned the “Mayor” badge in FourSquare. Imagine sending your FourSquare friends coupons for 20 cents off a large cup of “Ether” blend if you make it to Mayor at Philz Coffee. Now that’s what I call savings built for the mobile life…
It’d certainly be nice to reward friends’ loyalty at communal places of interest and direct them to new undiscovered neighborhood spots via an incentive to save some moolah.
In fact, if shopping is on the calendar, Yowza might make finding a specific store I visit often easier than using Safari + Google Maps or the native mapping client.
Targeted geolocation and locovore-style commerce is definitely on the mobile hot list. Over time, the coupon and loyalty program apps may steal some traffic away from mapping clients – it’ll be an interesting trend to watch.
A quick shout out to Brett Butterfield and his team at PixelPipe for taking one of the top three places at Nokia’s Calling All Innovators contest in Germany this week! Congrats guys! View their winning application here.
Pixelpipe lets you upload photos, video, and audio files with one click through the Pixelpipe Media Gateway and distribute your content across over 100+ social networks, photo/video sites, blogs, and other online services.
Brett presented PixelPipe at the 2008 Under the Radar Mobility. You can read more about them and view their 2008 Under the Radar presentation here.
WANT TO BE A 2009 UNDER THE RADAR COMPANY?
We’re still interviewing potential presenters and have a few presentation slots available for startups who we deem to be the cream of the crop. Think you;ve got what it takes? Mobile startups can still apply.
Grab your ticket to attend Under the Radar and witness this year’s most innovative young startups battle it out for the attention and business of Sprint, Nokia, Qualcomm, Samsung, Apple, Microsoft, AT&T, Verizon and more.
This week, Ivan Gaviria walks us through the 5 mistakes startups make with their people… A mistake a day.
Ivan is a partner at Gunderson Dettmer’s Silicon Valley office, practicing in the Corporate and Securities Group. He has extensive experience working with startup and emerging growth companies through their entire lifecycle as well as representing venture capital, private equity and other investors.
MISTAKE #2 OF 5:
Failing to be informed about employee rights with respect to wages
The same employee-favorable regime that can help entrepreneurs when they are leaving a job, can cut the other way when it comes to a startup founder’s new role as the employer.
Paying your people can be a big challenge in the pre-funding stage and there are not always easy answers.
At a minimum, entrepreneurs need to understand the rules and be educated about the risks they take so they can minimize their exposure.
The bottom line is California requires employees make at least minimum wage (and two times that amount for exempt employees for whom you don’t have to pay overtime). Wages must be paid in cash. More importantly, claims for unpaid wages cannot be released or waived. Once someone has worked without pay, they can bring a claim and the burden of proof is on the employer.
Not surprisingly, the state doesn’t have the resources to actively pursue violations.
Where the risk lies is when a relationship goes south and that co-founder or early team member leaves under acrimonious conditions and decides it’s time to get paid for the time they worked without salary.
Alternatively, you might have a great team that makes it all the way to an exit intact only to find that a public company buyer with a dramatically different risk tolerance doesn’t want to assume material exposure for unpaid wage claims and these matters become a real deal issue.
While there may be periods of time where there simply isn’t cash to pay salaries, companies can manage their exposure and mitigate risks if they get good advice on the rules, including the tax issues, and make educated decisions about how to document and manage these issues.
ABOUT GUNDERSON DETTMER: Gunderson Dettmer is a leading law firm for entrepreneurs, emerging growth companies and the venture capital firms that support them. With 125 lawyers in four offices – Silicon Valley, Boston, New York, and San Diego – we represent companies in every stage of development from incorporation through entry into public markets and beyond. We provide counsel on general corporate and securities law, mergers and acquisitions, venture capital services, intellectual property, strategic alliances, and tax matters. We combine our experience, industry relationships and expertise to provide practical, business-oriented advice tailored to the needs of the emerging growth company marketplace.
Doesn’t everyone have an iPhone nowadays?
I mean, phones without the ability to render sweet, rich graphics and media are old and archaic, right? Noooo one has a phone older than a year, if they do – they’re soooo outta touch….
Au contraire, mes amies. PercentMobile, a New York City-based mobile analytics startup is dishing out amazing data weekly that serves as an important reminder that we techies are a small market – and any company with mobile traffic to its desktop and .mobi sites needs to stay on top of not only the percent of mobile users coming to their site, but what devices they’re on, what mobile browser they’re using, where in the world they’re coming from, etc.
And the data about your mobile traffic can be very eye opening…
Based on traffic from Mobile Phones to over 1000 Desktop and Mobile Sites as tracked by PercentMobile from July 21st to August 4th:
* 3% of Desktop-Site Traffic comes from Mobile Phones
* 4% of Sprint PCS Traffic comes from a Palm Pre
* 64% of Europe’s Nokia Devices are from before 2008
* 76% of Africa’s Nokia Devices are from before 2008
* 62% of US BlackBerry Devices are from 2008
* 66% of US HTC Devices are from 2008
* 30% of UK Traffic comes from O2
* 26% of Devices have a QWERTY Keyboard
* 64% of Devices support WiFi
* 6% of Devices are from Samsung
* 2% of Devices are from Motorola
* 15% of Devices have 240 pixel display width
* 2% of Devices are Clamshell Phones
* 6% of Devices run Windows Mobile
PercentMobile is releasing reports weekly and they’re tracking more and more sites by the day to the public. Want specific analytics for your site? Sign up.
They are planning to launch publicly in Fall 2009.
We’re announcing a CALL FOR COMPANIES for Dealmaker Media’s 14th Under the Radar Conference on November 19, 2009 in Mountain View, CA.
Under the Radar has been recognized as the most important startup showcase and deal-making forum in Silicon Valley. In the past three years, 54% of our presenters have gone on to raise funding and/or be acquired by Google, Limelight, Cisco, BT, Microsoft, Fox Interactive, and others. Now it’s your turn!
We’re seeking early-stage mobile startups who are ripe to get in front of (and do deals with): carriers, OEMs, mobile platforms, media companies, branding partners, press and VCs.
Mobile Categories We’re Interested In:
Business Apps | LBS | Games/Entertainment | Devices | Social Networks | Infrastructure | Content | Sync | Micro-payments/virual currency | Data Storage | Green tech | Developer tools/Opensouce frameworks | …and more.
Under the Radar will uncover the next wave of vetted, test-driven startups that have launched within the year, showcasing the newest companies created by founders with a quest for innovation and a plan for disruption. Under the Radar brings startups, industry leaders, press, and investors together with one ultimate goal: to get the deal done.
25 Early Bird Tickets at 50% Off (First come. First Served.) Register here.
Huge thanks to all who attended Dealmaker LA’s latest Strategy Series and Mixer, “Partnering with the Big Dogs: Walk Softly and Carry a Big Stick” this past Wednesday at Manatt’s offices.
While the dream of scoring an outrageously successful partnership with a market goliath is enticing, the odds are, it ain’t gonna happen. From unequal bargaining power to rights of first refusal, partnership land mines are one of the most misunderstood and underrated topics in the startup world.
The round table conversation was anchored by Christina Glorioso, VP, Marketing Partnerships, MTV Networks, Kara Nortman, SVP of Publishing, Citysearch, David O. Sacks, CEO, Geni and Yammer, Dmitry Shapiro, CEO, Veoh , and James Citron, CEO, Mogreet.
The debate around rights of first refusal, bargaining rights, partnership incentives, risks of being bogged by bureaucracy, etc was joined by all attendees, including LA PR all-star Nicole Jordan and GRP Partners’ Mark Suster.
Loopt hosted a mixer party at 111 Minna in San Francisco last night, celebrating four years of location based awesomesauce. Founder Sam Altman walked out of class on the Staford campus one day in 2005 and said, “wouldn’t it be awesome if I could open my phone and see a map of where all my friends are?”
Since then, Loopt has been joined been 626 startups tagged as LBS (location-based services) on Tradevibes and 643 pages of startups tagged as “location-based” in CrunchBase.
At the last Under the Radar: Mobility conference in November 2008, many of the judges’ comments about many location-based mobile startups was that they were too reliant on local advertising as their only source of revenue.
But, as more and more consumers download and use location-aware applications for location-aware handsets, and “local search” about “what’s around me?” increases – so is local mobile advertising.
According to a recent study, local mobile ad revenue is forecasted to grow to $3.1 billion in 2013, up from $160 million last year (2008), while mobile search will reach $2.3 billion.
What does this mean for up and coming mobile startups? It means location-base mobile ad-revenue isn’t as weak an opportunity as thought last year, but I still want to see startups in this space create services and products consumers find compelling enough to pay for if they want to avoid ads on their screen.
Think you’re Under the Radar? We’re accepting nominations for mobile startups that have launched in the past year. Apply to be considered to present!
Rudy De Waele of mTrends and his team at DotOpen have been long-standing friends of ours. In just 10 days, they (in partnership with some of Europe’s best mobile innovators) will be gathering in Barcelona for the Mobile 2.0 conference.
Tick, tisk me if you will, but in my mind I can’t help but think “it’s like Le Web, but with working wi-fi, heat and cooler phones!” All kidding aside, tho: I expect a fantastic show (and can’t wait to see if any startups from their Demo Launch Pad should hop on a plane and come present at Under the Radar in November).
DISCOUNT CODE: If you’ll be roaming through Spain on June 19 (appreciate the pun, please) use the discount code: dealmaker to save 100 Euro off the ticket price. Register here.
* Michael Breidenbruecker - Founder Reality Jockey Ltd. / Co-Founder Last.fm Ltd.
* Carlos Domingo - EVP, Internet & Digital R&D, Telefonica.
* Ian Ginn – Programme Director TransmediaLab Amsterdam / Founder Hubbub Media.
* José Luis de Vicente – Medialab Prado, Madrid.
* Ted Morgan, CEO & Founder, Skyhook Wireless.
* Felix Petersen – Founder at Plazes.com, now Head of Product Strategy Social Location at Nokia.
* David Wood, Catalyst & Futurist, Leadership Team, Symbian Foundation.
