I foresaw it a year ago. Stephen Fleming eloquently described it today. Lance Weatherby posted a nice rundown, too. Ashish Mistry piled on as well. Former Earthlink PR exec now turned media blogger, Dan Greenfield, wrote a nice bit as well.

I was unable to attend Startup Riot as I came down with a nasty cold over the weekend, but from all I’ve heard, the event was another stepping stone for the Southeast. Kudos to Sanjay for stepping up and putting a lot of his time into the event. (StartupRiot Flickr stream here). Lance Weatherby posted a nice rundown of the companies that presented at StartupRiot as well - check ‘em out.

I think the smart kids leaving Atlanta to go ply their trades in Silicon Valley are going to eventually regret their move. Atlanta is back - and what we’re seeing now is merely the tip of the iceberg. As I was quoted saying in Dan Greenfield’s excellent piece - I think a year or two from now and Atlanta’s tech and startup scenes will be unrecognizable.

Now we have to sustain this momentum as a community. History is full of flashes in the proverbial pan. I, for one, don’t want to see it go down like that. And it won’t.
Our StartupLounge event tomorrow night will hopefully put a nice bow on what has been an incredible month for startups in Georgia. The event is full - unless you are a last minute investor who wants to attend - but you can read the details here. We’ve also posted new dates for CapitalLounge, AngelLounge, and PitchCamp …

BTW, congrats to SoloHealth - who just scored a new round of funding. They’ll be hanging out at our CapitalLounge event again tomorrow - so if you’re coming, be sure to congratulate Bart Foster and his team.

Yes, the storm is here. No, I mean really. As fitting as this sounds - as I write this draft, we are under a tornado warning. One just touched down a few miles from here.

See you on the bitstream …

Cheers.

Man what a busy week! I think this month (May) will go down as one of the busiest in Atlanta startup history.

Hosting the Cleantech Georgia 2008 event was a ton of fun (my corny jokes aside). We had a great docket of speakers and panelists, and each delivered some incredibly valuable content.

Mike McQuary’s low-speed electric vehicle (RETV) got a nice workout after the event. Attendees could stand in line and take it for a spin around the block. Good stuff!

(more…)

Just a quick update on the upcoming Cleantech Georgia 2008 event, which is being held this coming Wednesday, May 14th.

In addition to having featured speakers from Coca Cola, Southern Company, Suniva, Hardin Construction, and Valhalla Partners, we are thrilled to have locked in Mike McQuary as a speaker. If you don’t Mike, or know of him, he was one of the original principals behind Mindspring (later merged with EarthLink). McQ is doing something really neat these days. Among other things, he is the CEO of Ruff and Tuff, a manufacturer of electric vehicles. Rumor has it that he will actually have one of their vehicles on display at the event.

Also, here is the list of startups that will be delivering a 3 minute fast-pitch at the event:

• Ride Cell
• i-Linc Technologies
• Radiance Energies

If you’d like to attend, here are the specifics.

Thanks again to all of my fellow board members of the TAG Business & Technology Alliance for helping to pull this together. It should be a great event! A special thanksto board member Cindy Cheatham of the ATDC. Cindy has really gone above and beyond to help bring this event together.

Cheers.

If there was ever an indicator of how things are improving here in Georgia for early-stage entrepreneurs, you need to look no further than the amazing slate of grass-roots and established events going on this month (shown below in chronological order):

• AngelLounge - May 1st - May we just held this yesterday, and again, we had a nice crowd of Atlanta-area angel investors in attendance. AngelLounge is a monthly peer group comprised solely of angel investors. The goal is networking, education/mentoring, and deal flow. This was our 4th meeting, and things seem to be rolling along with it. During yesterday’s gathering, the focus was on “deal flow” - we also talked a bit about BoostPhase - Stephen Fleming’s new grassroots funding/acceleration vehicle for early-stage (idea stage) technology ventures. Good stuff … more soon.
• PitchCamp - May 7th - PitchCamp is our free afternoon workshop for entrepreneurs. The goal is to work on pitches, one pagers, and investor networking basics. Good stuff. We (StartupLounge) do this monthly, and the results have been fantastic. The session next week is nearly full (we have one company slot still open if anyone wants to come). We’ll have some great mentors in the room as well, including Sanjay Parekh (co-founder of Digital Envoy and creator of Startup Riot), Steve Walden (angel investor, and one of the key early guys at Prodigy - also the guy who helped launched Bellsouth.net), and Clark Gilder of the Atlanta Technology Angels.
• Cleantech Georgia 2008 - May 14th - The clean energy technology sector is real. In fact, last year, the total dollars invested in cleantech eclipsed the investments made in information technology - wow. This is the second annual Cleantech event here in Georgia. Aside from the great slate of speakers (Coca-Cola Company, Southern Company, Valhalla Partners, Hardin Construction), we have another fantastic line-up of early-stage cleantech companies that will be delivering fast-pitches to the crowd. Brought to you by TAG’s Business and Technology Alliance (B&TA).
• ATDC’s Annual Entrepreneur Showcase - May 15th - held once a year, this is a great event that celebrates the graduating class of the ATDC incubator down at Georgia Tech. A great batch of companies this year, including Emcien and Vendormate. There will be a huge crowd, and StartupLounge will be doing a podcast remote again this year - good stuff!
• Startup Riot - May 19th - Sanjay Parekh is a one-man wrecking crew, in the positive sense. This should be a cool event - 75-80 companies delivering 3 minute pitches throughout the day. Drew Curtis (Fark.com) will be delivering a keynote as well. I spoke with Sanjayyesterday at AngelLounge, and it looks like around 200 folks will be there. Booyah!
• CapitalLounge - May 21st - the month concludes with StartupLounge’s flagship event. Formerly called “Capital Connections”, this quarterly event brings together 250-300 fast-growth entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and angel investors for a great night of cocktails, gourmet food, and open networking. And, in true StartupLounge fashion, no job-seekers or service providers allowed (save for our handful of stalwart sponsors).

These events are all free for entrepreneurs (save for the Cleantech event, which is free for TAG members, and also free for fast-pitch entrepreneurs). Events that charge entrepreneurs and/or are sponsored by organizations that play “middleman” are not listed here.

This is perhaps the busiest I’ve seen this community since the late 90s. Life is good, and getting better.

Cheers.

I’ve started watching (Chef Gordon) Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares on BBC on my cable package. Although I started watching because cooking is a hobby of mine and I’ve always been fascinated by the restaurant business (when I worked at McDonald’s as a kid, I loved it), it has struck me how wonderfully educational the program is for entrepreneurs in general.

(note - Chef Ramsey does a reality show on Fox called Hell’s Kitchen - not the same show at all)

The premise of the show is Ramsey, a celebrity chef and owner of multiple high profile restaurants around the world, visits small restaurants that are failing and provides 7 days of consulting to turn them around. I’ve noticed several themes that have clear parallels with entrepreneurial ventures in general. For example:

• Understanding what drives profit is important and often counter to conventional wisdom (serving high-end, elegant food is sexy but is much harder to do profitably - the profitable activity often isn’t the sexiest).
• There’s no substitute for roll-up-your-sleeves marketing. When Ramsey analyzes a restaurant, he goes into town and interviews people to see why they aren’t coming. Then he goes out with the owner go out into the general public when the restaurant re-opens for marketing. Lesson 1: lots of the most important marketing is not all that sophsticated. Lesson 2 - even millionaires should never think they are too good to sell to the public. Lesson 3 - Figure out who your customers are and talk to them.
• Lack of product focus is an insidious source of pain for a company. When restaurants have menus with dozens of choices, food production is a nightmare - you don’t get particularly good at preparing many dishes. Plus, your sales staff (wait staff) has a much more difficult learning curve.
• Denial of problems (Ramsey is excellent at facing the brutal truth, usually involving a great deal of profanity) is a killer - once you recognize problems, even deep problems can be surprisingly easy to fix if you take a cold, dispassionate look at them.
• Even one wrong person on the management team can be a company-killer. They need to be excluded from the company quickly once it’s determined that they are the wrong person.
• Managing employees who are friends is really difficult because it’s hard to ask your friends to do things that you expect your employees to do - and it’s even harder to provide firm guidance when required.
• Management is leadership - people have to want to do what you say not just because you pay them, but because they value your approval. You can’t leave your employees in the trenches and hide from crisis. You have to treat employees with respect (that’s very different from coddling), and you have to be willing to do whatever it takes to make the customer happy.
• Poor communication among the production (chef), management (restaurant owner) and sales (waitstaff) - often leads to lousy food and lousy service.
• Lack of passion on the part of owners and employees leads to sloppy execution (you can’t provide good service to customers without a passion for what you do). In one show, the head chef realized he really wanted to work with troubled teens (which is why he staffed his kitchen with them) and he left the restaurant to be a social worker.

If you’re interested in becoming a more skilled entrepreneur, I highly recommend watching this entertaining and edcuational show. My wife Cordelia, who also loves entrepreneurship, is also hooked and it’s become quality time for me and the Mrs.

I’ve found good lessons for me as a manager from the show. You may also.

– mike

I just learned that Trajectory Learning made the final 15 list for the TAG/GRA Business Launch competition. Good job, Henry!

Cheers.