On this 5th anniversary of Katrina, there has been much reflection about New Orleans.  We have made many strides as a city, yet there remains much work to be done.  The city is broad and diverse and I wouldn’t for a minute pretend to know the challenges that so many have faced over the last five years.

One bright spot has been the emergent entrepreneurial community in New Orleans.   I been a New Orleanian equal parts pre & post storm now, and it amazes me how different the business climate is today.  There is a collaborative, bootstrapping, can-do spirit driving us and the last few years have been the most inspirational of my business career.  There is something truly special going on in New Orleans right now, and I am humbled that the people of Launch Pad, our community, is playing such an vital role in this resurgence.

There has been plenty of coverage this week about what is going on in New Orleans, and I wanted to share some of it with you here.  Thanks to everyone in New Orleans for being here and to everyone else for your love and support!

• The Daily Beast
• NBC Nightly News
• NPR – All Things Considered
• CNN

We have been hard at work for the last month getting things fired up for TribeCon 2010.  Thank you to all of you who made last year such a success, and we can’t wait to have you back to New Orleans again for this year’s edition of the conference.

We’ve started to get things fired up for this year, and want to engage you to help us shape the conference and the programming.  It’s a community-powered conference and we really appreciate your engagement.

THE BASICS

• What: Tribecon 2010
• When: Oct 28-29, 2010
• Where: New Orleans, LA – City Park as part of the Voodoo Experience
• Web: http://tribecon.com

SPEAKERS

Interested in speaking, or know someone who would be great, we want to know about it.

• Why you should consider speaking: http://hu.la/9k2sym
• Submit a speaking proposal here: http://hu.la/speakattc2010
• Add to our hit list for speakers here: http://hu.la/tcspeakerhitlist

We really appreciate any ideas you have, help us create the content you want to see.

SPONSORS

We are looking for sponsors for this years conference.  Please contact Chris Schultz at chris@voodooventures.com to receive a sponsorship proposal.

ENGAGE

Last year this Google Group (our Tribal Council) truly shaped the conference.  It was a huge help to Tiffany and me, and we deeply appreciate your support in pulling this together.  We hope that you’ll once again share ideas, feedback, brainstorms with us right here.  We truly value our community.

• Join the Tribal Council
• Get our newsletter
• Follow us on Twitter

What would make TribeCon an amazing experience for you this year?

I’ve talked about my investment in Jackson Square Group previously, but since the company has just closed the round of funding, I wanted to highlight why I think Jackson Square Group is going places.

First, a little context:  In March, I invested in Jackson Square Group through Voodoo Ventures and took a seat on the board of directors.  Jackson Square Group just closed its seed financing round on July 15.

I invested in Jackson Square Group because:

• Patrick Comer, the CEO is as driven a founder as I’ve ever met.  He has extensive background in the market research industry and as an entrepreneur.  Industry experience and multiple startup experiences are a winning combination.
• The team is top-notch. It’s been eye-opening to me to see the talent that New Orleans has to offer and the energy that this team has brought to the company (of course this is hindsight, b/c I was already committed, but its a good start).
• The technology is disruptive. This is a bit of a cliche, if your technology isn’t disruptive that might be a problem.  But the Federated Sample platform that Jackson Square has launched increases quality & deliver-ability, automates transactions, and provides many-to-many connections in a industry dominated by one-to-one manual relationships.
• The market is rapidly evolving. The world of market research surveys adapts as new data collection methodologies come online: door-to-door begat telephone begat email lists begat social networks. Jackson Square’s Federated Sample technology is well-positioned to to move the industry to its next phase.
• Data. Enough said.

Here is some recent press from Time Picayune, Research Magazine, & Market Research Online.

I’m very pleased to be an investor in Jackson Square Group.  If you are interested in the company, please contact Austin Lavin. As always, if you have questions for me, hit me up.

Dear David -

Last night we had the pleasure of attending the TechStars demo day in Boston where we saw 10 great companies present to 250 mentors, investors, and members of the tech community.  Wow, what an impressive evening and showcase for TechStars.

I’d like to respectively submit for your consideration New Orleans as the next city for TechStars.

You and I have had several conversations over the last year, facilitated by Andrew Hyde, about my desire to launch a mentorship-based seed fund in New Orleans.  We’ve done our homework: studied the models, attended your session at SXSW, and talked to mentors, entrepreneurs and investors all involved with TechStars. You said to me last night “New Orleans is on my radar…” to which I respond: I’m making it my mission to do what it takes to attract TechStars to launch in New Orleans in January of 2011.

I believe we can demonstrate to you that the tech startup community in New Orleans and Louisiana is activated and it would be a winning move for you to launch your Winter session in New Orleans.  Here is what I plan to demonstrate:

• we have a roster of local and national mentors ready to commit
• we have sources of capital that will get behind a TechStars New Orleans
• we have an startup ecosystem of intelligent, passionate, creative, driven entrepreneurs who will provide the core of and be impacted greatly by TechStars
• we have a favorable climate for tech startups with the 35% digital media incentive which makes Louisiana one of the best places for software and Internet companies in the country
• we have a collaborative workspace, Launch Pad, ready to house TechStars companies
• we have activated local leadership lined up to get behind TechStars and make it a success

I have been passionate about the need for a mentorship-based seed fund in New Orleans for the last two years, and I fully believe that the stars are aligned to make it a reality right now with TechStars.  We are committed to making our case to you, learning what we need to know, and answering your questions to make as convincing an argument as possible.

Please make space on the TechStars calendar next January for New Orleans. Thank you for your hospitality in Boston and your consideration. We will be in touch.

Who’s with me?  If you are a startup or entrepreneur who would love to see a TechStars New Orleans, holla back in the comments!

Sincerely,

Chris Schultz

[PS: for those who wonder who I'm writing to here: David Cohen is the founder and CEO of TechStars, a mentorship-driven seed stage investment program for Internet startups.]

I am excited to introduce Voodoo’s latest project, Hu.la, a URL shortener.  If you’re reading this post, you probably got here via a tweet or Facebook post via a short link.  While largely a commodity now, we decided to get in on the action too.  We secured this domain name earlier this year, and decided to launch our own URL shortner.  We’ve been using it internally for a couple months and now are rolling it out publicly so you can too.

One of the fun things about having the great engineering talent at Flatsourcing is being able to pursue projects like this, and occasionally they require a few hacks.  So, we want to share the story of how we built Hu.la:

• bit.ly is the leader in the URL shortner space and we applied to and were accepted in the beta of their bitly.pro program.
• The bitly.pro service powers New York Times, Amazon and TechCrunch’s own URL shorterns too.  You can sign up here.
• In order to get a homepage that allows others to access the service, we took a lesson from the guys who created 511cc.org using bitly.pro.
• And voila: we’ve launched Hu.la – take your links for a spin today.

Any questions or suggestions, please let us know.  We’d love your feedback and for you to make it your default URL shortening service.

This post has been coming together for a while, and I’m excited that I am finally getting a chance to share the coming capital options for startups in NOLA.  My feeling for a while has been that the seed capital gap and lack of VC in general in Louisiana has been one of the biggest challenges facing startups.  The Receivables Exchange had to go raise its capital outside of Louisiana.

As far as local angel funding, here’s what I wrote to Ben Rosen after his visit to New Orleans last week during Launch Fest:

The next step is to develop a strong, active, angel community to fund these companies, and keep them in New Orleans, rather than needing to go to Austin, NY, Boulder or the Valley for capital & talent.

A big part of our mission at Launch Pad is getting the investment community familiar and comfortable with these types of investments, which may be non-traditional for the region where wealth has traditionally been generated through oil and gas and the port.

It appears that we are on the verge of a tidal shift in the availability of capital for startups locally (fingers crossed).  Here are some of the things that are happening now and on the horizon.

• Idea Village – open – an eight year old non-profit that provides grant funding & educational curriculum. The 2010 class has just completed, and the application process for 2011 will be open towards the end of this summer.
• Leap Frog Ventures – projected launch Q3 2010 – a non-profit evergreen fund that Leslie Jacobs, Rick Rees, and Ben Allen are putting together in conjunction with GNO Inc.  The fund is based on the JumpStart program in Cleveland OH. Projected to raise $5-8 million from public and private sources and make seed investments of $250,000 – $500,000.
• GNO, Inc Opportunity Fund – projected launch Q3 2010 – this is a fund that will package CDFI funds from local banks into an evergreen investment fund that will make low interest convertible debt loans to local startups.  I am unsure of projected raise, the average size of loans is likely to be around $250,000.
• South Coast Angels – open, currently accepting pitches – this is a local angel fund managed by Clayton White and Choose Taurman.  This is a member managed angel fund, so it is different than an angel network like the events we do at Launch Pad.  My understanding is that they have $2-3 million committed and they are currently seeking investment opportunities of $250,000 to $500,000. They are using AngelSoft software to manage the application process and you can find out about it here.
• National VC Activity – starting – one of the best opportunities I see is to build strong ties to the national VC community, particularly NY, Boston & Austin.  The Kraft Group investment in NakedPizza led to Steve Schlafman’s participation in Launch Fest.  In addition, David Safaii of Windspeed Ventures came to Launch Fest and is getting connected with the local community.  Nurturing and strengthening these ties is critical.
• Barrett Vernon Montgomery LLC – open - Disclosure: Investor in Launch Pad.  Currently managing two funds.  Funds under management: $30 million. General size of investments are seed investments of $100,000 to $300,000 with follow on capital of up to $3 million.
• Long Branch Ventures – open – Michelle Oaks has been an active angel investor in the New Orleans community over the last two years.  Long Branch invests in early stage companies with an investment criteria that includes the company be based in Orleans Parish.
• Trumpet Ventures – open – Spun off from Trumpet Group in 2009, Trumpet Ventures invests financially and also by providing services in exchange for equity.
• Launch Pad Angel Network – open – We host quarterly angel pitch events at Launch Pad at the IP.  We hosted the last one during Launch Fest where we had ten 5 minute pitches by entrepreneurs.  70% of the startups were invited to contact an investor following the pitches.  Range of capital has been early stage prototype to seed capital.
• Voodoo Ventures – open – Voodoo recently made an investment in Jackson Square Group.  I am open to other strategic investment opportunities.

I am particularly excited about the new funding sources coming online listed above.  While I still believe that we’d benefit greatly from a seed accelerator program, and Launch Pad has some things underway to launch one, I think the capital is going to be flowing locally in the next 6 months to a year looking for deals.  If you have a startup idea, now is the time to get your business plan, or better yet, prototype together.

If I’ve made any mistakes above, feel free to contact me.  If you are a source of capital, and would like to be listed, please add a comment, and I’ll add you to the list.  Here’s to solving the seed capital gap in New Orleans!

Yesterday I was reflecting on the inclusion of Launch Pad in this NYTimes article.

Meanwhile, LaunchPad — a k a  LaunchPadNola — which was started by Chris Schultz, offers co-working space and business classes in New Orleans. It has 43 tenants today.

As much as it’s great to be recognized, it does piss me off that it says I started Launch Pad.  I didn’t.  I co-founded it. With Barre Tanguis and Will Donaldson.

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned as an entrepreneur is not to go it alone.  It’s too lonely of a game to try to start a company yourself. And there is evidence that shows that having co-founders is much more likely to lead to business success. As a serial entrepreneur, I’ve embraced the fact that I like to have different things going on, its what gets me fired up, and I’ve been able to pull my passions together under Voodoo Ventures.  I very deliberately have made a decision that unless I have a strong partner or co-founder on a project, I won’t do it.  It is the only way I scale.

I’m proud of my partnerships and acknowledge the fact that my endeavors wouldn’t be where they are without them.

• Flatsourcing – Oleg Kurnosov, Timur Vafin, Alex Mamaev, Peter Bodenheimer
• Launch Pad – Barre Tanguis & Will Donaldson
• TribeCon – Tiffany Starnes
• Even my recent investment in Jackson Square Group is reflective of this.  Patrick Comer brought me on as a co-founder, alongside his brother Walton Comer.

It took me a while to get to this point.  Having a partner can be hard.  One of the most serious strains on a personal relationship I’ve ever had came when I faced challenges with my partner  and best friend in the first company I ever started.

But, reflecting on my career, the successes have come when I have a partner-in-crime, someone deep in the blood and the mud with me.  And I’m grateful in all my ventures that I great co-founders and partners right now.

Fast Company interviewed me for part 8 of their series “Why you should start a company in….” where they have been profiling the best startup cities around the country.  It was a privilege to speak on behalf of so many great entrepreneurs in New Orleans.

If you haven’t seen it, why not give it a read.  Here are my thoughts on “Why New Orleans is different or better than other cities?”

In a lot of ways, New Orleans is the city for our times, it fits the post-financial-crisis world. We dealt with our knockout blow in 2005 and the people here literally have rebuilt and re-imagined the city. We are ahead of the rest of the country that is just now dealing with the financial crisis. We’re already well into recovery and growth mode, so it’s an exciting time.  There’s something kind of magical that’s going on right now and it’s that gelling at the very beginning of an uprising where things really become a movement.

This really is a great time to start a business in New Orleans.  Here are a few places to dig a little deeper:

• Taylor Davidson wrote a post cataloging the startup scene in January.
• To dig into the tax incentives for businesses, check out my wiki, and LED’s site.
• Hot right now are the 2nd Net2NO SXSW road trip, the Google Fiber initiative, and Entrepreneurs Week
• One of the things I mentioned in the interview is a challenge around the lack of startup capital in New Orleans, this is something we’re working on too

I’d love to hear your thoughts on what makes New Orleans such a great place to start a company right now.

Aaron Patzer – Mint.com – How to Take Your Startup to the Next Level @ FOWA 2010

Idea to $170 mil acquisition in 3 years.

3 Phases of a Startup

1. Garage – <$100k in funding
   • Validate and idea
   • Create a prototype
2. Seed < $1mil
   • Launch and alpha product
3. Scale > $1mil

Garage – Rapidly Validate an Idea
Original Idea: Goal setting software

Talk to as many people as possible.  Don’t keep your business idea inside.  Don’t worry about stealing the idea.  Talked to 50-80 people.  He found that the money component really resonated.  People had issue with existing tools like Quicken & Microsoft Money.  Customer feedback before even building the app.
Solve a real problem that exists now and 5-10 years from now.  Don’t build a feature, build a business.  In 5 years, will this problem still exist.  Is it a transitional problem?

Garage: Goal = Prototype
Pre-revenue Valuation solver:

• + $500k / engineer = prototype development
• - $250k / business guy = idea, but not much to do

They built a real UI, and real prototype in July 2006. A prototype that is real and tangible will get you seed funding.

Garage to Seed: Raising Funding

1. solve a real problem
2. in a large market
3. real revenue potential
4. sustainable advantage – patents, people, user interface. need to be able to be leader

Seed: Proving revenue … before you have any

• The hockey stick looking curve is total BS
• Per transaction / per user revenue is much more important
• And a huge market opportunity

Competition: Quicken & LowerMyBills

• Lead-Gen & CPA Opportunity: $30+ /user / yr
• Business Model: Referrals & Lead Generation
• 7% of 16Bil online ad market

Seed Result – raised $750,000 and built prototype

Funded: Scaling People

• Train yourself to hire
• Hire better than you… then let them work
• Recommended book – Topgrading – sequential interview process. In interview questions “the why is always more important than the what.” – looking for pattern recognition. You can spot gaps, you can see true colors.

Funded: Beta -> Big Launch

• started blog ecosystem – find people to write guest posts
• private beta builds demand
• use exclusivity
• user feedback is key

Mint had 20,000 email addresses 1 month before launch. If you put a badge on your site, we’ll give you priority access to Mint.  600 people did it. Also gave great pagerank.   The alpha users got velvet rope treatment.

Beta Product: Jul-Sept 2007
Saw scalability issues come across with the real users.  Focus on building architecture.  Hiring marketers properly. Scaling marketing by building the blog outreach.

Funded: The Big Launch

• Venue: TechCrunch 40
• Aggressive PR – hire an agency
• Have a presence

Mint mojitos. Everyone in t-shirts. Rent adjacent space.  People’s choice award winner.  Result: Mint wins TC40 People’s Choice Award.  Off to the races.

• Q – Validate your idea?
• A – Talk to people.  Is it a real problem? Would you actually use it?  People will poke holes in it.  Find out other services that exist.  Don’t be super secretive.  Talk to parents friends, non early adopters.  Write down “concept statements” – go to train station, normal people.  What do you think of this concept?  Try different positioning statements & feature sets.  All on paper before you built anything?

• Q – Story behind domain name?
• A – Original domain – MyMint.com – he bought himself originally.  It must be easily spelled.  Have all its vowels.  Don’t chose your brand name based on availability.  Couldn’t afford Mint.com until series A round.  He bought it from a hedge fund investor.

• Q – Where’d the Mint interface come from.  UI is critical.
• A – The way that it was perfected was putting it in front of real users.  Take people off the street for a Starbucks $10 gift card. Mixture of ages, men, women, screaming babies.  Hire designers with very specific background Photoshop, CSS/HTML, and UI.  Designers make tradeoffs themselves.

I’m at FOWA in Miami today w/ Peter and Alex from Flatsourcing.  The first presentation was from Fred Wilson who makes amazing investments in great companies:

Fred Wilson – 10 Golden Principles of Web Apps

1. Speed – The most important feature, if its not fast, users will leave.  Early adopters are forgiving, the mainstream is not.
2. Instant Utility – It has to give people something immediately.  If you have to spend an hour loading data into the app before you can actually do something, people will leave.
3. Have a Voice – Stand for something, have a voice, don’t be bland.  The Twitter Fail Whale ending up on t-shirts, meant that something about their voice was connecting w/ society.  It sounded like a human being talking.
4. Less is More – Start by being simplistic. Delicious was a great example. People used it every day.  You do one little thing but you do it all day, its quick, easy and fast.
5. Programmable – Make your app programmable.  Make it possible for others to add to and build on top of your application.  If your API is not read/write its not an API, its RSS.  When people can add value to your application, they can add energy to your app, more data, and more richness.
6. Personal – Infuse your application w/ your users energy.  People feel more ownership when your app is personal for everyone.  Backgrounds, avatars, user generated content.   Makes people care about your app.
7. RESTful – In a REST architecture, your resources have a URL, and can be called by that URL.  Make the entire application have a clean URL.  Every component has its own URL that people can remember and type in.   Everyone can understand what a URL stands for, and it also is crawlable by search engines.  The web can get access to your app in deep ways.
8. Discoverable – When you launch a web app, its a needle in a haystack.  How is anyone going to find yours.  You must understand SEO, and build your application from the ground up to be optimized for Google.  It also needs to be optimized for social media, meaning virality.  The product itself must push itself out into the web and social media.
9. Clean – The application itself must be clean on the page.  Whitespace.  Big fonts.  Not too much functionality on each page.  Anyone landing on the page should know immediately what to do. (Tumblr login.) People underestimate how important it is to be efficient w/ the features on each page.
10. Playful – The ability to play in an application is important.  The game dynamic is something you can use to get users to do what you want.  Weight Watchers is a good example.  Set goals, and get rewarded for meeting goals.  Create a game dynamic in all apps to make it “fun to play.” Foursquare uses game dynamic as a way to power the development of a local information service.  Users will have more fun, and you can incent the kind of behavior you want in the application.

The marketing for an app has to be in the product.  Don’t hire a marketing team.  Guerrilla, street, or stunt marketing.  It’s not a coincidence that two of Union Square Ventures  apps (Twitter and Foursquare) broke out at SXSW.   It’s authentic, and not expensive.

The Union Square Ventures, five of the six keywords they believe in: Mobile, Social, Global, Playful, Intelligent.

Here are his slides:

The 10 Golden Principles for Successful Web Apps

Fred emphasized that these are his 10 principles, but there is a lively discussion going on over on his blog, where many other opinions are being expressed about what core tenants are important to an successful app.