Welcome to SL #14! In keeping with the StartupLounge way of tearing down barriers and artificial walls, we were pleased to be joined by Jason Caplain, a co-founder and General Partner with Southern Capitol Ventures out of Raleigh, NC. Jason is a guy that breaks the stereotypical VC mold in a lot of ways (i.e. we think he’s a part of the solution, not the problem.)

In this show (recorded just hours before our first Capital Connections event), we chat with Jason about their fund strategy, some of the things that they are doing differently to engage entrepreneurs, as well as what he thinks about the Atlanta market. And a nice batch of your emails as well. Good stuff!

As an added bonus we have our first “Look who gets it!” segment.

Jason is a very nice guy. And a VC too. Who woulda thought?

StartupLounge.com » SL #14: A VC That is Part of the Solution

Which is more likely to lead to a successful startup business?

* I have a brilliant idea for an awesome new technology It rocks!.
* I work in the … industry and our biggest challenge is … And I have a simple solution to solve it.

When we ‘relaunched’ Racemi in 2002, we had a terrific technology roadmap and were going to bring Utility Computing to the world. Nobody wanted it. It did not solve any specific need. Only when Racemi re-engineered and then targeted the software at solving specific data center problems did their business take off.

Are you waiting to be an entrepreneur because you don’t have any brilliant ideas? Great ideas can sometimes be a bad thing. They prevent you from focusing on what your customers want. Customers don’t care how wonderful your technology is. They just want to solve a problem.

Find a significant un-met need in a growing, referencable market. And solve that need in a way that is easy for your customers to buy and deploy.

Big Thinkr » Blog Archive » Focus on a market need

Martin serves as Managing Partner to Burr & Forman’s Atlanta Office. Martin’s areas of practice include Corporate Law, Intellectual Property & Technology, Mergers & Acquisitions, Healthcare and Telecommunications & Media. His business advisory experience ranges from growth companies to middle market and Fortune 500 companies in digital commerce, information technology, software, electronics, media, communications, healthcare and life sciences. Martin is licensed to practice in both Georgia (1993) and Alabama (1978).

Run the communications group?

Martin R. Tilson, Jr. - Attorney Information - Burr & Forman LLP - Results Matter

Giving Up

I haven't posted in awhile because I've been busy. Busy is good. As we continue to build out the team at Bloglines, I was reminded of something that first occured to me during ONElist's early days about starting a company.

As an employee climbing the corporate ladder at a company, it's all about getting more. More responsibility, more control, a larger salary, a bigger title. However, the exact opposite is true when you start a company. A big part of starting and building a company is about giving up. A founder is in a weird position. When you first start a company, everything is yours. You own all the stock, you make all the decisions. This point of creation is the only time this will be the case, however. Forever after, the founder must give up more and more control to other people and more and more ownership to employees, investors, etc. The founder must do this for the company to be successful, but at the same time this is the opposite of what many people are used to doing.

Anyways, it's just one more thing to consider when deciding whether to start a company. I've found that hiring and working with exceptional people and wanting to see them succeed makes the process much easier. Besides, running a company can be a lot of work, especially for us lazy folks. We need all the help we can get!

Tough lesson.

Wingedpig.com - Mark Fletcher's Blog: Giving Up

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We hope you enjoy Blue Violin - a new tune for testing your website.

Is Blue Violin the best thing since jell-o cups or do you think it's a steaming pile of recycled electrons? Either way, send me an email at josh.watts at blue-violin.com.

This is a cool product. It is similar to something I did for slot machines at one point. I dig.

Blue Violin: Record and Play Back Web Page Interaction: QA Automation for Web 2.0

June ATDC Info Session

The June ATDC Information Session will take place on Thursday June 21 from 6:00 to 7:00 pm in the ATDC Board Room. Here are the directions.

Here are the guidelines.

1. You must read about becoming an ATDC company on our Web site. The more you read the better.

2. You must RSVP via a comment on this post including your full name and a one sentence description of what you are creating. You will be asked to do this at the session as well. If you are not comfortable in telling folks exactly what you are working on, think of a way to generically tell the what, without telling the how.

3. If you can not abide by rules one and two do not attend.

Interested in Downtown Atlanta/GaTech's Tech Startup Incubator, the ATDC? RSVP and show up.

Force_of_Good: June ATDC Info Session

About TTV

Total Technology Ventures ("TTV") was founded in May of 2000 by Managing Partners Gardiner Garrard and Tom Smith. TTV is an Atlanta-based venture capital firm that provides capital primarily to early and expansion stage financial technology companies.

The TTV team is a powerful combination of managing partners, advisory board members, and strategic partners. TTV uses this team-based approach to support its portfolio companies, enabling management teams to focus on their core strengths -- building successful businesses.

TTV targets companies where it can leverage the close relationships with its strategic partners: Synovus Financial Corp., TSYS, and CheckFree Corporation. We provide the capital, experience, resources, and the network to help companies excel.

Atlanta VCs.

Total Technology Ventures, LLC

John P. Imlay, Jr., Chairman, Imlay Investments, Inc.

Imlay Investments is a private investment firm that provides funding for very early stage technology companies. Mr. Imlay is the retired Chairman and CEO of Management Science America Inc. (MSA), which, until it was acquired by Dun and Bradstreet, was one of the top ten software companies in the world with 60 offices worldwide. Mr. Imlay serves on several business boards, including The Atlanta Falcons, IMS Health, Metromedia International Group, Gartner Group, System One Technical, Inc., and World Access. In 1994, he was inducted into the Technology Hall of Fame for Georgia and in 1997 received the Entrepreneur of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award.

Apparently Imlay and Sig Mosley are the Godfather's of early startup funding in Atlanta.

Imlay Investments

Instead of giving a pitch, tell a story. You have heard how important it is to have an elevator pitch. A short, concise description of your company. Short enough to give it on an elevator ride. We solve the problem of blah, blah. The goal is in that one bright shining moment, your vision and your enthusiasm will cause a potential investor or customer or partner to stop and think, “wow, that’s the greatest thing I have ever heard, tell me more.” It never happens. No one can truly grasp the value of what you are doing in 30 seconds (the typical Atlanta elevator ride). Investors especially are pitched all the time. The pitches all sound the same after a while. The key is to get them to REMEMBER you.

People love stories. And keep it personal if you can. Don’t say you solve the problem of medical claims tracking. Describe how difficult it is for your Mom to keep up with her medical bills and how you wrote a program in your garage to solve it for her and how she showed it to a neighbor who works for Aetna and now ….

Creating a great story is not easy. It is much harder than an elevator pitch. There is a great new book called Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. Go get it and start working on your story.

Big Thinkr » Blog Archive » Tell a Story, not a Pitch

Big Thinkr is a collection of former, current, and repeat entrepreneurs trying to improve the entrepreneurial community in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Southeast.

If you have a startup in the southeast, you need to be reading this blog, and you need to be networking with these people.

Big Thinkr