$100,000 is the New $10 Million
Venture capitalists are racing to miniaturize themselves toward the vanishing point. One of my favorite bloggers, Fred Wilson, recently asked why not “back 10 teams at $25,000 each instead of one team at $250,000”? Just last week a Seattle venture capitalist boasted that “we are seeing impressive companies being built for under $100,000.”

To which one can only say: Really? Which companies?

Just do the math. Two engineers can last 12 months on $100,000, which is great for building a prototype, but often nowhere near enough to build an ambitious product, much less a business. Yes, hardware and software have become nearly free, but people have always been a startup’s main cost.

Spending Less, Doing Less
What’s usually happening is we’re spending less by doing less. Behind the steady drumbeat of startups, any TechCrunch reader can’t help but notice how whimsical many have become.

Trading college-girl gossip or graphing rock-band popularity is cool but we also need entrepreneurs willing to spend the time and money to f*** with the order of things. Rather than building game-changing technologies that can make an entire segment of the economy better, most startups are using what’s already out there to create a new media site. Silicon Valley, meet Hollywood.

Honey, I Shrunk the Startups! (Guide for Scoring TechCrunch 50 at Home) | Redfin Corporate Blog

Registration is required so we can know how many people to expect and plan for. We are also limiting the number of people to 50 at the max. We are wanting to see an equal number of entrepreneurs and investors so we can have a meaningful conversation with out it being one sided. We also want everyone to try to make it to Fridays launch event for START Atlanta because that is when we will have the break out sessions for product development. The break out sessions are where we will spilt the group into investors and entrepreneurs and have each side describe what products they will need, and want for START Atlanta to be functional for them. This will ensure we are building something for the community which will help to foster a better community. So if you are thinking you can’t make it to the whole weekend that is fine, just be sure to make it to Friday night’s event.

START Atlanta | Fostering the Atlanta Early-Stage Technology Community

The plan, which would place the companies into a conservatorship, was outlined in separate meetings with the chief executives at the office of the companies’ new regulator. The executives were told that, under the plan, they and their boards would be replaced and shareholders would be virtually wiped out, but that the companies would be able to continue functioning with the government generally standing behind their debt, people briefed on the discussions said.

It is not possible to calculate the cost of any government bailout, but the huge potential liabilities of the companies could cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars and make any rescue among the largest in the nation’s history.

Let rich ceo's gamble the money of the wealthy, and then use tax money to bail them out when their big bets go bad. Sounds like corporate welfare to me. Is this really necessary to stop a chain reaction of bad shenanigans in the economy?

U.S. Rescue Seen at Hand for 2 Mortgage Giants - NYTimes.com

Wish you could display company news, information, and promotional materials on the TVs hanging in your office or at your events? Perhaps you would like the ability to provide updated information to all your employees in a central location.
Introducing YourScreen, a simple affordable way to deliver customizable content to any TV screen in your network.

Atlanta startup YourScreen has interesting stuff.

YourScreen - TV The Way You Want It...

Two small areas located roughly 200 miles off the coast of Charleston, S.C., contain enough methane to meet the country's gas needs for more than a century. And this is only one of at least two dozen similar reservoirs discovered in U.S. coastal waters since the early 1970s.

The paradox is that while gas can be extracted from methane hydrates, doing so poses potentially catastrophic risks. Methane hydrates are frozen water molecules that trap methane gas molecules in a crystalline, lattice-like structure known as a hydrate. Unlike normal ice, hydrate ice literally burns--light a match and it goes up in flames. As temperatures rise or pressure rates fall, the hydrate disintegrates and the water releases the gas.

A substantial amount of evidence suggests that weakening the lattice-like structure of gas hydrates has triggered underwater landslides on the continental margin. In other words, the extraction process, if done improperly, could cause sudden disruptions on the ocean floor, reducing ocean pressure rates and releasing methane gas from hydrates.

A mass release of methane into the sea and atmosphere could have catastrophic consequences on the pace of climate change. More than 50 million years ago, undersea landslides resulted in the release of methane gas from methane hydrate, which contributed to global warming that lasted tens of thousands of years.

Energy's Most Dangerous Game - Forbes.com

GDP of the top four national economies in the world (after the US), expressed as US regions by GSP. null

The Scale of the American Economy on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Welcome to the START Atlanta website where our goal is to connect the entrepreneurs and investors of Atlanta (and surrounding communities) with the collective wisdom of the “cloud.”

For some of the entrepreneurs, we hope to link you with your peers so you can learn from their mistakes and not FAIL at some of the really basic stuff that many others have already done. For the startups that are a bit further along, we would love for you to skool us if you have wisdom you’d like to share or give back to the community.

For the investors, our goal is to help connect you to hot startups, tell you why they matter and hopefully make long term connections in the local community that will be beneficial to all parties involved. While your financial contributions are always appreciated, we also value your time, your experience and your network. Above all else we are just looking to include more of you in this community and are looking for more involvement to help propel startups in the area.

If you’re interested in sponsoring START Atlanta, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Feedback is always appreciated as we move forward to foster, promote and grow the Atlanta Startup Community.

START Atlanta | Fostering the Atlanta Early-Stage Technology Community

Japan's new professional seducers
This woman leads a double life. Her boyfriend thinks she’s a secretary. In fact she is one of Japan’s new breed of professional seducers, hired by embittered spouses to entrap their straying partners. And she’ll stop at nothing to get the desired results.

Japan's new professional seducers - Times Online

We made the announcement the other night at our quarterly CapitalLounge event, but here it is again for those that missed it.

AngelLounge is the angel investor community component of Startuplounge. It is currently comprised of 80+ vetted angel investors in Georgia. The member list reads like a who’s who.

The good news is that not only have we not even scratched the surface of Atlanta, but we are also reaching out to other parts of the state as well, including Savannah, Columbus, Douglasville, Rome, etc.

...

Every deal will get seen by the network, period - no bottlenecks - no middleman - no gatekeepers.

Open beats closed. The ATA becomes increasingly less relevant...

Scott Burkett’s Pothole on the Infobahn » Submit Your Deal to AngelLounge

This is the secret site of Sig Mosley. I put this up because I've heard people talking, I hear everything in the world of Atlanta technology. I have connections everywhere. That's how I get all the good deals. And some of the bad ones.

So stop already with the Sig doesn't have a Web site stuff. Here it is. And if I ever hear that an entrepreneur has been talking smack about me not having a Web presence again they will never get funded in this town.

I am I. Sigmund Mosley, Jr., the unwitting godfather of early-stage technology investing in Atlanta. More officially I am the President of Imlay Investments, Inc. Imlay Investments, Inc. is the personal investment company of John P. Imlay, Jr.

Hah. Sig Mosley has a sense of humor.

SecretSig - Dude, if you need the Internet to find me you don't deserve funding.