Monday, July 11, 2011

Impressive and Aggressive

Someone was asking lately, what were the qualities of the people getting the best jobs these days. They knew it had to be something more illustrative than rockstar, ninja, guru .


What came to mind was Impressive and Agressive. If someone has done something that makes an impression, they stand out because they did or can do something of distinction.


It could be any number of things. They were a member of the Olympic water polo team, or earned a PHD in philosophy before studying computer science. Maybe they sold their first web app when they were in high school or worked their way through college as a fortune teller. They could have won a regional chess tournament or organized a charity event that raised $50,000 for a good cause.


It doesn't have to be something huge but it will probably be outstanding. It might be over coming the odds, demonstrating significant traction in their career or building a cool little app as a side project.


There are any number of ways a person can be impressive and you will know it when you see it.
You will recognize impressive because you will think "not everyone could do that" and remember them.


As you spend some time with them, you realize that this person is also aggressive in their approach to life. Not macho meat head jock aggressive, but more throttled and goal focused aggressive, that is all about execution and GSD.


They are intellectually curious, thoughtful, thirsty for knowledge or a challenge. They have demonstrated they can put in the hard work to acheive distinction.


The next time you are tempted to use SUPERSTAR, rockstar or any of the other terms currently overused in job descriptions, stop yourself, and think about a more substantive and descriptive term that will attract the people you seek.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Boston Angel Series: CommonAngels


CommonAngels is one the oldest angel investment groups on the east coast. Established in 1998, it's members include successful current and past entrepreneurs as well as executives of tech companies

Looking at the exits and current investment portfolio, we can count successful acquisitions and prospective IPO candidates among the list
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In the fall of 2010, CommonAngels announced a key new component to their firm’s financing strategy: the ability to invest in a greater number of startups at earlier stages, and in smaller amounts.

We asked Chris Sheehan, one of the managing directors about the new early stage investments as well as what changes he has seen in Boston angel investment.

Q. Buzz in theHub: What can you tell us about new early stage investments, your thesis or number of investments planned.

A. CS: We have been very active, leading large seed rounds in Practically Green and, with Kepha Partners, Clovr Media.  (Clovr just closed a $8.3M Series A round led by Bain Capital Ventures.)  In addition, we have invested in a half dozen seed opportunities including Blaze Software, Offerpop (NYC), Insight Squared, Yieldbot (NYC), Ayeah Games, and another still in stealth mode.  It’s roughly about an investment per month.

Our investments fall into two general categories, although the lines between the two are admittedly blurred:
Large seed/small Series A rounds. We catalyze these financing rounds for entrepreneurs, bringing our expertise and connections to the table.
Small seed investments. Chris Sheehan and James Geshwiler, through their micro cap funds, make small seed investments to help entrepreneurs get their ideas off the ground.

The seed investments are well suited to Internet and mobile opportunities where the cost of initial product development and distribution are significantly lower than in previous years.

Q: Buzz in theHub: Over the past 5 years, what changes have you observed in the Boston Angel community and what are the effects of those changes.

A. CS:
The availability of seed capital is higher; some of this is due to increase activity by the Boston angel community, both as individuals and as groups; some of its is due to micro cap VCs and traditional VCs getting more active.

Greater willingness to invest in Internet enabled businesses that carry consumer or SMB risk

A greater sense of energy and visibility permeates the angel community. Programs and events such as Tech Stars, Dog Patch Labs, angel group syndication, and Angel Boot camp help contribute to this.  The upcoming national ACA conference will also be make an important contribution

Some diversification focus with new angel groups starting around clean tech and medical/life science investing.

Although anecdotal, it seems that level of investing by NYC and Boston based angels in each others cities has increased

It is evident that CommonAngels is responding to the new market conditions and aggressively addressing the need for urgency, a larger basket of deals and evolving their investor member profile.

Their recent investments and new seed capabilities make it clear that entrepreneurs should  include a stop at CommonAngels on their financing tour.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Boston Startups Q1 2011, When will they launch?

Each quarter, we publish the latest Boston startups which will soon be publicly launching. Although these companies have yet to officially open, we want to promote them and help them find their initial customer base. Apart from helping these companies market themselves, we also want them to get initial comments and feedback from the user community.

Before we introduce the newest batch of Boston startups, let’s take a look at the previous quarter list and see the progress of each company.

http://www.smoopa.com/ - Smoopa has launched early this year with the vision to change the way people shop. A company based in Massachusetts and California, Smoopa allows consumers to identify and share a good deal with friends, buy products online at a lesser price, or get an in-store price match with the use of a smartphone.

http://www.applicationville.com/ - Still under the wraps, Applicationville promises to offer a simple way to search, implement and use applications that meet the consumers’ needs. The company is still searching for mobile pioneers to join Applicationville and for investors who want to be part of the company.

http://www.penmia.com/ -Penmia has launched and is offering an accessible application that lets people record any moment in their lives including wonderful restaurant experiences, memorable first steps, grand vacations, and even exhilarating shopping sprees. The application can record anything and store data using 256-encryption.

http://noderabbit.com/ -NodeRabbit has launched with a mission to ‘make the software development team more successful through continuous deployment’ according to their website.

http://www.foodfeedia.com/ - Foodfeedia is still under stealth mode.

http://pre.nusage.com/ -Nusage has not launched yet. However, according to their website, they are like LinkedIn on Steroids. They are changing the way students, colleges and employers connect and interact with each other. The company, as stated in their website, is getting close to Beta.

http://gospotly.com/ -They have not launched yet.

http://socmetrics.com/ -SocMetics has launched with the aim to help companies engage key influencer in their niche to build world of mouth and increase sales.

So, those are the latest developments from last quarter’s list of startups. For this quarter, we have a new batch of web companies. Sign-up for the betas and show your support! We are all in this together.

http://aftersteps.com/

http://ban.jo/

http://cloudkid.com/

http://cquotient.com/

http://getabl.com/

http://hiremeasure.com/

http://www.apptegic.com/

http://www.decktout.com/

http://www.getbuz.com/

Monday, January 24, 2011

CloudTree




Company:  CloudTree31E065E1-4B5D-3C5F-5F56-9F2A09C2463B



Funding Status: Seed?


Founders Backgrounds: Ellacoya, Arbor Networks, Akiban, Whaleback


Investors: We have our ideas, but none announced


Industry: Virtualization, Cloud Computing


Offering Description: CloudTree enables the social, mobile, real-time Cloud.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Boston Angel Series: Bantam Group

The Angel investor community here in the Boston area is growing and the newest players like Roy Rodenstein , David Cancel   and Dharmesh Shah  are getting well deserved press and visibility.

But there are some established and accomplished Angel investors here with perhaps a lower profile but an even more impressive track record.




Joe Caruso of Bantam Group has been investing in local startups for the past 20 years. One look at the Bantam Group investments below and you will see that Joe knows how to pick winners.

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His investments have included Constant Contact( IPO), many acquisitions, a couple companies bought by Microsoft, Carbonite (IPO candidate 2011) and two of the hottest Cambridge startups, Hubspot and
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But what is most interesting to me is the newest crop of companies like Localytics, Dexrex and Marginize that were seeded by Bantam. This is one Boston angel that is not afraid to invest in web and mobile startups.

Not only is Joe an investor, he is entrepreneur friendly and provides CEO mentorship and coaching, with glowing testimonials from some of the areas best founders to attest to the value of his involvement.

That value comes in all forms. The Bantam web site states, the mentorship may include; "The occasional "wake up call", whack on the side of the head, or forceful listening session."

As an example of how he operates, on our first encounter with Joe at an MTLC unconference, he was generously suggesting people we should meet (and he pretty much knows everyone), within the first 5 minutes of hearing what we were working on.

At the community level Joe created Boston Region Entrepreneur Week BREW to celebrate and shine a
spotlight on the entrepreneurial spirit in Boston.

In summary, Bantam Group may be our best example of an active and successful consumer web investor. If you are an entrepreneur in Boston and will seek seed funding at some point, you will be well served to receive it from Bantam Group.

If you are interested in the portfolios of other Boston Angel groups, check out Lead Dog Ventures. We just updated it with the new widget so you can link into and explore any company.

PS:  We just released the company graph widget as an embed button on our CompanyDetails page. Just click the button and cut and paste the script to have a live/dynamic graph of any company or investor in the talentGraphz database.