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Bootstrapped Startups:
Tales from the Trenches
So you want to bootstrap a startup? Wouldn't it be nice to know the trials and tribulations that you might experience, and learn how others handle them? If so, this night is for you.

FormatThis month we are going to do about 45 minutes of presentations -- three (3) ~15 minutes each -- and then an hour of Q&A.

Featured Startup EntrepreneursWe'll have three startup entrepreneurs on deck, each with a different local business and each with a story to tell.

Derrick Peavy (@derrickpeavy) of College Classifieds will discuss his business, his maniacal focus on statistics and how that focus has led me to be able to improve his results.

Wei Yang (@wei_yang) EasyAutoSales.com will discuss how watching his costs have helped him survive during lean times, and how and why their strategy has changed since inception.

Vince Martin (@vince_martin) of BigCrumbs.com will discuss the people factor and how human unpredictability can impact your business plans and often force you to revisit and/or change your business model.

Evening AgendaOur agenda for the evening will be as follows:

6:15pm - Early Registration (for those not prepaid via PayPal)
6:45pm - Networking
7:00pm - Meeting opens
7:05pm - Group News & Announcements
7:15pm - Derrick Peavy - The CollegeClassified's story
7:30pm - Wei Yang - The EasyAutoSales.com story
7:45pm - Vince Martin - The BigCrumbs.com story
8:00pm - Break
8:10pm - Open Q&A Session
8:50pm - Closing Comments
9:00pm - Networking (Optional)
9:30pm - Drinks/Dinner at Gordon Biersch

Note we'll be ending a 9pm but will allow for networking until 9:30pm after which those interested can head over to Gordon Biersch on Peachtree for drinks and dinner.

Peer Mentoring Boot Camp
Like "Speed Dating" but for Web Entrepreneurs

Yes, we're mixing metaphors but this one's been tough to define!

For almost 3 years we've been bringing Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs together for education and networking but to date its been a centralized endeavor. Members have had to wait for the monthly AWE event, or take action to learn and network 100% on their own. And yes we are all proactive entrepreneurs but even the best entrepreneur stumbles in isolation.

But most of us know we learn and perform best when we are part of a solid peer network, especially one in which we hold each other accountable. So this month AWE’s meetup endeavors to be a catalyst to connect entrepreneurs into their own custom peer network!

What are the Workshop’s Goal?If we succeed in our ambition, we will be to enable you to find your best peer mentor match. By the end of the session you’ll (hopefully) find seven others you can relate to and with whom you can together form your own ongoing peer mentoring group.

How Will it Work?Ancient Chinese Secret...

But seriously, we’ll have 3.5 hours from 6:00pm until 9:30pm and we are going to alternate between 1/2 hour sessions where you’ll work in a group to answer questions related to peer mentoring and 1/2 hour sessions where you’ll be one your own and tasked to meet others who you’ve not yet met.

After each group work session you'll be asked to answer the questions posed of your group, and for the final session you'll be asked

Are You Matching People for Peer Mentoring?Only the first work session. After that we'll have a series of tasks that will help even the most introverted entrepreneur easily be able to find those who are a good match.

Or at least that's the plan.

Who Should Attend?If you are an entrepreneur who has felt like you’ve been isolated or unable to find peers who can help you with business problems and/or who can appreciate you need to be an entrepreneur like your spouse/significant other or family cannot, then you should attend.

If this doesn't sound like you, i.e. you've got plenty of peer support already, see the next section...

If it's Not For You but You Want to HelpIf the session is not for you but you instead want to help as a facilitator, contact me and tell me a bit about your background. We're not yet sure if we'll be using facilitators but minimally you can help with logistics if you'd like.

What Do You Need to Do To Prepare?Please fill out the Peer Mentoring Boot Camp Preparation Form.

Do this BEFORE Thursday, please. If you don't you might not be able to participate because we need this info to match people initially.

What Should You Bring?Bring Pen & Paper, and bring a Laptop if you have one (not really required, but might be helpful.)

Also, bring an Elevator Statement; one sentence you can use that describes your startups mission and/or your entrepreneurial passion.

What You Need to do to PrepareBring Pen & Paper, and bring a Laptop if you have one (not really required, but might be helpful.)

Also, bring an Elevator Statement; one sentence you can use that describes your startups mission and/or your entrepreneurial passion.

What Will Be Expected AFTER the Workshop?By attending the workshop you’ll be committing in advance to schedule to meet with the others in your group at least once before the next AWE meeting to see if your group can collectively give peer mentoring a go.

Who Designed the Format?We’ll put some of the best local minds together to careful craft a socially engineered process to precisely identify those other seven with whom you’ll gain the most benefit as peer mentors.

Oh, scratch that! That’s not true. We’ve just come up some ideas we think can be a great catalyst to help you find others that might end up being great mentors for you. We aren’t going to begin to believe it will be perfect but worst case we think you’ll get to know some interesting people and best case we think you’ll find a group that can help you over the long term.

What about Geography?We all intuitively know that people who live closer together are more likely to get to find time to meet than people who live far apart. Someone from Marietta is more likely to meet with someone from Kennesaw and vice versa than a pair that live in Cummings and Stockbridge. So we are going to start by doing our best to pair attendees who live closer to each other.

Will AWE Plan a Role in the Groups after the Workshop?That we don’t yet know and it’s one of the questions that will be answered in the workshop.

ThanksWe all need to thank the following people who spent many hours brainstorming this meeting format with me, especially the first person whose suggested the basic format:

Keith McGreggor - ATDC
Jennifer Bonnett - StartupChicks
Andrew Lunde - Lunde Cognitive Effects
Colin Ake - GTRI and IgniteATL
Derrick Peavy - CollegeClassifieds

Looking Forward to It!If this is anything at all like our last two workshops, this is going to be a lot of fun and extremely rewarding for all those involved. Be sure not to miss it and later wish you had not.

See Ya'll There!

Welcome to the New ATDC

Extra, extra, read all about it!

The new ATDC is opening its doors to all Georgia Technology Startups. At the risk of overextending hyperbole:

THIS IS BIG!!!

And it could be seriously positive for your business as well as the economy of Georgia.

Who will be there?Stephen Fleming, the new Vice Provost of Georgia Tech's Enterprise Innovation Institute and many of the ATDC's staff will be on hand to walk us all through the new ATDC.

When? TWICE?In anticipation of the demand and to ensure as many can attend as possible this event will be run twice on August 20th, once at 3pm and again at 7pm. Feel free to RSVP for whichever event best meets your schedule as Stephen Fleming and most of the ATDC staff will be on hand for each event.

What's the Agenda?Our agenda for the evening will be as follows:
2:30pm - Early Registration (for those not prepaid)
2:45pm - Networking
3:00pm - Meeting opens; Group News & Discussion
3:10pm - Stephen Fleming: The New ATDC
3:30pm - Q&A with Stephen Fleming
4:00pm - Break
4:10pm - ATDC Staff Panel Discussion
4:50pm - Closing Comments
5:00pm - Networking (Optional)

While there will be a short introduction, the majority of this event will be listening on the part of Stephen Fleming and the ATDC staff. Their goal with this event is to hear your suggestions for how ATDC can best help Atlanta startup entrepreneurs see the most success.

Why is this Different?For many years, ATDC has been perceived as an elite organization that provides support for companies that were believed to be VC fundable if only they had initial support of the type that ATDC provided. This meant few companies could benefit from the ATDC.

Things have changed. A strong grass roots entrepreneurial community has sprung up over the past few years in Atlanta but has had little institutional support to date. And many of entrepreneurs may not ever need funding to see success. So ATDC is reinventing itself to meet the needs of 21st century technology startups in Georgia. What's more, this time they are proactively soliciting the startup community that has formed to help them both decide what to do and also to help them execute.

As Stephen Fleming has said the new ATDC will try a lot of things, and inevitably some of them will be failures. But they'll happily jettison the failures and continue forward with the many more successes this new approach should enable.

Yes, this really is different.

Here are some articles that should help you make sense of it all and help you understand why this rebooting of the ATDC represents such a watershed moment in time:
The ATDC's Second Act (Atlanta Business Chronicle)
Reboot the ATDC Franchise (Academic VC)
Why Are We Doing This? (Academic VC)
New ATDC Launch Links (Force of Good)

Running a Georgia Technology Startup? Be There!Anyone interested in running a technology startup in Georgia should definitely plan to participate in one of these two meetups. Hope to see you there!

How Google Wave Changes Everything (or not)
Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs July 2009 Meetup

Did you miss out on iPhone Apps and Facebook Apps and cede the opportunities to the first movers?
Then pay attention to Google Wave!

If you've heard of Google Wave yet thought "This must just be Google's attempt to get in on the Social Media game" or worse "I don't need another {whatever}!" then think again. Wave is very different.

3rd Wave of Internet Innovation?
Wave has the potential to become the "3rd wave" (pun intended) of innovation on the web after DotCom and "Web 2.0." Wave is a open protocol and an open-source client and server that allows anyone to offer a federated Wave service. In many ways Wave with its own protocol and client+server architecture mirrors that which kickstarted the DotCom era, the HTTP protocol and client+server, yet combines the web's best ideas to date in a more efficient and effective manner then a web browser can. Wave offers a significant potential for new innovation on the Internet and thus huge protentional opportunities.

The "Communcations Browser"
What a user will see when using Wave will look similar to Microsoft Outlook but it will instead combine email, instant messaging, photo sharing, threaded discussions, collaborative editing, version control ... and more.(*) While trying to grasp Wave Urvaksh Karkaria of the Atlanta Business Chronicle coined the term "Communications Browser" to describe a Google Wave client. This contrasts with "Web Browser" and highlights just how significant Wave could be.

Wave Opportunities Abound!
This meetup will help you understand why Wave is different and allow you to brainstorm Wave's potential with some of the sharper thinkers in Atlanta. We will discuss the business opportunities promised by Wave in three major areas:Collaboration within and between organizations,
Competing on the real-time web, and
Trading in the ecosystem of Wave extensions.

A Rare Live Demo of Google Wave!
We will provide a demo that will include a brief view of Wave used to put together a presentation. Be sure to bring your Twitter-enabled laptop or phone as we plan for your Tweets to be part of the demo.

Who should attend
Startup-oriented entrepreneurs wanting to catch the early "Wave" and business people interested in how using Google Wave can improve their businesses.

Format
The format for the evening will be short presentations followed by longer Q&A sessions.

Featured Presenters/Participants
Rick Thomas (@evenview) of evenview is a communication theorist and programmer with expertise in software systems for avionics, automation, multimedia, and web applications. Rick attended Google I/O recently and has a coveted Google Wave account to show for it!
Derrick Peavy (@derrickpeavy) of College Classifieds has been studying Google Wave with a vision for revolutionizing web services. Derrick has established the Atlanta Wavers Meetup group for further exploration of Google Wave.
Brad Dixon (@rbdixon) of MontaVista Software has also been studying Google Wave with his own vision for world domination!
Jay Cuthrell (@qthrul) of Cuthrell Consulting has worked with many successful telecom companies and emerging technology firms and was also at Google I/O and sports his own Google Wave account.

Evening Agenda
Our agenda for the evening will be as follows:
6:15pm - Early Registration (for those not prepaid)
6:45pm - Networking
7:00pm - Meeting opens; Group News & Discussion
7:10pm - Intro Presentation, Videos and Demos
8:00pm - Break
8:10pm - Q&A and Open Forum
8:50pm - Closing Comments
9:00pm - Networking (Optional)
9:30pm - Drinks/Dinner at Gordon Biersch

Note we'll be ending a 9pm but will allow for networking until 9:30pm after which those interested can head over to Gordon Biersch on Peachtree for drinks and dinner.

Get In Line for your Own Google Wave Account
Be sure to request a Google Wave Account telling them you want to collaborate with an organization and mention Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs in the text box, if you will please.

If you are a DEVELOPER wanting to program for Wave request a Google Sandbox Account here telling them what you want to build. Feel free to mention Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs in as influence, if you will please.

(*) Footnotes
Links to presentations and documentation:
http://wave.google.com

For highlights of the 80 minute intro video:
http://lifehacker.com/tag/wave/