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Results for: funding

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for March 20, 2008

Rick Turoczy on March 19, 2008

Sometimes, a link says more than I could ever say. Here are some fragrant little buds I’ve found recently, courtesy of ma.gnolia.

SplashCast performs 75 times better than banner ads

Mike Berkley writes “We recently completed an analysis on the average click-through rate (CTR) of a typical splashcast. It’s about 3%. That means that every 33 times a splashcast is loaded on a web page, a user interacts with it.”

Metaphor for ExpressionEngine 2.0

Michael Boyink on the new version of Expression Engine, “So my working metaphor is that EE 2.0 is like taking your current CD/ DVD collection, buying a much nicer/sturdier/more expandable rack to store them in, and then re-organizing them while moving them into the new rack. Same music that you love – just better organized in a better environment. And maybe a few new CD’s to boot.”

Startups: Looking for Investors?

Not really a “Silicon Forest” based property, but I’m all for helping you guys attract funding to the area. No word on whether Angels and VCs are actually looking at this list.

stevenf.com: The First, The Free, and the Good

Sage advice for any startup, or any established company for that matter. Steven Frank writes “Where you can really dominate is by combining two or more of these properties. If you are first AND best, you’ll be doing quite well for a very long time, as long as you stay the best. If you’re the best and free, it’s going to be very hard to compete with you — although those two lines don’t intersect just every day.”

EllisLab Hiring, Two Positions Available

Bend-based EllisLab is looking to hire a full-time Code Mechanic and a Senior Technical Support Specialist. Be advised, that these are both “work from home” giges, just in case you’re looking for yet another excuse to move to Bend.

Mobile Portland Meeting on Monday

Jason Grigsby writes “The first Mobile Portland meeting is scheduled for this coming Monday. eROI has graciously offered to host us. Our topic this month: the iPhone SDK. RSVP here.”

FriendFeed Comment Finder at Fast Wonder Blog

Dawn Foster writes “A bunch of people have been talking about how FriendFeed allows people to comment on content within FriendFeed. This means that we have to log into friend feed every day and scour for comments, which remain fragmented from the source of the content. I can’t fix the fragmentation, but I think I have part of a solution (implemented as a Yahoo Pipe, of course).”

DorkbotPDX 0x01

DorkbotPDX 0x01 will be taking place on March 30th at the PNCA Graduate Studios building (1432 NW Johnson St.). We are planning to start things around 6, though there will probably be time to socialize a bit before the talks start.

Twitter: The Uselessfulness of Micro-blogging

Portland’s Scott Hanselman makes a great case for you to be using Twitter.

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Editorial: I could use your advice

Rick Turoczy on March 14, 2008

First of all, I wanted to thank you. For your readership and your support. And, for your continuing to pursue your side projects, your part-time projects, and your full-on entrepreneurial pursuits.

And especially for being brave enough to read a post called “I could use your advice.”

This one is a tough one for me. And I’ll apologize in advance for my rambling explanation. But here we go…

It’s no secret that I started Silicon Florist on a whim. Because I saw a gap in the news coverage. Because I saw incredibly exciting things happening in Portland that didn’t seem to garner coverage—either by local pubs or by the juggernauts of the tech industry.

In short, I’ve been humbled by the response to the blog. And I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your continuing to read it.

I started Silicon Florist because I thought it was a good idea. But I like to think I have a lot of good ideas. It was a side project. A passion project.

But as Silicon Florist continues to grow, it begins to slide into the “part-time gig” column. And I’m happy to see it do that, because I can confidently say that my passion for Silicon Florist and the potential it holds only continues to grow.

After talking with literally hundreds of people (with whom I would have never had contact without this blog), I can see a number of other “gaps” that could be filled. That could improve our startup community here in the Silicon Forest. That could help other folks—kids, business people, venture capitalists—get more involved in the tech industry, here. That could move help Portland and its surrounding areas take a rightful place on the technology map, again.

And that’s something I desperately want to do.

But. (There’s always a “but,” isn’t there?)

There are only so many hours in the day. And I would very much like to dedicate some of those hours before midnight to Silicon Florist pursuits. And to the greater good.

But in order to do that, I have to reduce the number of consulting hours to which I commit. And we all know what that means, don’t we?

Oh.

Well, it means, I need to find another way to replace that cash that’s currently underwriting all of the Silicon Florist efforts. So that I can spend more than side-project time on Silicon Florist. And, quite honestly, to keep this burgeoning dream alive that maybe—just maybe—Silicon Florist has the potential to be a full-time gig.

So, finally, we come to my question:

What should I do?

I have some baggage about even considering this whole thing. But, someone far wiser than I told me, “The first time you covered a topic because you felt you had to cover it, rather than because you wanted to cover it, Silicon Florist stopped being your blog.” And that message has been echoed by others.

So, I feel I have logical justification. But, it’s that selfsame logical defense that also tells me that this blog belongs to you, too. So, I need some more feedback. I need to ask those of you in the silent majority who haven’t had the chance to say your piece.

I’ve been thinking about this a great deal. And I see a number of potential options for getting Silicon Florist out of my basement and on its way to paying some of its own bills. But I’m also open to your feedback.

Here are some ideas I had:

  • Do nothing different from today. Keep the coverage at the same—or lower—level. Keep on keeping on, and look for other passion projects to which I can dedicate my time.
  • Introduce the OPB-esque idea of “Sustaining sponsors,” be that individuals or corporations, who provide funding to underwrite Silicon Florist projects.
  • Pursue good old fashioned Web advertising. Rest assured, I’m not talking about anything gaudy, whack-a-mole-ish, or mortgage-financing-ish. I have to look at the site, too. And ideally, it should be advertising that actually helps Silicon Forest startups and other readers. Shocking concept, I realize.
  • Come up with a more creative solution for solving the problem with which I find myself faced.
  • Or, your idea may be the right thing to do. So feel free to share your ideas in the “Other” area or via comments.

Suffice it to say, that my most important concern is that, you, as a reader do not feel put upon or alienated as a result of my pursuing this direction. Because if this blog fails to keep you interested or if you’re going to be offended, I’d rather suck it up and do nothing.

Wow. That was a lead-up if I’ve ever composed one. If you’re still awake… without further ado, is my appeal for your feedback. I’m looking forward to hearing from you. (Poll not showing? Please access the Silicon Florist poll here.)

And, as always, please feel free to use the comments to expound upon your answers.

Thank you. Sincerely. I really appreciate your advice.

http://s3.polldaddy.com/p/418827.js

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for March 4, 2008

Rick Turoczy on March 4, 2008

Sometimes, a link says more than I could ever say. Here are some fragrant little buds I’ve found recently, courtesy of ma.gnolia.

Improving entrepreneurship in your city.

Aside from #7 (which might be more appropriate as “state and local” for us), I’d say the Silicon Forest community is working in the right direction.

Three things productivity software can learn from game designers

Sam Lawrence asserts, “Shouldn’t productivity software make us want to work? I mean, it’s goal is to make us (and our company) more productive. Given that, the most goal-oriented software I can think of is gaming software. That industry is hyper-competitive. They know our attention and dollars are precious and they’re myopically focused on delivering value within their product.”

Washington Post: Wanna Talk Money?

“It comes from the whole MySpace generation. Once people become comfortable being social online, it extends into other areas, such as personal finance,” said Ryan Williams, co-founder of NetworthIQ, which allows people to publicly keep track of their assets.

Apparently, last weekend was the unofficial Portland “Face Lift Weekend”

Like Silicon Florist, Metroblogging Portland got a face lift over the weekend, as well. Dieselboi says, “As you can see, Portland Metblogs, along with the entire Metroblogging network got a face lift over the weekend. We’re pretty excited about the new interface.”

Calagator progress: New Views and iCalendar

We had a hugely successful code sprint this past Saturday. Reid Beels drafted wireframes that we used to change the main site areas over from scaffolding to something more “calendary”, so if you go to the site now, you’ll see the start of a new home page and event views. We also added iCalendar import and export options. This means you can now subscribe to all of Calagator in your personal calendar of choice.

Oregon Startups: Help with SBIR and STTR – March 31 Deadline!

The March 31st deadline for the Small Business Matching Grant Program (Phase 0) is quickly approaching. The program was created to increase Oregon’s competitiveness in capturing federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grants. These two federal grant programs provide funding to small businesses for research and development of new technologies.

SXSW 2008 & Vidoop

Portland’s Scott Kveton, yesterday’s guest editorial writer, points out, “We’ll be out in force at SXSW Interactive this weekend. In addition to sponsoring BarCamp Austin III, we’ll also be busy on the floor at our booth (stop by for some cool SWAG!) we’ll also be roaming around the conference and all over Austin doing video interviews with attendees about things happening on the Open Web.”

The New Metroblogging – WordPress: Good. Barriers to Participation: Bad. » VanPortlander

The story continues. Metroblogging Portland is one of the major blog forces here in town, and former-Metblogger Aaron Hockley’s insight into the drama and goings-on are invaluable. Here’s hoping that the ship rights itself sooner rather than later.

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Apparently, CLIQ didn’t click with its new owners

Rick Turoczy on January 16, 2008

CLIQ, a dynamic blogroll widget which has been running in the sidebar of the Silicon Florist since I covered the tool in September 2007, is being shutdown as of January 31, 2008.

The widget was built by Portland-based StepChange Group in concert with Offermatica.

CLIQ was created as a joint-venture with our partner Offermatica – the leading online testing optimization platform, which was recently acquired by Omniture, Inc. StepChange managed all aspects of CLIQ’s strategy, design, development and has managed launch process for Offermatica (including the Private Alpha and Public Beta Programs).

I spoke to Kevin Tate of StepChange Group to get his perspective on CLIQ’s demise. He said his organization was taking the news in stride, seeing it as an opportunity for more Portland-centric efforts.

“While we’ve enjoyed working on CLIQ, we’re frankly looking forward to having more bandwidth at StepChange to put toward our own product development,” said Tate. “From a ‘Portland Perspective,’ it feels good to be able to let some of our project work go, so that we can spend more energy building a great software company here in PDX.”

The news of CLIQ’s shutdown was broken by Jeffro2pt0, who had this to say on the demise of the fledgling widget:

[W]hy Cliq is shutting down?

As it turns out, CLIQ was a client of Offermatica, INC and was built as a way to extend their story into the social media space. Well, Offermatica has since been acquired by Omniture. Omniture already has a number of projects within the social media space and therefor, it makes no sense for them to continue development and funding for Cliq.

Mark “Rizzn” Hopkins, who covered the story for Mashable, offered a similar assessment:

Clearly, part of the reason the service is being shut down is that it didn’t receive the traction it needed to survive the merger; other projects within the Omniture family had a wider userbase in the same space.

Personally, I found the widget useful, inasmuch as it provided additional metrics for determining what Silicon Florist traffic was generated by other Portland blogs. Plus, it served as another yardstick for assessing the popularity of companies, subjects, and stories.

Finally, I’m a bit chagrin to report that CLIQ also gains the dubious honor of being the first tool covered by Silicon Florist to go under.

An email will be sent to all CLIQ users, informing them of the Omniture decision.

Portland Start-up Index: Is your site there?

Rick Turoczy on January 5, 2008

Given that I’m still happily digging out from an avalanche of new Twitter followers, I’m a little tardy on reporting the news.

So, a number of folks were kind enough to send me links to Techvibes “Portland Start-up Index,” a list of Portland-based startups ranked by averaging their Alexa and Compete ratings.

According to the post, they chose the Rose City because:

Portland’s unique culture, combined with its proximity to Seattle and Silicon Valley make it fertile ground for start-ups.

The list features an apples and oranges combination of both companies and products (which, quite honestly, isn’t immediately obvious to people who don’t obsess over monitor this stuff as actively as I do). So, companies with multiple products—but only one Web site—like Earth Class Mail (#5) (which unfortunately moved to Seattle to attract funding) and Kryptiq (#20) are mixed in with site-specific products like Matt King‘s Knitmap (#8) and JanRain‘s Pibb (#10).

SplashCast tops the list, with I Want Sandy and MyOpenID rounding out the top three.

Values of n garnered two spots on the index with I Want Sandy and Stikkit (#6). As did JanRain, with MyOpenID and Pibb.

Some notable sites conspicuously absent from the list include Jive Software, Platial, Unthirsty, and AboutUs. But commenters are already noting some of these exclusions.

Techvibes plans to update the list on a regular basis. And, I’m looking forward to seeing a few more of you folks on it, the next time around. Please comment on the post (as a number of folks already have) to ensure that your product or site is listed.

(Hat tip to Mike Berkley, Adam DuVander, and Ben Parzybok)

OEN says every time a bell rings an Angel looks to fund a startup

Rick Turoczy on December 12, 2007

It’s that time of year again. Yes, the time of year when I start trying to write headlines based on obscure references to classic holiday movies.

But, it’s also time for the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (OEN) to open submissions for Angel Oregon, the annual competition that lands one lucky startup a chunk of Angel funding.

Angel Oregon 2008 is coming and it’s bigger than ever! Applications are being accepted now through Jan. 11, 2008. We invite companies to compete for $300K in investment prizes, awarded in three distinct investment tracks. A Grand Prize Winner will walk away with $150K, with two runners-up receiving $75K each [contingent on Angel Oregon hitting its recruitment goals].

Angel Oregon is a program of Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (OEN) and is the nation’s premier matchmaking event. Angel Oregon focuses on bringing together Oregon and SW Washington’s brightest entrepreneurial talent with qualified Angel investors. Last years Angel Oregon event was perhaps the most successful ever with the top company, M-Six, walking away with $230k. For more information or to apply, visit Angel Oregon.

South of the Forest: Meet Oregon Investment Fund in Medford

Rick Turoczy on November 8, 2007

Granted, Medford, Oregon, is more “real forest” than “Silicon Forest.” But this event seemed to be right in line with the entrepreneurial spirit of the Silicon Florist, so I thought I’d pass it along. (Besides, I’m always hoping that a few of you Rose City startups can get a slice of that $100 million of love that is the Oregon Investment Fund (OIF).)

On November 14, CreditSuisse, managers of the OIF, will be hosting “Real-world Case Studies of Emerging Companies Searching for Funding.”

Sure, Medford’s a bit of a haul. But far be it from me to keep you from a road trip.

For more information on the event, see the press release. To register, visit the Southern Oregon Regional Economic Development site.

What’s the Oregon Investment Fund? I’m glad you asked. You see, in July 2003, the Oregon State Legislature approved a mandate for the Oregon Investment Council (“OIC”) to design and implement a US$100 million program that encourages the growth of small businesses within the state of Oregon. To accomplish this mandate, the OIC chose to develop a fund of funds, the Oregon Investment Fund. This fund, which is capitalized by funds from the OIC, has committed capital to private equity and venture capital funds that in turn invest in companies located primarily in the state of Oregon, as well as the Pacific Northwest region. Contact www.oregoninvestmentfund.com for more information.

iovation lands $10 million from Intel Capital

Rick Turoczy on November 8, 2007

iovation, a Portland-based startup that focuses on combating online fraud—and which also allows you to begin sentences with a lower-case letter—has announced a new round of funding, led by a $10 million investment from Intel Capital. The total round sits at $15 million.

iovation, headquartered in Portland, Oregon pioneered the use of device reputation for managing online fraud, abusive behavior and multi-factor authentication. Today, iovation manages the reputation of millions of Internet-enabled devices worldwide, allowing its customers to control online fraud and abuse while benefiting from sharing device reputation intelligence. For more information on iovation and the company’s products, visit www.iovation.com.

(Hat tip Silicon Forest)

Jive’s new space should include a bigger trophy case

Rick Turoczy on November 6, 2007

Portland-based Jive Software continues on its award-winning roll. First, they walked away with a cash prize of $15 million from Sequoia. Then, they took home the OEN Entrepreneur Award. Now, they’ve walked away with top honors at Venture NW for “Outstanding Achievement.”

“As winners of the Outstanding Achievement Awards, Jive Software and nLIGHT represent the high caliber of companies and entrepreneurs in this region. These are two globally competitive companies that have proven that they are attractive to investors anywhere,” said Wayne Embree, managing partner of Reference Capital Management, LLC and Chairman of Venture Northwest 2007. “They remind us what is possible with the support from programs such as Oregon Entrepreneurs Network and Venture Northwest.”

Who else won? If the quotes are any indication, it sounds like Portland may be a winner, as well. If only in getting a little more of the entrepreneurial and venture-capitalistic attention and affection it so rightly deserves.

“Moving our company to Portland was one of the best business decisions we ever made. We quickly discovered that Portland has an immensely supportive entrepreneurial community and it has provided our company with a great environment in which to grow,” said Jive Software CEO, Dave Hersh. “Being chosen to receive this award is a great honor.”

I remain hopeful that this sort of Portland praise will begin to cut down on some of the location-related difficulties Silicon Forest startups are encountering as they pursue funding.

Jive outgrows its current digs

Rick Turoczy on October 30, 2007

With its recent infusion of funding and rash of hiring, Portland-based Jive Software is outgrowing its current space at 317 SW Alder.

No word on whether they’ve selected new digs or not.

But their old space—exposed brick and all—will soon be up-for-grabs.

Jive Software develops award-winning collaboration software that improves a company’s productivity through open collaboration among employees, partners and customers. For more information, visit Jive Software.

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