Aaron.Gerry's blog

Wondering what's the current state of venture capital and angel investors in the Boston area? Read on.

Here are notes from the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge's recent Innovation Series event "The View From All Sides: What It Takes and Means to Secure Funding in Today's Economy."

But first, the panel:

Shawn Broderick: Executive Director, TechStars Boston (similar to Y Combinator) and Founder/CEO, TrustPlus

Rob Go: Venture Capitalist, Spark Capital / Start @ Spark

Rich Miner: Managing Partner, Google Ventures

David Friend: Angel Investor and Serial Entrepreneur; Chairman, CEO and Co-founder, Carbonite

Lee Hower (the forum moderator): Co-founder, LinkedIn; Venture Capitalist, Point Judith Capital

So if you need advice on how to pursue investment, this recap is for you. Continue Reading...

With nearly 4,300 colleges and universities in the United States, SlouchBack looks to provide comfort for dorm rooms across the country.

"Why Sit Up Straight When You Can SlouchBack?"

Andrew Goetting, Roger Williams University 2008 graduate and founder of SlouchBack, lives off of drive, perpetual optimism and a healthy obsession with comfort.

During his freshman year at Roger Williams, Andrew came to a stunning revelation: college dorm rooms are small.  With little seating area beside a typical dorm bed, students are forced to cram on the same furniture where they sleep just to hang out. 

Andrew explains that "many of the students don't realize how much time they will be spending in their dorm room, which can make such cramped quarters uncomfortable."Continue Reading...

No longer scour through news bits and forums for topics you are interested in, Buzzable offers a venue to consolidate pertinent information and dialogue in one place.

Background

The story of Buzzable follows an interesting path.  Cofounded by Ashish Kundra and Satjot Singh Sawhney, students in the Columbia University School of Engineering, Buzzable was originally a mere afterthought.  Originally accepted into LaunchBox Digital’s incubator program with the plans for a discount card company, the duo pursued a new venture in light of the social media explosion.

Active users in the world of social media themselves, the duo has seen the power of user generated content first hand.  Recent reports indicate that the number of social network users will grow to 730 million by 2013, a significant market to tap into.  As conscientious entrepreneurs, Ashish and Satjot saw an opportunity, specifically a gap in the Twitter community, and sought to solve the problem.

The idea

Twitter currently does not offer the option to create groups.  Buzzable does.  Utilizing the power of Twitter, the company offers a source for like-minded people to come together and share and discuss a topic of their choosing.  Or as Ashish explains, “you can think of it as ‘yahoo groups’ for twitter.” 

How it works

The premise is to link a central topic with live dialogue and continually updating RSS feeds.  To promote your group, you can:

-    Import keyword filtered RSS feeds (for the ‘iPhone Fans’ group, you could filter articles by ‘iPhone,’ ‘smartphone,’ ‘apple,’ etc.)
-    Update via Twitter (and easily invite your fellow tweeters)
-    Embed your group activity into other media venues utilizing the Buzzable widget
-    Share text, video, and images
-    Vote up posts that you like and want to share

Groups

The groups cover a broad spectrum of interests and are presented on a simple, easy to maneuver interface (much like twitter itself).

One of the more innovative groups was initiated by the Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger.  With the tagline, “How can we make California better?,” the Governor’s idea is to create a venue for citizens to freely discuss issues they see and post suggestions for improvements.  Additionally, the group posts live updates from the Governor’s office about what legislation is being worked on and the reasons behind it.

Values

Buzzable is determined to provide a user experience based around ease of use and open dialogue.  The company understands the dynamic nature of the industry and as such, Ashish and Satjot are compelled by input from the users.  Constantly following up customer feedback, the group utilizes a more fluid business model to help pursue new direction and innovative ideas.

Even more impressive, the company is fully organic, with all the code and design done in house.  After a recent article on TechCrunch, their capabilities were put to the test with a rapid influx of users.  The site passed with flying colors, running with an incredible 99% efficiency.  Buzzable plans on rolling out several new features and feels confident about the future.

A new series on the CollegeMogul site, I will be posting some of the most interesting articles about small business and entrepreneurship that I have stumbled across throughout the week.  Feel free to comment and post any additional articles you would like to share with the CM community!

How to Keep Innovating

There is no denying that mastering a few skills is important, but focusing all your energy on a small repertoire might be stifling your passion.  Bill Buxton, the Research Principal Scientist at Microsoft, describes how “the dogged pursuit of excellence might be the wrong strategy” for keeping the creative juices flowing.

Just a heads up, Obama is counting on us: “The answers to our problems don’t lie beyond our reach. They exist … in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs”

Understanding the Law of Successful Giving and Successful Receiving

Your mother always said that it is better to give than to receive, and by golly, she’s right!  If you “give someone more in use value than what you take from them,” you are more likely to not only feel better, but to also receive (kindness, referrals, more business, etc.) in the future.

The Secrets of Super-Productive CEOs

"Am I being productive or am I just being busy?"  A common theme in today’s world; people like to keep themselves busy for the sake of keeping themselves busy.  Learn to alleviate the guilt as Timothy Ferriss, the author of The 4-Hour Workweek, gives some tips on regaining your life.

Become the Pop Star you’ve always Dreamed of

Recently, there has been a prominent trend for small businesses to outsource everything from marketing to sales to website design (freelancers can be cheap).  With that said, why not outsource to create your own $99 music video.  An innovative idea by Fred Seibert, MTV’s original creative director (whom I presume knows a thing or two about music videos), 99 Dollar Music Videos Network pairs artists with filmmakers to make inspired movies on the cheap.  Simply imagine what small business owners could do with this!

Book Recommendation

An excerpt by Jonathan Fields, author of “Career Renegade,” about why it is good to be an entrepreneur:

“At some point, it dawns on you that the corporate ladder is really more of a treadmill. You run faster, work harder, climb-higher, sweat more blood and push through stifling fatigue. But, in the end, all too often, you’re no freer or happier than the day you began. In fact, for many, as your lifestyle expands to gobble-up nearly every dollar you make, it’s quite the opposite. The day-to-day stress, relentless posturing, politics, negotiating and hours spent on minutiae increasingly suck the life out of you. Body, mind and spirit, slowly and methodically being sucked dry.”

The number of mobile phone subscribers has increased by an astounding 25% annually for the past eight years.  With such tremendous growth, there are monetizing opportunities aplenty.

4,000,000,000

There are now over 4 billion mobile phone subscribers in the world according to the UN. Put another way, there are enough cell phones for over half of the world’s population! 

*Understand that this statistic reflects only the number of subscribers to mobile phone services; therefore double counting is an issue if a person has multiple cellular subscriptions.  This is an important detail because in a country with weak telecommunication infrastructure, such as India, business people oftentimes subscribe to 3 or 4 different mobile providers to combat inopportune service blackouts.  Is this sparking any ideas entrepreneurs?

Show me the money!

With such a large market, there are many venues to create revenue:

Social Media

Mobile social networking is expected to reach 730 million users in 2013, up from about 54 million in 2008.  With such a substantial amount of users, there are plenty of monetizing opportunities.  Peter Thiel, a director and the largest investor for facebook, explains that advertising is not a major concern for the company at this point, but describes how "there's no reason to think we couldn't do $1 billion a year in sales if we turned on all the dials… that's about what MySpace does." 

According to Juniper Report, a research company specializing in telecom and media, the total value of the market for user-generated content (UGC), consisting of social networking, dating and personal content delivery (PCD) services, will rise to more than $7.3 billion in 2013.

Advertising

An important segment of the market is mobile search advertising, which is predicted to grow to $2.9 billion by 2011, or nearly one third of UGC.

Location-based services (LBS)

LBS is an interesting development in the mobile phone market.  In essence, the mobile phone can be used to track where the user is, much like GPS.  However, the power of LBS will go far beyond getting the user from point A to point B.  As Leslie Presutti, the director of product management for Qualcomm, puts it:

“carriers and brands [will] get more ingrained into a user's personal life and determine what that user likes to do and what kind of information they like to receive when they are doing certain things. In these cases, location based services are no longer serving as differentiators, but as the foundation [of the mobile experience]."

Mobile websites/applications

Mobile applications, or apps, are one of the most popular features of smart phones.  Apps appeal to a wide range of users depending on what they are looking for; whether it is novelty, diversity, or convenience.  Some of the more popular/interesting apps include Pandora (a personal favorite), AroundMe (search for services, restaurants, etc. that are in your vicinity), Ocarina (you can play your iPhone like the sword-wielding Link), and FakeCall (“A secret weapon against boring meetings and bad dates,” haha!). 

To put things into perspective, Apple now offers a menu of 15,000 apps and claims 500 million downloads, with both numbers growing everyday.  The app itself is usually free to download, with the mobile provider charging a monthly or pay per use fee.

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Feel free to comment on any of my articles and post additional information you think the CM community would enjoy!  You can also tweet me @aarongerry.

Like watching your favorite athlete play too far past their prime, the average cell phone has seen its last days. It’s simply time for them to move on because the new player in town is flashy, exciting and dynamic.

Make way for the smartphone!

A smartphone is a small, mobile-enabled device that is used for communication and computing purposes. The attractiveness of the smartphone lies in an easy to use operating system (OS),  sleek design, and the ability to add applications.

Despite an anticipated downturn of mobile phone shipments in 2009 (total mobile phone volumes are expected to be 1.9% lower in 2009 than 2008 levels), the smartphone market is expected to grow by 8.9% worldwide. Statistically speaking, smartphones are taking over the market share!

iPhone vs. Android vs. _____?:

The big players in the smartphone market are Nokia, with a variety of products, the Apple iPhone, the T-Mobile G1 using the Google OS, Android, and new to market phones such as Research in Motion’s (RIM) BlackBerry Storm.

The phones offer a wide range of utilities, including a touchscreen, a music player and a camera. They also run on high-speed 3G networks which allows for internet access and web browsing through either the cellular network or WiFi.

The market is teeming with competition, however, as companies do not want to miss out on the promising growth of the industry. Dell, Acer, and HTC, to name a few, continue to develop new smartphones to try and pull in their own share of the market.

iPhone dominance:

Just recently, it has been announced that the iPhone now accounts for 1.1% of the entire global mobile phone market.

1.1% may not sound significant, but consider the fact that it is a single device. RIM, on the other hand, commands 1.9% of the market, but has an entire line of products aimed at different categories of consumers.

Here is a break down of the market share for smartphones in the US, with an explanation of how the data is interpreted according to admob.com.

Market share is calculated by the percentage of requests received and is a measure of relative usage, not the number of handsets in the market. This means that not only are mores iPhones in the market, but people are using them more often than other devices.

The mobile phone has evolved beyond a communication device into a multimedia command center that many people cannot live without. Consider this: over 200 million Americans have cell phones (over half of the population) and 2.7-3.1 billion people own cell phones globally. [Source ]

Simply put, there is a burgeoning market for mobile-enabled startups.

In the first part of a series about the state of mobile-enabled startups, I will be discussing several companies that are doing interesting and truly innovative work.

4 Interesting Mobile Companies:

Kyte Mobile: Combining the power of social networking with a multi-media platform is a wonderful thing, especially when it can be harnessed in the palm of your hand. Available as both an online website and a Wireless Application Process (WAP), Kyte allows you to personalize your homepage, or “channel,” with video, picture, and music, which can be uploaded instantly from either your computer or mobile device (you can also upload content already on your phone).

The site is packed with a lot of individual user content, and offers live chat, group chat rooms and polls to help you interact with other members. However, what separates Kyte from the pack is its ease of use. First and foremost, Kyte was designed for mobile use, meaning that everything from the login to browsing the site is not only easy, but also an enjoyable experience on your mobile device.

Audience : Boasting a remarkably straightforward catchphrase, Audience provides technology that lets you “be heard." As many city dwellers can attest, some environments are not conducive to cell phone conversations (busy city streets anyone?). This is where Audiences comes in; a voice processor company, Audience has developed noise-suppression technology based on the intelligence of human hearing.

Currently, mobile operators generate 90% of their revenue from voice minutes despite the tremendous growth in applications such as SMS and MMS. Considering total voice minutes have been on a steady increase, it only makes sense to be paying for the time you are actually heard. Just don’t be ‘that guy’ on the T… 

Siano: Co-winner of the Innovations Award in 2009, Siano has made quite an impression on the mobile world already. The company makes mobile TV receiver and antenna chips that allow the user to watch live television on a variety of mobile devices. The antenna-chip is very impressive, combining small size, reduced power consumption (can be run for over 20 hours without draining the devices battery) and is completely internal. To exemplify Siano’s technological advantage, their chip draws 50% less power from the battery than competing solutions (through coverage of the entire UHF spectrum and a performance of more than 3dB, they effectively eliminate most advantages of external antennae). With true universal applicability, the chips already handle multiple TV standards, including those used in Europe, China, Korea, Japan, and Brazil. 

PunchKick Interactive: America’s first design firm to focus exclusively on full-service mobile marketing, PunchKick offers a variety of services for large corporations and small startups alike. A self described “creative firm,” the company implements and executes custom SMS and MMS campaigns. With over 90% of text messages read by recipients, generating average response rates of 15-30% or more, it is clear that this is an effective form of marketing for any business. The company also provides an informative mobile marketing blog .

Growth & Trends

As consumers continue to integrate mobile devices into their everyday lives, the mobile-enabled industry shows promise of tremendous growth. Here are some additional interesting statistics to ponder:

Cell Phone Adoption:

• 200+ million Americans carry mobile phones—over half of the country's population
• Cell phones are used by over 3.1 billion people globally

Branding:

• 89% of major brands plan to market via mobile phones by 2008
• 40% of major brands have deployed text messaging (SMS) campaigns
• 18% of major brands have deployed multimedia messaging (MMS) campaigns

Source: Airwide Solutions independent survey of 50 brand name companies

Mobile Advertising Market:

• The global mobile advertising market will be valued at over $16 billion by 2011
• In August 2007, nearly 40 million US consumers received SMS advertisements, and 12 percent responded to them

Source: M:Metrics, Common Short Codes: Cracking the Mobile Marketing Code

Mom's & Cell Phones:

A survey of 2,400 moms reveals that the single most important tech gadget in their lives is the cell phone (23%), followed by the Internet (21%) and the digital camera (19%)

Source: Babycenter.com, March 2008

• Globally, there are twice as many active users of SMS as are active users of email.
• In the U.S., roughly 300 billion text messages were sent in 2007.
• SMS is typically read within an average of 15 minutes after receipt and responded to within 60 minutes.
• While 65% of e-mail is spam, less than 10% of SMS is spam.
• 19% of text massagers say they use text messaging as a means of communication between themselves and colleagues
• 62% say they use text messaging to communicate with friends
• 55% say they use it to communicate with their significant others

Source: Mobile Marketing Watch, Mobile Growth is Exceeding Expectations Globally