July 9 Meeting for Utah iPhone Developers
The Utah iPhone Developer Group has announced their next meeting. Here are the details. For those of you who are already working on iPhone apps, this is a great way to connect with the local iPhone developer community. If you are just getting started, or looking for resources to get your idea off the drawing board, come and interact with many of the leading app developers featured in iTunes. All are welcome.Join us for the 2nd Utah iPhone developers meetup.The first meeting was very well attended with over 60 people and standing room only.For this meeting we have gotten a much larger room so we can all fit more comfortably.DETAILS: Thursday July 9th at 6:30pm at the Technology Center at Novell, Building ‘A’We have two terrific presenters scheduled for this meeting. Each has outstanding experience with leading apps in iTunes. We’ll hear about marketing iPhone apps as well as a summary from the recent Apple Developer Conference. We’ll be discussing the new iPhone 3.0, 3Gs, and the latest APIs.
- Evhret Milam – Creator of Green Wars for iPhone and one of the top teams in the Omniture/BYU iPhone application contests.
- Michael Alvarez – Creator of Showtimes and Yellow Pages Directory and a few others. As you can see from his wall post they now have over 2 million downloads.
Big thanks to Zagg for providing food for this event and UVEF for the facilities.RSVP on Facebook. We look forward to seeing you all there.
Utah Angel Investor of the Year
Filed under: Advice for Startups, Angel Investing, FundingUniverse, Utah Events
On Tuesday, June 23rd at the Hilton Hotel in Salt Lake City, FundingUniverse will be announcing the first ever Utah Angel Investor of the Year award winner.
The top 15 finalists for this award are Alan Hall, Craig Earnshaw, David Carter, Gary Williams, Hal Widlansky, JD Gardner, John Richards, Kent Thomas, Kyle Love, Mark Madsen, Martin Frey, Nobu Mutaguchi, Robert Kunz, Scott Frazier and Warren Osborn.
Having been a big fan of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards for many years, I think it is exciting that FundingUniverse is going upstream a little bit to recognize some of the many angel investors who help those entrepreneurs get businesses off the ground.
I personally appreciate several of these 15 angels because some of them were our early investors at Ancestry.com (back in 1998) and more recently in FamilyLink.com (2007-2009 funding rounds.)
I hope this becomes an annual event, and I hope it spreads nationwide too, because angel investors are the unsung heroes of our free market economy. VCs get a lot of attention because they back high-profile companies. But from what I’ve read, angels generally fund 30-50 times more startup companies per year than VCs, and they fund a ton of small businesses that never become high profile but do create jobs and add value to our economy.
Kudos to Brock Blake and his FundingUniverse team for launching this idea.
Hint to entrepreneurs: if you want some inexpensive networking time with Utah’s very best angel investors, I suggest you buy a ticket (it’s only $25 per seat) and show up Tuesday (with plenty of business cards for all!) 
First Utah iPhone Developers Meetup
Filed under: Mobile Phones, Utah Entrepreneurship, Utah Events
Last year I started a Facebook group for Utah iPhone developers. The group now has 146 members. Recently, Cary Snowden (of CrunchLunch fame) and Brad Hintze jumped in to help run the group, and they have actually started organizing real world (hopefully monthly) meetings for this group.
The first meetup will be at Novell (building A) on Wednesday, May 13th, from 6-8 pm. To RSVP, or for more details, click here.
With 12 teams of BYU students recently launching iPhone applications at the Omniture-sponsored competition there, and with recent BYU and UVU conferences on mobile development, there is a ton of local interest in iPhone development. iPhone 3.0 will absolutely change all the rules of the game, and give Apple an even greater leadership position in mobile computing than they already have.
This is the mobile computing platform that will transform industries. It’s a great opportunity for entrepreneurs. Whoever jumps on board early, will have a chance to shape/disrupt whatever industry they are in. You have an opportunity to catch this massive wave, and it’s not too late because iPhone 3.0 is still coming, and it provides more business model opportunities than ever before.
I won’t be able to attend, but I’m hoping that Ryan Hatch and others from FamilyLink.com who are working on our mobile applications will be there to network.
Utah entrepreneurs: don’t miss this free lecture series
Filed under: Advice for Startups, Utah Entrepreneurship, Utah Events
Josh Coates is one of the most talented and energetic entrepreneurs/engineers I have ever met. I had the pleasure of serving on his advisory board at Mozy.com for a brief period as he was first launching his company. He outgrew my very part time services very quickly and I watched him build a very exciting company and sell it for a very large sum in a very short period of time. Very, very cool.
I blogged about Josh and Mozy back in April 2006 when they were still in beta mode but had already received 4 stars from PC Magazine.
Now, Josh Coates is provide 6 weeks of free public lectures for entrepreneurs, but you have to register to attend.
Highly recommended!
Here’s the full scoop from Shauna Theobald:
Please register here for the Josh Coates weekly lecture series so we can accommodate all those who will be attending. Thanks and see you there. Can’t wait…it’s gonna be great!
Topics and dates are:
– Technology and Fundamental Business Concepts (Feb. 24)
– Raising Capital: The Simple, Well Understood Path (Mar. 3)
– Pro-active Product Development for the Enterprise Market (Mar. 10)
– Hiring the A-Team: Rocks and Clowns (Mar. 17)
– Practical Internet Marketing (Mar. 24)
– Personal Liquidity and Financial Exits (Mar. 31)
This free lecture series is open to the public every Tuesday from 12-1:30 p.m., starting Tuesday, February 24th. Sponsors include the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum, the Provo Technology Xelerator, the Technology Center at Novell, and SiliconSlopes/Omniture.
About Josh Coates: Josh began his career doing research in parallel computing at UC Berkeley and went on to found two venture backed startups related to large scale data storage technology. His extensive experience ranges from high performance computing and data center operations to venture funding, financial modeling, marketing and mergers and acquisitions. Coates has been honored for his innovation by MIT and Ernst and Young and featured in Forbes and the Wall Street Journal. He currently volunteers as an adjunct instructor in the Computer Science department at BYU.
See you there,
Shauna
Shauna L. Theobald
Novell Technology Center
Big Event for Utah Investors and Entrepreneurs, Nov. 20th
Filed under: Advice for Startups, Utah Entrepreneurship, Utah Events
Mark Cuban pointed out on his blog last week that President Elect Obama has made his first mistake: he failed to appoint a single entrepreneur to his economic advisory team, when it is clear that "entrepreneurs that start and run small businesses will be the propellant in this economy." He suggested that the new President should "ask the people who are actually starting new businesses what they need," so that the government doesn’t adopt policies that will backfire by hurting entrepreneurs.
This morning I watched a 1 hour documentary on the Biography Channel about Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, who by 1985 was the richest man in the United States. It was especially interesting to see how he grew up during the Great Depression, and how many of his values and goals were shaped by watching his father eek out a living during the depression.
After WWII, Sam bought a five-and-dime store that was losing money and turned it around by experimenting with a new retail trend called self-service, where the customers actually browsed for their own merchandise rather than asking a clerk to get it for him. His store sales tripled. Within three years he had repaid the $20,000 startup capital he had borrowed from his father-in-law, and he was ready to expand. However, the building owner decided not to renew his lease, so Sam lost his store location.
The documentary explained the obstacles and hardships Sam Walton faced on his way to becoming the most successful retailer in the history of the world. One decision he made in 1961 that I found particularly interesting (it made me smile) was when he bought controlling interest in an Arkansas bank so he could lend himself more money to open more retail stores. Now that is creative, out of the box thinking, for an entrepreneur!
You can read about the history of Wal-Mart at FundingUniverse, along with thousands of other company histories. Many of them contain amazing stories of entrepreneurs overcoming hard times along their path to success.
Next week, Utah Entrepreneurs have a chance to learn about steps they can take along their road to entrepreneurial success. On Thursday, November 20th, an important event for entrepreneurs and Utah angel investors will take place:
Starting Nov. 17th, Utah joins more than 100 countries and organizations representing millions of entrepreneurs to celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week. A highlight of Utah’s celebration is a day-long entrepreneur and angel investing event on Thursday, Nov. 20th.
The one-day event – “Unleashing Ideas: Igniting High-Growth Entrepreneurship in Utah” – takes place Thursday, Nov. 20, from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. at Sandy’s South Towne Exposition Center. Entrepreneurs, angel investors, venture capitalists, and experts in numerous core service industries will attend.
The Nov. 20th conference features the third annual Angel Summit, attracting angel investors throughout the state. Angel investors are high net-worth individuals who fund early-stage, high-potential business opportunities. Registration and additional information are available via www.GewUtah.com. (Source: UtahPulse.com)
I have agreed to participate all-day in this conference by chairing one of the tracks that will address the needs of entrepreneurs and inventors who need help raising capital or doing online marketing.
There is a quality program planned with multiple tracks, and I encourage all Utah entrepeneurs to spread the word and turn this into a well-attended event.
Against the backdrop of national economic crisis, let’s take a day to brainstorm with each other what entrepreneurs can do to create value and generate positive economic activity that will help us, as previous generations have done, claw our way back to prosperity through hard work and innovation.
I’ll see you there.
iPhone developers, unite!
Filed under: Mobile Phones, Utah Entrepreneurship, Utah Events
A few months ago, after feeling the initial rush of getting a million users of our Facebook app We’re Related in just 29 days, I set up a Facebook group with an admittedly dumb name: Utah CEOs With a Facebook Strategy. It now has 488 members. We met a couple of times in Provo earlier this year. Jason McGowan and Michael Jensen from our team at FamilyLink.com shared with about 30-40 attendees how to build an app that is viral and can scale, and I tried to pump the Facebook opportunity as well as I could. I’m a true believer in what Facebook did with their Platform, as you will see from my original blog post the day they announced it, back in May 2007, when I predicted that Facebook would become the world’s leading social network. It only took a year for that to happen, as recent Comscore data shows Facebook with more worldwide users and page views than MySpace.
In the ensuing months we have tried to find other Facebook applications developed in Utah that had more than say 50,000 users, so we could invite other developers to share their learning with the group, but we haven’t been able to find any other Utah company with a successful Facebook app–so this group has kind of stagnated.
I don’t understand why we don’t see more Utah entrepreneurs anticipating and catching these amazing waves of opportunities, as new platforms open up for software developers. After all, Utah once boasted the world’s leading word processing company (WordPerfect) and the world’s leading networking company (Novell). And we still have the world’s best web analytics company (Omniture) and the world’s best online video delivery platform (Move Networks.)
Of course today the world celebrates the launch of another new platform, which might end up being far bigger and more important than the Facebook platform. Apple’s iPhone, despite today’s launch problems, will be purchased by tens of millions of consumers in the next year and hundreds of millions after that. Back in March, Apple announced the SDK that allows developers to build applications for the iPhone. Tens of thousands of developers were accepted into the official beta developers program. Today, hundreds of applications premiered in the app store. I’ve downloaded six or seven, including the ridiculous PhoneSaber app, and the silly Light app (turns the iphone into a really lame flashlight), but a few others with some promise. The iPhone is definitely the most amazing consumer device I’ve ever owned from a design standpoint (although I am more addicted to my Blackberry for its utility and more in love with my Kindle for the fact that it just does books, and I love books.) That it is now a platform for software developers makes it even more amazing.
This time I know at least a few Utah based companies that are planning iPhone apps, including one that I think will be wildly successful. And so, once again, I’ve organized a Facebook group, again with a dumb name: Utah Executives Creating iPhone Apps. We aren’t targeted developers only, as much as business people and entrepreneurs who want to take advantage of this new platform. But maybe we should focus on developers, since they are often way more into technology and are sometimes looking for the next new thing. Who knows? Only 10 members have joined this group, but maybe after this blog post we’ll get a few dozen members and organize our first get together in the next month.
If you are from Utah, and work for a company that ought to have an iPhone app, or after that an app for phones based on Google Android (read this incredible Wired article about what Google Android is all about) or the Symbian OS which Nokia recently purchased and announced plans to open source (this is really big news, since Symbian phones still have the most market share, I believe) then join this Facebook group, and help me rally some support for companies to invest in mobile software.
I’d love to see some entrepreneurs/developers from Utah coming up with some killer mobile software applications, and then showing up in the Deal Flow report on SiliconSlopes.com, the web site that best covers the Utah high-tech economy.
I sometimes miss running the Provo Labs incubator, because with each new platform there are a myriad of opportunities, but then I remember how much I love running FamilyLink.com, where we actually get to take advantage of every new platform that makes sense for families (which may exclude Google’s new Lively virtual world as well as other virtual world’s that have recently been announced) and build applications, widgets, or full-functioning software for these platforms. Our Facebook apps now have 6.8 million users and nearly 150,000 daily active users. And we actually launched on that platform about five months later than we had hoped. (We were really in bootstrap mode back then.) We may be a few months late with our iPhone apps as well, but the opportunity will be so vast in the long run, that it probably won’t matter too much.
Sign up for the Utah iPhone group, and let’s get together to brainstorm and fan the flames of excitement about mobile platforms and how Utah companies can participate in where the high-tech economy is heading.
UTC Hall of Fame Celebration tomorrow in Salt Lake City
My favorite Utah high tech event every year is the Utah Technology Council Annual Hall of Fame event. It is now in its 9th year. This year James Sorenson, medical device pioneer and billionaire, and Bernard Daines, father of gigabit ethernet, are being inducted. Intel CEO Paul Otellini will be the keynote speaker. The list of past inductees is pretty amazing–Utah has produced more than its share of technology pioneers. I probably won’t make it this year, even though I would really like to. I hope someone will blog about it.
Utah Events: Blogging for Business; Facebook Strategies
So my friend Robert Merrill (Utahtechjobs.com) reminded me to plug the upcoming Blogging for Business conference in Salt Lake City, scheduled for Monday, October 22nd.
I’m coming up on 4 years as a blogger, and I can attest that blogging has opened up a world of opportunities for me. I think every CEO should blog and businesses should use blogs to communicate with all stakeholders. Frankly, it amazes me that so many businesses are willing to go for years with so many believers/practitioners extolling the virtues of things like internet marketing, search engines, blogging, and social networking, without so much as even assigning employees to try it and see.
I think this conference will be terrific, and I’m encouraging one of my company bloggers to attend. About half of our employees at World Vital Records blog, and I think the other half will be soon. I have said that blogging (people find you) and LinkedIn (you find them) is an incredible 1-2 combination punch for making important business contacts.
While I’m blogging about this Utah event, I also want to plug a new group on Facebook that I set up called Utah CEOs Who Have a Facebook Strategy. We have 20 members after just one day, but I’ll be emailing about 200-300 other Utah CEOs this week and hoping that we can get about 40-50 of them to come to our first event. It will probably be in Provo in the next 3 weeks.
I’m not sure what you will happen if you are not a Facebook member and try to click on this link; somebody please let me know. Maybe there is a better way to link to Facebook groups than what I am doing.
Race4Madi.com
Next week, on Saturday morning, a 5k race will be held in Provo (very close to BYU and the MTC) to raise funds for leukemia treatments for the most amazing 15-year old girl.
Please visit Race4Madi.com to learn more.
Madi was diagnosed a few months ago, and has been in serious chemo treatments for 3 months. She has a super positive attitude and is always cheering everyone up.
If you run and live in Utah, please sign up for this 5k. We want hundreds of runners to show support for Madi and her family. The event organizers are hoping to raise thousands of dollars to help the family.
If you don’t run, please visit the web site and consider making a donation to this cause.
If you know other runners in the Provo area, or want to help us spread the word to the BYU or Timpview studentbody, please contact me and let me know what you can do.
This is going to be a lot of fun, and at the same time help a wonderful girl and her family.
Sundance: make room for the new family friendly film festival
Filed under: Events, Families, Film Industry, My Friends, Utah Events
My friend Brady Whittingham is a driven entrepreneur. He comes from a football family, and he played football in college. That intensity has stayed with him in business. We worked together years ago at MyFamily.com where he was our best product manager. Fast, smart, and completely results oriented. (Just like the BYU passing game.) He quickly realized that as companies get big they get slow–too slow for him (and later, for me) so he moved on, started his own internet business, and has achieve remarkable success.
He has begun doing some films. In true entrepreneurial fashion, Brady has decided to create a new venue for family friendly films to debut. The team he and his wife have put together to launch this festival is a good one.
Sundance Film Festival was started by Robert Redford just 29 years ago, and it has turned into a major international event.
I can’t wait to see what the Utah Family Film Festival becomes in the next decade or two.
Here’s how Brady describes the impetus for this festival and a little about the first year’s event:
There has always been some sort of draw for me to entertainment, and specifically film. . . .Having been exposed quite a bit to the industry through my passive role as Executive Producer for an newly completed independent film called “Take” (www.takethemovie.com), I’m more than just a little bit intrigued by the process of taking a movie from concept to finished product.
For years, my wife and I have attended the Sundance Film Festival. We have friends that fly in from NY and California every year and it’s always one of our most anticipated holidays (yes, we have made it a two week holiday around our house). As great as we think the Festival is, the film selection doesn’t cater well to the family (we have 3 little girls ages 6, 9, and 11), and we’ve been embarrassed more than a couple times after inviting friends and neighbors to a film without knowing exactly how graphic the material was going to be (there is no formal rating system for most of the independent films at film festivals). This past winter after one such experience, I told my wife that we are going to start a Family-Friendly Film Festival. She of course thought I was a little crazy for thinking that I have the know-how or the time to pull it off, but here we are, 1 week away from our first annual Utah Family Film Festival!
Unfortunately, I can’t take credit for much more than having the idea. My wife was right about at least two of three things…I don’t have the know-how nor the time to pull this off. I actually might be a little crazy too, so I guess she was 3 for 3. Referring back to my “job”, I am currently the President of a large division of a public company and spend a couple weeks each month on the road, and the rest of the time trying to catch up in the office. So to pull it off, I had no choice but to find great people and empower them to go out and make it happen. The initial stages of planning the event location, lining up vendors, notifying filmmakers of the festival, etc. were handled by none other than the 2006 Miss Utah International Brittany Bowden. She did a phenomenal job of setting this up. Once it was set up, we needed an industry pro to execute the plan, so I had to convince somebody both experienced in the Industry and crazy enough to take on the role of Festival Director with such a short time before the event. Tyler Measom was one of the Producers I met on the set of “Take”, and he was a perfect fit. Fortunately, he accepted the offer to become our Festival Director, and subsequently convinced his Partner Jennilyn Merton to join him as Festival Media Director. Add to that about two dozen close friends and family who have agreed to volunteer, and so far it looks like we are going to pull it off in a big way!
Now we just need people to come and enjoy some of the wonderful films that have been submitted by makers of Family Films all over the world. For movie descriptions and to purchase tickets, go to www.utahfamilyfilmfestival.com. See you at the movies!
When: Thursday through Saturday, June 7-9
Where: University Mall Theaters (Southeast of Costco), Orem, Utah
What: Independent Family Films, plus select retro films including Napoleon Dynamite (former Sundance film) and Goonies
Cost: $6 for adults, $3 for children
Please spread the word. Let’s make this first event a big success and set the stage for a future film festival that everyone can be proud of, and that everyone can attend without risk of embarrassment.
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