OTBC

OTBC Resident Lumeno.us Featured in Oregon Business Magazine

In the article Start it Up, Oregon Business Magazine featured 14 Oregon startups, including OTBC resident venture Lumeno.us. The article talked about Lumeno.us and CEO LaVonne Reimer:

The loneliness of the small-business owner — Reimer knows it well. And as someone who has worked alongside other entrepreneurs as they develop their own companies, she knows another thing, too: The people who run small companies have more in common than they think — the same questions, the same concerns, the same desire for information that will let them know if they’re on the right path. Lumeno.us is like a CEO forum for the little guy. Users — who can remain as anonymous as they want — compare financial data with other users in the same industry or region or size of company. They can poll their peers on potential business decisions. They can, in the most non-buzzword sense of the word, network. Right now the site is in private beta, which means a few invited users are helping iron out wrinkles. One of the challenges, Reimer says, is providing enough tools but not swamping the busy small-business owner with too many bells and whistles. The site is expected to go public this fall.

Lumencor Featured in the Oregonian

OTBC resident venture Lumencor was featured in the "Startup" panel in the business section of yesterday's Oregonian. Check out the article at:  this Oregonian link

OTBC Adds Four New Ventures

OTBC issued the following press release this week:

Beaverton Business Incubator, OTBC, Adds Four New Technology Ventures To Its Fast Growing Community of Initial Start-up Companies. 

Beaverton, Oregon—March 5, 2008—OTBC, an incubator that provides technology startups with flexible office space and coaching from experienced entrepreneurs and business executives, announced today that four new ventures developing technology products or services have joined the organization to take advantage of its entrepreneur mentoring and investment community networking services. 

The four ventures include: Spy-n-Buy™, a new online video-based classified advertising tool; GadgetTrak™, developing anti-theft recovery software for mobile devices; Green Shipping™, developing carbon neutral shipping credit services for environmentally responsible businesses,  and; MyLocalWay™, an Internet portal to network services and people in communities.       

Al Melquist, Spy-n-Buy CTO and co-founder, states that, “the migration of video onto the Internet was established with great success by YouTube™ and other large video sites that focus mostly on entertainment content. Spy-n-Buy aims to create the first large scale opportunity for niche video in the classified advertising market. We joined OTBC to seek guidance in developing and growing our technology, building a management team, finding co-marketing partners and becoming investor-ready.”

"The theft of laptops, mobile phones and handheld devices is a fast growing problem," comments GadgetTrak founder, Ken Westin.  GadgetTrak provides anti-theft recovery software that tracks stolen mobile devices by contacting the owner directly when thieves access them. According to Ken, "As a one person operation, I hope to tap into the knowledge of OTBC management and business experts to help build my business and more broadly launch my products."

According to Green Shipping founder, Ken Whiteman, “We are providing consumers and companies an easy, accurate way to track and offset the greenhouse gases they generate through the shipping process. With businesses increasingly aware of their carbon footprint, Green Shipping offers a simple, low cost, and effective solution to eliminate the net impact of shipments. OTBC has already been very helpful to us in fine tuning the business plan, identifying sources of capital, and in providing access to a large network of experts and contacts.”      

MyLocalWay co-founders, Jeff Braunstein and Christian Dreke, found that people want to find service providers within their local communities. Through MyLocalWay churches, schools, clubs and other affiliations have the ability to connect their members and service providers. “Both Christian and I are strong in building software solutions, but not as strong on the business side,” comments Jeff Braunstein, MyLocalWay’s President, “so we are turning to OTBC to give us mentoring and coaching in order to prove our service concept and build out business model.”

About OTBC

The Oregon Technology Business Center is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit business incubator based in Beaverton, Oregon. OTBC provides initial stage start-up technology companies with office facilities, management coaching and advising, and industry connections to the finance, business and investment community.  OTBC supports Oregon’s high technology cluster initiatives and develops new ventures in its core competency areas of semiconductors, software, information management, open source, Internet technologies and bioscience.  <a href="http://www.opentechcenter.com">www.otbc.org</a>

Shimane/Oregon Open Source Summit

Last week was busy.  In addition to the RSS Lunch and Learn on Tuesday (see previous post), on Thursday we had 14 visitors from the Shimane (Japan) Open Source Software Society.  The group included Matz Matsumoto, developer of the popular language Ruby.

We spent a full day hearing about open source projects in Shimane (many based on Ruby) and open source projects in Oregon.  Many new connections were made, and we'll see what new synergies might result from the visit. 

The group from Japan had dinner with the Portland Ruby Brigade, and then traveled with OECDD to Corvallis to tour the Open Source Lab and hear about government-based open source activities in Oregon.

RSS Lunch and Learn sets an OTBC Web Streaming Record

Last week's Lunch and Learn featured Read/Write Web's Marshall Kirkpatrick talking about ways to leverage RSS technology to keep track of what's happening in your industry and with your competition.  If you missed it, you can still view it on OTBC TV.  Just click on the "Past Clips" thumbnails for RSS part 1 through RSS part 3.

Marshall mentioned the Lunch and Learn on his website, and on Twitter.  The result was that in addition to the 30 attendees we had at OTBC, we had over 200 people viewing the presentation live on-line.  I think our previous record was 24! 

Lunch and Learn: Ward Cunningham on Wiki Technology

Yesterday's Lunch and Learn was another great program.  We had 45 attendees listening to Wiki inventor Ward Cunningham of AboutUs.org . Ward started by talking about the origins of the Wiki concept and went on to talk about AboutUs.org and how its Wiki technology can be leveraged to help your business.

If you missed it (or would like a rerun) video of the event is archived on our Ustream channel.

Off to Kansas City on the FastTrac

I posted this on the OregonStartups.com news blog, and thought I'd repeat it here:

The Jan. 28 issue of the OregonStartups.com newsletter is out a bit late because I headed to Kasas City, MO on Sunday.  Starting at noon today (Kansas City time) I'll spend 2 and a half days becoming a certified trainer for three of the Kaufman Foundation's FastTrak entrepreneur training courses. 

My main interest is in FastTrak TechVenture -- a 10-class (3 hours per class)  course for high tech and biotech entrepreneurs that covers all the basics from market validation to operations, business planning, financial projections, fund raising, and product launch.  In addition to printed course materials, they have some useful sounding web resources (stock dilution spreadsheets, financial projection spreadsheets, etc.)

With a little luck, we'll start offering FastTrac training at OTBC in March or April.  Stay tuned for more info!

OSCON call for proposals

The OSCON call for papers is out.  (OSCON would be the open source conference that's right here in Portland this summer.)   Here's the OSCON message, in case you missed it!

O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON)
July 21-25, 2008
Oregon Convention Center
Portland, OR
conferences.oreilly.com/oscon

Share What You Know at OSCON 2008, Coming July 21-25

Submit Your Proposal for Participation Now

The 10th Annual O'Reilly Open Source Convention will be held July 21-25 in
Portland, Oregon. OSCON is the crossroads of all things open source, a
vibrant meeting ground for the entire community to inspire, debate,
motivate, make deals, and connect face to face. The 2008 conference will
present the key players and issues influencing open source today and
explore the potential for open source tomorrow.

We're seeking proposals from people in tune with the heartbeat of open
source, whether you're a hacker, designer, trainer, system administrator,
or entrepreneur.
- Have you launched a project that will revolutionize the way we think,
vote, sell, dream, or surf the Web?
- Do you grok the deep mysteries of crafting beautiful code?
- Have you built a successful business that not only benefits from open
source, but fully participates in the virtuous cycle of contribution and
collaboration?

We invite you to share your experiences, expertise, analysis, and ideas.
We are looking for proposals for four kinds of presentations:
- 45-minute sessions
- 3-hour tutorials
- Panel discussions
- Demonstrations
There will be 14 tracks, including Linux, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Java,
Databases, Desktop Applications, Web Applications, Mobile, Administration,
Security, People, Business, and Emerging Topics.

Submit your proposal anytime before midnight, February 4, 2008. For
submission guidelines and to submit your proposal, go to:
http://en.oreilly.com/oscon2008/public/cfp/13

If you know someone who would be a good speaker, please pass this email
on.

Topics we'd like to include in the OSCON 2008 program include:
- Parallelization, grid, and multicore technologies
- The strengths that will carry open source beyond the "gold rush"
- Open source in smart phones and mobile networked devices
- Open hardware and licensing
- Tools for the administration and deployment of large server farms
- Ajax, Javascript, standards-based design, and other client-side web
issues
- AI, machine learning, and other ways of making software smarter than the
people using it
- The spread of open source into law, culture, data, and services and the
accompanying issues and lessons
- Open source in democracy, politics, government, and education
- Best practices for building a business model around open source
- Virtualization, appliances, and their creation and deployment
This is by no means an exhaustive list, so feel free to propose other open
source topics. Keep in mind that sessions and tutorials should be based on
real-world scenarios, delivering information that can be acted upon and
tools that can be put to use.

Even if public speaking is not your thing, you'll want to participate in
OSCON 2008. So save the dates, July 21-25, and plan on meeting us in
Portland. Early registration opens in March. To make your trip even more
worthwhile, the conference is conveniently co-located with the second
Ubuntu Live Conference at the Portland Convention Center.

Make sure you're signed up for the conference newsletter to
receive all the latest updates as plans for OSCON progress (login
required):
http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/nl/home#conferences

If you have ideas for speakers and topics that will make the conference a
must attend event, send them to:
oscon-idea@oreilly.com

Earth Class Mail Raises $13.3 Million

According to John Cook's Venture Blog (Cook is with the Seattle Post Intelligencer) OTBC graduate Earth Class Mail raised $13.3 million in their series A round, primarily from Ignition Partners and the Keiretsu Forum.

Also, Earth Class Mail will be the subject of a new reality TV show called "Start-up Junkies" on MOJO HD. The show is scheduled to begin January 24 at 10 p.m.

GadgetTrak Joins OTBC as Resident Venture

GadgetTrak, which provides a theft prevention and recovery solution for iPods, cell phones, and Mac computers became an OTBC resident on January 1.  CEO Ken Westin has working product, and he has already lined up distribution in Mac retail outlets.  Ken has received some excellent PR exposure -- check out the above website link to learn more.