TECHdotMN: News about Minnesota Startups

One week from today—on Thursday, July 15—CrowdPitch returns to Minnesota. Only this time, it’s on the other side of town at the Dorsey Ewald Conference Center in St. Paul.

This Rain Source Capital/Funding Universe collaboration is designed to bring together local tech entrepreneurs, mentors and service providers in an informal and energetic setting.

According to the website,

“Crowdpitch is the ‘American Idol’ for those tech entrepreneurs selected to pitch their company to a panel of experts and a live audience.“

The panelists will serve as a means of vetting the early stage companies through a brief Q&A session before the audience casts their vote with $100 “funny money” towards the best business. Ultimately, the winner will receive in kind services ranging from financial and accounting consulting to Amazon web services – collectively valued at $4,800.

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Last Saturday, Mike Bollinger and I moderated a panel discussion at Minnebar focused on the concept of improving Minnesota’s startup community.  This session, titled “How Can Minnesota Be Better“, can be viewed in its entirety above with credit to our panelists who generously shared their insights and perspectives.  Special thanks to Brett Thoreson for the steady hand and Andrew Frenz for collecting audience questions.

Joel Dahlin, Geoff Dutton and Derrick Shields have collectively summarized the experience.  Leave a comment if you have an opinion to share…

MinneBar is an (un)conference aimed at getting those in Minnesota’s tech and design communities together to discuss topics that interest them. This Saturday (5/22) from 9-6,  a crowd 500 plus will gather at Best Buy headquarters for one of Minnesota’s premier tech events – now on its fifth evolution.

Mike Bollinger and I will be facilitating/moderating a session focused on the Minnesota startup culture, aptly titled: “How can Minnesota be better?“

Below are the five hand-picked panelists who will be sharing their unique perspectives on the notion of  “improvement”.  Are there other local thought leaders, experts, executives, stakeholders and numerous people or parties equally interested in and actively working towards improving Minnesota’s startup culture?  Absolutely! This was the best we could do to pull together a diverse and complimentary group of qualified/concerned individuals  on such short notice.  This session will be held during the second part of the day, likely between 2-5;  please indicate your interest here so the organizers can anticipate the demand for this and any other sessions you’re attending.  If you have a question for the panel just leave it in the comments or grab us day of 

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Last Friday, Dan Grigsby ceased operations of both iPhone development and Mobile Orchard – a destination for iPhone Developer News, Links and interviews.  From the final goodbye,

“Ask permission environments crush creativity and innovation. In healthy environments, when would-be innovators/creators identify opportunities the only thing that stands between the idea and its realization is work. In the iPhone OS environment when you see an opportunity, you put in work first, ask Apple’s permission and then, only after gaining their approval, your idea can be realized…That’s wrong. It’s been wrong. And, with the extension of this approach to the iPad, it’s becoming ever more wrong. And this week’s news that “Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript” — making verboten Corona, iPhone Wax, and Unity 3D, destroying one of the most innovative areas in iPhone dev — is more wrong still.”

By Katharine Grayson, Minneapolis – St.Paul Business Journal

“Fed up with Apple Inc., Dan Grigsby is shutting down Mobile Orchard, the Web site for iPhone developers he launched about two years ago.

Grigsby, an entrepreneur and co-founder of the popular MinneDemo and MinneBar tech events, outlined his decision to kill the site in a letter posted on the Mobile Orchard site Friday. His primary argument: Apple’s attitude toward iPhone developers is restricting innovation. (Grigsby said in an interview that the decision has nothing to do with the Web site’s performance as a business venture, noting that it, along with the iPhone development classes he teaches, have generated enough revenue to pay the bills).”

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