TECHdotMN: News about Minnesota Startups

When an entrepreneur achieves an extraordinary level of  success, distilling the story in anything less than a biography feels like an injustice. At the pace that this Minnesotan moves — with the track record, passion and ambition he carries — it’s not hard to imagine reading about him long after it’s all said and done.

From his teenage years with Microsoft,  his 20′s with Imaginet Inc./Imaginet, LLC, through Spot by Spot and into Magnet 360, Scott Litman has proven his entrepreneurial muster on numerous occasions.

While many local entrepreneurs, business leaders, professors and politicians know the name and face of the man who Co founded Minnesota’s statewide business plan competition six years ago, perhaps less is known about where he comes from and where he’s going.  Join us for a fascinating look into the mind of one accomplished entrepreneur whose positive impact on Minnesota’s business climate at large simply cannot be quantified.

Sam Richter is SVP / CMO of Actifi, a Plymouth-based software company that helps large financial institutions create and develop business execution software.  Sam has been involved with the Minnesota Cup (High Tech division judge) since inception and he’s the author of Take the Cold out of Cold Calling (sixth printing) — a book  focused on web search strategies, research and sales intelligence.

“Take the Cold is a fascinating journey into the world of information, how to easily find it, and how to apply it to make sure you offer relevant solutions and make a great first impression. Information is key to almost any sale. The more information you have on your client and their needs, the better chance you have to ensure your solutions are relevant and the better chance you have to close a deal.”

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Ray Bonnabeau is a partner with Hellmuth and Johnson and serves as chair of the IT and eCommerce Practice Group.  Having practiced exclusively in the IT and eCommerce fields for over 15 years, his clients include businesses in the healthcare, financial and insurance industries.  Ray has a wealth of knowledge relating to IT contracts,  software licensing and he’s been an adjunct professor at William Mitchell College of Law teaching courses in both licensing and IP.

Typically, the most valuable asset to the tech startup is software code;  therefore it is important to know just how copyright law works and how ownership of code is determined. I spoke with Ray for just under 30 minutes about these concerns from the developers/founders perspective.

A few of the questions we address:

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Dana Nelson is the Executive Director of GiveMN.org, a 501(c)(3) supporting organization of the Minnesota Community Foundation,whose mission is to connect Minnesota donors with Minnesota Non-profits (and similar social causes) through a simple and straightforward online donations portal.  Conceived last summer when discussions commenced around harnessing emerging trends in technology to create a service of benefit to all Minnesota Non-profits, GiveMN.org launched later that fall on November 2nd, 2009.

When researching the best approach to bringing e-philanthropy to Minnesota in a meaningful way, rather than re-invent, GiveMN.org opted to partner with DC-based Razoo who had already developed a scalable platform-complete with payment processing integration through Network for Good.  The result is a privately labeled version, specifically targeted towards the Minnesota Non-profit and donor community, which offered brand visibility across both sites.  Further exemplifying the collaborative spirit, Nelson and her colleagues then helped to form strategic relationships with the Minnesota philanthropy community (at large), acknowledging that “Others could have gone out and built their own means of raising money online directly for their specific purpose, but group buy-in was necessary for this to work on the larger level and thankfully this was widely understood.”

Click. Contribute. Change your world.

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Rick Brimacomb is Founder of Brimacomb and Associates, a consulting firm focused on strategy, corporate development and fundraising for early-stage companies. The motto is “grow or die” and the firm works with startups from napkin through 5-10-15m in revenue. With two decades of experience in capital markets-from investment banking/research to VC partner-he’s a past president of the Minnesota Venture Capital Association and has been party to over 100 funding transactions.

As a member of MOJO/MN, Mr. Brimacomb is a born and raised Minnesotan with a personal interest in seeing Minnesota’s entrepreneurs and early stage companies proliferate.

Join us for a conversation about raising capital in today’s market. Below is an outline of the takeaways:

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Having started, managed and exited multiple high tech startups, Jeff O’Dell epitomizes the phrase serial entrepreneur. With origins tracing back to the University of Minnesota, where he was trained in the field of engineering, Mr. O’Dell has since been involved with forming and building early stage Minnesota tech companies – primarily within the semiconductor sector.

His first notable win was MicroVision Corporation, which develops and manufactures robotic and inspection systems.  He was intimately part of the company from inception and in 1997, MicroVision was acquired by the publicly traded Electro Scientific Industries (ESI) based out of Portland Oregon.

In 1992, he Co founded August Technology Corporation which he ultimately led for 14 years in both the private and public markets. August Technology went IPO in June of 2000 and later merged with Rudolph Technologies in 2006.

BeWiki, his 3rd major endeavor, laid out a roadmap described as “complimentary to search” in that it addresses the emerging market for information discovery, augmentation and consumption .  BeWiki is currently sidelined, as the project has yet to receive the attention necessary to reach its full potential.

More recently, Mr. O’Dell has been taking active director roles amongst multiple early stage technology companies, including EcoVoltz, a startup focused on the development of low cost, scalable “flow battery” systems within the energy market.

Jeff O’Dell is a member of MOJO Minnesota and will be keynoting tonight’s launch event.

Harold Slawik is a Partner with Minneapolis-based New Counsel, PLC, a law firm that is known for it’s work with entrepreneurs and startups in the Minnesota technology industry. Harold has extensive experience with private practice, as in house counsel for Sun Microsystems and with startup companies in both Minnesota and California. Harold is also an investor having started a private equity company that invests in software companies.

Why startups we wondered?

“We both (partner John Roberts) have had a lot of fun, that’s where the most fruitful experiences in our careers have been…it’s where we’ve both developed our experience and expertise. It’s been my exclusive focus since the mind 90′s and while there were a lot of law firms in this town doing tech stuff in the late 90′s during the boom days, after the crash, many of these firms cannot practice it to the degree that we do for the price that we do . There’s a market opportunity at our level.”

Harold shares with us his thoughts about what a startup company needs to do when starting and considering raising debt or equity financing; we’ve outlined the takeaways below:

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Ken Nelson is Supervisor of the Digital Divide Initiative (DDI) with the University of Minnesota.  The digital divide is the gap between people with effective access to digital  and information technology and those with very limited or no access at all.  The definition encompasses imbalances in resources and skills needed to effectively participate as a digital citizen.  The phrase “digital inclusion” is often used when describing programs and policies aimed at solving for Minnesota’s digital divide problem.

In essence, Mr. Nelson describes his mission as “…to get the best technology I can to under served populations.  That takes the form of hardware, software, and other support mechanisms to help bridge that divide.”

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Kate Andresen is an attorney specializing in information technology and software licensing.

Kate began her own law practice, Andresen Law, PLLC over a year ago, prior to which, she was a partner with Bonnabeau Salyers Stites Doe Andresen (BSSD), a law firm specializing in IT.  Notably, she has authored a treatise entitled The Law and Business of Computer Software.

Kate spoke with us about a few of the basics of contract law and why startup businesses need to pay attention to the legalese.

Here are a few of the questions we address:

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In 2006, Bruno Bornsztein and fellow web developer Ben Moore started Curbly as a web community “for people who love where they live and see their living space as an expression of who they are.” Over time, Curbly has grown into a popular content-driven and socially interactive niche destination, generating some 500,000 pageviews/month.

The growth and success of Curbly is largely attributed to the integration of a Ruby on Rails plugin Mr. Bornsztein created called Community Engine.  This plugin allows for greater levels of interactivity when compared to the traditional blog, adds community-oriented features to a given website and ultimately serves as a platform for visitors to become engaged contributors

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