Liberty Media; Search Engines; Job Search; Clean Tech; 02/25/08 - PHOTOS and Events

In Memory of Blake Ressmeyer
A wonderful man and a first-class IT specialist.
Blake cared about his client’s needs first.
He was our "CIO – CTO for Hire" …we will miss you!!!
March 1, 1956 – February 14, 2008

447_ Taking the Mystery Out Of Search Engine Optimization
Whether you are a new entrepreneur or successfully growing your company one of the things, top-of-mind for businesses and organizations of all sizes is acquiring new customers. One of the main ways of doing that on the web is acquiring them through search engine optimization. Jeff Finkelstein, founder of Customer Paradigm is an expert in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Pat asked Jeff, “Every business doesn’t sell something on line, why is it important for them to show up in the SEO rankings?" Jeff's reply really got Larry's attention beacuse w3w3.com does not sell online. "Every business doesn’t sell something on line, but if you do come up through word-of-mouth and your company still doesn’t come up top with the search engine rankings, you’re perceived by customers as less relevant, less important because your site isn’t coming up in the search engines. It is unfortunately a zero sum game," pointed out Jeff. He goes on to point out that Google is the overall market leader, they have, depending on who you talk to, between 55-85% of the search business, more so in the business-to-business community, a little bit less in the business-to-consumer realm; Yahoo is the second and MSN is the distant third. Jeff gives specific steps and metrics on how any company can make search engines work for them. LISTEN 2/25/08

Related Links: Customer Paradigm || 12 Strategies for Effective Email || Search Engine Optimization || Find It || Keywords: Jeff Finkelstein, Customer Paradigm, Search Engine, Optimization, SEO, Google, Yahoo, MSN > Bytes: 23684391 LISTEN

442_ Startup Capital: Family, Friends and Fools...or...?
Entrepreneurs specifically, always face the challenge of credibility early on. David Cohen, a serial entrepreneur, co-founder of Tech Stars and founder of Colorado Startups understands that challenge, firsthand. David points out a number of the comments (often not heard by the new entrepreneur)... who are these people?, what are they building?, you know, it’s two guys in a garage – are we really going to buy something from these guys?. Just getting great people around them is a big challenge. There are lots of startup companies that are coming out of the woodwork and I think the smart ones go and find great advisors and bounce ideas off of them. Those people are pretty easy to find, but there are so many companies looking for help, sometimes it’s a challenge to find the right people to help you. And if they’re looking for funding, of course you see one percent of people getting funding from angels and VCs, that’s a tough road. Most companies need money to get rolling and they do it with ‘Friends, Family & Fools’; and I think that’s right. You should start and get to the furthest out value point that you can with as little money as humanly possible, to show a prototype and some progress. Most people who need more money say $500k or so, tend to approach angel investors, that’s the range of money typically that angel investors can put together. Listen for more TechStar solutions... LISTEN 2/18/08

441_ Teaming Up, Pooling Resources Leads to a Creative Solution
We were looking at how we could build this device and this bio reactor. Our original idea was to purchase a device from a company and then modify it to fit our needs. In the process of doing that we realized it would cost us over $100,000. It had way more capabilities than we needed. So that led us to think about building our own bio reactor and how could we do this. I actually had a team working on this and we came up with a design that enabled us to apply these mechanical forces in the least expensive way. So we got together, came up with the idea, built it and are actually growing cartilage. This was done by Dr. Stephanie Bryant's team at CU in Boulder. She was given the New Inventor of the Year Boulder designation, at the recent CU TTO Awards banquet. Stephanie went onto point out her greatest lesson learned. Working with a group from different backgrounds. I think that not one of us could have come up with the invention on our own, but by teaming up and pooling our resources we were able to come up with a creative solution that allows us to patent it. Without the team I don’t think we would have been able to come up with that. Listen now... LISTEN 2/18/08

Related Links: CU TTO Award Photos || CU TTO Channel || CU Tech Transfer Office || Find It || Keywords: Stephanie Bryant, CU TTO, Team, Cartilage, Chemical, Biological Engineering > Bytes: 29056839 LISTEN

Looking for that next role? Networking and Beyond

Related Links: Colorado Capital Conference || Crystal Ball || Entrepreneur Channel || Rockies Venture Club   Keywords: Jim Franklin, Crystal Ball, Decisioneering, Colorado Capital Summit, Oracle, Entrepreneurs, Rockies Venture Club, Technology > Bytes: 18551852 LISTEN

444_ Imagination, Innovation, Invention: Your Ultimate Expression

Imagine tackling the problem of making cavities or pores that are one nanometer or smaller so that we could do things to molecules on the same size and scale on which they exist. Dr. Douglas Gin, Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado and the Gin Research Group actually made membranes with uniform pore sizes that are less than 1 nanometer, to do things like clean salt out of water, to clean small molecules, contaminants out of water – and even to remove really small molecules, toxic chemical warfare agents out of the air, but to still allow water, vapor or sweat to go through in a very, very selective fashion. Doug said, "What I think is really great is working with people like Dave Allen and the people at CU TTO. They’ve really wanted us to pursue this work and they’ve been very supportive in getting these ideas patented and getting them to the right people to begin evaluating them for real commercial applications. It took coming to Colorado to work with the Chemistry Department and the Chemical Engineering Department as well as working with some local startup companies and technology development companies in the Colorado area that allowed me to do, what I considered the ultimate expression of what we tried to do with our nano force material over a decade ago. 2/18/08  LISTEN

Related Links: Gin Research Group || CU TTO Award Photos || CU TTO Channel || CU Tech Transfer Office || Nanofiltration Membrane   Keywords: Douglas Gin, Nano, CU, Tech Transfer, Gin Research Group, David Allen, Nanofiltration > Bytes: 18650491 LISTEN

443_ Venture Capital, Angel Investors and Getting Involved The Rockies Venture Club annual meeting has been the place to connect with others creating Colorado success stories. For nearly twenty years, through many market cycles, the CCC has been a great place to connect with others starting and growing Colorado-based technology businesses. Jim Franklin started with RVC in 1992 with no contacts and is now the President of RVC and has a robust Colorado technology network. Hear Jim Franklin tell his story of how the contacts he made at RVC -- and the CCC in particular -- have resulted in 100x return to shareholders, 100+ jobs in Colorado and an economic impact of over $100M to the state of Colorado. Jim feels the key is to get involved. When I first showed up and didn’t know anyone, I just raised my hand and said, ‘how can I help?’. I started off on the government affairs committee where I met Eric Weissmann, who is the founder of Decisioneering. About two years later, I became the CFO of Decisioneering and that was the company that I ultimately became CEO of and we sold to Oracle with a very successful exit. RVC has the Colorado Capital Conference coming up on May 22, 2008 – a true showcase event. Jim shares some great networking advice... 2/18/08  LISTEN

Related Links: Colorado Capital Conference|| Crystal Ball || Rockies Venture Club || Entrepreneur Channel ||   Keywords: Jim Franklin, Crystal Ball,Decisioneering, Colorado Capital Summit, Oracle, Entrepreneurs, Rockies Venture Club, Technology > Bytes: 12860084 LISTEN