Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing

Liquid Planner and Huddle at DEMO

Liquid Planner is a web based project management solution that is easy to use. Collaboration with team members is built in. Because it is web based everyone sees the latest, up to the minute, copy of the project plan.

Lots of companies have tried to solve the project management and tracking problem. The trick is to find the right balance between complexity and ease of use...powerful features versus simple tools.

Liquid Planner has focused on a couple areas that strike that balance. Most project planning tools require you to declare a "single point" starting date and end date. The reality is that most times you aren't certain about the end date. So, Liquid Planner lets you enter a date range like 6 to 8 weeks. As the project goes along you can refine your estimates. They manage uncertainty with what they call Probabilistic Planning.

Huddle is an online network of workspaces. Huddle combines your social and work relationships in one place. They have the basic tools needed to get the job done. Huddle has a project planner tool, a document filing cabinet, whiteboards to share ideas, and notifications and alerts for items that need attention.

Huddle can build a workspace launched directly from Facebook, and it will leverage your Facebook connections to form a project team. LinkedIn integration is coming soon.

Huddle is web based so collaboration with team members is easy. Huddle is a SaaS application so it can scale up with your needs. They are using a Freemium business model. You can do three projects for free. You can do 10 projects for $20 per month and 25 projects for $49 per month.

Huddle is open for business now. Check it out at Huddle.net

Lunch with Walt Mossberg at DEMO

I had lunch with Walt Mossberg and Kate Boehret at DEMO today. Walt is the legendary Wall Street Journal technology writer. Kate works closely with Walt and also writes for All Things Digital. Megan McCarthy from Wired Digital also joined us.

There are almost 80 companies presenting at DEMO. It is overwhelming. So, at lunch we didn't talk about technology at all. Walt is a big fan of the Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots. Walt showed me his new Mac Air...note the Patriots logo is his wall paper and screen saver. As you know I live in the Boston area and am also a big fan of the Red Sox, Patriots, and Celtics. So, we had a great time at lunch.

Walt Mossberg can make or break a new product with his WSJ technology reviews. The technology world listens to him and trusts him. I have read his column for years but had never met him before today. Pretty cool.

Note to entrepreneurs: There is no way to influence Walt or change his views. He is his own man. But, if you want to loosen him up and see the lighter side of Walt...talk about the Red Sox and Patriots.

Note #2: If you are an entrepreneur with a cool company or a VC with a hot portfolio you should also talk to Megan McCarthy at Wired. Send me a note if you would like to get in touch with her.

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Seesmic and iVideoSongs at DEMO

Seesmic makes it easy to post your video to the web. You can use the camera and microphone built into your laptop to shoot the video. Press the submit button, and within seconds your video is published on your web site, Twitter, or your blog. The videos are searchable, and you can follow the video postings of your friends. These are very short videos that are fun, informative, whacky, and interesting.

Seesmic - the Twitter of video? The videos are a lot like Twitter or video chat in that people use video to communicate with each other. The videos almost become a running conversation. Short, quick bursts that are funny and sometimes informative.

Can UGC video be interesting? Halley Suitt showed me several of her videos on a whole range of topics. Halley is incredibly talented, inquisitive, and funny, so I would watch any video from her. Loic Le Meur, founder of Seesmic, is also an incredibly entertaining guy, and produces great video too. After watching their videos I was hooked. But, will the public at large produce compelling video? I don't know, but I am going to keep an eye on it. I have signed up for the private beta and look forward to trying it.

iVideoSongs - Learn to play your favorite songs from the original artists who wrote them, performed them, and produced them. iVideoSongs makes deals with major artists like Graham Nash, Daryl Hall, John Oats, and hundreds of others.  John Oats performed on stage and showed how he put together the song "She's Gone". They take you through the chords, how you create the sounds, and how you pull in all the other instruments. Cool!

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DEMO 2008 - simplify your life, and make it Green

The common theme for demos this afternoon is Simplify. These companies take existing products and processes and make them easier and faster.

LiquidTalk - Podcast distribution system for mobile phones. The use case demonstrated was a company distributing sales training or product updates to field sales people or tech support people.

Zodiac Interactive - Mobile content search for TV. The service, called Zodigo, is a search engine for mobile based multi-media content.

Voyant - Do it yourself financial management service. Includes analytics, tools, and community groups.

Review2Buy - Product reviews and price comparisons for mobile phones. Text the product name and your zip code to Review2Buy and get back local store locations, prices, and reviews.

Acesis - Access Point-Of-Care for healthcare providers. Basically an online patient management system for doctors and health professionals.

Blist - Online database modeled on the spreadsheet metaphor. If you can use a spreadsheet you can use Blist to build database applications. Great for sharing data and applications online. No training required. very intuitive.

Ecrio - Mobile retail discount coupons. No paper...just carry a Bluetooth enabled scanner device that constantly updates with new discount offers.

CellSpinSoft - Use your cell phone to post blogs, video, audio, to web sites and social sites. Great for cell phone power users.

FlyPaper - They say it fills the gap between Powerpoint and Flash programming. Build your presentation in FlyPaper and easily add video and images, animations, and special effects.

GoldMail - Create email marketing campaigns using the GoldMail composer. GoldMail embeds voice messages, slideshows, and images into an email that can be played in any email client.

Sprout - Create rich media widgets for web sites and blogs. Includes tools, templates, widgets...everything you need to build a multimedia widget.

Green Plug - A universal power supply for all your electronic devices. There is a chip in the power supply and software in the product that tells the power supply how many watts of power is needed, and automatically shuts off when your battery is fully charged.

Celsias - A web site portal "Green" climate change projects. People go to Celsias to create, fund, and participate in global warming projects.

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DEMO 2008 - 20 companies in 2 hours

DEMO Conference is the place to unveil your new company. Twice a year DEMO finds the hottest startups with the coolest products that are about to launch. DEMO is all about launching new products...in 6 minutes. That's right, each startup gets 6 minutes to demo their product and explain how it works.

The conference is divided into four sessions of about two hours each where 20 companies present for 6 minutes each. It is a marathon of technology demonstrations and information overload.

What stood out for me?

LeapFrog - A learn-to-read system for kids. Leapfrog uses a digital scanning pen (like FlyPen) to "read" text on the page of a book. It converts the words to voice so that a child can hear the words or sounds related to what they see on the page, making a mental connection to aid the learning process.

Leapfrog appears to use technology from VisionObjects to power their "digital pen". I wrote about Kayentis and VisualObjects, two companies based in France that pioneered this technology, but used it in different applications. Basically they use special paper that has a grid embedded in it. The digital pen uses this grid to identify where you are on the page and what sounds to play.

StepLabs - Amazing technology that filters out all background noise except your voice. The demo was done with loud music, VERY loud music, people talking nearby, and the audience yelling as loud as they could. A decibel meter measured the noise at 96 decibels. This is LOUD. I could see the demonstrators lips moving but couldn't hear a thing during the demo. He played back the recording of his message and amazingly all the background noise was filtered out. This technology will have lots of applications in cell phones and recording systems.

SkyFire - Brings the PC based browsing experience to your cell phone. Download the SkyFire mobile web browser and view any web page complete with pictures, video, audio, etc. SkyFire takes any web site and reformats it for viewing on your cell phone. But, unlike other reformatting technologies...you don't lose anything or any functionality. It works with Windows Mobile 5.0 and 6.0.

Other cool stuff - Every company that presented had cool technology...they must in order to get into DEMO. Here is a quick run down of the other presenters in the morning session.

Time Trade - a meeting scheduler system that finds mutually convenient meeting times. Similar to TimeBridge and Tungle, which was announced at DEMO last year.

Iterasi - a web bookmarking tool that keeps a real HTML copy of the page you bookmarked. Important because web pages change frequently, but the bookmark only saves the top level URL. Similar to Onfolio.

LiquidPlanner - a web based project planning system that helps manage uncertainty.

CitiPort - A local directory of travel highlights all over the world. Users post pictures, comments, restaurant reviews, and travel tips. Similar to TripAdvisor and Yelp.

Fabrik - Their product is called Joggle. They consolidate all your online content, photos, music, video, all presented in a single view.

SpeakLike - Multi language IM/Chat. Type your message in English and your Spanish friend sees it in Spanish on her end. When she types a Spanish response you read it in English.

NotchUp - A job finder service with a twist. The companies looking to hire candidates pay you for the privilege of interviewing you. Links directly to your profile on LinkedIn. You set the price and select what types of jobs you are interested in.

Education.com - SchoolFinder is a site to help parents find new schools when they are moving to a new area. Schoolfinder also has lots of educational content and lesson plans focused on the exact age of your child.

800 PBX - A personalized telephone IVR system that converges voice and data that supports email, group messaging, and chat.

No recession in the technology sector

Technology buyers say they will continue to invest according to a story from The New York Times. Microsoft reported record earnings last week, and Chris Liddell, Microsoft CFO, gave stock analysts strong "guidance" for the coming year, saying “We have not seen any significant spillover for an economic slowdown in the U.S.”

The NYT article cites an IDC study and concludes; "There will surely be belt-tightening, and cuts may be sharp in some industries, especially the financial sector. Overall growth in technology spending may fall from 7 percent last year to 4 percent or less this year, according to estimates by IDC, a research firm."

Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch predicts that a tight economy will actually benefit Web 2.0 companies and SaaS based software. Erick says

"While a belt-tightening might not be good for the IBMs, Dells, and Oracles of the world, Web 2.0 companies should do fine—even thrive. All of those Enterprise 2.0 startups out there, or even Amazon trying to sell Web-based computing infrastructure, are actually at an advantage. Customers are more likely to try cheap cloud computing when they can no longer afford the alternatives."

What about advertising? A few weeks ago I asked "Will Advertising Revenues Drop In A Recession?"  Marketing and advertising is usually the first thing to get cut when the economy sours. Display advertising will probably feel the pinch, but online Cost Per Click (CPC) ads will look more attractive to advertisers.

With CPC ads you pay nothing unless someone clicks on your advertisement. This is a huge advantage for advertisers who really want to increase sales but can't afford to gamble on a display ad. CPC ads are easily justifiable and trackable. In a recession, with declining sales, there is enormous pressure to do anything possible to get sales moving. CPC advertising, principally on search engines, will be very appealing to advertisers.

Google and Yahoo report earnings this week. Of course these earnings will cover the 4th quarter of last year. What analysts really want to hear is their outlook or "guidance" for the coming year.

Apple reported great earnings last week, but said the future looked soft. Apple stock was crushed by investors. Microsoft stock was up in a very down market. One thing about the stock market...every day is a new day. Last week doesn't matter. The stock market is always looking forward.

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Microsoft Revenues Up 30%, EPS Up 92%

Microsoft announced record revenues and earnings for the quarter ended December 31, 2007. Revenues were up 30% to $16.4 Billion. Operating Income was up 87% to $6.5 Billion. And Earnings Per Share (EPS) were up 92% to $0.50 per share.

All Microsoft (Nasdaq MSFT) business units reported strong results. Here is a breakdown by division:

• Windows Client (Vista/XP): $4.3 Billion, up 68%
• MBD (Office/SharePoint): $4.8B, up 37%.
• Server & Tools (SQL Server/Visual Studio): $3.3 Billion, up 15%.
• Entertainment (Xbox & Zune): $3.1 Billion
• Online Services (MSN/Live): $863M, up 38%.

Other Highlights:

• Windows Vista has sold over 100 Million licenses
• Xbox 360 has sold 17.7 Million units
• Xbox Live - over 10 Million subscriptions
• Windows Live - over 420 Million accounts

Strong Outlook - The outlook for next quarter and the fiscal year remains strong too, even in light of stock market woes and talk of recession. Here is the guidance from Microsoft management;

Microsoft management offers the following guidance for the quarter ending March 31, 2008:

Revenue is expected to be in the range of $14.3 billion to $14.6 billion.

Operating income is expected to be in the range of $5.6 billion to $5.7 billion.

Diluted earnings per share are expected to be in the range of $0.43 to $0.45.

Management offers the following guidance for the full fiscal year ending June 30, 2008:

Revenue is expected to be in the range of $59.9 billion to $60.5 billion.

Operating income is expected to be in the range of $24.2 billion to $24.4 billion.

Diluted earnings per share are expected to be in the range of $1.85 to $1.88.

 

It is nice to see some good economic news this week after all the turbulence in the stock market. Wall Street is always looking ahead so the "guidance" is sometimes as important as the actual numbers for the quarter. Microsoft gave strong guidance for the quarters ahead as well. Let's see how investors react. Henry Blodget at Silicon Alley Insider likes what he sees.

UPDATE: Steve Lohr at The New York Times talks about the guidance and why it is so important. I encourage you to read the whole story but here is an excerpt.

Other leading technology companies, like Intel and Apple, have reported strong quarterly results, only to have their shares punished after they warned of cloudy outlooks given the increasing possibility of an economic recession.

But Microsoft executives still sound confident. In a conference call with analysts, Christopher Liddell, Microsoft’s chief financial officer, said, “We have not seen any significant spillover for an economic slowdown in the U.S.”

Sixty percent of Microsoft’s business is now outside the United States, which helps insulate the company from the chill of a slowdown in the American economy. Even so, Mr. Liddell noted that Microsoft’s sales in the American market in the last six months had grown at a healthy 15 percent clip.

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TechStars 2008 accepting applications

TechStars is an entrepreneur boot camp based in Boulder Colorado, founded by David Cohen. TechStars selects 10 startup teams from a pool of about 300 applications. The selected teams get up to $15,000 in funding, community office space, operational support, and mentorship from former entrepreneurs and business leaders.

TechStars takes a 5% equity position in each company. At the end of the 13 week Summer session the startups present to a large group of Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors. Last year I attended and wrote about the Investor Day. Eight of the 10 companies received Series A funding. Some even got acquisition offers.

TechStars is managed by Brad Feld, David Cohen, Jared Polis, and David Brown. They provide the money, offices, and support for the companies. There are also more than 20 mentors and former entrepreneurs who help the companies with advice and introductions.

Get details on how to apply here.

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Microsoft Startup Accelerator Fuels Startup Success

Microsoft Startup Accelerator  is a special program for innovative early-stage startups that are a strategic fit for Microsoft.  The Emerging Business Team, the group I work for at Microsoft, is leading the program. There are currently over 50 companies in the program with a goal of reaching 100 companies worldwide.

Several of the startups I work with are part of the Startup Accelerator program including; Lijit, Me.dium, Xobni, Clarizen, and RingCentral.

   Me.dium is a web browser plug-in that turns web browsing into a social experience. It gives you a personalized map of the Internet showing you what web sites your friends are visiting in real time. You can use it to discover new people and places that are relevant just to you. It also allows you to surf with friends in real-time. It's just like hanging out in the real world, but online.

Listen to what David Mandell, VP at Me.dium has to say about the Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program;

Getting direct connections to developers within Microsoft speeded our own internal development time significantly, I would estimate about a 50% velocity increase. In addition, gaining exposure to some of the Microsoft MVP’s gave us critical product feedback that we simply didn’t have the manpower to gain on our own. Getting on the Windows Marketplace site quickly took our customer mix from almost completely Firefox users, to a ratio of 75% IE to 25% Firefox, all through new customer acquisition. 

The Emerging Business Team and The Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program have truly turned into an invaluable resource for Me.dium.  We would never have imagined that a company as large as Microsoft would have the desire to focus on a small startup such as Me.dium, but we were completely blown away by the attention and access to people that we were given and owe much or our current success to that relationship.

Microsoft is committed to serving as a valuable technology and business partner for emerging startups and investors. The Microsoft Emerging Business Team (EBT) has been working with the startup community since 1999, and today engages with hundreds of technology startups each year to identify those with the strongest potential to succeed in the market, shape the industry’s future, and enhance the overall value of Microsoft products and services for customers.

The team looks at a number of criteria, including marketability, growth potential, funding, management and management history, platform decisions, and strategic importance to Microsoft. The Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program has local implementation in France, Germany, India, the United Kingdom and the United States. Interested startups can apply via the process outlined at the Microsoft Startup Zone at http://www.microsoftstartupzone.com.

The Best OF CES - Robotics, Green Tech, and Zink

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, better known as CES, was overwhelming. Over 140,000 attendees, 2,700 exhibitors, and over 20,000 products on display. It was geek heaven!

There were several highlights for me. First was the Bill Gates keynote speech and hilarious video "Bill Gates Last Day at Microsoft". The Comcast keynote and cameo appearance by "The Flight of the Conchords" was also fun.

Three Big Things jumped out for me; Robotics, Car Technology, Inkless printing from Zink.

Robotics were a big focus at CES this year. There were lots of cool gadgets but the ones that caught my attention were from Ologic, a small robotics design company. Ologic, and their technology partners NPC Robotics, NeuroSky, and TankChair, introduced some of the most innovative products I have seen in a long time.

Ologic demonstrated several robots that could balance on two wheels (similar to the Segway) and maneuver around obstacles by using cameras as eyes. They also showed a cool  reconnaissance robot with a telescopic arm and camera (pictured right) that could elevate straight up to 25 feet in the air. The whole robot was only about 12 inches tall, but the telescopic arm magically appears out of nowhere and goes 25 feet straight up. It works like a carpenters tape measure...the metal just rolls in and out from a coil hidden inside the robot. It is strong and solid because it uses three coils to form a triangular shaped arm. The three coils connect by folding together like a zipper on your jacket. Amazing!

  TankChair teamed with Ologic to build some amazing wheelchairs. One of them has cool racing wheels (pictured left) and can reach speeds of 30MPH. My guess is that they will need to get DOT safety testing certification before this wheelchair will be made available to the public. The other wheelchair (pictured below) was equipped with a tank track system to allow it to go through mud, sand, up hills, over rocks...you name it. Imagine the freedom of movement this brings to wheelchair bound people. It gives me goose-bumps just thinking about it. Ted Larson and Bob Allen are the brains behind Ologic. Smart guys having a lot of fun doing what they love to do...invent. Brad Soden is the creative force behind TankChair. Rich Reed from NPC Robotics provides the "ribbon technology" for the robotic arm, and Stanley Yang from NeuroSky provides the motion sensor technology for the amazing two wheel balancing robots. It was a pleasure meeting all of you.

GreenTech and In-Vehicle Technology - General Motors chairman Rick Wagoner gave a great keynote speech and unveiled several new "green-tech" multi fuel cars. Wagoner emphasized that GM cars today have more powerful computers on board than were generally available 15 years ago. The car business is really about consumer electronics and technology with GPS systems, ONstar security systems, amazing sound systems, and now hydrogen fuel cell technology. GM showed the Chevrolet Volt, a hybrid electric concept car that could be released in 2010.

The GM Volt features a 1.0 liter, 3-cylinder gasoline engine which is solely used to recharge the onboard lithium-ion battery pack. GM says that the Volt can travel for up to 40 miles on battery power alone. After the 40 miles, a gasoline engine kicks back in again to recharge the battery pack.

The most amazing new car concept was the Cadillac Provoq, a hydrogen fuel cell car, coupled with Lithium-Ion batteries, unveiled for the first time at CES. The Provoq can travel 300 miles with a full load of hydrogen, and another 20 miles on battery power alone. Wagoner said the Provoq will be able to go 60 MPH in just 8.5 seconds and reach a top speed of 100 MPH. What is driving all this new technology? Wagoner said, "The auto industry can no longer depend entirely on oil... It is critical as both a business necessity and as an obligation to society to develop alternative energy."

Zink - The zero ink, environmentally friendly printer. I first wrote about Zink more than two years ago. I predicted that Zink would disrupt the printer industry and be The Next Big Thing in printing. Since then Zink had a successful unveiling at DEMO 2007 and was a huge hit at CES 2008. (Picture credit SF Chronicle) See the full San Francisco Chronicle story here. Clayton Christensen, The Harvard professor who wrote "The Innovators Dilemma" is a big fan of Zink and has declared that Zink will disrupt the printing business. The San Jose Mercury News says "look out HP..." I started my technology career 25 years ago in the printer business. I lived through the dot matrix, ink jet, and laser technology curves. Zink thermal transfer is the next big printer technology curve and it is starting to hit in 2008. Zink is a company to watch.

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